Healthy Business » network marketing

Seeking to understand is a lesson in life

wbhawkins — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:03:05 +0000

Seek to understand and you will be more effective

It is always surprising to hear people when they don’t want to learn how to do something which will benefit them. Working with technology for the last twelve years has shown me that you have to keep learning and accept that it never stops. You are always learning because the technology keeps changing and improving.

Of course, when you learn, you begin to understand. Understanding means you have to listen. By listening you cut everything else out of your mind and absorb what you are hearing. The Army has a good acronym which is the basis of all of their training: ‘EDIP – Explain, Demonstrate, Impersonate, Practice‘. It’s simple and it works. By practicing, you transfer all of that ’stuff’ that you see and hear into your long term memory. When you do that, you become skilled and things make sense because you have gained experience.

To learn takes effort. To practice takes discipline. When you put the effort in and keep ‘at it’ new perspectives on your subject appear. This is when you ‘get it’. But you have to start with an attitude of seeking to understand. That simple phrase is one of the pillars of being effective in whatever you do in life.

It took me five years to ‘get’ this business. It took that long because I started off not wanting to understand how network marketing works. But, my sister-in-law persisted and I started to see how it works and I was amazed at its simplicity. This simplicity is often an aspect of the business which most people find suspicious about network marketing. Most people seem determined to make a simple plan complicated because they think it sounds better and gives them some sort of comfort.

Network marketing is designed to simple and replicable. Being replicable is what most people in traditional business want to avoid. They want to be unique. Being able to replicate the business is a cornerstone of network marketing. And understanding these and others principles is when you suddenly see how far you can take the business.

However, most people are very wary about network marketing. They have prejudices about it which are founded in activities which were made illegal thirty years ago. This stops people from wanting to understand about the business. They block it out. They think it is a ‘get rich quick scheme‘ when, in fact, with persistence, time and duplication this business is actually a ‘get rich slow business‘.

It’s shame. Because it is an amazing business strategy which can change your life. But, you have to understand it, drop your misinformed opinions and learn. It’s worth it.

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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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My First Recruit

wbhawkins — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:43:06 +0000

It's about who you know, like and trust

It has been about two weeks since I started working on my new business in earnest and I have learnt a lot already. It’s not easy but when it works (and it does work), it is the most satisfying feeling to experience success. My first success has come in the form of my first team member.

My team member is running his own business already and wants to run his Forever Living business in parallel to his vending enterprise. We worked together in a former life and we got on well. He had looked at the business five years ago but had not known anyone in the business to understand what it was really like.

He got in touch with me after I emailed him asking if he knew anyone who was looking for an opportunity to start their own business or to earn some extra income. He called me to catch up and my up-line manager, Cora, and I took him through the details of the business.

This business is really built upon people who know you, like you and trust you. I’m looking forward to working with my new team member again and helping him to reach his goals. This business will enable him to work around his existing commitments while he develops his retail sales and his own team.

I have now planned to run my first ‘product launch’ next week in conjunction with a new, local spa who have offered me their ‘relaxation room’ (which is fabulous) to show people our range of health, nutrition and well being products and presents.

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Three principles for success

wbhawkins — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:19:00 +0000

Follow the principles to succeed

I think it was Eddie Cochran who said that there are ‘three steps to heaven’. His three steps were finding a a girl to love, followed by getting her to fall in love with you and ending by kissing and holding her tight. It sounds easy and romantic.

But finding a girl to love is, generally, quite hard to do when you are young. Some people don’t achieve it at all. Many keep their girl for the shortest of times. Getting her to fall in love with you is the next challenge. How the heck do you do that? You take her out, make her laugh, make her feel special and hope one of these methods sticks, because you know that prize of her kiss is waiting for you when you succeed. Eddie Cochran knew that holding her tight was important because you have worked so darned and invested so much of yourself in the process that you don’t want to lose her. That would be a disaster.

In this business, there are three steps to heaven too. They sound easy. They are easy to understand. They make sense. But like anything, anyone following the principles needs to follow them religiously to get the prize.

The first success principle is ‘consistent effort‘. This business needs you to do certain things each day and everyday. You need to put the business in front of people every day through phone calls, meetings, presentations and training. By doing this, you make sure that you increase your chances of selling products and recruiting people to your team.

The next principle is ‘duplication‘. Over several decades, Forever Living has fine tuned a business model which is easily duplicable. That sounds odd to most people but it is a sound principle which ensures that the business model is easy to learn and to follow so that people can get going quickly when you recruit them and train them in the business.

