Network Marketing: Scatter Bomb Fever is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: “Sizzle Product”

One diversion that is often created by your own network marketing company, when new products or services are introduced. Often, it’s what we call a “sizzle product:–a new, exciting technology or specialized niche item that causes affiliates to lose all decorum and sense of propriety. Irrational comments and erratic behavior on the part of new affiliates generally accompany the announcement of these new products. Especially when a major field leader joins in the fever, the “sizzle product” Scatter Bomb can be quite devastating.

This type of Scatter Bomb fever began in one network marketing company with something as innocent as simple math when an affiliate calculated that he would earn an extra $30,000 the next month if everybody in his group ordered just one of the newly released product. It progressed to the point where frenzied medical doctors rented warehouse space and taught medical assistants how to operate fork lifts in order to warehouse the supply which would result in $20 million of profits next year.

What made this situation all the more frightening was that this frenzy occurred when no one had yet seen or even used the product, and no studies about the product had been released. All this activity stemmed from rumors that the new product was really great and that everyone in America would be in lines a mile long to purchase it. Company leaders dropped the hint that the supply was limited and could become back-ordered, thereby keeping the fever at a high pitch as affiliates bought more than they needed to be sure they didn’t run out.

They saw thousands of victims of this misdirected activity and, even a year later, some affiliates were still distracted from building their network marketing business. Some were threatening to sue everyone in the knows world, and orders were still angry over the $20 million they lost.

Network Marketing: Protect Against The Scatter Bomb

So how do you protect our affiliates and our distributors against this type of Scatter Bomb when it’s a new product from our own company? How do we maintain rationality in the face of a screaming frenzy initiated by our upline leaders? Well, I am not sure there is any protection, given the truth about greed and human nature.

When a good solid network marketing company releases a new exciting service or product, nothing can really keep people from becoming excited. Tell your leaders to try the new products and to recommend that everyone in their groups try them, but not mortgage their homes in order to buy them. Wait until the new products has fully proven itself before getting too excited.

What I have learned is that the real money is made a few months after the new products have proven themselves, not during the initial hype. If the affiliates jump the gun at the launch of a new foreign market they typically only last a few months in network marketing. Perhaps the biggest danger of all is that the launch of a new product or service, which has real sizzle, can scatter affiliates enough to shift their focus from selling financial security and time freedom to just selling the new product.

Most of all, maintain a balanced outlook with every new product. Don’t go overboard and build your presentation around any one product or service before it is a proven success. Frenzies never yield stable growth.

Network Marketing: The Lure Of Other Deals is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: One Company Mentality

Some changes will come from outside your sphere of influence and seem beyond your control. I want you to be prepared for any and all diversions and challenges that threaten your downline. The amazing truth about network marketing is that once you have established yourself with a company, you can literally waltz through decades without anyone trying to lure you away.

Yet in the first year you become an affiliate, the competition will come out of the woodwork and beg you to switch companies. Success and perseverance will earn you respect, whereas your newness makes you vulnerable. I have a saying, “The grass is always greener, until it’s time to mow.” I can guarantee you, just as certain that the sun will rise, that your new affiliates will be courted by other network marketing companies in their first years as distributors. It’s a certainty and must be addressed in the training process of all new affiliates.

A good thing for affiliates to always keep in mind is that the trickle-down theory works better in our network marketing business than in economics. Teach your leaders anything and if it works, everyone in your organization will learn it rapidly. Those of us who have been in this industry have learned a very real success principle: perseverance. Affiliates who have stayed with one company for many years, and built new legs in each of those years, are now very wealthy. Those who think the grass is greener soon learn that true, lasting wealth can only be achieved through long-term participation in one company.

Network Marketing: Multiple Streams Of Income

We’ve heard all the arguments of those affiliates who believe that to succeed in network marketing, one must to two or more companies. I have met people that have successfully built more than one downline at the same time. And many people swear by the multiple company system. It does work. It does take every bit of your focus and effort you’ve got to reach the top payout of each solid network marketing company.

Some people will jump from company to company, knowing well that  each company will not remain in business long-term. Never mind that these are pyramid schemes and only a few people will win. Never mind that the company is likely to fold any minute. All that matters is that they pick up a little easy money along the way. Watch out for those folks–they are the ones who give the industry a bad name.

