Understanding the New Rules to a Successful Network Marketing Business … Can you spell “Leverage”?

While it isn’t the oldest business, the “network marketing” or “multi-level marketing” business is not new either. Having a network of distributors for your product, who receive commissions in part by recruiting and mentoring others in the business, is a proven business model. 

But just as with any other business, there are very few who become very successful. The reasons those few become very successful, have traditionally been very simple: They work harder, work smarter, than the other folks who aren’t successful, and they treat their business as a precious investment.

People who are successful in network marketing can easily pick out many of those who won’t be successful.  They expect a great deal for very little, they don’t invest their hearts in the business, they aren’t willing to put in the effort required for success, and they give up too quickly.

There are, however, many people who do invest their hearts in the business, and who do put in the effort, and they keep at it, not giving up, yet with little result.  The purpose of this article is to provide some helpful tips to those people, in the hope of changing their profits for the better. My suggestion to all of you who are really trying but just haven’t gained the success you are looking for boils down to this, now almost cliché directive: Work smarter, not harder.

Working smarter, not harder, is all about the word “leverage”. The word leverage comes from the word lever, and we all know what a lever is.  A lever is a mechanical device which takes your strength and increases it so that you can move things that you couldn’t otherwise.  Much like the old mechanical lever, there are ways to apply leverage in your business, so that you can accomplish much more with it, than you could alone.

With the advent of the internet, you have the ability to apply leverage in your business in ways you could have only dreamed just ten or fifteen years ago. Hordes of technically savvy entrepreneurs have created programs and services that allow you to apply this leverage. Here are just a few examples:

1. Use online contact management systems to contact your prospects.  There are a number of companies that provide contact management systems that will help you collect and store the names and contact information of your prospects.  Not only will they store them, but through these services, you can send newsletters, emails, set up events that people can sign up for, and much more.  You can even create sign up boxes on your website so that people who you’ve never even met can provide their contact information and sign up for newsletters. This service alone saves you a huge amount of time and effort inputting data into databases, creating newsletters, and doing mailings to your prospects, customers, and others.
2. Use “autoresponders” to send pre-programmed emails and newsletters and predetermined times.  With an autoresponderhttp://www.getresponse.com/index/u2brich, you can create a complete email marketing system so that your prospects can receive emails from you that you have pre-written, which are sent to them automatically at times of your choosing.  This allows you to write your marketing program once, and use it over and over again with your prospects.
3. Use article distribution services.  In other articles, you’ve read about the importance of getting noticed.  You can write articles, and they can be automatically posted to dozens of article publishing websites, which allow for the possibility of thousands of people to read your article, see your contact information and potentially contact you, if they have an interest in your business.  This leverages your time many times over. 
4. Use a blog submission service.  If you choose to write a blog (which in and of itself is a way of leveraging your time) there are a number of services that will post articles automatically to your blog, or if you write your blog yourself, will post your blog to search engines, automatically.  Some of these services are even free, if you will put a link to their service on your blog.
5. Consider the value of your time when doing things yourself.  Granted, the checks you write are lower if you do everything yourself.  But very often, your time spent on doing what you do best will accomplish the most.  If it can be hired out to someone else while you focus on the things you do best, you will ultimately be that much more successful.

Keep In mind that there are many ways to create leverage.  The suggestions above are just a few of the many ways you can use the power of the business lever, not only in your MLM or network marketing business, but any business, for that matter.