Business Building Books and Tapes
MLM Woman Issue 79
August 2003This FREE monthly newsletter is made possible by our advertisers and customers. We thank them for their support!
From
the Desk of the Editor
Welcome to the 79th issue of the MLM Woman Newsletter. This month we feature articles on how to make your advertising efforts really stand out, how to join the new "breed" of Internet Marketers, and a fun personality quiz that will help you figure out why you say "Yes" to things when you really mean "No!"
Enjoy!
Linda Locke, Editor MLM Woman
You Must Create
Top Of Mind Awareness
Copyright 2003 by Willie Crawford
Your customers and prospects are bombarded with thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of advertising messages every day. Getting your email through to them is a very small part of the problem. After it gets to your reader, you have to connect with them on a conscious level. Something about your message has to make them really read, understand and digest your message. You have to create a "top of mind awareness." Otherwise, your message isn't really received.
To make your message stand out, you need to be what Seth Godin describes as a purple cow. He points out that if you're driving down a busy highway, and pass a purple cow grazing in a pasture, you would have to take notice. You'd say, "There's a purple cow." And then you'd stop and take a closer look. Your email messages to your customers and prospects need to stand out like a purple cow.
So many messages that we get every day aren't fully "received." We aren't fully aware of them in our environment. This point jumped out at me a few days ago as I walked my shitzu (dog). I knew there were bears in my part of Florida. There are signs posted along some of the highways warning drivers. However, I had never seen one until about a week ago. I noticed several cars stopped along the street where I was out walking my dog. I looked in the direction of the cars and there was a black bear. It was about 3 feet tall when down on all four legs! At that point the message that there were bears near where I lived was fully received and felt on a very deep "gut" level. There was a loose, wild bear, about 50 yards from where I was! Fortunately, he was only interested in crossing into a nearby patch of dense vegetation.
After seeing that bear, and reflecting upon how long the claws and teeth were on those I had seen in zoos and museums, I now appreciated the fact that there were wild bears around. Now, when I heard a rustling sound in the bushes I paid more attention. Previously, I had just assumed it was a porcupine or an armadillo rummaging around for food. Now I was aware that it might be something big enough to hurt me. Your email and promotional messages to your reader need to be this impactful!
"Ok, Willie," you say. But how do I create this top of mind awareness in my readers. "How do I stand out in their universe like a purple cow?" "How do I have the impact of seeing a big bear walking through my neighborhood?"
You increase your visitors top of mind awareness by showing them in your messages that you understand their problems. You show them that you really understand what it is that they need or want. The words in your message to them shares what they are feeling. Your empathy and understanding has to come through.
Increasing your top of mind awareness in your readers and prospects involves nothing more than showing them that your thoughts are "what's in it for them." If you show that you have their best interests at heart, and that you are working for them, they have to appreciate you and what you do. You do this by studying great copywriting - as I have pointed out before. You do this by talking directly to them, as I am doing in this article. You do this by using the words you and your more than I, me, and my in your copy. This shows them who the message is really about.
Making your message about your customer or prospect pushes you to the top of their consciousness because you are communicating about something that they care about. You are moving yourself into a universe involving something they think about all the time. Your prospects spend a lot of time and energy thinking about how to improve their lives. It's human nature. If you also spend a lot of time and energy thinking about how to improve their lives, you naturally move into where you have top of mind presence. You begin to stand out in their subconscious and conscious minds like a purple cow or a wild bear!
Now you have the secret to breaking through the clutter of all of the messages your readers get everyday. Simply make the message about them. Simply convey," here's something that will help you." Simply convey that you're working to make their lives easier. It will be virtually impossible for you to be ignored if you do this with sincerity.
About the Author
Willie Crawford is a popular writer, speaker, and internet marketing consultant. Through the 32-step Power Copywriting For The Internet system, you can learn more about creating top of mind awareness in your website visitors and email readers. Begin using this powerful system today by visiting: http://williecrawford.com/powercopywriting/
A
NEW Breed Of
Internet Marketer!