The truth is, all new affiliates will probably be tempted, several times in their careers, to change companies. Some will, some won’t, so what, because someone else is always waiting. The key is to find the opportunities that best fit your makeup. I personally believe that multiple streams of income are a necessity. If you have a slow month with one company or one company goes out of business, then you still have other sources of income coming in.

Network Marketing: Changing The System Midstream is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: Temptation To Change

More than likely, one of the first manifestations of the Scatter Bomb will be the temptation to change, even just slightly, the system of recruiting, you were taught. For example, your sponsor might tell you the critical importance of approaching your warm list by expressing your desire to have a business relationship with each of them and sharing your excitement about the potential of big money and free time because of the universal appeal of both.

And while you are nodding your head in agreement, what you are really thinking is, “I can’t approach my friends and family with an idea as outrageous as earning such extraordinary income.” So you begin changing the approach: you avoid your best prospects or mention a smaller income figure or none at all in favor of promoting your products. Never mind that your sponsor insisted that you need to use the big-money, free-time approach, you know in your heart that your friends and family members simply cannot relate to that kind of money.

You don’t argue with your sponsor because you’ve already promised to use his system, but you think you know what’s best. And guess what? If you think that way, so will all your recruits. I don’t know what there is about network marketing that makes it seem so easy, but all who sign up immediately begin to believe that they know more than their sponsor or, for that matter, more than anyone who’s ever been in network marketing. The greater their innate leadership skills, the more likely they will want to reinvent the wheel.

The way to prevent new affiliates from changing the approach is to anticipate their notions during training. New affiliates may not understand the importance of starting their network marketing business with relationship marketing or quoting large income figures in order to create a conscious shock. So teach them how easy it is to get sidetracked. Tell them right up front.

Network Marketing Begins with Relationships

Make sure new affiliates understand that network marketing begins with relationships and requires numerous contacts and tenacious follow-through. Another part of the approach they will feel compelled to change is to lower any numbers you give them in training. If you suggest they need to personally sponsor at least 100 people over time, they often decide that 50 frontline recruits are enough. If you advise that full-time affiliates may need to approach at least 100 prospects a week once they move into cold marketing, they often decide that 30 or 40 is plenty. If you suggest targeting 2,000 people on their warm list, they will, usually without telling you so, think you are out of your mind.

Such changes to your network marketing system, which new affiliates are convinced will not block their success, is the first element of the Scatter Bomb. Remember, each time you teach a module of your system to new recruits, make absolutely certain that you stress to them that any deviation from your system could result in failure.

Network Marketing: Business Without Blinders is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: Put On Blinders

The metaphor of Scatter Bomb also refers to the inability of new affiliates to ignore all the inevitable distractions in the first year of network marketing  and maintain a clear vision of where they are going and how they are going to get there. New affiliates become scattered very quickly by a variety of companies, recruiting systems, videos, manuals, and numerous other sales systems available to them.

New affiliates must be warned to put on blinders during their first year. Consistent duplication of one simple success system is essential in order to avoid confusion in one’s entire downline, which is precisely what occurs each time a leader changes systems midstream. Even worse, some overzealous entrepreneurs jump right into recruiting without any goals or systems around which to base their business plan.

Network Marketing: Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

There are countless affiliates who want to work the network marketing business in ways that are more comfortable to them, more fitting to their self-image, more in keeping with their old work habits. If your goal is to achieve financial security and personal freedom, you may have to get out of your comfort zone. The good life will come soon enough if you pay the price the first year.

What keeps me me going on those ugly days when nothing seems to go right is to believe that inside all of us there is a driving force that will help us just as long as we stay focused on our goals. I teach my new affiliates not to give up. no matter what. I tell each affiliate, the longer you stay and continue talking to people, the closer you will get to your goal. Never lose sight of that light at the end of the tunnel.

You need to find a compelling reason to do what is uncomfortable, as well as nurture a self-confidence in who you are and what you have to offer. Part of my vision is is to expose people living in resignation to the limitless possibilities for change in their lives once they simply choose to become open to them. All of us can harness the life-changing power of network marketing to make a difference in our own lives while also contributing to the lives of countless others.

It is essential to have your destination clearly in sight, even before the journey ever begins. To be successful in network marketing you have to have the ability to shut out every distraction around you, whether internal or external, and stay the course with clear vision of where you are going and how you are going to get there. Achieving your goal in network marketing is a process of getting accustomed to a new and better reality–one of which you can actually see yourself. Keep focused on the end result while preserving your believe that it is possible, blocking negative influences, and not worrying about how it will come to pass.

