A new year will begin soon and with it comes another chance to take a fresh look at your business to see where you are headed on the road to success.

Now is the time to take a break from all the holiday festivities and take a look back at your business goals for 1997 and record the results.

Did you realize the income goals you set for yourself last year? Did you keep in contact with your downline on a constant basis? Did you take some risks and try some new marketing methods? Did you attend a company convention or training session? Did you receive an award for sales achievement? Did you expand your own MLM training library by buying some new books, tapes or videos? Did you set goals for yourself last year?

Take an assessment of what you did right last year and give yourself a pat on the back. Be sure to keep a record of your successes so that you can review them at times when things aren’t going so well. Of course you also need to look at the areas where you didn’t achieve your goals. Don’t be too hard on yourself — but take the time to review the areas where you need improvement - talk to your upline, get some new training material on the subject, share ideas with a crossline friend and get into action to find a solution.

Here’s some good advice from Art Meakin, one of the most successful people I know in this business. In one of his old newsletters, he shares a simple technique for motivating and inspiring your downline and keeping them more active. Here it is...CALL THEM ON THE PHONE AND SAY HELLO. That’s all you have to do. You don’t have to do anything else.

Art says that the #1 complaint that people have in this business is, “My sponsor never calls me”, or “I haven’t heard from my sponsor in over a year.” You have to realize that MLM is a highly competitive business and other MLM companies and distributors are out there to recruit you and anyone else they can find into their business.

So in order to keep the downline you’ve got you have to call them regularly and say “Hello”. That’s it. Of course you can do more. But if you simply call and say hello you will have done more than what 90% of your competition is doing. Keep this in mind the next time you get a genealogy report. Call your front line people and teach them to do the same. Do you want to make more money this year? CALL YOUR PEOPLE!

Linda Locke is the editor of MLM Woman. You can reach her via e-mail at regent@west.net

Just like in everyday correspondence, e-mail messages, bulletin board postings, and Usenet messages usually contain a signature block. These signatures can be created as a separate files called a .sig files and added to the end of Internet messages. In many regards your Internet signature is much more important than your handwritten signature. It gives you the opportunity to tell the world a little bit more about who you are and what you stand for.

These tips will allow you to perfect a powerful, hard hitting sig file.

A sig that people will see and respond to.

Guidelines for Creating Effective Sig Files

To be most effective, a sig file should include as many of the following guidelines as possible (they are not mutually exclusive):

A. Target your market clearly

The more targeted the Sig file, the more powerful it is as a marketing tool.

Tip: If you are targeting more than one market, it's very appropriate and advisable to compose a different sig for each target market. It's not at all uncommon to make regular use of three or four alternative sig files.

B. State a major benefit that appeals to your target market. Benefits work. You must tell the customer, "What's in it for them."

C. Offer Some Kind of Useful Free Information.

This is actually a variant on the previous technique of offering a major benefit that appeals to your target market. Offering something for free is best. This is the approach we use - and it works! Virtually every time we post to a mailing list subscriptions increase by 5 to 10 times their normal rate. Even posts to very small or obscure lists seem to generate this effect.

D. Make it easy to get in touch with you.

Provide lots of easy ways for people to ask you for more information. Different people prefer different options: send email, visit a Web site, make a phone call, use the FAX, etc.

E. Make your sig file fairly short: from 4 lines to a maximum of 5.

Some mailing lists and newsgroups will reject messages with excessive sig files. And even though this won't be a concern when corresponding through email on a person-to-person basis, there is still this to consider: the bigger a sig is, the more likely it is to annoy people.

F. Have a specific "call to action."

Some calls to action would include "subscribe" or "visit a Web site."

A word of caution: Be aware that the Internet community is offended by (and sometimes reacts harshly to) blunt, hard-sell sales spiels. So, carefully think out your signature before sending it out. Good sig files inform or engage the reader. Bad sigs come across as self indulgent and rude.

This article was previously posted in "On-line Marketing Magic" provided by Mark Hendricks.

If you want to build a solid network marketing business, you better be good at (or get good at prospecting). Here are a few do’s and don’ts to keep in mind as you improve your prospecting skills.

DO keep the reader in mind when you write prospecting letters. Give testimonials. Establish credibility. Ask questions about the buyer’s interests and experience. Keep the reader’s perspective in mind at all times.

DON’T think you must know a lot of people in order to prospect effectively. You need to know (or meet) a few people who know a few people who know a few people . . . You get the idea!

