Where’s the Real Help?

Stop this stupid insanity!

I’m totally sick and tired of the SPAM, the emails, the ads and all of the other BS on the internet.  I have literally a thousand people vying for my attention in one form or another; on Twitter, on Facebook, on Myspace, on LinkedIn, everywhere I turn.  I even get spam comments on my own blog which ironically is speaking out against this type of internet marketing.  Who knows what goes through some people’s minds?

So where is the real help, guru?  Where is the real help, all you so-called network marketing coaches and experts?  All you do is give away the same information given to you by the guru you’re selling for, and you expect me to treat it as if it’s your own?  Are you just stupid?  I bet I get 5 to 10 emails or comments everyday for “Success in 10 Steps”.  I don’t think some of you realize that there are so many people out there using the same methods.  I get a lot of SPAM from people promoting Norbert and his crap too.

I get dozens of emails and comments everyday from people claiming that they’re an expert and that the best way to get leads is to offer something of value.  But they’re offering nothing but SPAM!  They’re not sharing anything of value at all.  They act as though they are desperate in getting click throughs and sales rather than building relationships

I have met some really good people on the internet and I look forward to getting to know all of you better over time.  But the rest of you are making my internet experience a living HELL!  The rest of you are claiming to have the answers but you share nothing of real value…for free anyway.

Since this pisses me off so badly, here’s what I’m going to do…

I will share all of my information and knowledge for free to anyone who wants it.  I will not ask you for money.  I will not load up my blog with limited time offers and such.  I can tell you how to run a bunch of ads on Craigslist at the same time without getting deleted.  I can show you how to get a website into the top 10 of an organic search.  You just need to ask.  I don’t always know what to post about so if there is a topic that you want to know more about, either post a comment or email me directly at

Ralph@pissedoffnetworkmarketer.com

I also challenge all of you who are selling a guru’s system to prove to me that your system is the best way to generate leads for your business and in turn the best way to build your networking business.  I want you to use logic in your reasoning and please read the page “Why I’m Pissed” before you comment.  Otherwise you’ll just make a fool out of yourself in front of all my readers.

I’ll stand up and help

It’s long overdue that someone stand up…create a blog that is actually designed to help other people build their networking business…without selling a bunch of crap or recruit for some asinine system.

Well, here I am.  I look forward to the journey.

The average networker and sponsoring

According to industry facts, the average network marketer will sponsor 2.4 people.  I have seen a whole bunch of marketing plans over the years, and I’ve only seen ONE that allows the average person to make a lot of money by only sponsoring two people.  There are a lot of great companies out there and most have pretty good marketing plans, but if they require you to sponsor 3 or more people to make some significant income, then the cards are stacked against you from the beginning.

Why would someone want to build a business that requires them and their team to sponsor 3 or more people?  It doesn’t make a lot of sense.  The only way I would even try a compensation plan like that is if the company had a product that changed my life and was underpriced in the marketplace. (overpriced products in networking opportunities is another story)

The only plan I even consider is the binary plan.  When I first heard of the binary plan, I looked up some information on the internet.  The only thing bad I could find was some blog posts and they obviously had been mis-informed about how a true binary works. From my experience so far, it works really well, and in the plan I’m in, everyone can make more than $25,000 per week and only sponsor two people.

Can you make money in a plan that is not a binary?  You bet, and people do it all the time.  My question however is, if you are expecting average people to join you in your business, are you ready for a high failure rate?  You will go through a bunch of average people and sort them into two categories: First, most of the average people will only sponsor 2.4 people, not make much money and then quite.  Second, the other group will do whatever it takes to become more than average so that they can step up to the challenge and sponsor enough people to make it work.  Just remember that the people in the second group will have to go through the same sorting phase with their team too.

Get involved with a binary that only requires that you sponsor two people, and be sure to use traditional marketing methods so that you can pass on a duplicatable system to the people who join you.

This pisses me off too

I was considering buying a tool to help me gain followers on twitter so that I can more readily spread the news when I update my blog.  I hesitated because I kept getting sent to these cheasy one page opt-in pages where they would tell you nothing until you supplied your name and email address.  Obviously they are building a list and one hand I can’t blame them for that, after all business is business.  This isn’t what’s really pissing me off.