Finally, you have to ‘give it enough time’. Most people think this business is either a get rich quick scheme. It’s not. You need to be patient and work it along building it up steadily through hard work and following the plan. That’s why many people drop out just at the point when they could have seen it grow hugely.

I am at the early stages of my business and I am already getting success. Following the plan takes discipline, dedication and some sacrifice. But when you have worked hard and remained patient you will reach that goal which compelled you to start the business.

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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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How network marketing works

wbhawkins — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:23:36 +0000

Network marketing is about knowing, liking and trusting people

Networking is part of my being. It is part of most people’s way of life but they often fail to realise this because they just do it everyday. When you work with someone for a number of years, you get to know them. When you go to school with someone, you spend six to eight hours, at least, with them every day and you soon get to know them and they get to know you too. Over a period of time, you understand their habits, their passions and dislikes, their taste in music, fashion, food and friends. It’s natural.

Every week, I attend a business networking breakfast at a hotel where a group of us get together and talk about our businesses. One of the group gets up each week and gives presentation about their business and how they can help people. In addition, one person gives a quick ‘learning point’ about something they believe will be applicable to everyone around the table in their businesses. There is time to chat over our breakfast with whomever you are sitting next to and to hear their news. The group is diverse. There are solicitors, health and safety experts, accountants, web specialists, printers, financial experts, HR specialists and sales training experts.

I have been going to this for over six months and it has been interesting to see how many people in the group stick with the networking group and how many drop out. Most have stayed the course but some have dropped out. Those that have dropped out of the group left because they were not getting any business from it, as far as they could see. But, the funny thing is that after a few months of slow business, the group has started to increase the amount of business beig carried out.

The reason is clear. It is down to the simple fact that we are starting to get to know, like and trust each other. Those that have persisted with the early mornings have started to gain from it. The level of humour and noise has increased as people have begun to understand each other. People have done business amongst themselves and they have seen how professional they have been with them and so they now feel comfortable to refer them to their own contacts.

Some people that come to the group expecting instant business have totally missed how networking works. They think that they need to sell to everyone around the table. But the opportunity for business is not immediately at the table. The opportunity is with the contacts of the people at the table. The hard earned contacts of the people at the table will not be easily handed over without that person knowing that you are a trustworthy person.

When you are known, liked and trusted then you will find that your persistence with networking will bring you business which is profitable, sustainable and strong. And that is why people who have good reputations and who have good contacts and networks do well in companies like Forever Living. They succeed because they contribute to their network by helping people first and foremost. They don’t push their products or services onto people. They listen to people and understand people’s circumstances and recommend people who can help them if they cannot. Network marketers are in it for the long term and not just for a quick buck.

So, when someone approaches you with their network marketing business, it is probably someone you know well and you probably like and trust them. So don’t dismiss them as just someone trying to sell you something. They are doing something which is far deeper than that. They are paying you a great compliment because they know, like and trust you and would never approach you with something which they did not believe was anything but the best.

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Why people are suspicious of network marketing

wbhawkins — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 21:26:26 +0000

People are prepared to accept the grind of life but not that there is an honest alternative

It’s a funny thing, the human mind. It’s prepared to accept and reject the most bizarre things sometimes.

For example, some people have faith in their god. I admire that because it shows that people are strong minded and they believe in something. They will have moments of doubt about their beliefs, of course, but they fall back on their values, their faith and their community to help them keep on track.

In our working lives, we are educated, trained and conditioned to work in a routine that revolves around our societies working in a routine which, in general, a day which starts at about 9am and finishes at about 5pm.

To get to our places of work or study, we all set off at about the same time and try to get through an infrastructure which cannot cope with the numbers of people who want to get through a space designed for fewer numbers. This is why traffic jams occur at the same time and place each day, and which many people just sit through because they think they have no other alternative to this routine. People accept this bizarre waste of time and only feel able to express their exasperation by honking their horn or swearing at other people in the same jam.

And yet, with small adjustments to your daily routine, you can travel the same way to work in much less time, be more productive at work and feel less stressed by simply, say, working from home for an hour in the morning when you would normally be in the car thereby missing the ‘rush hour’. Try it. If you have a job which allows a little flexibility then ask for it. It will change your life in a small but significant way.

When it comes to network marketing or ‘team marketing’ people dismiss it as ‘pyramid selling’. Their perception of network marketing is one of innocent or vulnerable people buying a stack of products from the top of the ‘pyramid’ and desperately trying to sell it to people lower than them in the pyramid. That could not be further from the truth.