Network Marketing: Always Changing the System is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: Keep The Same System

I have personally lost some great frontline affiliates, may of whom could have become great network marketers, because they just couldn’t stop changing systems. In fact, in one case, I lost the leaders of an entire foreign market.

Just imagine the possibilities if: you started on the ground floor in a brand new country with 1,500 serious prospects who came to learn more about your network marketing business on opening day; the company you represented was a billion-dollar MLM company already successful in twenty other countries; and all the new affiliates signing up were within your first five levels.

Also, assume that your sponsors were extremely well known and had all the training manuals (audiotapes, videotapes, books) translated into every language on your continent and then set up a second home in your part of the world in order to spend significant time supporting you. Under these circumstances, failure seems impossible.

Believe it or not, failure was the end result: the key leaders quit the network marketing business within eighteen months. They failed because they changed their name from one name to another unknown group, gradually eliminated every system I taught them, and consumed much of their training materials–it was the ultimately Scatter Bomb. Every one of my systems had proven success, and every one of theirs rapidly failed.

Network Marketing: Scatter Bomb

But they still maintained that their network marketing organization collapsed because because they just didn’t have a good enough compensation plan. And I provided them with many other forms of support, financial and otherwise, that I haven’t even mentioned. The truth is that they and all their downline were victims of the Scatter Bomb. But frankly, as their sponsors, we have to accept a great deal of the responsibility for their failure because each time they made a system change, and it was very frequently, we protested only gently.

Unlike the typical recriminations in traditional network marketing business after such a collapse, I am still friends with this group of affiliates despite the failure. This experience was an important and painful lesson for me, so I want to pass it on to you so that you might avoid my mistake. And here’s the primary lesson: New affiliates must literally be indoctrinated into duplicating your system. They must be taught in the beginning to follow the system of their sponsor and not deviate from it.

What I’ve learned is that even if you handpick the best recruiters and most committed people in a newly opened foreign market, set them up with all the training tools they need, help close their best prospects, sign them up during an opening day launch attended by the company’s highest dignitaries–even if you do all that–if those people are unwilling to duplicate one simple system that has proven itself elsewhere, they are destined for failure. That’s the frightening reality about the Scatter Bomb.

Facebook: 10 Tips To Help You in Social Media is a post from: KentDSmith

Facebook is the largest social media site in the world. If you are not on Facebook then you are missing out on a great way to get yourself as well as your business recognized. Here are some tips that will help you when visiting this site.

Facebook Tips

1. View All Your Timeline Content

• Facebook‘s mysterious algorithm decides which stories will showcase on your Timeline.
• However, it also includes half-hidden posts. Posts that are marked on your Timeline, but not displayed, are noted by a blue dot on the central line. You can view these posts by clicking on the individual blue dots.
• A quicker method is to click on the three blue dots underneath each year. This gives you the option to view all stories within that year.

2. Hide Stuff From Your Timeline

• As we’ve pointed out, the Timeline gives friends the ability to view your entire Facebook history.
• For this reason, we imagine the first thing most people will want to do is to “sanitize” their Timeline. The good news is, it’s simple to hide what you don’t want showing.
• When you see a post you’d like to nix, just hit the pencil icon at the top of the post and select “Hide from Timeline.” This doesn’t delete the content from your account, but it will keep it safe from prying eyes.

3. Customize Your Favorites Boxes

• Next up is the ability to customize the boxes that appear under your cover photo. The “Friends” and “Photos” boxes are fixed, but you can play around with the others.
• To edit the boxes, click on the small arrow icon on their right. All boxes that can be moved or removed will have a pencil edit icon appear as you hover.
• Hitting on the pencil brings up edit options to remove or swap boxes. To add a Facebook app, or one of the new social apps, click on the plus sign on an empty box.

4. Hide the Sidebar

• You can make Timeline look even less cluttered by hiding the sidebar.
• To do this, click on the arrow icon at the very bottom right of your screen. The sidebar will collapse, but leave the adverts to bug you — although, we’ve got a tip for those too…

5. Get Rid of an Annoying Advert

• If a specific ad is really bothering you, simply adios it from your display.
• Hover over the advert and click the “X” that appears at the top right. This gives you the option to hide it or hide all ads from that advertiser.
• If you choose to hide the ad, Facebook gives you the further option to tailor what kind of ads appear on your account.