So I opted into a couple to see what they had to offer.  After all they were promising riches and all.  I was astonished at what I saw.  One “twitter friend getter” cost $39.95 a month!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  I guess the price is so high because it’s an affiliate deal and they want you to help them spread the good news about their most wonderful, most bestest tool ever.  This is what really pissed me off.  I find it hard to believe that there are people out there that would promote a tool that is no better than what you can get for FREE.  That’s right free.

I’m not making any money by giving you this information.  But I will be able to sleep tonight knowing that I actually helped someone without taking advantage of them.  These people pray on the un-informed masses and I see that as unethical at best.

I found a free…yes free…software program that has gained me almost 600 followers in less than a week.  I had 650 followers Sunday night, today at 4pm I had over 850.  So why do I need to give some unethical guru my hard earned money when I have access to software like this for free?  I don’t and I won’t and if you’re smart you won’t either.

Here’s the link to get the software for free…

http://www.jdwashere.com/twiPing/

This program does not allow you to search for friends using keywords, but you get access to followers of followers, etc.  I added 250 friends at a time two or three times a day.  When you add them about 80% follow you back.  You can then view your friends who are not following you and trim the fat so to speak.  I had found a free twitter tool that would search out friends using specific keywords, but I forgot to bookmark it and now can’t find it.  (If you know which website I’m talking about PLEASE comment below)

Please leave comments and please spread the link to this blog page so that others can grow their business tools without spending a lot of money.

Ralph

Weekly Planning 4-13-09

In the midst of passing another kidney stone, I decided to stick with the weekly planning meeting.  I’m not trying to be overly noble, I just made the decision that I am going to stick with my commitments if at all possible.  I’m not on my death bed, just in pain, so we met Sunday evening as usual.

The Princeton meeting is set and the pressure is on to get people to the meeting place.  We know noone with adequate living room space so we are going to meet in a public place, a pub of sorts that’s fairly popular and upbeat.  Meeting is set for the 28th of April.

The Nashville trip is planned for May 2nd.  We’ll make appointments for 10am or so, and then if they are interested we’ll have them call their contacts to meet us while we’re there.

May 9th is a huge soccer tournament in Evansville.  We have been invited to set up a Verve Energy drink tasting and info booth.  Our professional Verve tent should be here by the first so this should be exciting.  Vemma has made a cool 4×6 advertising card with Shawn Meriman on the front.  We are going to have a couple of people (cute girls) roam the crowds and hand these cards out to people who fit our profile: athletic looking people and anyone drinking an energy drink.  The card will be their invititation to come by the booth for a free taste test.  We will offer a $15 off for anyone who orders a case on the spot.  We will also collect names and emails for later follow ups.

I emailed the company to see if I can get an estimate as to when they might be done looking over the website.  Google already has the site listed, I need to start driving back links so that we can start climbing the ranking.

I’m still working on my goals and marketing plans.  This is much tougher than it looks.  To make SMART goals takes a lot of effort.  I want to do it right so that the time I’m spending will not be wasted.  I have my long term business goals completed, so now I’m working on the intermediate and short range goals that will get me there.  The marketing is a whole ‘nother animal too.  I’ve never done one of these before.  I’ve always shot from the hip when it came to trying things.  I really believe that this marketing plan is going to help us tremendously.  I’m having lunch tomorrow with one of my partners, she is very creative and I hope that we will inspire each other.

No home events are scheduled for this week.  I look forward to the day when I have enough serious people in the business to keep me busy.  My home situation makes it impossible to hold a meeting here.  We have nine kids and three of them have nurses that help on weekday evenings, so the house is a mad-house until 9 or 10pm.  I would schedule a house meeting every week at my house if I could figure a way around this.

(Suggestions from my readers inserted here) – Thanks

My Kind of Attraction Marketing

Attraction Marketing is real.  As you know already if you’ve read any of my other posts, I don’t believe that you can pretend to be something you’re not and expect people to flock to you.  (Like the thousands pretending to be network marketing geniuses who have all the answers and claiming that our upline is lying to us.)  I think that if they do come, they will not stay because they’ll figure you out fairly quickly.

