I joined my very first MLM company way back in mid 1990’s.
I followed the typical “plan” of putting together a 25 – 100 name list, and contacting everyone I knew to try to either sit down with them and my sponsor in person, or inviting them to a meeting.
I was excited, and determined to make it work, so I did everything my sponsors told me and starting pitching every family member, friend and relative I could get a hold of – some of whom I hadn’t even seen or spoken to for years prior to contacting them.
At first I saw some short-term success, being able to sponsor a few of my friends and sell some product purely based on my enthusiasm and relentless follow-up.
But there was one major FLAW with what I was doing.
The flaw was that I DID NOT enjoy trying to hard-sell my friends and relatives on products and a business opportunity they didn’t really have any interest in.
Those that did come to meetings and who bought products mostly did so out of a sense of obligation and a sense of doing me a favor.
I did NOT like how that felt at all, but I still did it because that is what my sponsors told me “the plan” was.
I learned all I could about the products I was promoting, I attended virtually every meeting, and I even quit my job to pursue my MLM business full time.
The challenge was that even when I DID see some short-term success by singing up people, there was NO DUPLICATION in my business because nobody wanted to do what I was doing.
The last thing anyone wants to do is to pick up the phone and try to call their friends and relatives to try to pitch them on a business opportunity.
So after two years of struggle, and on the verge of bankruptcy I quit my MLM business and went back to working a regular job.
I don’t regret those two years though as I learned so much about business and personal development and I later used that education to make a six-figure income running my own business.
Because of this I have a very deep “love / hate” relationship with the MLM industry.
I love the culture, I love the people, I love the meetings, I love the personal development training and so many other things.
The only thing that I don’t like about the traditional MLM industry is the outdated marketing system that relies solely on “attacking” your 25 name list or 100 name list, or in today’s updated version your Facebook friend list and spamming everyone you know with yet another “business opportunity”.
If you’ve ever been in an MLM or are currently in an MLM, you know as well as I do that THAT marketing plan doesn’t work.
Why?
Well, for a few reasons:
- Chances are, your friends and family are probably not interested in the products you’re selling.
- Chances are, your friends and family are probably not interested in the business opportunity you’re promoting.
- Even if your friends and family MIGHT be interested in either the products or business opportunity you’re promoting, chances are the TIMING might not be right. Meaning they might eventually be interested, but maybe not for another 6 months or a year or 2 years etc. For example, if your MLM promotes weight loss products and I’m currently not interested in losing weight than the timing is not right for me.
Now, before you start thinking that I’m just being negative or pessimistic, I’m not saying that it’s IMPOSSIBLE to grow your business in your warm market.
I’m just saying it’s NOT EASY and there is a MUCH better and easier way to promote your MLM business.
How?
Well, think about this…
What if instead of trying to pitch your friends and relatives – who are most likely not interested – what if you could find a way to connect to the THOUSANDS of people who are currently looking for the products your MLM is selling or who are looking for an MLM opportunity right now?
Let me give you a real life example from someone who just recently asked me the question of what would be the benefit of starting a Blog for someone building an MLM company.
The MLM company that they are building sells water filtration products which also ionize and alkalize tap water to make it healthier for you.
Now, someone in such an MLM *could* make a 25 name list of their friends and relatives and then try to hard-sell them on these water filters.
But chances are, you’ll just end up annoying your friends that way.
And even if you DO find one or two or three friends who may be interested in such a product, you can’t build a business on just a couple of customers.
So what’s a better alternative?
Why not connect with people who are already interested in your product instead!???!
Here, check out this quick report I did with Google.
It shows that every single month there are approximately 320 people searching for “alkaline water filters” and 6,600 people searching for “alkaline water machine” and 1,600 searching for “where to buy alkaline water”.
So let me ask you this…
Who do you think would be MORE interested in potentially buying your alkaline water filter product… someone who is currently RIGHT NOW searching for “alkaline water machine” inside Google, or your 70 year old aunt Judie who doesn’t even know what alkaline water is?
