I think we all miss something when marketing business opportunities and that is the important fact that everything is not for everybody.
You may feel, actually, you should feel that your business opportunity is the best one available, that’s why you got involved, but what is never said is that your business opportunity isn’t really the best one available, it’s the best one available for you.
Every product cannot be the best, every compensation plan cannot be the best, every company can not be the best. None of them are the best business opportunity overall.
I’m not talking about Add-Ons, businesses that we add on to our primary business, normally offering marketing services, like APSense for example, I’m talking about that one company that you just love, the one that is going to make you wealthy, the one you just can’t understand why everyone doesn’t see what you see, that it is without a doubt the best opportunity on the planet and everyone should be joining right now.
One unfortunate aspect of marketing business opportunities online is that people jump from one to another, they don’t really care what the company is all about, they don’t care about the product and don’t really even care to understand the compensation plan, someone said it was the best, they signed up, if they don’t make any money in a very short period of time they are off to the next “best” opportunity. They have no reason to stay since they had no real reason to sign up to begin with, they just did because someone told them to.
That makes no sense at all in the real world of business, but I’m no hypocrite, I’ve done it, I’ve been through phases over the past 11 years where I have jumped around like a newbie with a gold card.
What I failed to realize then and what many of us still fail to realize when we are marketing or when we are being marketed to is that no business is for everyone.
A compensation plan that’s great for you may not appeal to me, a product that you think is incredible and amazing may just bore me to death and there are many other aspects to any business opportunity that may or may not appeal to someone.
It is your job as a marketer to make me see things your way, same with any commercial on TV or any salesperson, however, what people seem to forget is that they need to convince me why it’s a great opportunity for me, not why it’s a great opportunity to them. The trick is to find out what’s important to me, this was easier when Network Marketing was done offline, but with social networking so popular now, we are getting back a little bit of the personal touch that was lost when the Internet came along.
I’ve made this mistake, rambled on and on about a compensation plan that I knew was a real winner to someone who had no interest at all in compensation plans, I still don’t get that but that doesn’t matter, what matters is what’s important to your prospect.
This all comes down to what I was saying at the beginning, your opportunity is right for you, mine is right for me, none are right for everyone. When marketing, explain why you feel your opportunity is so wonderful, market to those that are already interested in your opportunity or at least your type of product, market to those in the competition or those checking out the competition. Always keeping in mind that if I hate matrix plans, you aren’t going to sign me up into your company that uses a matrix plan no matter what you say and it’s ok, it doesn’t mean anything except your business is not right for me.
Even more important than the marketer side, is the side of the person being marketed to, if you are in the market for a business, you really should know what fits you best. What type of payplan works best for you, what price point are you comfortable paying and promoting, what product gets you excited, do you like start-ups or established companies and do you feel passionate about the business opportunity overall, if you don’t, if you are thinking about signing up because someone promised you riches overnight, spillover, money for nothing, a cure for every illness known to man, then you should stop yourself and say, “is this right for me?”.
If you don’t do that, then you are just chasing money and you will always be chasing money because you will never find the business that fits you best because you simply don’t know or don’t care what business that is.
If you are thinking, “I don’t really care, I just want to make money”, I can tell you from experience that unless you get really lucky, you better start caring or you never will make the kind of money you have in mind.
Learn compensation plans.
Learn the product categories for our industry.
Decide what price point is comfortable for you to get started.
Decide what price point is comfortable for you on a monthly basis, if at all.
Decide on if you want to get involved in a start up or an established company.
Decide if you want to focus on marketing tools and services (add-on businesses) or if you want to focus on one primary company.
Understand how you will need to market a particular company, I turned down a very well know, successful company that had a lot to offer, great products and compensation along with a solid track record because I realized that I would have to market it offline to be successful and that just wasn’t for me. They were teaching home parties and stuff, it was like being stuck in 1995, but that works for them, it would not have worked for me.
So, what is your skill? Phone? Writing? Face to Face? Videos? Social Networks? It will take you some time to know your skill, but once you do, you will then be able to see if the way you market best fits with the way the company you are checking out needs to be marketed.
Taking your business to another level, taking it seriously, means finding the business that’s best for you, not the one that’s the hottest of the month, not the one everyone has jumped on this week, not the one that leader is pushing or your buddy just got into, the one that is best for you, because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
Wishing You Amazing Success,
Jim Vigilante
Sex Sells In Network Marketing
I wasn’t going to rant about the new trend in Network Marketing that has been getting under my skin a bit over the past year, I had conflicting thoughts on the subject, so I figured I would just keep them to myself, but I saw something recently that made it impossible for me to keep my mouth shut.
The new trend is the beautiful young marketers who have realized that video is fun and profitable, especially when you look like they do and plaster yourself all over the Social Networks.
I didn’t really have an issue with this, it’s not their fault they look the way they do and video is now the popular marketing format, so they are just being smart in getting the attention of prospects. Not to be one sided, I’ve seen guys do it too, only with them it’s more like, look at us, we’re young, cool and rich, wouldn’t you like to be too? Yes of course, sign me up.