However, attraction marketing done right can be a big motivator.  It’s exciting to see it in action.  Although this takes a lot of time and most people do not have the patience.  I have been on Facebook for a few weeks now.  (If you want to be my friend on Facebook just search my name) I joined a bunch of MLM related groups and all of a sudden I now have a bunch of friend requests every day.  Well of course I’m into friends and even if they don’t want anything to do with my opportunity, I hope that they can learn something from my blog, so I accept them as friends.  But what do they ALL do?  When they thank me for accepting their friend request, they SPAM me with their opportunity!  They don’t even know me.  This is insane and stupid. The ironic part is that a bunch of them are peddling the attraction marketing junk I dislike!

Attraction marketing is about putting yourself out there, and waiting for people to come to you.  This sounds counter-intuitive but it works.  This is not the fast road to success, but I can tell you that if you jump on everyone with your products and opportunity right away, the natural tendency will be for them to back up.  When you stop chasing people, they will be drawn to you.

Case in point:  M y wife and I have adopted three medically fragile kids.  We have nurses that come to our house and help with the kids.  I never mentioned my nutritional product to them.  We got a doctor’s order to put our kids on it, so the nurses serve our kids the product.  Within a couple of weeks, one of the nurses asked me about it.  I told her my testimony and she said she wanted to try it, so I got her on an autoship.  Another nurse over heard me talking to someone about how my product helps people with arthritis.  Later when the house was quite and the kids were in bed, she asked me a whole bunch of questions about it and how she could get some.  The more she talked the more I realized that her husband should try it too.  She left that night with an autoship for the nutritional product for her and an autoship for a case of the healthy energy drinks for her husband.

Last night out of the blue, another nurse asked me if she could order some product.  I told her that it didn’t work that way, that I was supposed to approach her and puke all over her with details about my product. (just kidding) Actually I said “Sure, I’ll let you order it if you try it for at least 90 days.”  She agreed.  The order was for her mother who has arthritis really bad.  My nurse can’t take it because she’s allergic to Aloe Vera, one of the ingredients in my product. (Dang!)

So, here are examples of four autoships in two weeks all sold by attraction marketing.  I honestly believe that if I had approached them first, they would have naturally resisted because people don’t like to be sold to.  Fortunately I know that people like to buy.  So I create an environment of attraction that allows people to buy my products from me.

This takes more time but it is very effective.  Those nurses trust me because I didn’t come to them shoving my products in their faces.  I just let the laws of attraction take me where I wanted to go.  Now of course I do have a compelling testimony which helps.  They are already seeing results of their own, so it is just a matter of time before they start referring others to me too.

Be patient and try it for yourself.  Get to know someone first, wait for the opportunity to bring your product up without implying you are wanting to sell it.  Do not offer the product to your prospect.  If they have a need they will approach you on their terms.

Weekly Planning 4-5-09

I have been working on the landing page for eBash all week.  It’s finally complete…for now.  I’ll tweak it as time goes by.  If anyone out there wants to provide some constructive criticism, goto www.theradicaldifference.com/eBash.  I covet your input, especially on the overall presentation, flow, content, etc.

The plans for Princeton are still in the works.  Tim had a very long week at work last week…his job is a good one but it sucks.  (I call jobs that suck inspirational dissatisfaction)

We followed up with the gym owner.  He gave me one name.  I called him and he was not looking for an opportunity.  We are going to get him some posters to help him sell the product in the gym.  We are also going to set him up with a landing page with a $15 off a case of product offer.  We’ll do the work, but the landing page will go to the gym owners company ordering page so he gets credit.  Until he comes fully on board we will stack his people down his outside leg.  Putting people on his inside leg would not be fair unless he was involved in helping them.  The landing page is 95% complete.

The Nashville trip got postponed due to a scheduling conflict with my logistics coordinator (Angie my wife!)

