Liz Monte Designing a business notecard for sending thankyous to people I meet at mixers. This was Bob Burg's idea.

A year and a half ago, I joined a local chapter of Toastmasters International.  For my first speech, the one they call the "Icebreaker," in which you are supposed to tell about yourself, I recounted my history as an aspiring entrepreneur. In the last 25 years, I've had one continuous long string of home-based businesses -- failed home-based businesses.  And by "failed," I mean that I quit before I achieved success.

My list of entrepreneurial flops included gigs as a free-lance secretary (actually, I didn't really fail at that one, I just got bored with it); funny-face character model (I was really good at it, but the market I lived in -- Washington, DC -- wasn't big enough to sustain a career); interior decorator (I finally realized I just didn't care enough whether or not the client found the perfect knicknack for their end table); liquidation broker (sometimes referred to by others in the retail industry as a "bottom feeder"); artist's agent (never start a business selling high-end luxury goods two weeks before a terrorist attack); freelance editor/proofreader (my main client was the Journal of Oncology -- you would not believe the photos -- eeyew!); and network marketer.  Except I can't really say that I've failed as a network marketer because I haven't quit yet.  And I have no intention of quitting. Although I also can't truthfully say I've succeeded yet, either.

Appropriately, my favorite quote is by Winston Churchill:  "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

And some anonymous person:  "You can't fail if you never quit."

I started my current network marketing business in 1995.  I've been with the same company the whole time -- totally faithful to their products, although I've made quite a few detours into other non-MLM "businesses", as chronicled above.  I love the whole idea of network marketing, but I've never been able to make it work for me.  It hasn't been the fault of my company or its products -- the products have literally saved my life and I LOVE the company.

Much as I hate to admit it, it's the way I've been doing it. 

In September 2007, I stumbled across Ann Seig's books and got turned on to the concept of attraction marketing.  A year later in September 2008, after hearing about it for months, I finally read Mike Dillard's "Magnetic Sponsoring," and everything came into sharper focus.  (I'm slow.) 

Apart from the fact that I'm totally convinced that attraction marketing is the only way to truly succeed in this industry, there are aspects of it that really resonate with me -- the whole idea of giving freely without expecting anything back, for example. This is very much in synch with the person I want to become.  (Don't get me wrong -- I'm also in this for the money. I very much want to become financially independent so that I can volunteer full-time for my favorite non-profit.)

So my first step in becoming an attraction marketer was to build a website about attraction marketing. Flying by the seat of my pants, I embarked on a very steep learning curve, trying to stay a couple of steps ahead of my readers. I spent hundreds of hours researching and writing about Internet marketing strategies, and ended up with a site that I'm rather proud of. You're welcome to take a look at it, even if it's just to see how someone else did it -- I'm always open to feedback. Here's the URL: www.WiseNetworkMarketer.com.

I put a lot of info on my site about the more "traditional" ways of drawing visitors that I had been experimenting with myself -- article marketing, Google, setting up an autoresponder campaign, filling the site with useful content, etc.

The one thing that remained a mystery to me, however, was social media marketing. After months of trying to figure it out intellectually, I finally just jumped in and started swimming. Which eventually led me to BetterNetworker.com.

I gotta say -- I LOVE this BetterNetworker site. I'm not sure what it is about it, but I feel like part of a warm, friendly community of very dedicated individuals with high integrity who are all pretty much walking in the same direction. I'm looking forward to sharing what I know, and learning a TON of stuff from other people -- especially how this social media thing works.

On the personal side, my other interests include writing, nutrition, EFT, exploring inner realms of consciousness, volunteering for my favorite charity, and traipsing up and down the East Coast watching my two teenage sons play golf (they both want to be on the PGA Tour some day).

Feel free to drop me a line. I'd love to get to know you.

Best wishes for your success,

Liz