Most people didn’t sign up for an MLM to become a slave to their business or to become an expert in HTML, making websites, creating sales funnels, etc. So if you want to take a short cut it is a fabulous idea to find an MLM marketing system that you can simply plug into and get your marketing up and running quickly.

However, it’s very important to know that you must be selective when you chose your MLM marketing system as very few of them actually work and work well. Think for a minute. Most marketing systems offer template style webpages, a built in lead tracker system, and autoresponders. If you are part of a large and successful team and your sponsor suggests that you all use this system, what happens?

You get duplicated websites. Usually there is a place for you to add a picture or two and maybe say a blurb about yourself and then what follows. Either a generic page telling people why they should be in a home business (and let’s face it, does anyone read these sites these days?) or a page that talks about the success of your leader or sponsor. The first type have very poor conversion rates and the second type brand the leader not you. So when you call your leads they wonder who you are and why you’re calling them. They thought they would get to work with the leader who’s templated page you are using.

Even if these pages did convert well in a clear cut manner it is next to impossible to get decent traffic to them. If you want your page to show up in the search results of Google it will be pages and pages down. Why? Because Google wants to deliver good unique and relevant content. If your page is an exact copy of several hundred out there it will never rank. If you decide not to bother with Search Engine Optimization and instead go for pay-per-click you will still find it very hard to get decent traffic. Even here Google doesn’t like ads to go to capture pages, it wants good content. So using these pages mean you will have to pay higher and higher costs per click to get any traffic from PPC.

So if you can’t use a system that offers only templates of leaders pages, what type of marketing system should you use? Well, there are three components of a good marketing system.

You must be able to brand yourself.
You don’t have to learn how to build a website. You just need a template that allows you to create your own content and add your own pictures or videos. There must be a way to add articles or other content to the page as this is what Google likes to see. All of us may not know how to build webpages, but pretty much anyone looking at this site can type. You want leads who know who you are, and want to work with you. So your website has to be entirely about YOU.

It must have a proven marketing funnel system.
Again, this is not just about having a good series of autoresponders. You must be delivering content and value after someone signs up as a lead. This way you can continue to show your leadership and the lead will see how valuable you would be as a business partner. Now there are a lot of components to a good marketing funnel, but one of the major ones is this. A marketing funnel should be providing good value to your leads, and also showing them good products that could benefit them in their journey to become a successful business owner. Now this means that you can use GOOD affiliate programs and actually make some money from the people who don’t join your business. And the person has found a good resource through you. Win-win. So find a marketing system that ALREADY has this in place. That has done the research to find good affiliate products and can help your prospects even if they don’t choose to join your company. This should be built into your funnel. This allows you to get cashflow to fund your marketing efforts as you build your business. Remember multiple streams of income.

Training
This possibly should be listed first. It MUST have good training, that is constantly being updated. Even if you have a great website, branding you and a fantastic funnel system you’re dead in the water without REAL internet marketing training. The old days are gone, you don’t call up 50 friends and neighbors and beg them to join your business. You must learn internet marketing so that you can get traffic to your page and you can become a valuable educated leader to your prospects.

There is only one MLM marketing system I know of that has all these (there may be more out there), but I want to allow you to find one that suits you on your own. If you want to learn about the system I use fill in your details in the form at the right for my free training center, and on the third page I will introduce it to you. It is not necessary to use this one, but if you want to create massive success QUICKLY with your MLM online, this is the best way I know.

First I feel it’s important that people follow this process for themselves. I will not be mentioning any companies by name (so you know that I am not simply trying to convince you that the company I am in is the best). And if you are reading this on Living Aloud, any comments that mention particular companies by name or have links to them will be deleted. The point of this article is that people go out and find the company that is best for them…and No, there is no “best” company that everyone should join.

One of the problems with the MLM/network marketing industry these days is that many people jump into the first company they stumble across without stopping to think if it is something they want to spend their time on, that they want to be a part of. If you are currently looking at the MLM or network marketing industry there are several key factors to consider before you commit to one. Once you’ve committed to a company you want to give it your all, you need to invest your time, efforts, and capital in just one business at the start so make sure you pick the one most suited to you.