I have not heard back from Company compliance about my SEO website.  She told me in an email that they were under-staffed, so I won’t bug them just yet.

The lady who is struggling is picking two or three strategies to implement.  We are meeting tomorrow at the house meeting.

This week we are going to finalize our plans to help the gym owner.  I will assign him either a sub-page URL or maybe even a simpler URL so that visitors will see it and remember it.  We will also need to create fliers advertising the $15 off for first time orders.

I am also still reading the book about marketing plans.  Now that the eBash web page is complete I can devote a little more time to making that happen.

We alos need to break down our longe range goals into intermediate goals and short term goals and then into tasks.  NO I HAVEN’T DONE THIS YET!  It’s killing me knowing that I’m going to fail in this business if I don’t get these things done.  I have been so dang busy putting out fires I’ve not taken the time.  I was trying to use my phone to keep my calendar and tasks, but I don’t like the layout like my old paper based planner.  Last night, I bought a new planner, so it’s time to suck it up and get busy.

Weekly Planning 3-30-09

Ralph is going to create and publish the landing page for eBash, a local gaming spot who is selling the Verve energy drinks and energy shots.  We are putting the URL on each bottle so that we can capture leads of those who want more information.  I have purchased the label maker.  I will make the labels, have my kids apply them, and deliver the extra product to the store this week.

Tim is going to host another home event at his house on the 7th.  We got our top upline from Evansville to present for us.  We are both looking to bring all of the ones we have been trying to follow up with over the last month or so.  We have both set some high attendance goals and high expectations for this event.  Promotion to the downline will also be key.

One of Tim’s dowline is setting up a home event in Princeton, a small town 30 miles north of Evansville.  We should have the plans set in stone by the end of the week.

We will follow up with a gym owner we signed up as a business builder.  He is not letting us help him, so we are going to get him to tell us what he wants so that we know how to help him.

We are planning on going to Nashville on the 18th to share the business with some people we know there.

Ralph will follow up with company compliance to finalize the changes that need to be made to thevemmasource website.  Ralph will set an appointment with the web deisgner to make some of the changes.

Ralph is going to follow up with one of his downline who is struggling with the business (in all aspects).  She has a lot of guts and will do anything that’s suggested, but she does not know enough to take the initiative.  We had talked about doing some local advertising to send people to a landing page, and capture their lead info.  She has a marketing ideas book and is supposed to be considering ideas that fit with her.

Marketing Plan

I found an excellent book on marketing for network marketing.  I will let everyone know what the title is once I finish reading it and decide if it is worth sharing.  So far it’s pretty awesome.  It lays out a step by step plan on how to build a marketing plan for a network marketing business.

It has seven steps or seven questions to building a marketing plan:

1.  What is the most desired result of your marketing? In other words, when someone runs across my marketing, what is it that I want them to do, specifically.

2.  What benefits of buyers of your product or opportunity experience which set you apart from competing offers? What’s in it for them?  Think about benefits instead of features.

3.  Who is your audience? Who is your marketing going to reach?  If you answer everyone you’re wrong.

4.  What tactics will you use to reach your audience? The rest of the book discusses this aspect of the plan.

5.  What do you choose to be known for?  What is you niche? In other words, what makes your offer memorable?

6.  What is your identity? Don’t confuse identity with image.  People are hungry to do business with those who present a true identity, one that reflects values of honesty, integrity, and service.

7.  Budget how much you will invest in marketing. Decide on a percentage of your earnings.  And decide on how much to spend on each category of prospects.  For instance, you will want to spend a majority of resources on existing customers perhaps 60%; spend 30% on qualified prospects and 10% to the general public.

Disclaimer - Please understand that my marketing plan and my posts will be centered around my specific business.  I apologize for this.  However, I think that you will be able to extract the information I present and apply it to your situation.  The principles I am using to build my business are universal.

I will be posting my initial marketing plan, at least a first draft, as soon as I can finish reading the book and write it down on paper.  It will probably revolve around the projects I already have going.  Most of these principles seem to be self-evident but I know that if I can focus my efforts with a plan, it seems as though my efforts will be more successful.  What’s the old saying?  If you fail to plan you plan to fail.