See, this is the main flaw with traditional MLM marketing that relies solely on warm market tactics and referrals.
It’s just too darn difficult to find the RIGHT people using those old antiquated methods.
And why would you want to anyways, when the Internet has now made it possible to connect with people who are looking for YOUR product right now!
Why not just sell to those people who are already looking to buy what you’re selling?
Now you might be asking “Okay, but how do you do that? How do you find these people and get in front of them?”
The answer is that you need to start a Blog.
You start a blog and you start blogging about your niche market. If your niche is alkaline water filters, then you start a blog which talks about alkaline water filters or the benefits of a pH balanced water or alkaline water or whatever else your product does.
You start to use technologies like Blogging and social media to grow a following of users who are interested in learning more about alkaline water and healthy water and SOME of those people who might be interested in buying a water filtration system might end up buying from you.
It doesn’t happen over night though. You don’t just throw up a crappy Blog in 5 minutes and expect to make millions.
You have to have a long term vision for your Blog and a passion for whatever products you’re selling / promoting.
You start blogging about your passion and you build up a following of regular readers who will be interested in the products you’re selling.
Also, at the same time you’ll also be building up your own name, your own brand, which will also help you to attract the right people who might be interested in joining your business opportunity.
Now, there are two more very common questions that people usually have about this method of building an MLM.
#1 – “But Paul, my MLM company already gave me a replicated website…can’t I just use that?”
The answer is NO.
You see, the website that your company gave you is a replicated website that THOUSANDS of other reps in your company are all using.
Yes these websites are customized with your name, phone number and usually a picture and other contact info, but outside of those few pieces of information these websites all contain the same generic information that the company produced.
To a search engine like Google, these replicated websites are all seen as duplicate content.
What that basically means is that Google sees your replicated website as yet another copy of the company’s website and as a result they will NOT send any traffic to your site.
Why? Because Google is interested in providing their searching audience a variety of information when searching for a specific keyword. Google does NOT want someone to search for a keyword and then find that Google is showing 10,000 websites with all the same information.
This is why replicated websites from MLM companies will never work in that way.
They’re great for spamming your friends and relatives on Facebook with the typical “Hey, I just started a new business, check out my website.” type message that most people send to their friends, but that marketing method just doesn’t work anymore in 2015.
People are tired of constantly being bombarded on Facebook with spam messages like that when they have no interest in a product.
Outside of that though, these replicated websites that an MLM company gives you will never produce any traffic or leads for you from Google search traffic because Google will NOT index and display these websites in their search listings.
So what WILL Google display?
What is the ONE type of website that Google has been PROVEN to LOVE and rank very highly in their search listings?
BLOGS!!!
Google loves Blogs and that is why if you want to capture some of that free traffic from people who are actually looking for your product you’re going to need to start a blog.
The second question that people ask is…
#2 – “But Paul, I don’t know anything about Blogging, or starting a Blog, or getting traffic to my Blog. How would I even learn how to do this?”
This is a very good question.
If you’re going to start a Blog and do it properly so that your Blog actually works properly and actually gets you traffic, you’re going to need to invest in a blogging platform that actually produces results.
The platform I recommend is Kalatu.
Kalatu is built on the world standard WordPress platform but it eliminates all the technical challenges that non-techie people get stuck on when trying to setup WordPress.
Not only that but Kalatu also includes a proven training system which not only gives you the blogging tool (Kalatu) but also trains you on HOW to actually Blog and how to build an audience and how to get traffic to your Blog so that you can actually connect with those future clients of yours.
When you get access to Kalatu, you’re also joining a community of like-minded Bloggers who are each creating their own Blogs where they blog about their own passions, the products or services that they are selling or promoting and we all support each other.
If you’d like to learn more about starting a Blog to promote your MLM or simply to learn how to make money as Blogger, click here to learn more.
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