About 2 years ago now, I joined another network marketing company. During the previous 5 or so years, I'd given up on my network marketing dreams, of financial freedom, and of living the life I've always wanted.
After reading a particularly inspiring Robert Kiyosaki book, however, I decided to give network marketing another shot. After all, I reasoned, with the Internet, things had changed. Surely network marketing had changed with the times as well.
My sponsor was a gentleman in his 70's named David. A very nice, well-mannered man who carried himself well. He and his wife had been doing the business 33 years. Surely he could give me some killer advice and point me in the way to success.
When I asked him about marketing online, however, all he could tell me to do was to use the replicated site that the company issued (for $20/mo.). That was it.
He must have sensed my disappointment. A couple days later, he called and wanted to hook me up with another member of his downline, one who was a "computer expert." I went to this guy's website.
Another disappointment. All his site consisted of was pictures and descriptions of products. It quickly became obvious to me that terms like "traffic generation" and "autoresponders" were as foreign to this computer expert as nuclear physics is to Paris Hilton.
Like it or not, the Internet has permanently changed network marketing. So much, in fact, that it's sometimes difficult to distinguish a network marketing opportunity from an internet marketing opportunity.
To make matters worse, we're slammed every day with new and exciting opportunities, offered the most recent, must-have tools to get the most out of our marketing, and overwhelmed with more information than we know what to do with.
For those of us marketing online, it becomes more difficult every day to stand out from the crowd. With all the loud, obnoxious voices our prospects hear, how can we make sure they hear and respond to ours?
First of all, remember the basics. Network marketing is, was, and always will be a people business. That bears repeating: A PEOPLE business. Not a lead generation business, not an autoresponder business, not a list-building business. But what does that mean?
The Internet is but another tool we use to reach other live human beings. These human beings have bad days at work. They laugh sometimes, they cry sometimes. They worry about their kids' future. They feel guilty that they forgot to send a card on their friend's birthday.
Most of these people won't respond to a website or a company. What they will respond to is another human being. Someone else who has a less than perfect relationship with their parents. Somebody who can relate to them on a human level.
How do we transform ourselves from a name and number on a computer screen to a real human being in the eyes of our prospects? Fortunately, these days it's not so hard.
Video is probably the most effective way to make the change from some electronic entity to flesh and blood. If you could regularly post videos on YouTube, then your prospects can see that you are indeed human.
When you do a video, don't worry about getting everything just perfect. Your prospects aren't perfect, and they're certainly not seeking perfection from you. After all, if you're imperfect and still successful at what you do, that gives them some glimmer of hope as well.
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76
Date Published :
Nov 29 2008