The Specialized Knowledge Of A Network Marketing Business

Having desire, faith and implementing autosuggestion are all key components of success in a network marketing business. However, if you don't have the specialized knowledge that this industry requires, you will not achieve success.

It is not enough to just have book knowledge or knowledge in your head. You have to have knowledge that you have applied and implemented into your business. One of the best teachers of this concept is a gentleman by the name of Jeff Olson.

Why should you care what Olson has to say? You should care because this gentleman has taken 3 separate network marketing organizations to hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and has a heavy influence in the recent growth of a 4th organization Pre-Paid Legal Services. He knows what he is talking about.

Olson teaches that there are 4 ways you acquire specialized knowledge in your network marketing business. They are as follows...

1. Learned knowledge - This is the knowledge you gain from reading books, listening to audios, getting on company conference calls and attending company trainings.

2. Activity knowledge - This is the knowledge you gain from actually going out and doing the business. Talking to prospects, working with new distributors, etc.

3. Modeling knowledge - This is the knowledge you gain when you watch someone who is having success in network marketing and copy what they do. More importantly, you not only copy what they do but you try to understand how they think and model that thought pattern in your own business.

4. Teaching knowledge - This is the knowledge you gain when you teach someone else how to do the business.

There are lots of ways you can get specialized knowledge. One of the best ways is to plug into your network marketing company's training system. Often your company and/or the team or organization you are a part of has a system in place to provide to you the specialized knowledge necessary to build a successful business.

Some distributors believe that the company and/or upline doesn't want them to succeed. While there are occasions where this is the case, in the overwhelming majority of cases, this is not true. Your company and/or upline only makes money when you make money. Why would they NOT want you to know everything you need to know to have success?

There are some people on the internet that will tell you that your upline or your company doesn't know what they are talking about or that they are holding stuff back from you. Often the reason why they tell this to you is because they have their OWN program to sell you.

These are very skilled marketers who are taught to play into the frustrations that you may be experiencing because of the perceived lack of success that you might have in your business. So be careful and don't fall into the trap of believing your upline or your company is out to get you.

That being said, the internet can be a great place to get specialized knowledge providing you get it from the right people. For example, while I do sell specialized knowledge, I also offer a great deal of it for free right on this blog.

While there are a lot of areas that you can focus on learning, success in a network marketing business is found by mastering the following skill sets:

1. Prospecting - Finding people to talk to about your opportunity.
2. Recruiting & Marketing - Taking people you find through a systematic process to educate them about your opportunity.
3. Training & Promotion - Teaching those you bring into the business how to do these 3 steps and encouraging your team to plug into the systems and events that will teach and encourage them how to do these 3 steps.

Here's how you can identify what type of specialized knowledge you need. If you don't have enough people to talk to, you need to work on your prospecting.

If you have enough people to talk to but you aren't recruiting a lot of people, you need to work on your recruiting and marketing.

If you are recruiting enough people but your team isn't duplicating your efforts, you need to work on your training and promotion.

The importance of specialized knowledge is covered in more detail in the book Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

Work At Home Business & The Power Of Autosuggestion

If you are a work at home business owner and you are not using autosuggestion to build your business you are really missing the boat.

What is autosuggestion? It is a strategy in which you influence your subconscious mind by what you allow to enter your five senses. By using your sight, hearing, touch, taste and feeling you can control what enters your conscious mind, which controls what enters your subconscious mind.

Your subconscious mind is where your thoughts come from and the thoughts that allow you to build a successful business is the result of good programming of your subconscious mind.

This is why most people who coach work at home business owners teach that you should constantly make sure you are engaging in the practice of personal development.

This means that you are reading books like Think And Grow Rich and listen to/watching good audios and videos that share with you strategies, insights and mindsets that are necessary to be successful in business.

The reason why most people struggle in business is because they allow autosuggestion to work AGAINST them instead of work for them. Instead of programming positive thoughts into their subconscious, they program negative thoughts into their subconscious.

This is one of the reasons why I limit certain types of music that I listen to. I cannot listen to hardcore gangsta rap all day and expect to be able to build a successful business. The reason why is because it is programming my subconscious mind in ways that negatively affect my business as oppose to positively affecting my business.

