Coffee House Letter Blog

Welcome back!

What You Should Know About Personal Branding in MLM…

Last month we got the gears in your head spinning about the various options available to you when setting up your first capture page and newsletters for building your list and promoting your business.

To re-cap what you learned last month, we discussed setting up a lead capture system specifically for your opportunity.  This would be a great option when someone is already familiar with you as a leader and hell-bent on joining the business you are a part of.

This month, we will conclude this discussion by addressing the other two options…

(Note: These topics are covered much more in depth and in detail within MLM Traffic Formula and MLM System Formula courses.)

Option 2: Completely Generic Training System

Quite a few generic training systems have sprouted up over the past year, which can be used by any network marketer to generate leads.  The system itself does not promote or favor any one network marketing opportunity.

Instead, the system simply promotes something that is universal to all network marketing opportunities.  Network marketers become affiliates of the “turn-key” system and use it to generate leads for themselves, as well as for the system owner.

This system works best when:

• Your primary goal is to generate a big lead list and sell them training. (Sponsoring people for your opportunity becomes a secondary goal.)
• Your leads are committed to their MLM and are seeking outside training.
• You are interested in proving yourself over a long period of time rather than taking chance that someone will buy into you in a short span of time.
• You may not have a business opportunity to promote yet, but you may want to build up your rolodex of other networkers.

Pros:

• Allows you to benefit while adding value to people without expecting them to join your business.
• You can better monetize the list and make affiliate promotions.
• People will stay on your list longer.
• Expands your target market to ALL network marketers since any network marketer can use your system as an affiliate – giving you more potential exposure.
• Creates your own unique brand.

Cons:

• There’s no direct link for people who want to join your business.
• Different network marketing rules may disallow others from using your system.
• Can’t promote or endorse an opportunity to your system list.
• Your training has to be generic, which makes it challenging to teach marketing for retail sales.
• People have to do some research and work to figure out what business you are in if they want to join you. (This could be a “pro” as well, since people willing to go through the trouble are higher quality prospects.)

Very few people will have the skill and dedication to implement this type of system.  .
When doing this, start by asking what can everyone in the industry can benefit from?  What sort of educational system can you create that will draw massive amounts of MLMers, help them grow their businesses and not discriminate against any of them?

Magnetic Sponsoring is a very good example of such system.

Mike Dillard identified what MLMers across the board are lacking and created an entire generic training system based on that.  And in a generic training system, you never mention your business opportunity.

This can be a double-edge sword of a generic training system.

To appeal to the masses indiscriminately, your focus can no longer be about your business opportunity, it becomes educating your leads.

So how do people end up joining you?  Well… by making yourself SUCH a well recognized face in the market that people will go out of their way seeking out what MLM you are involved in. Many of the instructors on the Magnetic Sponsoring community are great examples of this — Mike Dillard, Mark Wieser, Jay Kubassek, Todd Falcone among others.

A word of advice — embarking on this mission will most likely distract you from your network marketing business building efforts.  We would caution you taking this route unless you are already financially independent, are already successful in the industry and have the time and/or enough money to have a team of developers build it for you.

If you are a newbie, it’s good to have this perspective, even if you aren’t going to create a generic system as just described, because it will help you better understand the benefits of a hybrid system…

Option 3: Hybrid Lead System

With this system, you’re leading with education, training and value while promoting your business on the back-end.

This system works best when:

• Your leads are disenchanted with their current business opportunity and open to other options.
• Your leads are looking to get trained in internet marketing prior to joining a business.
• Your leads are interested in taking advantage of more modern internet marketing techniques.

Pros:

• Reduces opt-outs because you are delivering valuable content
• You can retail a front-end, which can have a chapter on “picking the perfect opportunity” as a lead into your business.
• Allows you to build a relationship with your prospect and monetize them, even if they don’t join your business.
• Marketing cost covered by front-end.
• Provides the distributors in your company a true turn-key system to market and promote their business, while making money even if they never sponsor anyone.

Cons:

• Takes more work to develop content and a front-end for the system.
• Promoting your opportunity within the front-end product will increase returns of product.
• Only distributors in your company can use this system, therefore the income you earn from the system itself is limited.
• You’ll need to consider your network marketing company’s rules in the development of such a system.

Believe it or not, the original Magnetic Sponsoring system promoted Mike Dillard’s opportunity in a chapter within his now famous Magnetic Sponsoring course.  The chapter was titled “How to Pick the Perfect Opportunity”.  The idea was to position himself as the expert in the industry with the know-how on how to build a success network marketing business and generate front-end profits through the sale of the course.

Another technique to promote your business more directly is in sending out newsletters, which would provide more free training for your leads, use a P.S. with a link to your business opportunity capture page or sign-up page, (see Part I of this article).  This is a great passive technique for promoting your opportunity (or any other product), while not directly “pitching” your leads.

If you are considering using a hybrid system and don’t have a product, I would personally recommend you promote Magnetic Sponsoring products and use a “P.S.” in your email newsletters to introduce people to your opportunity.

MS products convert really well and you can focus on developing newsletters and content which promote you and your opportunity.

Remember, your primary goal is to grow your team, not necessarily develop products.
If you develop your own product, be sure to over deliver on value to dampen the backlash for making a plug for your opportunity within your front-end, (which your prospects paid for).

Final Recommendations

If you are a newbie, I would recommend you start with Magnetic Sponsoring as your lead system to get the hang of things, then move on to creating a system specific for your opportunity (if one is not already available from your company).

After you’ve gotten some results and the hang of that, follow what is taught in MLM Traffic Formula to create a hybrid system, as your next step.  I still recommend promoting MS products because they convert well and the value will be hard to re-create.

Finally, for you ambitious “guru”-types, pick up a copy of MLM System Formula (whenever it becomes available again) and learn how you can be in complete control of your business and replicated marketing systems.

On a personal note, I do not recommend competing directly with Magnetic Sponsoring and creating “copy-cat” products, because “it’s not cool” and you are much better off working synergistically with Mike, than as a competitor.

We suggest approaching it from a different angle or specialty.  For example, there are leaders whose specialties are in using Web 2.0 tactics to build MLMs.  Others specialize in using PPC and SEO. Others specialize in direct mail methods, ezines, prospecting, etc.

Whatever you choose to do, be mindful of the toes you are stepping on and show gratitude to those you’ve learned from.  There’s no reason why the MLM world, can’t be just as diverse and interconnected as the Internet Marketing world.

More Articles: Getting Automated Prospecting Systems to Work