WHY YOU MUST PROMOTE YOUR MLM BUSINESS ON THE INTERNET IF YOU WANT TO MAKE MONEY IN MLM!

by Christopher J. Sewell
PROFIT INTERNATIONAL

I�m sure you�ve seen people in newsgroups, discussion groups, and the online forums blasting their MLM programs and spamming like crazy. Giving MLM and themselves a bad name. I�m sure your email box is filled with all sorts of MLM offers from people who have purchased email addresses on CD-ROM, or purchased a so-called "opt-in" list or "safe-list" � only to have their ISP cut off their Internet access because someone reported them for spamming. No, this is not the correct way to build any business on the Internet. And, it�s not the correct way to build your MLM business either.

Wait a minute! It doesn�t stop there. I can almost bet that the MLM company you are with now, or thinking about joining doesn�t have an online system for you to plug into. They may have a website, but does their website help you generate prospects, follow-up with prospects, sign them up online, and train them monthly? Probably not.

Most MLM companies are still living in the dark ages. They expect you to organize and drag your friends and family members to opportunity meetings. What a shame. The Internet has many low-cost methods for generating prospects. It�s the most inexpensive and efficient way to reach millions of people in a short period of time. At one time direct mail was the modern way to build your business. Yes, it still works, but that method can be time consuming and expensive.

The Internet is the NEW modern way to work your business. Maybe you�re trying like hell to promote your MLM business online, only to fail miserably. Am I being to blunt? Perhaps. But you know I�m right, you know it! However, you�re not alone. Most people who get their hands dirty doing Internet marketing, just end up with mud on their faces. When I first started on the 'net, I got a lot of mud on my face. There's no shame in getting muddy. There's only shame in not cleaning the mud off.

If you think the Internet doesn�t work. Think again. Yes, it does work, but, not if you do everything the wrong way. Which is probably what you�re doing right now. The �net is working for the few (VERY FEW) who know how to take advantage of its power. When you learn what is revealed in this book, you can be just as successful. There are 3 keys to success on the Internet:

• selling a popular line of products
• designing a website that sells
• generating tons of traffic to your website.

I'll go into detail on each step in a moment. But, first, let me tell you why you will be on the Internet if you want to be successful in network marketing.

Problems The Internet Solves For You When You Promote Your MLM Business Online!

When you think about the future, you must think about the Internet because the Internet is your future. At some point you�ll want to put your MLM organization on the Internet. You need to learn how to use email responsibly in your recruiting efforts. One of the downsides to not being on the Internet is that your competition WILL be on the Internet leaving you in the dust.

And, dust, my friend isn't too tasty.

Once your organization grows large (over 500 people- yes, 500 people is pretty damn good!) - you'll have less time to devote to each of your members. As I've explained to you in previous chapters, you must work with your new members to get them started quickly, otherwise your group will always be small. With 500 people or more in your group, you're going to get lots of phone calls from members needing your help. Even if you have a terrific Welcome Package and monthly newsletter, you'll still get phone calls from people needing help.

You can spend hours returning calls and playing phone tag with people. Providing assistance to a large group will require more than just spending time on the phone. If you implement the recruiting and training systems discussed so far, you will have very little time for much else. In my opinion, if your business sucks up most of your valuable free time and you can't enjoy life with your family and friends, then what you really own isn't a business. You own a JOB! This is not what you want. And, if your solution is to hire staff, well, why hire staff when you can use the Internet and Internet tools to eliminate the expense of employees. If you wanted to manage a home office of employees (and employee headaches), you would push harder to be a middle manager in corporate America.

The idea of turning my business into a corporate model isn't appealing. Plus, I didn't want the additional expenses of employees, workers compensation, additional computers, more phone equipment, and maybe renting outside office space. This is why I moved my entire business (MLM and non-MLM) to the Internet.

What I'm proposing to you is that you think seriously about building your MLM business on the Internet. Then you can make use of modern technology in such a way that you'll be free from certain administrative tasks of running a business. You can actually automate them the way I have. This has allowed me to start, run, promote and profit from 3 different MLM programs simultaneously. I don't rely on the income of one MLM company. I have 3 checks coming to me each month.

Let's talk about some of the mundane tasks that can be automated when using the Internet in your MLM business:

1. lead-generation
2. following up with prospects
3. sending Welcome packages
4. sending Newsletters
5. Frequently Asked Questions
6. answering questions

Let me explain each in more detail.