There is an older song that's got this beat that I really like by a group called Lil John and The Eastside boys. The song has been out for a couple of years now. However, there is NO WAY I can constantly listen to that song and expect to be a successful business owner. I'm not going to repeat the words here because they are way too explicit for this blog.

The song is basically about someone trying to start trouble with the group but they aren't willing to back up their trouble with action and what the group will do to them as a result.

If I constantly listen to that every day, what that is going to do is make me very combative and being combative isn't going to help me to build a successful business. In fact, I will probably lose a lot of business by being that way.

The news is something else I cannot spend a lot of time with either. I'll check some websites and click on a couple of articles just to keep myself up to date. However, there is no way in the world I would leave CNN running in the background while I work. That is just a recipe for disaster if I want to be successful in business, ESPECIALLY in this economy.

Just like autosuggestion can work against you, autosuggestion can also work for you. The key is to make sure that you implement it on a regular and continuous basis so that it can work on your behalf.

So how do you use autosuggestion to help you build a successful work at home business? Here are a couple of tips to help you...

#1 - Make sure you are constantly listening to and/or watching a good personal development audio or video. Also make sure you are reading a good personal development book. Do this daily.

#2 - Implement the concept of affirmations. What affirmations are is when you repeat to yourself phrases that affirm what you want to occur in your life.

Even the bible teaches this. There is a scripture that says "Let the weak say I am strong" Joel 3:10. The people saying this are about to go to battle. Those that feel weak are encouraged to affirm themselves by saying they are strong.

You need to do this in your business as well. If you want to hit a certain income or a certain level in your work at home business and you aren't at that level yet, you need to start using affirmations to affirm that income or level into your life.

For example, in my business my goal is to qualify for a level that is known as Bronze Executive Director. I am currently a Director so to reach this goal I have to first become an Executive Director and secondly become a Bronze Executive Director.

However, because I already have someone on my team who has qualified as an Executive Director before and I have other people who have come close, all I have to do is qualify as an Executive Director myself and make sure at least one of those people qualify the same month I do and I am a Bronze Executive Director. Therefore it's not as big of a jump as it would otherwise be.

Therefore, I have written the following affirmation for myself that I am reading on a daily basis starting today...

"By August 31st, 2009 I qualify as a Bronze Executive Director in Pre-Paid Legal Services. In return for hitting this level I commit myself to the service of my clients, the associates in my organization, the associates on Team Freedom and the associates in my company to help them maximize the benefits of this incredible product and take advantage of this awesome business opportunity. I walk the stage at my company's convention in Las Vegas in September during the recognition for new Bronze EDs. I say my name, where I'm from and "Got" and thousands of associates on my team chant "Freedom" while the other 10,000+ associates cheer for me. I lead by example and teach my team to do the same. God gives me the master plan to manifest the production and sales volume necessary for me to qualify for this level and I submit myself to His will to obediently implment that plan into my life and my business."

That's my affirmation. You can use mine as a basis and write one up on your own for you and your business.

Now don't think all you have to do is read books, listen to stuff and do affirmations and your business is going to grow. You have to actually do some WORK as well. However, it is this stuff that makes the work that you do more effective.

The Role Of Faith In Building A Business Opportunity

The bible says "Faith is the substance of things hope for, the evidence of things not seen." When building a business opportunity and you are just starting out, that is exactly what you are doing. You are hoping that it will be a success. You do not see any evidence that it is going to be a successful undertaking.

You must develop faith that you will be able to build a successful business. If you do not have faith, nothing else that you do will matter because you will NEVER create the success that you want to experience.

The bible also says "faith comes by hearing." This is confirmed in the book Think And Grow Rich. Hill states "faith is a state of mind which may be induced, or created, by affirmation or repeated instructions to the subconscious mind, through the principle of autosuggestion."

What this means is that if you want to develop faith in your business opportunity, you must constantly program yourself to believe that it is going to be successful by repeating statements that affirm the success of your business.

For those of us whose business involves network or multi level marketing, this is why it is difficult, if not impossible to build a successful business using this business model without plugging into a weekly opportunity meeting. That meeting is actually a form of affirmation that programs your subconscious mind that the business you are building is going to be a successful business.

What's even more powerful is when you combine autosuggestion with attempting to induce a certain emotional state. If you have ever seen many personal development trainers teach (Tony Robbins and T Harv Eker are two that come to mind in particular) they are constantly trying to get you to experience a certain emotional state.

