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MLM Woman Issue 86 March 2004 This FREE monthly newsletter is made possible by our advertisers and customers. We thank them for their support! From the Desk of the Editor Welcome to the 86th issue of the MLM Woman Newsletter. This month we feature articles on how to boost your web site profits, the 7 character traits of successful people, tips on how to stay sane while working at home, 3 simple selling tactics, and tips about the best ways to find prospects for your business. Enjoy! Linda Locke, Editor MLM Woman Five Smart, Effective Ways to Boost Website Profits (c) Copyright 2004, Angela Wu You've probably heard the saying, "work smarter, not harder!" -- well, there's truth in that saying and you can use it to increase the profits from your website: 1. Create an Upsell. One of the best known examples of an upsell is when you walk into a fast-food restaurant. Let's say you order a burger combination that includes a small order of fries, which sells for $0.99 on its own. A large order of fries sells for $1.99. When the cashier asks you if you'd like to change to a large order of fries for just an extra $0.49, she's upselling you. Many people jump at the chance to get the large fries, because they feel like they're getting a good "deal". Offer a premium version of your product as well. Test various scenarios to see how best to present your upsell. For instance, you could offer a choice before the customer places an order, to give him the option of choosing a product that's within the price range he's willing to pay. Or you could present the upsell after he's already made the decision to purchase (eg. after he's pressed the 'order' link), because once he's decided to buy he may be more amenable to an upgrade. 2. Add a Subscription Service. Subscriptions are a great alternative to one-shot sales, since they offer the benefit of a residual income stream. If customers like your service, they can renew year after year - and there's relatively minimal time, effort and cost required to keep them as customers. It's far cheaper and easier to keep happy customers than it is to acquire new ones. Some ways to create a subscription service include: * Offer a printed copy of a premium newsletter service. For example, it could be based on your free email newsletter but with more detail, or with coupons or discounts that readers would not otherwise receive. * Popular site? Charge an annual fee to sites that want to appear in your links or resources directory. This helps to weed out "casual" link requests while also paying you for the time required to review links for approval and to maintain the directory. * Create a service that's available to subscribers only, and offers information that isn't freely available to others visiting the site. For instance, let's say your site specializes in finding executive-style condos. People who visit your website are presented with all the details - photos, rates, amenities, and so forth. The only thing missing is the contact information for each rental. If someone is interested, he or she pays a suscription fee to be able to view the contact information for all the condos on your site. There are plenty of other ways to create a subscription service. Use your imagination! 3. Fire Bad Customers. Most customers are wonderful, but there's always a small percentage of them that end up costing your business far more time and effort than is justified. For instance, someone may constantly demand special treatment yet be unwilling to pay for it. Another might be extremely rude to you. The good thing about operating your own business is that youcan choose not to deal with these types of people. Some people are just impossible to please. Know when to cut your losses. Be professional and polite, but also firm, when you let your customer know that you don't want his business. If you're so inclined, you can even direct him elsewhere. 4. Cultivate Relationships. People buy from other people. Establish yourself and your business as a trustworthy and credible source of information and quality products or services. Offer fast, responsive, and helpful customer service - and even try to go above and beyond what your customers expect. Web businesses that venture outside of the internet and into the 'real world' can help them to stand out from the competition... even if it's something as small as a thank-you card in the mail. Publishing a newsletter is a popular way to keep in touch and develop trust. Although it can be time-consuming, it helps to keep your business in the forefront of your readers' minds. When they're ready to do business, your company is more likely to pop into mind. 5. Follow-Up With Prospects and Customers. There can be any number of reasons why someone won't buy immediately, even if they're interested. They might be waiting for the next pay cheque. The dog may be barking to be let in, or maybe dinner is burning. Whatever the reason, people do get distracted from their original intent to purchase. Many people are also naturally cautious and prefer to do more research or mull things over before making the decision to buy. By following up with a prospect you're more likely to catch him at a time that he's ready to make a purchase. Many businesses will also follow up with existing customers to offer their backend products. For instance, someone who has purchased a dog training book may also be interested in purchasing a complementary video that demonstrates these dog training techniques. There are lots of excellent autoresponders available to take away the tedium of manual follow-ups. About the Author Angela Wu is the author of Online Business Basics, a practical