Healthy Business » aloe vera

Network Marketing is so Web 2.0

wbhawkins — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 11:06:22 +0000

Network marketing was built for Web 2.0

If you read what’s happening in marketing, of which advertising is a part, then you will know that this world is changing dramatically. For example, no longer do we watch TV when we are told to watch it. We can record TV using our digital boxes and watch it when we can fit it into our busy lives. When we watch the show we recorded, we can whiz through the advertisements.

Print advertising is no longer as effective as it used to be. People are buying less newspapers and magazines, and it less than certain at best that your advertisement is going to have an impact. Telemarketing is getting blocked out by ‘telephone preference services’ and email is getting blocked by spam filters. Direct mail is getting placed directly into the bin (let’s hope it’s the recycling one).

So, the new phenomenon is called social media where friends, colleagues and contacts congregate online and share what’s going on in their lives, whether that’s telling the world what they are eating right now (I can see a tweet on my screen now from someone telling me they are eating bread, cheese & marmite and washing it down with a bottle of aloe vera drink!). Some people scoff at it as a waste of time. But, the reality is that it is becoming a major source of influence for many people.

Social media and the term ‘Web 2.0′ are all about the new capability of web sites and tools, as well as the desire of people to share thoughts, ideas and information with people they know. This is from where much of our influences in choices about products, people and services derive today. And, on that matter, this is not new. We have always spoken to our friends, family and contacts for their thoughts on their experiences on a product or service. It’s just that the internet now makes it much easier to reach to people than was previously possible.

Big companies with big marketing teams are now struggling to handle this new approach. They are all geared up to ‘interrupt’ our lives with email blasts, TV ads, direct mail, SMS, poster, inserts, wobblers, banner ads on web sites, people shoving poor quality newspapers in your hand in the street, and activities which were deemed normal in the past but which are now blocked out by people at the receiving end.

It’s now a recognised fact that about 70% of all products and services are researched on the internet today before they are purchased. People don’t go to a manufacturer’s site to find out whether a product or service is any good or not. Oh no. They ask their friends, they check out web sites, blogs and forums for opinions and reviews. They block out the traditional marketing from the manufacturer knowing that it is biased.

So, what has this got to do with network marketing? People scoff at network marketing as some sort of ghastly, brainwashed cult that sells products through illegal pyramid schemes. It could not be further from the truth. Like social media, network marketing is based upon people who know, like and trust you.

The business I am in, Forever Living, does not advertise its products and it does not sell them through high street shops. Our products sell through recommendation. Anyone who owns a business wants people to recommend their product or service because they know it is powerful, more powerful than some marketer saying their product is great so you should buy it.

Take last night, for instance. I spent some time last night with two people who came along to hear about my products. I knew one of them from work in the recent past. She’s a great person who knows me quite well. She brought a friend of hers along, who was lovely, with her to see what all the fuss was about who had never heard of our business and products.

I showed them our products, let then try them and talked about how they had helped other people. My old workmate, without prompting, said she knew someone who had used one of the aloe vera drinks we produce to help them with a problem with their digestion and it had worked. Another mutual friend has used our aloe propolis creme for a long standing skin condition on her face. She had told me that within three days the creme had started to make a positive difference to her skin.

That meeting last night with two people I know was all about knowing, liking and trusting people and their views. That is what successful network marketing businesses are built upon. Recommendation from your friends and contacts. It’s what marketing teams in big companies dream about and which they are failing to achieve through the ‘interruption techniques’ they have used until now to let you know about their product or service.

Networking marketing is powerful and relies upon good people recommending good products to people who know, like and trust them. People who own network marketing business understand ‘inbound marketing’ where they don’t rely on old marketing techniques to sell their products. They rely on trust and word of mouth which is exactly what social media and ‘web 2.0′ is all about.

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Who gets network marketing?

wbhawkins — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 23:31:16 +0000

It's a rational business decision.

Building a business is a tough thing to do. You need not only a good idea (which, to be frank, is the easy bit), you need to know how to execute your idea so that people know about it, understand it, feel comfortable with it and ultimately decide that your business idea, service or product is something that they will buy from you. When you have been in business for a while, you get to know what questions to ask about a business before you commit to it.

For instance, some years back I was keen on buying into a franchise which is a yacht brokerage. I was looking at selling other people’s yachts, boats and dinghies. With a franchise, the key commitment that the franchiser is looking for is the fee that you pay to buy into their ‘proven’ system. Before I was going to do that, I did some market research into the ‘area’ which would have been my allocated territory.

My research showed me that the market was not for yachts and boats in the centre where they suggested was the best spot, but was, in fact, the inland waterways. Inland waterways are a totally different market to yachts and so, I concluded, I would be better off starting my own business selling barges, cruisers and narrow boats rather than investing and borrowing £90,000 to get into the franchise for yacht sales.

A few years later, I started my own business in live, online learning training IT professionals around the world through the internet. In short, everyone thought the idea was great, but the business struggled and I ran out of money to be able to carry on with it. I lost quite a lot of money in the process but I learned many lessons.

When it comes to starting a network marketing business, I could immediately see that the idea is good, the business is proven, there is a ready and untapped market in the UK, there is no franchise fee to worry about, I believe in the products, I have all the right skills and experience to be able to make it work and I can start it part-time and work it around my other commitments.

This week I spoke with an old business friend of mine about the business with the help of Cora, my sister-in-law, and presented the business over the internet. My contact was very open about the business and was keen to understand the details. He had come across the Forever Living business five years ago but had not pursued it because, amongst one or two other reasons, he had not known anyone in the business to understand why people were so positive about it.

Furthermore, he had spent several years working in the food industry marketing health food products, so he understood the market well. His main enthusiasm from our presentation was the fact that over half of the business’s revenue comes from one aloe vera drink. As a businessman, he understood the business model and knew that the business model is not some wacky scheme but that network marketing is a proven business strategy. His enthusiasm for the opportunity was based on rational thinking and experience.

The plain fact is that people understand and enthuse about this networking business for different reasons. Many because they believe in the products. Some because they can also see the opportunity. Others because they see how it can help them achieve what they want to achieve in their lives which ordinary jobs can never provide on their own.

All of them see it for what it is, which is an unconventional business which helps people. It is honest, non-pushy, high quality and enables those who want to change their lives change them for the better. If you don’t believe it, then that’s fine.

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Just doing it

wbhawkins — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 10:22:15 +0000

Just getting on with it is liberating

I have procrastinated for far too long. Five years, in fact. I have watched, listened and spoken with my sister-in-law about her business for so long that I just got to the point where I could not see why I should not join her in the business.

My sister-in-law, Cora McKeown, has steadily and steadfastly developed her business from almost nothing into a full-time business which is set to make her very wealthy in more ways than just financially. Cora has developed from being a highly qualified and experienced nurse into a highly motivated businesswoman and leader in five years.

Her business is based around two aspects: a) health and nutrition/wellness industry b) coaching and leadership. It’s a business which is part of a larger organisation, Forever Living, that is growing enormously and which has an utterly different way of doing business than the ‘traditional businesses’ where many of us work today.

Over the next few weeks, I am going to write about this business and my part in it. It’s going to be tough. I am going to have to unlearn lots of things that traditional businesses do as the norm and which I do a second nature which will not be relevant in this business.

I am excited and apprehensive as I have ever been about this and I will share why over the coming weeks.

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