What's the reason for that? The reason for that is to get your mind into a positive emotional state so that it is even easier to program your subconscious mind to accept the concepts and principles that they are teaching you.

Therefore you don't just want to receive autosuggestion about your business opportunity. You want your mind to experience positive emotions when you receive this autosuggestion. This is why attending major conferences and events regarding your business is so important.

Have you ever wondered why people may struggle with a particular business for months, even years. They go to a single conference or big event and all of a sudden, their business takes off and explodes for them? The reason why this happens is because a major event like this invokes a high level of positive emotion. This emotion puts you in a peak state to receive the autosuggestion being provided to you.

So if you want to be successful in building a business opportunity, you must understand and embrace the role that having faith has in the process. Otherwise, you will NEVER experience the success you are looking for.

Do You DESIRE To Build A Successful Home Based Business?

Do you desire to build a successful home based business? Some people claim that they do. However, I don't think most people understand what truly desiring to build a business really is.

Desire isn't simply just wanting to do something or wishing to do something or hoping to do something. As Napoleon Hill says in Think And Grow Rich to describe the desire of the man who wanted to go into business with Thomas Edison ""It was a keen, pulsating desire, which transcended everything else. It was definite."

When you truly desire something, that means that you are willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen. It means that you are willing to make the necessary sacrifices to see it come to fruition. You think about it constantly. You dream about it. It becomes a significant part of your life.

That's the type of desire that you have to have if you want to build a successful home based business.

Think about the level of commitment that people give to their jobs. They get up early in the morning. They travel to the location of their place of employment (some of them travel 1, 2, even 3 hours ONE WAY!) Many of them work a job that they don't like. Many of them work with people that they don't like. Many of them work for an income that they don't like. In fact, for many people, their paycheck is already spent as soon as it hits the bank account.

However, those people are committed to their jobs. If the boss says they can't take off, many of them won't take off. If the boss says they have to work late, many of them will stay late, even rearranging their lives to stay late for the job.

Why do people do this? They do it because they DESIRE that paycheck. If they don't get that paycheck, they cannot pay their bills. If they cannot pay their bills, they lose all of the services that they have. They lose electricity, they lose heating, they lose their automobile, they lose television, they lose their homes, etc.

They also need a paycheck to eat. What happens if you don't eat? You die!

So because people DESIRE to live and they associate the job with a paycheck that they need to live, they are willing to do whatever it takes to keep that paycheck coming in.

You need to have the same level, if not MORE of a DESIRE to build your home based business. Otherwise when the business gets tough, you will do what most people do when they start a business. You will do what 50% of people do when the going gets tough in their marriage. You will do what most people do in anything in life when things get tough.

You will QUIT!

However, the person who has the desire to build a successful business from home will never quit. They will never retreat. They will never surrender. They will do whatever needs to be done until their goal has been accomplished.

As a result of that desire for success, they will be successful.

Hopefully, you will count yourself in that number!

I know I do!

If you already have a home based business that you are committed to building, make sure you check out my free report where I share the 7 strategies that I use to build an endless stream of prospects to share my home based business with.

If you are currently looking for a home based business to start, I would love to chat with you further to see if my business is a match for you and if you are a match for the type of person I am looking to work with. Go ahead and check out my home based business.

Network Marketing Thoughts Are Things

In network marketing, thoughts are things. What you think about in your business will eventually manifest itself into reality. This is not spooky quack stuff. This is reality and anyone who is involved in the industry that has seen this happen to them can testify as to the truth of this powerful concept.

In the first chapter of Think And Grow Rich there is a story about a man who thought his way into a partnership with Thomas Edison. You can do the exact same thing in your network marketing business.

The problem is most people in this industry think their way to failure as oppose to thinking their way to success.

Thinking success in your business is one of the first steps that you HAVE to take if you want to create a successful business. If you do not conceive success in your own mind first you will never experience success in reality in your business.

Ask any leader how much they thought about success and I guarantee they will tell you ALL OF THE TIME!

However, the large majority of distributors think about failure as oppose to thinking about success. Then when they fail, they respond "I knew this wouldn't work."

Here's a common response that I hear from new distributors who are getting started with a new company...

"I'll give this a try."

GIVE THIS A TRY??? Are you kidding me??? One of my distributors on my team was training (it's nice to hear someone in your downline train by the way) and he said "Trying is simply giving yourself permission to fail." You don't TRY to build a successful network marketing business. You either do what is necessary to be successful or you don't do what is necessary to be successful. It's that simple.

When someone says that they will give this a try, that's a clear indication of the negative thoughts that are flowing in their mind about their chances of success in the business.

Let me conclude by sharing with you two stories of how thoughts are things in network marketing.

Tony Rush, a multiple six figure earner in the direct sales industry use to imagine even when he was broke a little scenario in his mind. This scenario involved him waking up in the morning, going to the bank and making a deposit for $20,000.

The bank teller asks him what does he do for a living. The reason why the bank teller asks this question is because Tony was in the bank last week making a very similar deposit.

Tony responds that he would love to tell but he's in a rush right now because he is on his way to the airport to fly out to the Caribbean with his family. He gives the teller his business card and tells the teller to call him later on at a time that he should have landed.

He use to think about this scenario all the time even when he was broke and had no chance of this ever becoming a reality.

Do you know that a few years later, this EXACT scenario happened to him and played out EXACTLY the way he use to envision and think about it?

Tony recognized that his thoughts are things and that what he thinks about in his business will eventually manifest itself into reality.

I also had a similar experience in my business. I always thought about being one of the trainers on the network marketing team that I am a part of in my company. The team has over 200,000 distributors and in order to be one of the trainers, you have to be a six figure earner and have to be selected by the leader of our team to be a part of the training team.

Well I haven't earned the six figure income yet so I figured that I would never train on the call until I became a six figure income. However, I still thought about training on the call.

I record the calls for the team so I'm typically on the speaker line to record the call and also help out in case something happens (i.e. like the trainer gets disconnected or we have to bridge our line into another line.)

One day I'm not sure what happened but whoever was suppose to be training didn't show up. I'm frantically calling the different trainers and can't get anybody on the line. Finally I get one of them and he says he can't do it because he's about to get on a flight. He suggested that I go ahead and do the call.

So I went ahead and trained on the call. Everybody was very impressed and even the leader of the team (a gentleman who earns over $700,000 a year in network marketing) thanked me for stepping up to the plate and doing the call.

I believe the reason why this happened is because I thought about training on the call so much that it eventually manifest itself into reality. This isn't the only time I have done this in my network marketing business either.

I thought about having an organization all across the country and that has happened. I thought about being featured in a magazine article about the company I am with and that has happened. I thought about being the presenter of the business opportunity and being one of the company trainers in my local market and that has happened.

All of these things have happened to me because I thought about it constantly and those thoughts eventually became reality.

So always remember, thoughts are things in your network marketing business. What you think about will eventually happen in your business.

For more information on this, make sure you read Chapter one in the book Think And Grow Rich, which is entitled "Thoughts Are Things."

Think And Grow Rich For MLM Distributors

Have you ever read the book "Think And Grow Rich?" I would think that it would be required reading for every MLM distributor in every company!

There are a lot of valuable lessons that you can get out of the book specifically for those of us who are involved as distributors in MLM companies.

If you haven't read the book, I highly recommend that you purchase a copy of Think And Grow Rich

What I plan to do over the next several days and weeks to come is to take a specific topic from the book and write a quick blog entry as to how that topic applies to those of us who are building a MLM business.

Tomorrow, I will cover the first topic, which is "Thoughts Are Things." Here is a list of all of the topics that will be covered in this blog series...

1. Thoughts Are Things
2. Desire
3. Faith
4. Autosuggestion
5. Specialized Knowledge
6. Imagination
7. Organized Planning
8. Decision
9. Persistence
10. Power of The Mastermind
11. Sex Transmutation
12. Subconscious Mind
13. The Brian
14. The Sixth Sense
15. The 6 Ghosts Of Fear

So make sure you check back here every day for this powerful series. Better yet, subscribe to this blog by using the link on the upper right hand corner of this website.

Make sure you get a copy of the book so you can follow along. Otherwise you simply aren't going to know what I am talking about.

How To Get Unstuck In Your Network Marketing Business

Are you feeling stuck in your network marketing business?

If so, I want you to take a look at this video.

It's pretty funny, but this is exactly what a lot of people do in their network marketing business.

After you look at the video, I want you to answer the following question...

What should these people do to get out of their situation?

Whatever that answer is, that is EXACTLY what you need to do to get unstuck in your network marketing business.

Enjoy!

MLM Training - Should You Sponsor Wide Or Deep?

One of the most confusing topics when it comes to MLM Training is the question of sponsoring and where to place distributors in your organization. Obviously, this is going to depend on your compensation plan.

For instance, if you are in a binary compensation plan, this is not a very complicated question. You have 2 legs. You get paid on the weakest of the 2 legs. So anybody you sponsor goes into your weakest leg. Plain and simple.

In a Uni-level compensation plan, it becomes more difficult. You might only get paid on the 1st 7 levels, but you can sponsor an unlimited number of levels wide. Should you build 7 deep and start a new leg or should you just build wide?

In a stairstep/breakaway, this is even more difficult to determine the answer to. You get paid unlimited levels deep as long as no one in your organization is at or above your level. You can also place distributors an unlimited number wide.

I just came across a video on YouTube that I believe does an excellent job at explaining how you should handle the sponsor wide vs deep question. It's actually funny because this is the way I build now, but isn't the way I build when I first got started. I wish I would have known this information at the beginning. I know for a fact I would be making a LOT more money than what I'm making right now had I known this information.

So check it out and apply it to your business!

Should You Buy MLM Traffic Formula 2.0?

Many times I see articles like this about products and I expect the article to say one of two things. The article will either say yes you should buy the product and give you the reasons why. Or the article will say no you shouldn't buy the product, give you the reasons why and the author will give you a link to another product that he or she feels you should buy instead.

I'm going to do something a little bit different here. I'm actually going to tell you who I think MLM Traffic Formula 2.0 is a good fit for and who shouldn't buy this course.

In case you haven't heard, Mike Dillard has released his latest home study course on the subject of attraction marketing and building a network marketing business using the internet. The course launched as of yesterday and will be on sale for 7 days.

The way it's going to work is he's going to sell the course for 7 days. The course will be in the form of modules about different topics on the subject of how to build a MLM business using internet marketing, specifically the way Mike Dillard builds his business.

Although he has a course on this subject already, since the last course came out, a lot has changed. There are a number of new tools on the internet that simply wasn't available when the first course came out. One tool in particular that comes to mind is social media.

Also there are a number of additional concepts that Dillard and his team were not aware of when the original course was produced that are now applied to his business that he shares in the new course as well.

So with that said, the number one question that you want to know is...

Should You Buy MLM Traffic Formula 2.0?

Here's the advice I would give you. It's the same advice I would give you if you were a distributor in my organization and you were personally asking me whether you should buy the course or not.

The first thing you need to recognize is that Mike Dillard has a VERY different philosophy from what you have probably been taught by your upline leadership. Therefore you need to understand what his philosophy is, what it is based on and how it pertains to this course.

Mike Dillard doesn't believe in a lot of the concepts that many upline leaders in MLM believe in and teach. He doesn't believe in sharing your business with friends and family. He doesn't believe in networking and meeting people offline. In fact, he doesn't even consider MLM or network marketing to be a "real" business if all you are doing is building a downline organization.

What he believes is that your MLM or network marketing business should be a part of your revenue stream but that the actual business that you should be building is an information publishing business in which you offer information products that help MLM or network marketing distributors build their businesses.

For example, when you hear that Mike has made over 7 million dollars from his business, what you need to understand is that a significant part of that revenue does NOT come from his primary business opportunity. It actually comes from his informational product business.

Now granted, he is the #2 income earner in his primary opportunity, so it's not like he's not making any money from it. Just recognize that a lot of those millions came from selling information products.

The fact of the matter is that if you take the number of people who have build their network marketing businesses using traditional network marketing strategies. You know things like, make a list of friends and family, get referrals, networking, lifestyle marketing, etc, the large majority of the millionaires and six figure plus earners made their incomes from these strategies.

So to believe that because of the internet they no longer work or effective is just not an accurate view. In fact there are thousands of people who have gotten started in network marketing in a post internet era and have build a full time income part time using traditional strategies.

I'll give you one example of many just to prove my point.