Facebook Tips

6. Change an Album’s Primary Photo

• Albums you’ve created will show up in your Timeline. However, you can change the large, or “primary” image.
• Click the pencil edit icon to select a different image from the album that will appear in the big window.

7. Feature a Post on Timeline

• Make certain posts appear larger on your Timeline so they take up a double column space.
• To do this, click the star icon in the top right corner of the post. You can minimize large posts the same way.

8. Customize Your Subscription Updates

• When you subscribe to someone’s public updates, Facebook defaults to “Most updates.” You can change this.
• Either go to the person’s profile and click the “Subscribed” drop down menu or, more efficiently, go click your “Subscriptions” favorites box (under your cover photo). This gives you a bird’s-eye view of the people you’ve subscribed to.
• Now, if you hit the “Subscribed” box for each person you can tailor exact updates.

9. View Your Private Activity Log

• If you’ve hidden items from your Timeline, but still want to review all of your Facebook content, look to your private Activity Log. Click on the “View Activity” box under your cover photo.
• Now, by selecting a type of content from the “All” drop down menu, you can browse all your past Facebook activities, organized by date.

10. View Your Profile Through Someone Else’s Eyes

• As with the former version of Facebook, you can view how others see your Timeline.
• Click the cog icon under your cover photo; then select “View as…”
• You can now enter a friend’s name or click on the “public” hyperlink to see how stranger’s view your Timeline.

Facebook Bonus: How to Poke

As I’ve addressed, Facebook has downgraded the famous “poke” in the new Timeline design.

If you still want to “poke” your Facebook buddies, you have to head directly to their profiles. Under a friend’s cover photo, next to the “Message” box, there’s a cog menu. Click this and you’ll see the option to poke. As always, use wisely.

Network Marketing: Fending Off The Scatter Bomb is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: Stay Focused

Another obstacle in the battle for success probably afflicts every single affiliate who ever enters the network marketing industry. I call it the Scatter Bomb. It is quite easy to fall into this booby trap because of the very changeable nature of our business. Simple put, the Scatter Bomb is a mental explosion that diffuses the focus of affiliates, causing them to stop using the system they have been taught and to frantically follow any and every new network marketing system that comes along.

The Scatter Bomb occurs frequently in the first year, sending new affiliates in search of any new leader, company, sales aid, or system that might enable them to succeed more rapidly or more easily. It is deceptive because it comes disguised as the ultimate new tool or as the perfect strategy for success. Sometimes it’s a new manual or video, which many new affiliates assume will be more effective than the work program currently used, merely because it’s new.

Other times it’s a new leader who comes to town with a brand new way to do the network marketing business, and since he’s making more money than you, his system must be better than yours. When your spirits are really down, it can even be a new company with a ,better compensation plan. whether the Scatter Bomb takes the form of a person, system, or company, the very worst thing you can do in your first year is yield to the temptation to change direction every time a new system comes along.

Network Marketing: System Of Duplication

This business is a process of system duplication, and therefore each time you change your system, everyone in your downline gets confused. In network marketing, the worst battles in the entire first year will be the internal ones you fight each time you’re tempted to find a faster, better, easier route. Remember, if someone in your upline is earning the amount of money you strongly desire and you continue to duplicate the exact system that got him or her to wealth, you too will eventually get there…but not if you are always changing the system.

There are many different ways to do the network marketing business and fortunately each of them is equally lucrative. There’s no one way to success. But if a network marketer becomes so scattered that he or she is constantly changing from system to system, thereby compelling downline associates to change, failure will certainly follow.

Network Marketing: No Need To Pressure Friends Into The Business is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: Do Not Pressure Friends

Another mistake made by a new affiliate is to pressure twenty to get into the  network marketing business, then the new affiliate spends the next six months trying to drag those people across the finish line. For many, many well-meaning people, network marketing is the process of selling people on our industry, then doing everything possible to make those people successful.

Unfortunately, that’s literally the antithesis, the exact opposite, of what our business is all about. Our job is not to do it all for them. It is to teach them how to do it for themselves. We are educators. We teach people a new way to buy and sell products and services and a new way to make a living. The more people we educate (by getting them to review an audio-visual package and then sit down with us and hear the whole story), the more money we all earn. The more people we approach with extreme enthusiasm about partnering in a network marketing business that will generate big money and free time, the more people we get to meet with us in the first place.

So make absolutely certain that you leave no one off your warm market list. And when you begin calling them–on your own, remember, no three-way, gang-up calls–make certain that you are in an enthusiastic frame of mind. Share your desire to be involved in business with them and focus your prospecting question around big money, free time, and a lifetime partnership.