Before you begin your search, decide what you are looking for. Get a piece of paper and answer these questions. Take the time to get clear.

1. What type of life do you want to be leading?
When I ask prospective business partners this question they often get tongue-tied. They say they just want to be able to pay the bills. If that is truly ALL you want…hit your back button now. You should not be in business, but maybe working freelance doing jobs for someone else.

Really think about what your ideal day would be. What type of work would it involve? Would you be having interesting conversations with people with a shared interest? Would there be no phone involved and you would just be working online? Where would you be? Who would be with you? The important thing here is to figure out your ideal everyday. Otherwise you wont get past the idea of just being on holiday. Holidays get boring. People need to be creating and growing. What would be fun and stimulating for you? What sort of lifestyle do you want? This can get quite specific, down to the type of house you’re in, the car in your garage, how your day would progress.

2. What are you Interested in?
What broad areas of interest do you have? Are you interested in helping the environment, traveling, shopping online, physical fitness, personal growth, fashion?

So many people join network marketing companies because they saw a good pay-plan, but never even stop to think about the products themselves. These days there are network marketing companies in most industries. The key here is that if you are going to sell products from your company they should be products that you can get excited about and that you would buy yourself.

3.What Type of Compensation Plan Suits You?
There are MLMs, Direct Sales, GPTs, etc. There are many types of compensation and you need to decide what type will get you to your ideal lifestyle. GPT (Get paid today) or Top-Tier programs tend to have extremely high commissions so you need to make very few sales to achieve a high income. They usually have less residual component so while the growth of your network can provide an incredible income you need to continue to do a certain amount of work. MLM’s tend to have a very small commission, but you get commissions down through several levels of your business. This model also requires a ton of upfront work and takes a lot longer to replace an income, but then can yield much higher residuals later on. Of course there are a few hybrids out there. Just make sure that the model you choose can really help you achieve the lifestyle you outlined in step one.

4.What Type of Leader Are You Looking For?
This is important. This person can really assist you in growing your business quickly. They have probably have made a few mistakes and also figured out what works. One key thing to remember is you don’t necessarily want to work with the top income earner in the company. They will be less likely to have time to work with you directly, also they will be less invested in your success because they have a huge organization whether or not you are successful. Find someone who resonates with you. Who deliver value to you. Make sure you have a good chat with them before you sign up. You want to be sure it’s someone who appeals to you and you can see yourself working with. They don’t have to be a friend, but if you don’t like their vibe, go find someone else.

5. Research
Now that you have your list. This is how you apply it to your research:
-Start with Industry. What opportunities are available within your listed areas of interest?

-Then look for the Comp Plan that most suits you.

-Once you’ve selected a company find a Leader that
suits you (I have in the past started with a leader I wanted to work with first and then researched their business. But if you really resonate with them, they are probably in a business that will resonate with you)

-Now have a look back at Step 1. Can this company, compensation plan, and team provide the lifestyle you are looking for? Does this company have a community you will enjoy being a part of? Does it fit in with your image of the ideal you?

One of the major reasons people fail is lack of marketing training and knowledge. A lot of network marketers don’t know anything about internet marketing and can’t train their team. However, if you can line up all the above components and find an opportunity that fits what you are looking for you can get good training elsewhere. You can continue to visit sites such as this and Network Power PRO, and apply the marketing training to your opportunity.

Just remember that you are starting a business, not a hobby, not a job. Also, you will never find a company that exactly perfectly fits everything you have on your list, but if you are clear on what you are looking for from the start you can make sure you are in an opportunity where you can really achieve YOUR dreams.

One type of advertising that more and more Network Marketers seem to be using these days is negative campaigns, or trying to steal business from other network marketing companies by releasing negative information about them and then at the end suggesting that the reader instead join their company.