guide to marketing a business on a beginner's budget. This guide offers loads of instantly useable tips and links, in a down-to-earth style that even marketing "newbies" can understand! Pick up your copy at: http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/article.html Seven Character Traits of Successful People By Chris Widener 1. They are hard working. There is no such thing as easy money. Success takes hard work and people who are willing to do it. 2. They are honest. Those who are successful long-term are the honest ones. Dishonest people may get the first sale, but honest people will get all the rest! 3. They persevere. How many success stories will go untold because they never happened? And all because someone quit. Successful people outlast everybody else. 4. They are friendly. Have you noticed that most successful people are friendly and people oriented? This endears them to others and enables them to lead others to accomplish the task. 5. They are lifelong learners. Successful people are people who stretch themselves and grow continually, learning from all areas of life, including from their mistakes. 6. They over-deliver. The old statement of under-promise and over-deliver became famous because it made a lot of people successful, including the richest man in the world - Bill Gates 7. They seek solutions in the face of problems. Problems are opportunities to do the impossible, not just complain. Successful people are the ones who find solutions. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. Copyright 2002 Made for Success. About the Author Chris Widener is a popular speaker and writer as well as the President of Made for Success and Extraordinary Leaders, two companies helping individuals and organizations turn their potential into performance, succeed in every area of their lives and achieve their dreams. Join subscribers in over 100 countries around the world! Get Chris' FREE weekly Made for Success Ezine by sending a blank email to success-on@mail-list.com. Get his FREE daily SuccessQuote™ with action point by sending a blank email to SQ@infogeneratorpro.com. Get his FREE monthly Extraordinary Leaders Ezine, one of the world's most widely distributed leadership newsletters, by sending a blank email to leaders-on@mail-list.com or visit his websites at http://www.madeforsuccess.com and http://www.extraordinaryleaders.com. How to Stay Sane Working at Home By Michele Miller It's great working at home, being your own boss, but for some people it's not what they expected. I've heard several people say they get lonely and miss being around work associates; others find it hard to stay disciplined, or they just find working at home boring. I personally don't find it to be any of those things myself and love working at home, but everybody's different. Some people are almost forced to work at home, such as disabled people, single moms that can't afford daycare, or don't want to put their children in daycare. For these people that didn't necessarily choose a home career it can be quite depressing. For those that chose to work at home, and don't want to change that part of it, often times another problem arises. It can be called, "wearing all the hats syndrome". Not only do you run a business and play manager, employee, billing clerk, sales person, inventory manager, etc., with a home business, you might find yourself cleaning the house, taking care of the kids, cooking meals, folding clothes, running errands, and paying bills, all during working hours. This problem tends to arise when there is no set work routine. It leaves one feeling overwhelmed on a daily basis. To really enjoy a home business and keep yourself sane, it's necessary to establish business hours and a routine. It's best to get dressed every day at a reasonable hour, otherwise you find the whole day's gone and you're still in your night clothes. It's great to be able to do that, it's just not good to do it. You can bet the doorbell will ring on the days you slack off on this one! Give yourself a lunch break and try to eat healthy. It's so easy working from home to walk by the fridge every thirty minutes and get a snack. Soon your body expects to be fed every couple of hours, just like a newborn. Not a good thing, especially when you start packing on the pounds. Try to get some fresh air every single day. It's not good to get out of the house only once or twice a week. When you feel mentally happy and healthy, you will be able to stay sane with a home business. Remember, working at home can be harder than working outside the home. It's all up to you how your business turns out; it's a lot of responsibility. So, try not to stress yourself unnecessarily. Use phone time wisely. Enough said… As far as housework goes, and all that other stuff that messes up your work day, I found something that works and may work for you. I get up and get showered and dressed and then I spend about an hour cleaning the house. I'm usually ready to sit down and start work around nine, but if it's ten o'clock that's fine too. Routine, routine, routine, is the key to being successful and staying sane in a home business. About the Author Michele Miller is a home-based business owner and author of an Ebook about medical transcription. You can visit her website at: http://www.medical-transcription-at-home.com 3 Simple Selling Tactics Copyright 2004 Bob Leduc The following 3 simple selling tactics produce sales by responding to the way customers normally think and behave. They work for any business - regardless of what you sell, how you sell or where you sell it. 1. Pay Attention to Getting Attention Can you remember the last 3 advertising messages beamed at you? Can you remember