Network Marketing: Awaken Your Prospects

The philosopher Maurice Nichol used to say, “All people are asleep. And in order to awaken them from their stupor long enough to introduce them to a new idea or way of doing things, you must give them some sort of conscious shock.” I agree. What we’ve got to recognize is that unless you use high income numbers, most people will remain asleep. The promise of $20,000-$30,000, even $50,000 a month–income levels actually achieved by top earners–is usually enough of a conscious shock to awaken most folks to your presentation.

Then, if the time is right, and if they’ve been thinking about changing careers or feared being laid off, they might respond affirmatively, listen to an audio presentation, and actually come to a meeting. That’s one of the keys to effective network marketing. Many people have the leadership potential to do this business, but may not reveal it to you unless the timing is right.

No Need To Sell People On Network Marketing is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: No Need To Sell

One of the biggest mistakes most new affiliates make is arguing and attempting to “sell” people on the network marketing business at the wrong time. Think about it a moment. So what does it accomplish for a new affiliate to stay on the phone with his friend trying to overcome every objection and pestering him to death? Or worse, what if an upline associate is on the call also badgering the prospect? Even after six months that friend will not be open and receptive, even if the time is right.

When I first decided to pursue a network marketing business, some of my friends laughed, some openly showed their disgust for the industry, and a few went so far as to look at my brochures and said things like “snake oil” and “fraud for sale.” None of them, however, would look at the facts about my company and the opportunity associated with it.

I was discouraged initially, but I knew I had a great opportunity. I set out to assemble mountains of evidence providing that network marketing in general, and my company in particular, was legitimate. After assembling books, articles, audiotapes, and video clips, I approached some of my friends again. I was much more confident because I had the facts on hand to back me up.

But nearly all of my friends still refused to come to a presentation, even after having seen the facts and figures I had put together. I was completely blown away. How could they refuse to join my company, when all of my statistics clearly showed that it was in their best interest to do so?

Network Marketing: Believe In Yourself

I learned that I can convince a person intellectually that joining my network marketing company is a great decision, but if that person does not believe he can succeed in my business, or if he does not believe in himself and his own abilities to learn and grow, all my facts and statistics are useless. He will not join my company, and even if he does, he won’t do anything after he has joined. I wasted time assembling information to convince people who were just not interested, when I could have been out making presentations to people who had expressed real interest.

Network Marketing: Success Results More From Attitude Than Ability is a post from: KentDSmith

Network Marketing: Enthusiasm

Because attitude rather than ability leads to real success in network marketing, your biggest asset is enthusiasm. But I’m not talking about some fake excitement that is a learned behavior, or following some script written by your upline associate. I’m talking about natural enthusiasm, that is, your excitement after realizing you could be only months away from earning $20,000 a month! Whatever strategy works to motivate you and get you in a positive frame of mind prior to calling warm market prospects, employ it. The deeper your belief level, the greater your chance of success in network marketing.

It also helps to realize that you are first and  raise their curiosity over the phone foremost an educator. You are not a salesperson, nor are you a professional recruiter. Your job is to teach as many people as possible that there’s a better way to live and to earn residual income. When you call your warm market leads, your only objective is to get them to seriously consider your network marketing company. It is hard to convince prospects over the phone in their very first call to change jobs and join their company. Nor is it easy to consistently sell products or services over the phone. So don’t try!

Network Marketing: Education

Network marketing is a business of education. You may want to begin by having your prospects review an audio-visual package, but eventually you need to interact face to face. It is about teaching people how to teach others to build an organization of people who use and share products and/or services.

Keep in mind, the more information you give to prospects over the phone, the less likely they will be willing to listen to an audio or attend a network marketing  business presentation. Try to raise their curiosity over the phone rather than satisfy it. Do not give information out during your first call or answer a lot of questions. Share your enthusiasm and set a time and place for the meeting to which you are inviting them. Make sure you are talking from your heart, inviting those with whom you truly wish to associate.

In network marketing, people usually make decisions based on certain emotions. A desire for more money is one of the reasons you can count on to motivate prospects to attend meetings. No product or service, except perhaps a lure to a better career, is exciting enough to cause people to want to change professions. But the possibility of having total control of their time and a monthly income of $20,000 to $30,000–maybe even $50,000!–gets the attention of most people, even the most cynical.