When you build your MLM business through the mail, lead generation is expensive. Buying mailing lists, joining lead-generating programs, and placing ads costs you money before (and whether or not) anyone ever joins you. When you do lead-generation on the Internet, your leads are very inexpensive. Sometimes free.

All you do is design an attractive website. Drive LOTS of traffic to your site by using Search Engines, owning a Banner Exchange, and placing ads online. Then collect the email addresses of your website visitors and those who respond to your ads. Presto! You now have qualified leads to work with and it cost you very little. You just have to spend money to get a domain, banner exchange, and place ads online.

Working these leads is a piece of cake because you can create an automated follow-up system to handle everything. You can develop such a good lead-generating system on the Internet that you end up giving leads away to people in your group because you can't work them all yourself. Well, actually you can work them all yourself if your system is completely automated. But it's a good idea to give leads away to hard working members of your group.

You already know that you must follow up with your prospects in an orderly fashion to have any hopes of getting them to join your opportunity. If you follow up through the mail the way we've discussed so far, you'll see that this will be your second biggest expense. Postage and printing costs are high�and they keep getting higher.

When your MLM business is on the Internet, you all but eliminate your postage and printing costs. You can follow up with your prospects every 10 days (this is what I do) and your only operating expense will be your ISP connection. Following up with your prospects monthly through the mail is much too slow. Plus, people are very slow about opening their mail. They throw it on the kitchen counter to read later and later never comes. But when they get your follow up letter by email, it's right in their face and they're almost forced to give it a quick look.

Guess who gets the new downline member? Not you! You lose! You simply can't compete against someone who has better marketing tools than you. The easiest system I've found for following up with email leads is through the use of auto-responders. There a special class of auto-responders that allows you to send a different follow-up letter each time. Up to 10 different times.

Here's another expense you can eliminate when you use the Internet. You won't have to spend your money sending Welcome Packages to new members. You can make your entire package available on the Web. When new members join, you can direct them to the section of your website where they can get their Welcome Package. or you can send it to them by email. However, if your package is over 6-pages, it�s best to make it available in HTML at your website.

You already know how important a newsletter is in training and maintaining your organization. You must supply your organization with a monthly newsletter otherwise you won't have an organization. My postage costs are zero to send my email newsletter. My only expense is the $25 a month fee I pay for my Internet connection. Plus, if you have special announcements to make to your group you can easily put together another email message in minutes.

I simply automate when my newsletters to go out each week. I sit down on a Sunday afternoon and hammer out a small newsletter and input it into my system to go out automatically throughout the week. No more dragging hundreds of newsletters down to the post office or paying a service to do it for me. The proper way to send newsletters to your downline on the Internet is by using a listserver. This handy tool is critical to anyone who wants to be successful on the Internet selling anything.

If you want to all but eliminate the number of phone calls from new members (essentially asking the same questions) - you should have a Frequently Asked Questions page at your website. As you build your MLM business you'll notice members and prospects asking similar questions over and over again. With a FAQ page at your website you can simply direct people to it first to get their questions answered. If you put together a well though out FAQ page you'll find that most people will find the answer to their questions in this section.

When your MLM business is tied to the Internet, you'll find that most of the members in your group will send you questions by email. This is good because it cuts down on the time wasted playing phone tag with people. You can now answer questions when you�re ready. Instead of answering a prospect or downline members question on the spot when they call. You can now answer them more thoroughly by email. And you can do it at YOUR leisure. That could be at 2am or 2pm, whatever time you choose. However, you shouldn't wait a week or even 2-days to answer your email. People on the Internet want information fast. You should respond within 24 hours.

Personally, I download my new email messages every 3-4 hours. People are shocked at the speed at which I get back to them. When you're on the 'net everything moves fast, fast, fast! As you can see you WILL be on the Internet if you want to be successful in MLM. Otherwise, people like myself will beat you to the punch and snap up all the good prospects worldwide.

If you thought you had your work cut out for you before this chapter, well things are just beginning to heat up for you. When you move to the Internet, you REALLY have your work cut out for you. Everything is so new and things change virtually every 6-months. But if you don't get on the Internet NOW, you're just digging a bigger hole for yourself because you'll have to learn much more later on to catch up.

The longer you wait, the harder it will be for you to secure a successful position on the Internet. So if you're waiting until your finances improve (or whatever) before you get your MLM business on the Internet - just forget it. By that time you'll be so far behind technology that you won't have a fighting chance. On the Internet there's a TON of new business techniques you must learn.