DO help your distributors succeed. Provide support, training, motivation, leads, educational materials, mentoring, etc. When your distributors succeed, you succeed.

DON’T get discouraged by rejection. Prospecting is all a numbers game. The more people you present your program to, the better the odds will be that the next person will say, “Yes, I’m interested. Sign me up!”

DO try various approaches to prospecting to find out what you are most comfortable with and what yields the best results. Your approach might include a mix of classified ads, group presentations, phone calls, and Internet ads.

DON’T jump right into your presentation the first time you meet someone new. Get to know a little bit about that person first. It will give you clues on how to customize your presentation to meet his or her particular needs, personality, goals, etc.

Source: Network Marketing Nuts & Bolts, (609) 778-4667, e-mail nwminfo@nutsbolts.com, web site: www.nutsbolts.com/nwm

Use the Media--marketing help for biz.

Everywhere you look on the Net, experts are warning you that things have changed. It may have been OK last year to throw up a simple web site supplying readers with some basic info about your company, but that’s not nearly enough for today’s World Wide Web. The “brochure” web site just doesn’t get it anymore.

To be competitive on the Internet--and by now you’re probably feeling that you MUST!--you’ve got to carry out an aggressive online promotional campaign.

“But wait a minute!” you shout. I’m already up to my eyeballs in my business. Isn’t there a promotions company I can hire to do this for me?

Well, yes and no. There ARE people out there who will mass mail your message to solicited millions, help you develop a razzle-dazzle web site, and see to it that your URL gets on all the search engines. But that’s not nearly all that you could or should do to insure your Internet visibility.

Experts admit that really good on-line promotion is time consuming. So much so that it’s probably not feasible to hire anyone to do it for you.

This is where you have to think like a pioneer in the days of old. The adventurous trapper moving west on a wagon train couldn’t arrive at the promised land, call a Realtor, and make plans with a residential contractor. He had to be creative. Here are some creative solutions for the busy business person who simply hasn’t got the time to be a promoting dynamo--but also can’t afford not to!

1. Don’t fall into the trap of lots of graphics and revolving wing-dings, but no informational content. The Net is all about information--FREE information. Your site should be 80% information and 20% sales literature.

This is the most important factor in insuring that readers find your web site interesting, spread the word to friends and associates, and return for repeat visits.

For a good example of an information intense web site, check out Nolo Books at http://www.nolo.com. Nolo specializes in law books for the average person. Their site features article after article of free information on legal issues.

If you don't have time to write lots of helpful articles for your site, look for a moonlighting writer through local writing clubs, small publications, and universities. Show your ghost writer how to find information on your business in trade publications and through interviews with you and others in your industry. A good writer can whip something up for you quickly.

2. Don’t miss out on free online publicity.

There are hundreds of e-mail newsletters looking for good, informative articles. Most will be happy to help you send your web site articles to thousands of their subscribers. Write to me for a list of these publications.

Take a paragraph or two from your article and post it on relevant newsgroups where your information would be enthusiastically greeted.

Mining results from newsgroups and free classifieds can be time consuming but worthwhile. There are lots of people looking for after-hours employment working online. Hire someone for several hours each week to keep your Internet postings fresh and marching forward.

3. Internet advertising is just now being taken seriously by the ad community. There are some ad agencies popping up that specialize in putting a price on banners and ads and building them into attractive packages for corporate clients.

It will be several years before Internet advertising becomes as controlled and institutionalized as newspaper, television, or radio advertising. Right now it’s each person for him or herself. Look for online banner and ad opportunities in places that attract lots of people that match the customer description for your company. It’s an open market, so negotiate!

And remember, if your site is an interesting one, other sites like yours will want to provide a link from their site to yours. Offer to link their site as well.

4. Finally, NETWORK! There are lots of experts in every field publishing articles in online forums, newsgroups, newsletters, and on web sites.

Look for their contact information at the bottom of the article. Send the author a note pointing out what you liked about their article. Introduce yourself and your business. Offer your services or products to them and their clients.

We are currently in a phase where your company must be well represented on the Net, but it’s still a do-it-yourself proposition. Be creative. Distill your online plan down to a workable formula that can be duplicated by hired helpers.

Don’t wait for the next phase of the Net, when business promotion will be taken over by large ad and PR agencies. Be aggressive now. This is one party where if you’re late, you may miss it all together.

Kevin Nunley works with small businesses and organizations providing affordable marketing advice, copywriting, and Internet promotion. Reach him at DrNunley@aol.com, (801) 253- 4536 or www.DrNunley.com.