There are several reasons why I believe this is just a terrible way to market your business, not the least of which being that if you are just putting out negative energy all you get back will be negative energy. But leaving energy out of it, let’s look at this from a strictly logical perspective. Negative campaigns actually often backfire and hurt you.

Negative campaigning seems to be taken straight from politics…the old smear campaign. If you make your opponent look bad then you will look like a better alternative and you will be able to steal their votes this way. This may work in politics, but that is only because usually the race is between two individuals. If enough people believe your opponent is not a good person they will have to vote for you as the only alternative. But this is not the case in Network Marketing. There are hundreds of alternatives out there for people who decide that a particular company is not for them. So you are not the automatic fallback for the person, and if they found you through searching for reviews or information on a company they were looking into they are more likely to do the same thing about your company. And guess what, they may find negative campaigns about your company as well.

Now, think about what those people are looking for when they go to research an MLM company. They are looking to see if it is genuine (they don’t want to be conned out of money), and they are looking to see if they can be successful at it. The person searching usually thinks they are more concerned about finding out if it is genuine, but really they deep down care most about whether they can be successful. If they are only looking out of curiousity then they are not going to start with any company, but if they are looking to see if they are going to be successful they are truly looking at the industry as a whole. They want to know that people do have success and that makes them know that they can too. What they are looking to see is, does this business model work? Is this a good industry to be in?

When the first thing people come across is negative campaigning “I left X company, and now I’m making billions in Y company,” they tend to see the whole industry as negative. Their confidence in their own ability starts to waiver, they begin to feel nervous, and when nervousness overtakes excitement people go back to basics. Back comes the employee mindset and suddenly going to their job and watching T.V. when they get home doesn’t seem so bad after all. The truth is people can really accomplish so much if they have excitement about the possibilities ahead of them and belief in their own ability to succeed. When you negatively campaign against another company you shake peoples’ belief that they can succeed in any company.

Now, if you have been negatively campaigning you may have seen some results from it, but in the long term you’re cutting off the legs of your business. Real long term businesses are built upon integrity and trust. When mud-slinging starts to happen you get covered in as much of it as anyone else.

Let’s take a real look at Network Marketing. You and I know that it is a wonderful way for people to go into business for themselves without needing high start up costs and much risk. It also enables people to start in a business where they are rewarded for being of service to others (help your team and you are financially rewarded). From my experience in the network marketing and MLM industry nearly all the companies I’ve come across are good and ethical companies. Not all the people involved are so ethical, but these people always fail in the end. They are exposed by their team for not delivering leadership, or kicked out of their companies for not following the rules. But the truth is, the business model is a remarkably good way to make money, and most people have the intelligence to find a good and genuine person to sponsor them and a company they can believe in.

You have to also realize that you are not just a part of your company, but a part of a whole industry. And the way people view the industry really does matter. If people run around slamming other MLM or network marketing companies they are contributing to negative press about the industry as a whole. The result: People decide to avoid the industry altogether rather than try to wade through the mess to find a good company.

Imagine this industry without the negative campaigning. Many more people would see the strength of the business model, that there are genuine success stories, and would then just have to pick a company with the type of payplan that suited them, and a product or mission they could believe in, and most importantly: A leader they could follow.

If you contribute not just to your own success and your team, but to the company as a whole, and even to the industry you will be guaranteeing your own long-term success. This industry grows by more people seeing the strength and potential of network marketing.

This is why I do, what I do. I believe that the only major problem many MLM companies have is a lack of marketing knowledge. When people don’t know how to properly market they will not be successful in any business. Therefore, by providing detailed and in-depth internet marketing training for network marketers I am increasing the number of successes out there. I can improve the success ratio, and contributing to my industry as a whole. If people are successful in other businesses it improves my own business because it improves the network marketing industry.

So if you are going to review a company, or discuss another company that you are not involved in, pick a company you admire. It’s ok to point out the areas they could improve, but never try to market a company by trying to turn people off another company. If you don’t think a company is very good, just don’t write about them…trust me, they won’t last. Only companies with good compensation plans and infrastructure last any number of years. If you are contributing positively you will be a leader in the industry. And people will join you because you are a leader they want to follow, not because you tell them another company isn’t good. When you are truly a leader people won’t care about which company you are in, and which product is better than which other product. They will want to work with you and be on your team whichever company you are with. And this only works when they can believe in the industry as a whole.

