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[Michele Rosborough Contribution Level: 1]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to turn this over to the forum here for your input if any of you are interested. I have to write a course for a local adult education centre here in NC. Basically it's a course for NM beginners.

What I would be interested to know is:

Were there any particular topics or questions you would have liked to be answered as a beginner prior to becoming involved in NM?

I should mention that this will be a generic course, non specific to Arbonne and will be over 4 to 6 weeks....depending on when my writer's cramp kicks in :laugh:

Cheers,

Michele

[Malika Duke Contribution Level: 3]

There is a short video by Tim Sales called "what the poor, middle class and rich buy on payday" that explores a business being an asset. He has another called "brilliant compensation" which explains the concept of leveraging through the efforts of others. You may have heard of them...I find them to be awesome prereq's for why NM is such a viable option for many. If you go to the site brilliantcompensation.com yuou cqan get more info! Of you need anymore help, contact me via MS profile. how did you get them to agree to that course at the adult edu center? please share!

[Michele Rosborough Contribution Level: 1]

Hi there,

Yep I know of Tim Sales well and his products.

LOL! As for them agreeing to put this course on at an adult ed. centre. I rang them up and asked them! :)

But seriously...

I am a member of a few local networking groups and quite often give talks on various topics. I had thought of putting a local course together before as I get tired of the mis-information out there. The timing is right for me now to do this.

I have a degree and background in marketing but to be honest come from the 'college of common sense'. So with that I just rang a local education centre here, introduced me, talked about my background, what I wanted people to achieve through a course such as this, outlined how it would be beneficial to their own business and bob's your uncle...they said yes.

Let me know if you need me to expand on anything.

Cheers,

Michele

[Michele Rosborough Contribution Level: 1]

Ok thanks for that thought. So if you didn't join for years because of a perceived lack of a market, what changed that decision for you?

thanks,

Michele


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p.s. If anyone wants to PM me their answer
rather than posting - please feel free.

[Caryn Hefferren Contribution Level: 1]

Well, you're probably done by now but...

I wish I had been given more 3rd party information about the industry. All I was told was that NM was becoming more mainstream, ie Dr. Charles King and the Direct Selling Association. I'd never heard of either of those so "so what?" I had to convince myself by digging up articles from Fortune and Entrepeneur and doing my own Dun and Bradstreet inquiries, etc. to assure me it's not the ol' pyramid thing. Have you seen this Arbonne piece from Chicago's ABC channel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX37a9Vw31I ? That is golden! Everybody's heard of ABC. And the Trump/Kiyosaki book is great 3rd party validation. Everybody's heard of Donald Trump.

Another thing that I wish I knew is how to run it like a business. NM is beautiful in that the every day Joe has the opportunity to do it but the every day Joe doesn't know how to run a business. I'm talking balance sheets, accounting, taxes, getting a small business loan, setting up a business entity, covering your costs, stuff like that. All these people are out there trying to sell others on opportunities to make additional money for their families but they themselves don't realize until tax time that they are losing money and lots of it. Sure, starting a business takes money and you have to be willing to invest but you can't go broke doing it. I wish I had an education on covering your expenses, ie funded proposals, etc. All I was told was take people out to lunch and shove a bunch of expensive brochures at them. Now I realize that's just not smart business. TCO and ROI!

I don't know if that's what you wanted but those are the 2 biggies for me that I wish I had known about.

[Michele Rosborough Contribution Level: 1]

Hey Caryn,

That's exactly what I'm talking about! As regards the industry, it's all third party validation that I am incorporating and you are right in that no-one in NM teaches you how to actually run an NM business like a business so that's a topic I wanted to cover. I asked my group a few weeks ago how many of them had done a business plan? -Zero- So that's something I had brought in. People normally get a stunned look when you mention business plan but for something like this it's not as if you're looking for VC (not that you'd get it!):) So just something simple 'average Joe' can follow and implement.

LOL and you are not too late, I'm still writing it and bringing in new topics all the time. I have two 'focus groups' of network marketers that I am testing it on here, from all different NM companies.

I had hoped to get it up and running for the summer but now it looks like it may be autumn by the time I go full steam ahead with this as in the middle of doing it I found out I am pregnant so am working a bit s-l-o-w-e-r than normal!:laugh:

Cheers,

Michele

[Caryn Hefferren Contribution Level: 1]

Oooooooooooh...how exciting! Congratulations! Now you can use the baby products! :lol:

How ya feeling? I had a life changing event in February when I had to pull my first grader out of school. I've been homeschooling him ever since. It's been fun but a little stressful and definitely a slight derailment from my business. C'est la view.

I'm really excited for you! Hope you are feeling groovy.:)

[Anne Marrinan Contribution Level: 1]

Hi Fellow Arbonners
I am based in Australia and joined Arbonne late last year.

In answer to your question-what would we have liked to have known or understood?-probably a CLEAR explanation of the different types(structurally) of compensation plans.

After all-we should know how we are paid:)
The plan structure determines the manner in which we build our businesses(how wide, how deep-how that impacts on how you are paid etc)It's really crucial to know the pros and cons of the different types of plans-that way there are no unhappy surprises if you know in advance what to expect.

For example- if one is planning to market globally, it is imperative the company has a SEAMLESS global pay plan(Arbonne does) Years ago when I was with another company in the UK I assumed because they were also in the US I could recruit in the US. I could-but it would have been a completely separate business with qualifications, volume etc in the UK being irrelevant in the US. That was a huge boo boo on my part and cost me dearly.

Also in light of the desire to market online it would be good to be aware of different company views on that issue.

Just want to say I'm really thrilled to be able to connect with other Arbonne consultants with a desire to market online-its a challenge and a little scary because its not very "mainstream" Arbonne-a party plan type of approach is what is being taught here so I'm a bit of a lone ranger(I think) but I feel that I owe it to my downline who aren't looking for a bigger why(they already know why)they are looking for a better how :ohmy: