If you’re reading this post right now, you fit into one of two categories. You’re either someone who is thinking about becoming involved with Team Beach Body, and need more information on the opportunity, or you are already involved with Team Beach Body, and you want to learn more about how to build your business. Either way, this review will provide you with some great information to go on.

In the interest of full disclosure, this is not an impartial review. I am a Team Beach Body Coach, and do make an income promoting their business opportunity. If that fact is going to keep you from reading further, that’s your decision.

However, I truly believe that my background as a successful technical recruiter for the better part of the last 11 years qualifies me to evaluate an opportunity honestly, objectively and fairly. This article will not be a puff op ed piece about the joys of being a Team Beach Body Coach. So, with that said, let’s dig in!

Who is Team Beachbody?

Beachbody has gained a tremendous amount of notoriety for itself, primarily from the infomercials they’ve produced for their many workout programs. P90X is a household name worldwide, and Insanity is not too far behind it. Since 1998, Carl Daikeler and his team have been working to eliminate the obesity epidemic we face, one customer at a time. And they’ve had a great deal of success, to the tune of about $400 million in annual sales, and countless success stories.

But most people are not real familiar with Team Beachbody, the multi-level marketing (MLM) business unit of the company. In 2007, the Team Beachbody Coaching Opportunity was rolled out to the Beachbody customer base. What’s happened in those short 3 1/2 years? More than 50,000 online fitness coaches have joined the Team Beachbody ranks.

After 9 years in business, Carl had recognized something. The greatest reason that people were having success with the workout programs Beachbody offered was not just that the workouts being sold were great. The secret was the community of people who supported, encouraged, and held each other accountable on their fitness journeys. Beyond the scale of regular customer is the world of the Brand Evangelist, and after 9 successful years, Carl realized that he had a lot of them.  So why not reward them for it?

What Makes Team Beach Body So Different?

On the surface, Team Beach Body is exactly like many other MLM business opportunities. It has a great compensation plan, and products that you can believe in. But there are thousands of other companies within the health and wellness space of the industry, so what makes Team Beach Body so special?

The most obvious and glaring difference is this: Beachbody DOES NOT need their distributor force to generate retail profit. Say WHAT? Beachbody generates more than 50,000 new customers every week. They were over the $100 million dollar a year sales mark well before the first coach signed up. They spend about $100 million a year in advertising their products.

This made me sit up and pay attention. Having been in network marketing for awhile, I’ve seen a ton of companies start out in network marketing, then suddenly pull the rug out from under their distributor force. This was the first time I’d ever seen an already successful company move TO network marketing from a traditional marketing strategy.

The reason is simple. Beachbody wants their coaches to focus on what has made them successful to date: growing relationships within the community, and helping others achieve their fitness goals. Beachbody gives new customers and coaches to qualified coaches, for free, every single week. Any purchases those customers make going forward are fully commissionable to the coach that they’ve been assigned to. This translates into the opportunity to earn a significant income, outside of the effort and energy a coach puts into generating their own customers.

Many people don’t realize that the types of compensation plans in network marketing varies as widely as the number of different companies in the industry. Team Beachbody has chosen to use the binary compensation plan for their business. In very simple terms, a binary plan just means that each coach has two legs. As the new Team Beachbody coach sponsors more coaches on their team, they can only go into one of the two legs.

The power of the binary plan is twofold. First, it allows a brand new coach to participate in a higher bonus pool at a very early point in their business. Second, it creates a phenomena known as spillover. For example, if Bob sponsors 2 coaches at the same time, and chooses to put them both into the same leg, the first coach sponsored has the opportunity to earn bonuses based on the production of the second coach, as does Bob. This creates a tremendous incentive for teamwork and collaboration throughout the team, even for coaches that are not directly sponsored by each other.

What’s the Downside of Team Beach Body?

There is no such thing as a perfect business, so for all of the great things about Team Beachbody, there are negatives that exist as well. There are actually 5 key weaknesses that I have found in the Beachbody business opportunity.

Lack of Cashflow – the day that your new Team Beachbody coach gets signed up, the clock starts. Which clock? The “get me a doggone check” clock! On average, you’ve got 63 days to get your newbie making money, or they are checking out. But it’s hard to help someone with no marketing budget to get started in marketing, right?

And yet, many new network marketers get started with a shoestring budget, using money they didn’t have in the first place to get started in business. Eventually the juggling act of keeping their business alive using the rent/electric/phone bill money wears thin, and you’re left with a negative, frustrated person who believes network marketing just doesn’t work.

Lead Poverty – Rule #1 of the standard network marketing operating manual clearly states that any new distributor in the industry MUST begin by making a list of every person they know, and have ever known, and ever will know. Many Team Beachbody coaches teach this same tactic in their business.

I do believe that there is a way to target people within your warm market who might be interested in Beachbody, and approach them in a way that will allow you to still be invited to family functions. However, the bottom line is that not only are you soliciting people who may or may not be interested in being a Beachbody coach, but this list will eventually run out.

Since many have not learned how to advance their expansion efforts beyond the level of warm market prospecting and cold calling, they get frustrated with their Beachbody business, and quit in much the same manner as those with no cashflow.

Inadequate Systems - Home meetings can be cool. So can hotel meetings. Three way calls can do a ton to assist the growth of your Beachbody team. Large conferences can be life changing events, packed with value. There’s no problem with building a Beachbody business using these methods IF you got in business to replace your job with another, much higher paying one.

But if you saw the opportunity to create a walkaway income that Beachbody provides, and you like it, this method of building your business will NEVER allow you to do that.

Attrition - as an industry, network marketing has about a 12 – 15% retention rate annually.In other words, if you sponsor 100 Beachbody coaches in 2010, you can generally expect that 12 – 15 of them will still be with you in 2011. Seems very depressing, but their are many ways to firewall your personal Team Beachbody business against such heavy attrition rates.

Blood Thirsty Competition - Not only do you have to compete against the other Beachbody coaches out there, you have an industry that added over 1 million reps last year, with no signs of stopping. More than 16.1 million people all competing to recruit the same talent pool. Team Beachbody provides a tremendous business opportunity, but in the current economic climate, and with such fierce competition out there, it takes more than just a tremendous opportunity to make yourself stand out in the crowd.

After assessing my options, and giving a thorough review to several opportunities out there, I am very comfortable that my decision to join Team Beachbody was the right one. Fortunately, I’ve learned how to market my business in a way that keeps me from experiencing the pain of the five negatives listed above, and take full advantage of all the benefits the Beachbody business opportunity provides.

If you’d like to learn exactly what I’m doing to take the network marketing world by storm, go to my Beachbody Training Center. Also, to get more information on why I have entrusted my family’s financial future to this particular business opportunity, take a look at Why Beachbody.

Please leave me a comment, and let me know what you think of this post.

I Do Not Like Them, Sam I Am!! No, I’m not experiencing a second childhood, or anything remotely close to that. Although, I know a few people who would say I never gave up my first childhood! Anyway… let’s talk about Spam, and I don’t mean the product from Hormel. I mean the e-mails you receive on a daily basis about male enhancement, botox, increased memory, and Hungarian mail order wives. Yeah right, I’m not the only one who receives the Hungarian mail order wives messages……am I?

A few days ago, I was included on a Facebook message from another internet marketer to several people on his list. While the message was fairly harmless in nature, and I have no doubt this marketer was doing his best to add value, the first Not To Do (NTD) comes up rather quickly:

1 -Don’t send out e-mail messages to lists of people where EVERYONE ELSE can see who is on the message. This goes for Facebook and any other social media outlet with e-mail like capabilities. Until Facebook comes up with a BCC option for sending out messages, this should not be a weapon in your arsenal.
When a person receives a message like this, automatically they are thinking one thing: SPAM.

Argue this point if you want, but the truth of the matter is, we judge ourselves by our actions, and others by their actions. This message was viewed as spam by many of the recipients, even though that was clearly not the sender’s intention.

After this confusion was cleared up, some small talk was traded on the now growing thread, and someone asked the original sender how he was doing with his business. The person clearly had more than a passing relationship with the OS (Original Spammer), as he called out his business by name, even though it had never been mentioned in the thread by name or description.

A very innocent, genuine question, but this was the land mine that triggered an explosion the likes of which haven’t been seen since the first Gulf War. Ok, it really wasn’t all that serious, but this is my story, so if I want to embellish, you just have to go along with it

The next thing I know, I’m reading a message from another person on the e-mail chain, essentially bashing the OS’s primary company, in a very polite manner, and promoting her opportunity, which we’ll refer to as Now, I don’t know if the information spammer #2 provided is accurate, or if it isn’t. That doesn’t make a bit of difference, because the points here are:
2 -In any conversation-forum, e-mail chain, discussion board, or even offline-add relevant value to the conversation. Other than asking how spammer #1 was doing in his business, there was absolutely NOTHING about the thread relating to anyone’s primary business.

Question: if you are on a forum, and there’s a thread about cookies, and somewhere in that thread the word powder appears, would it be appropriate to then post about the benefits of using talcum powder in everyday life? Of course not, and it wasn’t appropriate here, either.

What this shows to me, in my humble but accurate opinion, is a person desperate to market their business at all costs. Without getting into the full psychology behind it, a person with a lack mentality does not know where there next lead is coming from, doesn’t believe they will ever get another lead, and is willing to do just about anything to get their message in front of anyone.

On the other hand, a person with an abundance mentality knows for certain that they will have ample opportunity to share their business opportunity with the right people, which the people on this list were clearly not. So point #3 is:
3 -Lack mentality Leads to Spam.

But there’s another point tied directly into point #3 that I don’t want to miss, and it’s this:
4-Being included on an e-mail, forum, etc.. with other people’s addresses visible does not give you permission to solicit them. If you want to spam your own list, that’s your choice. But go build your own list first. If spammer #1 wants to destroy his own credibility with marketing tactics that irritate his list, as painful as it can be to watch, he built the list, so he’s earned that right. Spammer #2? Stop being a lamprey , and go build your own stinkin’ list. Then irritate your list to your heart’s content, LOL.

Closely tied to these two points as well is point #5, which is:
5-Bashing another person’s company=deaf ears to everything you say, regardless of how true your statements are. Really? Do I really need to address this one? SMH….I feel like Kindergarten Cop right now. Who responds well to being told that anything they’re associated with sucks, no matter how nicely you but it? “Hey Mom, this dinner tastes like cow manure, can you add some Old Bay next time?” Try that tomorrow night and see what happens. This is about as bad as harassing the same 5 family members who didn’t want to get in your business last week about getting in it this week. Oh wait, that’s another post for another day.

6-People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. I’ll be 100% honest. I know people right now who are involved with business opportunities that suck. Like, really suck. I mean, just awful, borderline FTC violating, substandard marketing system suck. I could list out reason after reason why their soul should feel heavy for being associated with a business like theirs. BUT UNTIL I HAVE EARNED the type of trust that allows you to be that honest with a person, I keep my mouth shut. How do you earn trust? Easy-add value with no expectation of return. YES, I said no return. Give someone an apple, not because you want to hold it over their head someday that you gave them an apple, but because they’re HUNGRY.

Please post a comment, and let me know your take on this!

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) has rapidly stormed into the world sports market as one of the most popular around. In gyms everywhere, people are signing up to learn how Brock Lesnar, Anderson Silva and BJ Penn do what they do.

Just like any professional sport, it’s very easy to watch an MMA event on TV, and think that you can walk right into the Octagon and start cracking skulls.

But the reality is, it takes lots of hard work, focus and dedication to be a professional anything, let alone a professional athlete. Hour after hour of sparring, conditioning, watching film of opponents, learning new techniques, conditioning, and did I mention conditioning?

Jared Weiner and Wilson Reis are both professional MMA fighters, as well as teachers of the sport. MMA is what they do as a full time profession, and they both excel at their craft.

To the average person, they are both in peak physical condition. But one thing I’ve learned about top competitors in any arena-they are always looking for a competitive advantage over their opponents.

That’s why it was so surprising to hear them talk about one of their greatest competitive advantages on this video:

If you are serious about training for an MMA career, or you are just interested in getting in the best shape of your life, you should take a look at P90X.

Many people in network marketing are looking for the next trick, the next hook that is going to help them make a million dollars a week for free.  They spend hour after hour looking for the latest and greatest technique that will catapult them to massive success.  Sure, they never implement ANY of these techniques, but they can absolutely tell you what they are.

There are two, and only two secrets to make Attraction Marketing work for you.  I’m not even going to discuss number two on this post, because if you can’t get a handle on number one, there’s no point in learning  number two.

Are you ready?  Have your pen or pencil in hand?  Ok, secret number one is………….

BE ATTRACTIVE.  I know you were expecting something much more complex than this, but this is the foundation.  The question that is probably coming to your mind right now is “how do I become attractive?  Do I need to get BOTOX?  Is there a diet I can get on?  Should I use P90X?”  Maybe the answer is yes to all of those things, but that’s not the type of attractive I’m talking about

You have to be the type of person that other people want to be around, and that they find value in being in contact with.  That doesn’t mean you have to be LIKE anyone else.  You can try it, but at best, you’ll be a second rate copy of the original.  I learn from tons of  marketers in this industry-not ONE of them is just like someone else.  They may use some of the same information, or cover the same material, but they relay it in such a way that is uniquely their own.

You also want to keep in mind that “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.”  No one cares that your product has the #1 infomercial in the world.  No one cares that your business has a Binary compensation plan.  Most people outside of the MLM industry don’t even know what that stuff means.

The people you talk to tomorrow will have two questions on their minds:

1. What’s in it for me?
2. Can I do it?

Being attractive in whatever message you are delivering means that you will answer those questions FIRST.

Want to see an Attraction Marketer at work?  Watch the video below-when I saw this, it immediately reminded me of what’s most important about network marketing:

This video is great!  So great, in fact, that it inspired me to issue a challenge.  So…for the next 30 days, I want you to give at least 5 people a day a genuine compliment.  And not just because I said so.  I want you to pick out someone, identify something about them you can genuinely compliment, smile and do it.

Please post your results here, I’d love to know how doing this impacts your life!

A friend of mine asked me to take a look at his business opportunity the other day, and I happily obliged.  As a corporate recruiter, it’s my job to convince people that keeping their options open to new opportunities is a good thing, and I practice what I preach.

The business presentations are all fairly decent these days, and the comp plan sounded pretty good.  But one of the most important pieces I look for when I research a company is their income disclosure statement.  What I saw when I looked up his business team’s statement blew me away.

The allure of network marketing is that you can make full time money working part time hours.  But on this company’s income statement, they surveyed how many hours a week their distributors were working, and I found that those with the largest incomes were working more than 40 hours per week!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a lazy person, but I didn’t get into network marketing to trade hours for dollars.  Just like the average American, I’m putting in 45-50 hour work weeks, not including commute and work prep time.  I can get another job or start a brick and mortar business if I want to work 50 hours a week.

Isn’t the beauty of the MLM industry in building an income that you can maintain with minimal effort?  To create a residual walkaway income that continues to grow whether I am working or not?

That’s when it hit me-I didn’t get into network marketing to make money.  I got into this industry to make time, and create lifestyle.  And really, isn’t that why you’re here, too?

That’s why the Team Beachbody opportunity is so compelling.  Beachbody was in business for nearly 10 years selling workout programs and health solutions before they decided to add a network marketing component a few years ago.

Beachbody is the first and only network marketing company that doesn’t NEED its distributors to distribute.  Don’t get me wrong, you can absolutely sell P90X, Insanity, Turbo Jam and the other programs, and Beachbody will happily pay you commissions on those sales.  But they spend over $10 million a year in advertising, and just went over $400 million in annual sales.  They would be very profitable without distributors.

But they want to build a huge coaches network, and they are willing to give away retail profit to build a huge network of them.  Beachbody gives retail customers from their infomercial campaigns to the qualified coaches in their network.

Every purchase that customer makes after their initial purchase, the coach they’re assigned to makes commission from.  And the qualifications needed to start receiving customers is so low, you might as well say Beachbody is giving customers away for free.

As a coach sponsors more people, Beachbody also will begin to add new coaches to their business every month like clockwork.  These two programs are game changers that no other companies in the industry are doing.  But just imagine if this was being duplicated on a team of 100 coaches how fast that business would grow.

This allows a Beachbody coach to focus their time on bringing in new coaches to help support the up to 70,000 new customers who buy a Beachbody product every week, and on helping their coaches and customers achieve their goals.

I work directly with 2 of the top coaches in Beachbody, and I know for a bona fide fact they don’t work 40+ hours a week in their businesses.  They are productive, and provide great value and support for their teams, but the idea of either of them working a 40 hour week is absurd.

A jet plane expends most of its fuel supply in takeoff.  Once it’s in the air and in the jet stream, it takes very little fuel to keep it aloft.  A helicopter uses fuel during takeoff and flight.  Both will get you where you want to go, but ask yourself “what type of business do I want?”

When you’re evaluating an opportunity, you want to consider whether that company has any systems in place that you can leverage for greater success in a shorter amount of time.  These two great Team Beachbody programs are competitive advantages that no other company in the marketplace can claim.

Retention ceases to be an issue when profit and sponsoring cease being issues, and Beachbody has both of those covered.

If you’ve been marketing online for any amount of time, I know that you’ve heard the phrase “Become the hunted, not the hunter.” So I thought we’d take a good look at the hunter in action:

In most cases, the person using this phrase is talking about Attraction Marketing, or positioning yourself as an expert, or in some way positioning yourself as a leader in your field. The thinking here is that when you do this, you will begin to attract like minded individuals to you, and generate business without having to use cold prospecting tactics. WRONG!

Attraction Marketing works ONLY when you first make yourself “Attractive.” One of the ugliest things you can be as a Network Marketer is a “Gotta Get Me One” Marketer. I am going to describe for you what this person does, and then I’m going to give you _____ tips on how NOT to be this person. How will you know if you’re exhibiting traits? Well, think about them, and if you can’t think of anyone who displays these traits, then the “Gotta Get Me One” Marketer on your team is probably you, LOL.

The “Gotta Get Me One” Marketer:

• Thinks their next prospect is the greatest thing since sliced bread
• Thinks they need their prospect more than their prospect needs a business opportunity
• Thinks that one prospect can send their business into the stratosphere
• Thinks they have to oversell the opportunity to make it more appealing to their prospect (exaggerated income claims, etc…)
• Sponsors one person, then sits on the new distributor’s head and waits for them to hatch into a millionaire
• Thinks their prospect is more important than their upline or mentor
• Markets their opportunity based on price, not value
• Comes across as desperate, rather than positioned as an expert.

So, now that you know what a “Gotta Get Me One” Network Marketer looks like, how can we make sure this dreaded disease doesn’t happen to you?  Here are 5 tips that can help keep you immune to the “Gotta Get Me One” syndrome:

1. Understand that the most important person in your business is YOU. Your team will duplicate 50% of what you do.  For some people, that’s super exciting, and for others, that thought will wake them up screaming in a cold sweat later tonight.
2. All prospects are suspects until they prove otherwise. In my humble but accurate opinion, all prospects have equal value.  A lady with a downline of 20,000 people considering joining my business is on equal terms with a man all by himself.  Their interactions with me is what will determine whether they qualify for my time or not.
3. You have something they want, and not the other way around. Once I really grasped this in my business, it made a tremendous difference in my own attitude, and in my business growth.  If a person is taking time out to look at your business opportunity, there is some hole in what they’re currently doing that your opportunity can fill.  Bob may be a multimillionaire, but working 80 hours a week to keep those millions may be getting pretty old.
4. Your mentor is always more important than your prospect. I don’t mean this in a hero worship sorta way.  Here’s the principle:  if you or your prospect had everything it took to get where your mentor is, wouldn’t you be there already?
5. RELAX! 823,000 people searched for the term “network marketing” on Google in March alone.  There are more than 15 million unemployed in the United States today.  There is an endless supply of people looking for an opportunity, you just need to learn how to find them.

Please leave comments on this post, I’m really curious to see what others in the industry think on this subject, because it’s nearly impossible to cover everything.

Also, if you’ve found value in the info presented here, please share it with the world!  If you’re going to re-post it, I just ask that you link back to http://jamiegaymon.com/uncategorized/how-to-eliminate-the-gotta-get-me-one-mentality-from-your-business.

As I was skimming through some article headlines the other day, one in particular caught my eye. It read “Justin Bieber fever: Careful, it’s catching.” My first question was “Who is Justin Bieber (Sorry folks, I don’t watch much TV, please forgive me)?”

The title stood out to me because as a professional network marketer, I want to create a viral marketing frenzy, and have as many people as possible catch Jamie Gaymon fever.  Many of the questions I receive in a given day are from frustrated network marketers wondering what it takes to grow their businesses virally.  Also, musicians are one of the clearest examples of the “build it now, get paid forever” philosophy that we as network marketers are striving to attain.  The title of the article made we want to take a closer look.

For those of you like me, Justin Bieber is a teen singing sensation, who was able to flip a strong YouTube following into a recording career. Now, I do have to say that Justin is a very talented singer, as he displays here.

But I also know that the recording industry is a tough one to get into, and that the world is full of talented people who didn’t make it. Here’s the simple blueprint for success that Justin Bieber and his management team put in place, that you can surely follow to success in network marketing.

1. Build a list-Justin Bieber has over 1.7 million Twitter followers.  His videos on YouTube alone have received over 100 million views, and he has more than half a million YouTube subscribers.  He cut a video 5 days ago that ALREADY has over 3.4 million views on YouTube.  He has over 2.5 million fans on his official Facebook page.  I would say that Justin and his team have the list building business down pat.
2. Build a relationship with that List-In many ways, this step is how you create such a huge list.  By providing valuable content for free to all of your fans(readers, fellow marketers, etc…), you are giving them an opportunity to get to know you, and decide if you are someone they would want to be in business with.  For  Justin, this meant posting over 60 videos posted on YouTube alone, doing all sorts of things.  Some of them are him singing covers of songs by artists such as Kanye West, Drake and Justin Timberlake.  Some videos have moments with other artists, such as Usher, Taylor Swift and Diddy.  All of these provide candid moments that grow his fame, but show him to be a regular person also.  On Twitter, Justin is very responsive to his fans, replying to their messages, retweeting messages, and staying very close to the people responsible for his meteoric rise to stardom.
3. Monetize that list-Has this viral marketing push been a success?  His first album entered the Billboard 200 chart at No. 6, selling 137,000 copies its first week, while the latter, “My World 2.0,” entered the charts at No. 1 with 280,000 albums sold in the first week.  His Twitter followers are organizing album buyout groups to go to stores and buy EVERY copy of his album in their local stores. He is the first artist to have seven songs from a debut album chart on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.

Folks, there is no magic bullet out there.  If you can learn and master the associated skills necessary to accomplish these three tasks, you can build a successful network marketing business, no matter what company you’re with.

If you would like some help with developing the skills necessary to build an organization to the magnitude of Justin Bieber’s musical career, I would recommend you click here.

Insanity makes P90X look like Sweatin’ to the Oldies. Don’t believe me? Take a look below:

I was going to do a full blown review of this workout program, but the video speaks for itself. By the time you’ve finished watching it, you will either be ready to order your copy, or hiding behind your couch praying that Shaun T doesn’t come find you and make you do it.

If you’re still reading, click here to join the Insanity NOW.

When I first got the news about XELR8 cutting their network marketing arm in favor of direct sales, I was so tempted to write a blog post blasting them that I almost couldn’t see straight.  Then, when I just found out that iLearningGlobal is doing the exact same thing to their distributor force, I was tempted to go after them with both barrels blazing.  but, as I’ve looked over the MLM landscape in the wake of  these catastrophic events, an even larger target has reared its ugly head.

Have you ever heard the term “ambulance chaser?”  It’s a derogatory term,usually used to describe a lawyer who spends most of his time at the scene of accidents and disasters, looking for clients.  It would kinda be like following this cart around.  Not only is this behavior in extremely poor taste, but it is actually a violation of the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct.

Stop and think for a second:  if you were just in a catastrophic car accident, would you want to be represented by the lawyer who just “happened” to be at the scene?  For that matter, would you even be in a position to process anything that person said to you at that time?  Understand that what has just happened is not just a matter of dollars and cents.  People’s lives have been tremendously impacted by these situations.  Many have spent countless hours building large organizations, convincing people that ILG or XELR8 is the right opportunity for them, only to have the football pulled out from under them right before they get to kick it.  All kinds of emotions are running through these people right now:  shame, anger, guilt, humiliation, the list goes on and on.

How do I know this?  I was a professional recruiter for more than 12 years, and I’ve had to lay people off on more than one occasion.  I’ve also been laid off multiple times myself, and there were definitely times when I had no idea the axe was swinging my way.  Suffice it to say that I’ve been there on this one.  Maybe there is a better way to connect with them to help them see that than a full frontal assault?

At the same time, I do understand the lure of wanting to contact a fellow network marketer who is looking for a new company, and may or may not be bringing a group with them.  You believe passionately that your business can be their saving grace, if you could just get them to take a look at it.  So rather than use this as an opportunity to beat up on people, I’m going to use this as an opportunity to hopefully help you reach out to our friends in these other companies in a caring and compassionate manner, rather than the “bull in a china shop” approach I’ve been seeing and hearing the past few months.

Here is my list of Don’ts and Do’s:

1. DON’T post a message like this to a Facebook Group or Fan Page:  ”Man, so sorry that your company gave you the axe.  But here’s a link to my company instead, come join us!”  This will result in you receiving a message like this:  ”You are a vulture-your company may be great, but you suck as a person.”
2. DO reach out to people individually, and share your sympathy with them for the situation they’re in.  let them know that if they would like to discuss a potential opportunity once they’ve had a chance to recover, you will leave them with your contact information.
3. DON’T put a link to your opportunity anywhere near this message, that move would officially make you a spammer.  If a girl that you liked got jilted at the altar, would you ask her to marry you before you left the church?  Of course not, so use that same common sense in this situation also.
4. DO start as high up an upline group as you possibly can.  Out of respect, you want to afford that upline first opportunity to maintain continuity in their group should they decide to join you.
5. DON’T bash the offending organization.  As much as it sucks, this is business.  All network marketers should understand that although we consider ourselves business owners, we are ALL independent contractors.  That means the client can change the game on us at any time, with no approval needed by us.  There are only 2 things you own-your network and your brand.  Focus on branding you and the network will follow.

Network marketing gets a bad rap over a number of different issues, it would be a terrible thing to cause more infighting and bickering over something so preventable.  It’s as simple as this:  put yourself in someone else’s shoes for a second, and think before you act.  Really consider the way you are presenting your opportunity, and whether that is the way you would want to be presented to.

I would REALLY love to hear what others have to say on this topic, so please stop by and leave your comments below.

My career as a recruiter has served me very well in my network marketing career. In fact, the process I use to sponsor is very closely modeled after my recruiting style. But the greatest lesson I learned while being a recruiter is to always be willing to listen to another career opportunity, even if you are quite happy and satisfied where you’re at. I’m always open to listen to your business opportunity, idea or suggestion. Now, I know that some who read this are probably thinking “well, he wouldn’t take a look at my opportunity,” and you’re right. Here are the two reasons I won’t look at your opportunity:
1-You’re not the first person to pitch me on it – I get 5-10 ‘check this out messages per day, don’t be mad that you weren’t the first person to come a courtin’.
2-You’re approach sucks – if your first message/connection to me is a 5 page treatise on why your opportunity is the best thing since the wheel, and I would be stupid not to join you, you will get 0 seconds of my time. I’m an old fashioned kinda guy, your going to have to date me before I go running down the aisle with you.