Network marketing is a distribution strategy which cuts out the traditional route that products take to reach their market from the manufacturer such as agents, distributors, wholesalers, sales people and retailers and which provides a greater share of the profits to the manufacturer and the distributor.

Part of my working life in a traditional business involved me persuading wholesalers to buy a large amount of products of which I would only accept a small amount of their orders to be returned to our business if they did not sell it. My customers had to make a calculated risk on how much they thought they could sell to their customers knowing that mistakes in purchasing would cost them a lot of money. Far from being vulnerable, my customers in that business were very astute and had a lot of market knowledge which enable them to forecast their sales and, therefor, their purchases.

This is the vital factor for why pyramid schemes were so bad because innocent and naive people bought products, such as water filters, about which they had no information about the real market for these products compared to highly skilled and experienced buyers in professional companies.

In good network marketing companies, the manufacturer supplies all of its distributors directly at the same price at all levels of the team. Products are ordered by the distributor when a customer orders and pays for them. Anyone who has any business sense knows that this is good business. No stock is held by the distributor. Cash flow is good because no money is tied up in unsold stock. Distributors are rewarded for training other people in their teams who sell products as a consequence of the training. It’s a business, remember, and products need to be bought and sold.

So, why are people suspicious of network marketing? It comes down to two things. Firstly, the bad experiences of people who were scammed by pyramid schemes in the 1970’s still linger in people’s conscience. They have a blind reaction to something which was made illegal nearly thirty years ago and they have no desire to seek to understand how network marketing works.

Secondly, we are conditioned to believe that there is only one honourable way for businesses to work because this is how everyone else is carrying out business. People are more prepared to put up with the grind of their daily routines than they are prepared to get into a business which will allow them all to achieve all of the things that they dream about doing with their lives rather than what their employers allow them to do. People are prepared to take huge risks with new business ventures which fail more often than they succeed, and which run the risk of them losing their health, wealth and families than they are to get into a business which has no financial risks and which has a simple, proven business model.

So, if you are suspicious about network marketing and you think it is nothing more than a shoddy pyramid scheme, then I suggest you do two things. Firstly, contact me so I can show you what a good, honest and ethical business I am part of and running. Secondly, come along to one of our events and meet other decent, honest people I work with who will never put you under pressure to enter a business which you don’t first understand.

When you have done this, then you might grasp just how amazingly good network marketing business can be for anyone who is prepared to persist with a simple, proven business which changes people’s lives for the better.

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Why people in network marketing are so happy

wbhawkins — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:29:14 +0000

Being happy is encouraged

From the outside, people you may know who run their own network marketing based businesses probably appear to be highly enthusiastic about what they do. You might even think that this enthusiasm is evangelical in its fervour. I have heard that some people think that people in network marketing are “brainwashed”. They are keen, effervescent and highly motivated.

To many people, this enthusiasm seems odd. Our culture sometimes discourages people from being overtly enthusiastic about their work. Occasionally, I hear people comment about anyone who smiles a lot. “What’s wrong with him or her?” “Why are they smiling all of the time?”

I have just started my own network marketing business and I did it for very good reasons. I have spent many years working in large or medium sized businesses which include the British Army, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard. Much of my business career has been disappointing in terms of the level of the leadership, management and enthusiasm. I have had moments of great fun in my working career but I can count the number of years where I was truly happy at work on one hand.

Most of the rest of the time was miserable. I was expected to work hard and be grateful that I was working in such a well-known business. Or the business had employed me to do something which turned out to be impossible to achieve because they had not appreciated just what was needed to make it feasible. Sometimes, I was given a target to achieve to which a bonus was payable when it was achieved and exceeded only to be disappointed when, at the last moment, it was denied to me despite having beaten my targets. Working in corporate life became increasingly dissatisfying and my morale was often low.

Contrast that to the network marketing business I have joined and started, Forever Living. The team of which I am part is full of enthusiastic people who love what they do. They like their products. They enjoy helping other people and they enjoy the support and enthusiasm that the business they work with shows towards them.

But, more importantly, having talked to lots of successful people in Forever Living, I began to realise why they are so happy. The products and the company are excellent, yes, but there is more to their enthusiasm than meets the eye. I realised that the reason they are so happy is that they are very clear about why they are running their independent businesses. They run their businesses to help them achieve their dreams which might be a great holiday each year, financial independence, putting their children through good schools, international travel or just having more time with their families. They are happy because they make the choices about their lives and what they want to do with them.

Contrast that with traditional businesses or workplaces which provide you with a way to get through each month and which are often filled with people who care little for you. I know where I would rather work.

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