Copyright © 2003 by Sue Seward.
All Rights Reserved.
The Internet can be very helpful in building your Network Marketing business, but we must all remember one thing! The Internet is just another tool! In fact, it's one of the best communication tools we have now a days to reach more people isn't it?
There's a lot of businesses on the Internet but it seems that us legitimate Internet marketers are being mixed up with the millions of bulk email ads promising overnight riches. You know all the cheesy spam that's filling up our email inbox's and causing more and more people to use those filter blocking things that's effecting even those of us who are offering REAL legitimate help to people who actually ARE looking for people like us!
Here's some that I've gotten.....
"Internet cash machine, Get in NOW! Finally, a fast easy Free money solution Pre-launch, nobody knows about this one yet Get rich today! No work involved! You have thousands in your downline already! Sue - Fast, Easy money-making ideas from Azam Make No Mistake.....This is going to be BIG!"
Or you get those emails from someone asking you to call them because they are interested in your program right? Then you call and find out the woman (it's always a woman's name) that sent the email doesn't even live there and there's some guy on the other end of the phone trying to recruit you into their deal.
Geezzzz.....why can't people just be REAL?
In addition to these spam emails, if you end up at any of the web sites that these emails link to, you'll find very little content and no real person to contact. In many cases, absolutely no organization or team whatsoever. Many times you don't even know what sort of management team the company has or where they are even located? Most of these are just more scams but it constantly amazes me how many people actually fall for this stuff over and over again.
And even if a person does find a legitimate company they only look at the pay plan or just the products and don't really understand how to choose a business model in the first place. Especially to market on the Internet! What happens is people are trying to build a business without building relationships of any kind. They think because it's an Internet business all they have to do is put up a website and watch the money grow on trees.
The new breed of Internet marketer doesn't hide behind a screen all day sending out millions of emails to millions of people that most likely won't even open them and think they'll never have to speak with a human being.
If you plan to use bulk email to spam your prospects to death then you might as well just give it up now! For one, with all the new spam filters coming into play, your emails most likely won't even make it through to a real person. Not to mention how much spam email gets deleted when it does get through. If you use this method to build online you will find out just how frosty the Internet can be!
What are we doing that's so different? How come we are called the 'new breed of Internet marketers'?
First of all because we're building a successful long term network marketing business, we use the Internet as an effective communication tool to build relationships with people! In other words we're building a strong foundation by really getting to know people and what makes them tick and we allow them to get to know us!
Yes, the Internet can be these things, impersonal and cold, right?
It IS where people can accomplish just about anything without ever coming in contact with another human being but why on earth would we want to waste it when it can open up a whole world to us!
As Network Marketers we know how to build relationships right? I mean we are good at this when we use the phone or meet people in person right? Well, why not do the same thing with the Internet?
Remember network marketing is a people business isn't it? People like doing business with people they know, like and trust don't they? So we're doing business with people that we're meeting on the Internet and we're developing relationships with them!
So how do we do this effectively? I mean how do we turn this high tech automation we have with the Internet into high touch relationships for our Network Marketing business? How do we begin to develop a potential business relationship with someone halfway across the country or halfway around the world? How do we help people to see that we are real?
By being different from the run of the mill web site or the run of the mill company, or by just pushing our products in people's faces and telling them how great and how much they NEED our wonderful triple dipple super vitamins, or about the unbelievable healing capacity of our incredible fruit juice in a bottle or our other incredible products and services that they can't possibly live without!
By offering our prospects and customers something much more than just another web site loaded with facts and figures, search engines, and links to everywhere and everything in the whole wide world....
If you can take someone to a place where they feel comfortable, and they start believing that you are for real, and not only YOU but an entire TEAM of people then can you see this as the real beginnings of building a solid foundation for the future?
So how on earth do we do this?
We use either a personal or a team web page! If you don't have the money for your own personal page don't panic, there's lot's of places for free ones where you can download a photo of yourself and put some information on a page or two. Like yahoo and aol and check with your isp provider, they usually offer a page or two.