So with that being said, here’s the blueprint you will need to follow in order to get me to leave my current opportunity.

Products-In my current opportunity, which is in the health & wellness industry, I have a product line I personally believe in, and am able to generate immediate profit with. most companies lose reps because they can’t get that new person a check within the first 90 days. Problem is-most new people quit just outside of 60 days.

I know, I know, there are people on the internet who say that health & wellness is tapped out for network marketing. Well, there are also people who say the world is flat, and you can’t make any money in network marketing using the internet. I personally challenge the intelligence of any person who would make any of these claims. I would point them to the 64% of the adults in the United States who are overweight or obese. I would ask them to tell that to the 25% of America’s children who fit that same description. Personally, not only have I been an athlete for much of my life, but I have battled weight all of my life. From a market standpoint we are positioned fantastically with a solution that works, and I know it works because I am using it myself.

Lead Generation-For the first time EVER in my network marketing career, I have a serious problem. Currently, I have more leads than I know what to do with! I am part of the #1 Attraction Marketing System in the world, and am steadily building up my lead count through tried and true online and offline marketing techniques. Also, I have the ability to generate endless leads, pretty much at will, through search techniques I learned during my corporate recruiting years. As if that wasn’t enough, one of the business teams I plug into within my business offers free leads on a weekly basis, and I receive free leads from two other sources I’m not even going to discuss here! Now, are you ready for the real game changer? If I sponsor 2 reps onto my team, our corporate office will automatically enroll 10-20 retail customers into my business for free, every single month. If I sponsor 8 reps, they will begin to automatically enroll new business builders into my team, about 5 per month. I don’t even have to tell my friends and family I’m in business to make the engine move, and I can certainly teach everyone on my team how to find leads for free, and what to do with them once they have them.

Company Longevity-That’s great that you believe your company is going to be the next Facebook, but your company could just as easily be #11 on this list. Notice the fact that all ten of these companies were in business less than 5 years. That’s not an accident-most small businesses fail within their first 5 years. If your company makes it, it will be the exception, not the rule.
In my corporate life, I’ve seen companies go out of business so fast, they didn’t even have time to cancel the orders for the furniture that got moved into the office they never set foot in. Not interested.

Compensation Plan-For me, a binary plan makes the most sense. I’ve witnessed firsthand the dischord and backstabbing that can happen in a stairstep breakaway plan, all in the name of “earning my upline’s time.” With a binary plan, with only two lines of sponsorship beneath a distributor, it helps to keep in focus that the #1 goal of the business is to help as many other people as possible get what they want, and that will automatically lead to you getting what you want. Plus, a binary plan takes advantage of the numbers we already know to be true in network marketing: the average rep sponsors 2-5 reps during their network marketing career. In a binary plan, sponsoring 2 reps gets you activated into the compensation structure. Particularly with my company, sponsoring 2 puts you in position to get 10-20 new retail customers per month from the company. We get paid on volume, and you can’t create lasting volume without customers.

There are many additional factors which I look at when evaluating a business opportunity, but I’ve found that most businesses are unable to meet even my most basic business needs, so I continue to build where I’m at. I hope this helps you to not take it so personally that I won’t immediately jump out of my business and into yours.

I also hope this post will help you realize that the people you are most looking to sponsor don’t really care that you have a “ground floor opportunity” with a “brand new company.” I know people who got in Amway within the last 2-3 years, and are making a strong 6 figure income, and Amway’s been around for 50 years. So the market saturation theory is as much a failure as the theory that a human being can’t run a four minute mile. Learn to understand people’s needs, then meet them at their needs, and your business will explode, I promise you.

I would love to hear your comments about this blog, so please leave them below.