yikes! im new here...so now what?

ok- thanks paul. i agree.

ok- thanks paul. i agree. perhaps i have no real understanding what MLM is...even after i read it on wikipedia!
some insight would be greatly appreciated. what exactly do you do?

Welcome

Stephanie, Welcome aboard. You can visit my main marketing site for free marketing tools/resources as well as great work at home programs. If you need any assistance or have any questions don't hesitate contacting me. I'd be glad to help you.

All the best,

Steve

http://www.garrett-marketing.com

Welcome Aboard

Hi Stephanie

welcome to BN. If you're nt sure what to do or how to get the most out of the site, check out the 'help' section. You'll find some tips in there.

BN is a great place to meet like minded folks. Here you can teach, advise, support, other people on stuff that works to build their business. In return, you get to learn stuff you may not already know.

And the best part is, that you have a community full of potential customers/partners all in one place. You don't have to go chasing round looking for them. Just add value to the site and they will find you.

Susan

Hi Stephanie!

That's some great advice Susan gave you. I could repeat it again but I'll just say dido, and Welcome to BetterNetworker!

Welcome to the Fold

Stephanie,

Welcome to the fold.  Biggest thing in here is to just submit info that helps others, and learn from the tips that others post.

In submitting helpful information, you build credibility and trust with others.  That is, opposed to spamming everyone and filling all of your articles, blogs, forums, and videos with how your "opportunity" is better than everyone else.

The more you provide helpful and worthwhile info, the better you are perceived.

Because it's all about making us all...Better networkers.

hi susan! thanks for the

hi susan!
thanks for the feedback and for NOT POSTING an AD in response...
looking forward to being nurtured here and sharing what i know :)

Thanks!

Thanks!

thanks bill and thank you

thanks bill and thank you too for not posting an AD!
looking forward to getting to know you better! :)

Welcome

So decided to join in on the fun eh? :)

MLM Defined...

Hey Stephanie,
I'm Raymond's business partner, Ferny. He told me a lot about you and your ambitions.

Allow me to pontificate a little bit on what MLM is and how it is similar to other models.

MLM is frequently referred to as a "pyramid scheme" to those in the general public who are at best ignorant. But in order to understand MLM, i want to start with a business model which is very common -- commission bases sales people.

So a sales person gets a commission or a percentage for every sale he/she makes. But since you are only getting paid when you work and perform, there's not much leverage available.

So what companies started doing is setting up "tiered" or "multi level" commission structures, where a sales person is not only paid for their sales, but they can also recruit others to become sales people, train them and for every sale their recruits produce, they also get a commission.

For example, a sales person can make 40% commission for every sale he/she produces. But he/she can also make 20% commission for every sale one of his recruits (downline) makes. So if the recruit makes a sale, the recruit gets 40% and the sales person (upline) gets 20%.

But this model still requires quite a bit of work and you constantly have to be training new recruits (downline), to keep your numbers up.

So this gave rise to "multi-level marketing" or MLM, where a sales person can train and grow a big organization of sales people (downline). Compensation for the sales person at the top is not based so much on commission but overall performance of his entire organization.

Nutrilite was the company who pioneered this model. They were eventually bought by Amway, which was founded by former Nutrilite distributors. So Amway is really the grand daddy of all MLMs.

There's are different kinds of compensation plans available, depending on what MLM company you are dealing with.

Unfortunately, this business model developed a stigma, because of folks like some of the BN members that posted comments here who are just pitching you on their opportunity, and not really demonstrating they care about helping you.

MLM'ers became viewed as "scammers", when in reality, the MLM model is fine and perfectly legal. But the poor salesmanship of MLM reps, kinda stained the business model in the public's eyes.

Therefore the mainstream doesn't cover MLM very much and you wouldn't know about it, unless you were introduced into it by a friend, family member or found an ad for an opportunity somewhere.

In recent times, the internet has given rise to "affiliate marketing", which is the modern version of a commission based sales person. With AM you can send visitors to a merchant site, like Amazon.com. If any of the visitors you send buy something, you get a commission from Amazon for the sale. Just about every major company online has an affiliate program now.

People saw it as a great alternative to MLM, since it was mostly about setting up marketing systems online and using tactics like SEO to send people to a website so they can buy something.

But in recent years the affiliate marketing industry became really competitive and affiliates were looking for a way to have more leverage, and companies responded by offering multi-tier affiliate programms (2 levels and up).

Many affiliate programs are now becoming thinly veiled MLM businesses. In fact, I believe GoDaddy.com's affiliate program is for all intents and purposes is an MLM.

So the business opportunity market has come full circle, and as a result of the internet, MLM and similar business models (like direct sales) have earned a great deal of legitimacy, credibility and has been endorsed by people like Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, Warren Buffet, among others.

In fact Warren Buffet owns 5 MLM companies (last time I checked).

So that's a brief history of MLM on how it may compare to models you may be familiar with.

Ultimately, succeeding in MLM is like succeeding in any other business. you have to have marketing systems in place to generate and process leads for you (get the lead, educate them on what you offer and allow them to buy at any time). Getting people to enter the system is done with advertising.

Online, advertising has taken many forms including SEO, Social media marketing, article marketing, etc. You'll notice on this site people posting articles or videos, then providing a resource link to their website. This is how they generate traffic... or at least try to anyway.

First impressions are everything, so if your article sucks or is just a pitch and not providing value, you won't get much traffic.

I hope this helped a little. Let me know if you have more questions.

-Ferny

wow- that helped!

thanks ferny! that really helped put things into perspective. MLM is basically what i am trying to build...in essence i AM in sales..and earn a commission, etc.
raymond recommended the site- but as soon as i got on i was getting hit up left and right by people posting what seemed like a "nice welcome message" but then as i saw more was just some cheese to buy a book from them, etc..not cool in that way. then i was researching YOUR posts and got a feel that i was in the right place.

i would love to meet you for lunch or coffee sometime :)

getting in...

trying to get in the mix- but was a bit unsure about what was going and the purpose, etc..
it only takes a few people to ruin things for everyone :(
i remain positive and hopeful!!!
looking forward to meeting iva!

You're welcome...

I'm down for coffee... but I prefer margaritas. ;)

I think the fact that people are so obvious about their intentions, is actually a great thing. I makes it really easy for those of us who are genuine about want to help, to set ourselves apart.

But this is not just MLM. It's internet marketing in general or any industry where they are selling business opportunities.

Talk to you soon!
ferny

Yeah... we are trying to fix that :)

Hi Steph,

Yeah, Ferny and I know what you mean about those "few". Don't worry, you'll learn to ignore them soon enough :)

Ferny and I are managing the site, so feel free to send any questions and/or suggestions this way :)

Raymond