They even have those photo album thingeys where you can put lots of photos, even some of your kids or your team, the company convention photos, or your dog, whatever!
Remember, when you're prospecting on the Internet or to the cold market, people don't know you from adam do they? So you have to be different from the rest. One solution is to create a sense of identity and to start branding your identity too. That's another article. <smile>
A personal web page is great to do this and a team page is even better! This way people see you are all real people working together for a common purpose! People love to know they'll have support especially from an entire team!
Having a team website re-enforces the fact that they won't be in this alone! Tell them a little about yourself, your family, your team, your goals. Your goal in a personal web page is to create a web page that a person will feel like they know you a bit better. You'll begin the relationship building process right from them seeing your site, even on the Internet!
When you build a relationship, people start to trust you, and will want to meet you and eventually may want to work with you and your team! This is where that strong foundation starts to build. You can use your personal website or team site to show people what your values are, what's important to you and use it as an ice breaker to building a relationship with your future business associates.
Many people already have websites provided by their companies. These websites are usually very high quality, professionally maintained websites, filled with all the necessary information anyone could ever want to know about your business opportunity products, services, etc.
But these websites are ONLY to send out after you've started your rapport and relationship building with people! Company websites are used for informational purposes to sell stuff not to help people get to know YOU!
Think of ALL the websites you see all day long or how many people send them to you? Do you get to know these people from these websites? Is their picture even on there? Does one stand out more than another? Nope just more stuff.
Well what if you see someone's personal site or team site and all it is is everyone's photo and a little about them as a person and how they are all working together as a team and how much fun they are all having together?
It's important FIRST to even find out if a person is interested in reviewing your information. We always get their permission FIRST! We get invited into their lives!
And the best way to get invited into THEIR lives is to show them OURS! <smile> Trust me, this is the best way!
Building a relationship must happen FIRST! This is so important and the reason why so many people fail miserably on the Internet! Once this happens for a person who markets online there's nothing stopping him or her from meeting people all over the world, making many friends, and many business partners and building that strong foundation that will last for a lifetime!
There are so many people out there searching the Internet for REAL opportunities, real people, a real team, a business with a strong foundation! The new breed of Internet marketers can provide that to them!
So you think you'd like to be a part of the new breed of Internet marketers?
About the Author
Ms. Seward is an entrepreneur, wife and mom, and has been
earning an income for over six years from home on the Internet. She
is also a published writer, speaker, Internet Marketing trainer, and
publishes a weekly Internet Marketing Business Resource newsletter.
For a copy send a blank email to: 11910-2@inforeply.com
You can find out more about Sue at www.WithTheClickOfAMouse.com
Smart Marketing
Copyright 2003 By Bob Leduc
Are you attracting a large number of prospective customers at the lowest possible cost ...and converting the maximum number of them into paying customers? It's not very difficult if you follow these 3 simple steps.
Step 1: Control Your Advertising Expense
Look for ways to keep your sales volume growing without increasing your advertising expense. For example:
Negotiate Price With Advertisers
Many advertisers are willing to negotiate a special discount to keep your business - or to get it away from their competitors. Take the initiative when you're placing an ad. Ask for a discount ...or a bigger discount than the one already offered.
Trim Your Ads
Reduce the size of your ads so you can run more ads without increasing your total cost. Don't be surprised if some of your short ads generate a bigger response than your long ads. The most effective ad I ever used had only 11 words.
Step 2: Generate Some Unpaid Publicity
Publicity is what you get when someone else promotes (or you get them to promote) your business. It establishes more credibility with prospective customers than advertising ...and it generates sales at a much lower cost.
Start a publicity program for your business - or expand the one you already have. Here are 3 simple ways you can use publicity to generate business:
(1) Find something newsworthy about your business. Write about it in a news release and distribute it to publishers.
(2) Contact non-competing businesses serving customers in your market. Offer to publicize their products or services to your customers in exchange for their publicizing your services to their customers.