So, thanks to video marketing, we are seeing exactly what we see on our TVs, young and beautiful, successful and having fun, selling whatever they are selling that is going to allow you to be just like them.
No problem right? I shouldn’t be saying anything about it, it’s marketing, it works, it’s not nearly as bad as the hype and misleading information that this industry is well known for, which is exactly why I haven’t said anything about it until I saw this ad on Facebook;
—————-
Yes, I Want A Rich Boy
(Insert Picture of Hot Girl Here)
Make money on the internet right now. I can show you how to fill up your
bank account. No boss, No 40 hour job and hot girls like me!
—————–
Really? You have got to be kidding me.
Not only do I have to compete with the best marketers online, people spending massive amounts of money on advertising, slick, beautifully designed systems, teams, groups, hype, people that will say anything to get a sign up, Name brands, etc. etc. etc. but now I have to compete with the hottie selling sex.
Oh, yes she did.
“Yes, I want a rich boy” means that if you get rich you may have a shot with her and that last line doesn’t even really make sense,
but it implies that you will be able to hang out with hot girls like her if you get involved in the industry, with her at least.
Is this really where we have gone with our Network Marketing businesses?
To top it off, this is not a desperate person, this isn’t a fake person, not someone pretending to be a beautiful young lady, this is a real marketer who is well known and is supposedly very successful. I’m not going to name her and I don’t know her personally, but over the past year or so she has gotten very popular and has been hanging around with some of the Guru guys.
My problem is not just the “sex sells” aspect of the ad, although I think this is going to effect the way some of the others market, who as I said, love to show off on video but have kept it very “G” rated so far, although I find it amusing that they do jump in front of the camera everytime they have the slightest little thing to share. Hey, whatever works right.
What I’m really bitching about is this:
I can’t compete with this. If you are a better marketer than me, if you have more money to spend than me, if you are just plain out right smarter than me, I can learn, I can make more money, I can spend more time, I can work harder, I can find other ways, but I cannot be a hot 20something woman, so yes, I’m straight up complaining.
I’m totally annoyed and am ready to photo shop some pictures of myself, start working out, dress myself up or leave off the shirt if I can get myself nice and buff and start putting up ads saying that I’m looking for women that want to hang out with me to join my business, I’m sure my wife would love that and my kids, well, who cares what they think, nothing wrong with pretending to whore myself out, it’s all about sign ups right.
Even better, I can call up my 30 year old swimsuit model sister and ask her if she wants to join the party, since this is where we are headed, she wouldn’t have to do much of anything, just look hot on video and read off what I write, sign ups will be rolling in and my job title just changed to PIMP.
How nice.
Another reason and this effects all of us, not just me, you can’t do what they do either.
If you join with them, you can’t do what they do, they can’t teach you anything because all of their success is based on video marketing, social networking and looking the way they do.
You can video market, but it won’t work as well and you may look like them, but that doesn’t mean you are going to be comfortable jumping in front of the camera 4 times a week to show off.
You certainly may not be willing to place ads like the one above on Facebook.
These young ladies like to teach social network marketing along with video marketing, good stuff to learn, however, once again, social networks favor them, let’s be honest, it’s going to take a 40 year old man a really long time to get 5000 friends on Facebook, a 25 year old hot red head can do it in a few months and it only takes that long because Facebook will red flag your ass if you are collecting friends like you’re Megan Fox.
Someone that’s not even interesting in Network Marketing, never had any intention of starting a home business, would be enticed by one of these marketers, sign up, make no money at all, cry about it and become just another casualty, trashing the industry to everyone they know. People join this business for all the wrong reasons all of the time, but I can’t think of a worse reason than how hot your sponsor is or the implication that you may get a girlfriend out of it.
Someone that is involved in the industry, but doesn’t have that much experience and is sponsor shopping, could also be taken in by one of the new wave of marketing beauties, but again, what does that do for them? How does that help them? Unless you are holding out for some spillover, signing up with her didn’t help you at all.
Now, I will say, I am all for using your talents, skills, attributes, money, intelligence, good looks, whatever benefits you may have to help you become successful in life, however, in this case, what they are doing is equal to me promising you $90,000 in 90 days, money for nothing, just sign up and get paid and all of those other misleading tactics that are used in this industry. It is the same, you may not agree, but when you are promising “Hot Girls Like Me” in your ad, what’s the difference?
I completely understand that everyone will not agree with me on this subject and I am positive those women could care less what I think, they shouldn’t, just as I don’t care what anyone thinks about this post, you can agree or not, they can be offended or not, I’m still right and this is a bad direction for our industry, if anyone actually cares about the industry as a whole anymore, if anyone cares about the people in the industry anymore, but maybe the Internet has finally destroyed it completely, it’s been doing that for years, this could just be the way it is now, money, sex, power, just like everything else in life, shouldn’t be surprising, but it does make me a little sad.
Time to go exercise!
Jim Vigilante