even one of them? Most people can't ...including your prospective customers. That's because they automatically ignore the steady stream of advertising directed at them. This illustrates a major obstacle you need to overcome before you can sell anything. You have to get your prospect's attention - and get it fast - or your sales message will be ignored. Here are 3 proven ways you can capture a prospect's attention quickly: * Make a dramatic statement: Example: "Even My Doctor Uses These Health Products" * Surprise your prospects with something unexpected: Example: "Try our service without charge for one month" * Ask a provocative question: Example: "If you're such a smart business owner why aren't you making six figures?" Tip: Include attention getting headlines on all your web pages. Many visitors arrive at a web page then immediately click away - unless something instantly catches their attention. 2. Emphasize the Human Relationship Prospective customers are more receptive to buying from a real person than from an impersonal company. Look for ways to create a personal relationship with your prospective customers. For example: ...If you sell face to face, spend some time early in the selling process getting to know a little about your prospects and letting them get to know you. ...If you sell online or in some other way where you don't talk with prospects, include some information about you in your presentation. What you say about yourself will have the greatest impact if it highlights why you are uniquely qualified to provide what your customer wants. Tip: Sell yourself to make prospective customers comfortable with the selling process. But sell your company and its history of producing results to make prospective customers confident of your ability to deliver what you promise. 3. Trigger Your Customer's Imagination Convert the benefits delivered by your product or service into vivid word pictures. Then put your prospect in the picture by dramatizing what it feels like to be enjoying those benefits. Be specific. If you sell financial products, describe what it feels like to enjoy an affluent living without debt. If you sell boats, describe what it feels like cutting through the waves with your friends onboard. If you promote a business opportunity, describe what it feels like to be at home working without a boss. Tip: Be sure your word pictures are dramatizing benefits and not describing features. People don't really care about the new high-tech insulation used in their beverage cooler (a feature). They just want to be able to enjoy ice cold beverages all day long on a hot day (the benefit). These 3 selling tactics produce sales by responding to normal human behavior. Use them in your web pages, sales letters and personal presentations. The volume of business they produce will surprise you. About the Author Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses like yours find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards ...and launched *BizTips from Bob*, a newsletter to help small businesses grow and prosper. You'll find his low-cost marketing methods at: http://BobLeduc.com or call: 702-658-1707 After 10 AM Pacific Time/Las Vegas, NV How to Find Prospects By Tim Sales Prospects are basically the foundation of any business as they are the "potential" customers to the business. So just how do YOU find prospects? Let's start out with a definition of the word promote which is the most important word in finding prospects. The word promote means: to make known. I was recently helping a person in my downline with her business, which was not growing. As I asked various questions I finally found the "nasty bug" that was stopping her business from moving forward. She didn't want to come off as being or sounding sales-y. This stopped her from promoting. How does everyone else promote? A politician promotes how he/she can make a whole community's life better - so he's/she's making herself known to the public by promoting and making known to as many people as possible what he/she can do for them. If you've noticed, politicians promote on TV, radio, signs stuck in the grass or on telephone poles along a busy street or maybe speaking at various group meetings. A college promotes what courses it offers. It might promote on radio, might promote to high schools or through sporting events. A stockbroker promotes that he can help his/her prospect make money. A local restaurant will promote via radio, or mailing brochures or discount coupons. The worst thing you can ever do in your business career is to think, ponder, worry or even get the idea that it's unprofessional to promote! You really need to know and understand promotion. The only way you can have prospects, therefore customers or distributors - is to promote. The only way for you to make money in network marketing is to promote. You can write down your dreams and goals and study them every night. But you're as effective as a billboard in the middle of the desert. No one knows you exist until you make yourself known. So if you ever find yourself where your business isn't growing or you don't have enough prospects, enough customers, or enough distributors - what do you do? Promote! Why do you promote? The reason you promote is to create desire for your product. How would you know that someone desires your product or business? Well certainly if you sent a post card and someone called the number - that's someone showing desire. Even if a person called and asks, "How much is this?" It would still be someone showing desire - or at least slight interest. If you called a friend and asked them to look at something and they said, "Send it to me." That's showing a desire. People