(3) Write a short "how to" article to help customers in your targeted market. Promote a product or service related to the topic of the article in a short byline at the end. Distribute your article to ezine publishers, web sites and trade magazines serving your targeted market. Give them permission to publish it at no cost.
Caution: Don't expect unpaid publicity to replace the results you get with advertising. Use it to supplement your advertising. You control where and when your advertising appears. You cannot control where or when you get publicity ...or if you get any at all.
Step 3: Improve Your Selling Propositions
Most prospects who take the time to consider your product or service would like to buy from you. But they decided that other things they want are either more important or more urgent.
You can capture many of these sales by dramatically improving your offer. Create a "good deal" that's so enticing it becomes their first choice.
You don't have to reduce your price to improve your offer. Instead, simply load your offer with bonuses. Make sure your bonuses have a high perceived value to your customers ...even if they cost you little or nothing.
Always include an expiration date for your offer. Give prospects the choice to either accept your proposition within a short time or forfeit it. This will motivate many prospects to delay some other purchase so they can buy your product or service now.
Tip: To create an absolutely irresistible offer - include a special discount price AND a set of valuable bonuses in your offer.
Controlling your advertising expense and getting unpaid publicity
will attract potential customers at the lowest cost. Improving your
selling propositions will convert the maximum number of those prospects
into paying customers. Together, these 3 steps are what I call "smart
marketing".
About the Author
Bob Leduc spent 20 years helping businesses just like yours
find new customers and increase sales. He just released a New Edition
of his manual, How To Build Your Small Business Fast With Simple Postcards
and several other publications to help small businesses grow and prosper.
For more information: Email: BobLeduc@aol.com
Subject: "Postcards" Phone: 702-658-1707 after 10 AM Pacific
Time/Las Vegas, NV
Reasons We Don't Say No:
A Personality Type Checklist
By Suzanne Falter-Barns
Ever say yes when you wish you could say no? There are many reasons we say yes when we really mean no, and they seem to be guided by personality type. See if any of these sound familiar:
The Mega-Parent
Believes that the kids always come first, no matter what. Tends to over-volunteer
around school and youth functions. Believes that everyone else must
have his or her needs met first. Models parent-as-slave behavior to
kids. Also blasts children periodically when burn out sets in.
The People Pleaser
Just wants to be liked ... no matter what. Will agree to do the dirty
jobs at work, even when they aren't their responsibility. Can't say
no to bores that want to go out, or telephone solicitors at dinnertime.
Tends to feel exhausted and overwhelmed, and almost always wonders why.
The Super-Person
Motto is "Sure! I can do that." Needs to prove an infinite
capacity for getting the job done, to the point of burnout and depression.
Unable to budget time effectively because they see themselves as being
able to do it all, and do it quickly. Tends to feel massively guilty
for obligations not met, despite completely overloaded schedule.
The Task Fatalist
Has a no-questions-asked attitude towards all requests that come their
way. Believes that God sent these jobs, so they must all be done. Tends
to be devoutly religious, with no time for self-nurturing of any kind.
The Control Freak
Has to keep tight reins on all aspects of life, from what hubby eats
for breakfast to how the mikes are arranged at the big presentation.
Secretly believes that most people who surround them are incompetent.
Credo: "If I don't do it, it won't get done right." Tends
to be exhausted and cranky more often than not.
The Sweeper of the Crumbs
Sees their lot in life as the cleanup crew after the party is over.
Always gets stuck serving on committees no one else wants to be on.
Has a fatalistic view that 'somebody's got to do it, so it might as
well be me.' Has largely given up hope.
About the Author
"Reprinted
with permission from Suzanne Falter-Barns' free ezine, The Joy
Letter (Copyright, 2003, Suzanne Falter-Barns.) To subscribe, go to
http://www.howmuchjoy.com/joyletter.html
Back to the MLM Woman Newsletter Index
We want your feedback! 
Send e-mail comments to Linda
at: regent@west.net
Copyright 2003, Regent Press