From time to time I write reviews of other Network Marketing companies, but always in a positive light, and I never try to tell anyone who is interested in the company that they should not join. I only ever do reviews with the intention of helping people who are in or looking at the business achieve success by providing them with useful information about how to succeed in their company (again contributing to the success ration in the industry).

Trust that if you have selected a good company and products that you yourself believe in, you can attract people to you business positively. If you pick people up off the back of a negative campaign, they are likely to be the type of people to continue to jump from company to company never with any belief in themselves and their ability to create their dreams. Attract people who also believe in your products, who are excited about your business, or about working directly with you.

I hope you will join me in contributing positively (and ALWAYS honestly) to your industry and your own leadership.

If you have spent anytime investigation MLM lead generation online you have come across the promises of “free leads”.

So do free leads actually exist? And if so are they worth your time?

Well, let’s be honest here, why would any company offer you free leads? Unless they are coming straight from your MLM company (and frankly I don’t know many companies that do this), they are trying to get your money. The idea is usually that you pay for a certain amount of paid leads, and they throw in a whole bunch free. Thus it’s not exactly free leads, but cheap leads.

When I first started in the MLM industry I struggled to create leads on my own, so I bought leads to get started. I bought 500 and got 150 leads free. Out of all those leads how many got started in my business? Zero. That’s right, not one. Why? Because paid leads are generally terrible. They don’t know who you are or how you got their details. Often their details have been sold to several marketers so they are frustrated and sick of phone calls by the time you reach them. Remember the key to MLM success is being a leader, and few of these leads will see you as a leader because they don’t have a clue who you are!

The other reason bought leads/free leads can be damaging to your business is because in order to sponsor people you must maintain your own confidence and mindset. No one will sign up with someone who sounds nervous/desperate/afraid. I don’t know one person who can take 650 “No”s without being a little put-off by it. Many network marketers already struggled with phone fear, and yes you must learn to deal with some rejection, but the amount of rejection and suspicion you receive from paid leads is enough to make you question your own abilities and business. Trust me, the potential benefit is not worth the risk to your own mindset and leadership.

So the real question is: Do GOOD free MLM leads exist?

The answer is, Absolutely YES! But their quality and potential is completely based on how they are generated. You must be generating your own leads so that when you call they know who you are, they know you are a real genuine person, the know you can actually help them achieve success. This type of lead will not destroy your confidence, but on the contrary will help you to build it up.

Ok, so I know you’re desperately trying to generate any type of lead, you’re sick of throwing money at it and the idea of generating free leads yourself seems like a complete fantasy. So here is just a few ways you can do it:

LinkedIN: A great place to meet others and discuss ideas. The idea here is you want to stay professional, and present yourself as a leader. What can you contribute? If you contribute high quality info you attract people to check out your websites and connect with you.

Article Marketing/Blog: You can set up a blog and write articles completely for free. This is a great place to establish yourself as a leader and share your knowledge.

Facebook: Facebook is a fantastic source of Free leads. It’s completely full of people looking to connect, looking to see what others out there are doing. Be careful, don’t copy what other people are doing on Facebook because the blatant advertising is frankly annoying and DOESN’T work. A lot of marketers are struggling to generate free leads here because they don’t know how.

This is just a few ways to get free leads. These methods not only get you free leads, but they will be higher quality because they already have some connection to you and some idea of who you are and how you can assist them. This has to be done properly and to stand out from the crowd you must always come from a place of assistance and giving knowledge and help, not trying to get leads.

Here’s how to start: fill in your details below to get access to a FREE 70 minute webinar on How to Market Your MLM Using Facebook (given by Jim Chao, an absolute expert at Facebook marketing) .

Fill in Your Details for Free Facebook Training