sometimes refer to desire as "responses," as in, someone responded to my promotion. Different types of promotion So now let's talk about different types of promotion that create desire. You could promote in: - The Help Wanted, the Sales & Marketing or the Business Opportunity sections of a newspaper, - Advertising section of magazines, - Direct mail, such as sending out post cards to everyone in your zip code, - Door hangers, - Email, banner ads on the internet, - Networking. I'm sure you could have guessed that I would name that one. But you would be surprised at how many people when mentioning all the ways to promote, miss that one. In fact, if you use traditional promotion with the mindset of just finding a network of people to work - you will fare far better than most who only measure their responses with how many people respond to their advertisement. You can turn one response from a promotion into thousands if you properly network. One other place to find prospects is to promote to leads you purchase from a lead company. The advantage of this is you're only paying for those who've responded and you're not paying for all the people who didn't respond. If I send out 10,000 post cards and get 20 responses, then I paid for 9,980 post cards that didn't get a response. The advantage of writing your own ads of course is being able to target your specific audience with your specific product or opportunity message. Which is VERY important and should not be underestimated. In contrast, when you buy leads, you're buying general ads - perhaps people who've responded to wanting a home based business. The other down side to buying leads is that very often, lead companies resell their leads to more than just you - so you've got extra competition to deal with. Three broad ways to promote Now, it probably sounded like I just contradicted myself; I didn't. I just saved you years of running in circles trying to figure the advantages and the disadvantages to generating your own leads or buying leads. This is the game. You must promote. There are three broad ways to promote. 1) Networking - which costs the least - you're going to have costs of meals with prospects - costs of joining clubs and associations. So I have rock climbing club fees, I have mountain climbing association fees, horseback riding fees, mountain biking fees- these are like $50 - $100 dollars a year. 2) Buying leads is more expensive than networking, less expensive than generating your own - but has some advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes you get some hot leads - sometimes, you swear you're calling a graveyard. 3) Generating your own. Most expensive, but has the advantages of targeting your prospects. Here's a list of advertisements that I've run (I've included example post cards on the last page of this bulletin): - Some people earn Ten thousand dollars a year. And some people earn One million in the same year. Click here to see difference. - Need more money; NOW! - Does it ever break your heart to leave your kids at daycare? - Looking for a FUN business? - Go to the golf course when it's not crowded. - The truth about making money. A lot of it. - WEALTH FORMULA. Click here (banner ads) - Wealth formula that takes a lot of effort - but retires you in 4 years. - Extremely well paying position available to right person. Must have sales & marketing experience. Sales training a big plus. - Immediate Need for Effective Sales Person. Unlimited earning and growth potential. Self-starter, sales writing skills and team player will be keys to success in this growing, high tech organization. Will be responsible for generating sales leads, preparing and giving presentations on company products and training sales team for <enter your business type. Example: Fitness, High Tech, or Health> development company. Great benefits. Great FUN TEAM! Fax resume to: Be "in" business The bottom line is you must be using at least one of these three methods. If you're not, you're not in business - you're out of business. What you should be doing, if you see the big picture and want the very big income is you need to be doing all three. All the time. Ideally you start out by networking, which will create enough money to buy leads, then you'll generate enough money from the leads you purchased to generate your own leads. My point is, as soon as you start making any money, reinvest it in promotion. One other thought, don't measure your success by just your immediate responses. Any marketer who is of any value knows that how you measure return on promotion investment is based on the "life of the customer." NOT immediate return. Get one leader from a MONTH or 6-MONTHS of promotion and it can pay you for the rest of your life. People often ask me, how much money did you make your first year in network marketing- I tell them, "I don't know, I'm still earning it." Much respect and admiration, Tim Sales About the Author In 1989, near the end of an 11-year tour with the US Navy Underwater Bomb Squad Team, Tim answered an ad in the Washington Post newspaper that led him to his first and only network marketing company. Five years later his network marketing income rose to over $150,000 per month with over 56,000 people in his organization. His most noted contribution to the Network Marketing Industry is the Brilliant Compensation presentation. In addition, Tim is a teacher at the university-affiliated Network Marketing Certificate Seminar sponsored by the University of Illinois at Chicago. To learn more about Tim visit his website at www.brilliantexchange.com Back to the MLM Woman Newsletter Index We want your feedback! Send e-mail comments to Linda at: regent@west.net Copyright 2004, Regent Press