Current Projects

Current Project #1 – Home Events (Find 2 Help 2)

Tim and I are feverishly looking for a couple of people that actually want to build this business.  Several say they do, but they are generally un-coachable.  So we keep looking for the ones that want to do it, while dripping on the others. I no longer chase people.  I give them a step to take if they do it, I work with them some more.  If they don’t at least take the step I give them, theis shows me that they are not coachable and/or not as serious at building the business then they at first led me to believe.

We have been doing home events lately with great success.  We have enrolled 4 out 5 attendees this last month.  That’s an 80% success rate.

Our business model is a binary compensation plan, so everyone really only needs two people to make the thing work.  You would need to enroll more than that to maximize the compensation plan, but you only NEED 2.  We are looking for two people who will allow us to help them find two people.  If our two could find their two in their first thirty days, and those two find their two in the their first thirty days, Tim could me making upwards of $30,000 per month after 14 months.  This is the find 2 help 2 system we are promoting through home events. (Everyone’s results will vary, not everyone will do as good)

Current Project #2 – Verve Surveys and Samples

We have invested more than $1,500 in a Verve Energy Drink Tent, complete with a Verve cooler, color printed tent canopy, color printed back drop and table cover, etc.  It is very professional looking.  We also have some nice embroidered polo shirts and various t-shirts. We have had some success in the past with sampling out Verve Energy Drinks.  Last month Vemma launched the Verve Energy Shot beating even RedBull to market!), so we are stepping up our efforts with this marketing tactic.

We are going to set up the tent at public places throughout the summer.  We have several businesses willing to allow us to set up in front of their place of business.  We will sample out Verve Drinks in return for a written out survey form and the promise to give us their feedback by phone in 24 to 48 hours.  They will give us their contact information for us to follow up.  During the follow up we will try and get them to order Verve for themselves and get everyone interested in the business model to a home event.  We will also give $15 off their first order if they order right there on the spot.

We are also planning on setting up at various events such as the 44th AKA Nationals in Louisville, KY and at Health Expo’s in the area.

We can now buy Verve Energy Drinks and Verve Energy Shots in 40 case lots and the cost per can is reduced to about $1.60 per can including shipping.  This allows us to sample out Verve at half of the regular cost.

Current Project #3 – The Vemma Source Website

I have published a draft of this website and we are still making changes as per the company’s compliance department.  Vemma is a very good company, so we never want to do something that would cause our relationship to suffer.  Because of this, I have asked compliance to look over the site and give me permission to run it.

This site is optimized to show up in the top ten in an organic search of the major search engines.  I have been studying search engine optimization for a while now.  This website will be a collection point of useful information and a gateway for visitors to order the product without needing to know a Vemma member personally.

Current Project #4 – Verve Energy Shot Retail

Since we can purchase Verve Energy Shots at $1.60 per bottle, we are selling them by the case to local businesses for $2.00.  We make just enough to cover our costs, and the retailer sells them for $3.25, giving them a little more than 33% margin.  We are putting a web address sticker on the side of each bottle.  This web address goes to a landing a page that will highlight the benefits of Verve and capture their contact info.  They will be sent to a page that will allow them to order the Verve shots for themselves.  Also, we will be able to follow up with anyone who opts-in on the landing page, by way of autoresponder and phone.

I have a URL, www.theradicallydifferentdrink.com.  Currently it is pointing to my Verve page supplied by the Vemma company.  I will probably use this address to make the landing pages.  We will probably do some split testing with the landing pages.

Conclusion

These are my current major projects.  Obviously talking to people and listening to people is the main way of prospecting. I will always be doing this.  However, the Verve tent project will be our main prospecting tactic we use through September.  The website is ongoing.  The Verve energy shot retail project is iffy at best.  It may turn out to be a lot of work with little success.  We do think however that it’s worth a try.  It is very easy to set up the Verve shots in different places.

Follow the Pissed Off Network Marketer

I will post the day-to-day and week-to-week activities as I build my network marketing business.  Follow along as I build my business, essentially from the ground up.Ralph