I know of a gentleman named Glenn Davis who lives in Maryland and is in the same business opportunity that I am in. In the first 30 days that he started building the business, he was able to hit the top position in the compensation plan. In the next 30 days, he helped someone on his team do the same. The next 30 days, he helped someone else on his team in a different line of sponsorship do the same.

This all happened in the year 2009 by the way.

In 90 days, he's making over $10,000 a month in network marketing and guess how he did it?

He made a list of all of his friends, familiy and people that he knew. He invited them to an in home presentation. Those that signed up he had them book an in home presentation and by following that simple process it duplicated itself and allowed him to build a massive business quickly.

Now granted, everybody is not going to have the results that Glenn did. However, the fact that Glenn was able to do all of this in the year 2009 shows you that traditional network marketing strategies still work and that they are still effective.

Therefore if you are buying this course because you believe that traditional network marketing strategies don't work and that this is somehow going to be the key secret strategy that you need to implement into your business to have success, save your money.

It's just a course. It's not the savior for your network marketing business.

Who is the type of person that should purchase MLM Traffic Formula 2.0?

With that said, I do believe the course has a lot of value. It is just going to have value for a certain type of person.

For instance, some of you, no matter what I tell you are convinced that traditional network marketing strategies don't work. That's fine, I don't care if we share the same business building philosophy or not. All I care about is I want you to make money. So if you are convinced that these strategies don't work, you need to have some strategies that you believe do work and this course has a ton of them that you can implement.

ALSO, while I don't agree with Mike Dillard's philosophy on traditional network marketing strategies, I do believe he knows what he is talking about when it comes down to the subject of generating a ton of prospects over the internet.

This is one reason why I recommend his courses even though I don't agree with everything he says. The stuff that he talks about in the actual internet marketing areas, like setting up lead capture pages, generating traffic to your website, etc are top notched!

MLM Traffic Formula 2.0 is a home study course. It is not a religion.

As a result, you can PICK AND CHOOSE what information in the course is right for you and want information you are simply going to discard.

For instance, you, like myself may not agree with Dillard's philopshy on traditional network marketing strategies. However you do agree that social media websites and video sharing websites are a great way to generate leads for your network marketing business.

Therefore, you can ignore the stuff that Dillard talks about when he shoots down traditional network marketing strategies and you can use the information that he talks about on how to generate traffic from social media websites and video sharing websites.

The course is priced low enough that if it helps you to recruit (in many cases as few as 1-2 new distributor) it will more than pay for your investment in the course.

I also believe Mike Dillard is 100% accurate when he talks about the proper mindset for building a successful network marketing business. Mindset is 80% of what it takes to be successful anyway, so if we can agree on that part of the business, that's most of what you need right there.

So with that, here's a quick list of who I think this course is right for and who shouldn't buy this course...

Who is MLM Traffic Formula 2.0 a good investment for?

• If you believe traditional MLM doesn't work and you are looking for an internet based alternative.
• If you are looking for a resource that will teach you how to generate leads online.
• If you are looking for a way to diversify your income in case anything happens to your primary network marketing opportunity (A smart idea ESPECIALLY for those of you who don't listen to me and insist on getting involved in start-up opportunities)
• If you would like to market on the internet but your primary network marketing opportunuty won't let you and you need a work around.

MLM Traffic Formula 2.0. is a great investment for you.

Who is MLM Traffic Formula 2.0 NOT a good investment for?

• If you believe in traditional network marketing and don't want to be distracted from other ideas that are contrary to the way you build your business.
• If you are broke and are just looking for a "magic pill" to cure the struggles in your business.
• If you are like one of my business partners who works 60 to 80 hours a week, barely squeezes in time to build his network marketing business, has already build a successful business using traditional network marketing strategies and can barely type an email much less be bothered with lead capture pages, YouTube, Facebook and twitter.
• If you are one of those people who just buys all of the latest home study courses and lets it sit on the shelf collecting dust, or you go through it but never apply anything that you learned.

MLM Traffic Formula 2.0. is probably not a good investment for you.

Mike Dillard has created a 36 minute Free Online DVD that explains more information about the MLM Traffic Formula.

If you just want more information about the course or you are ready to buy the course you can check out MLM Traffic Formula 2.0 right here.

Now keep in mind the regular price for this course is going to be $997. If you are reading this page after June 11th, that's going to be the price of the course. However, right now, you can purchase it for significantly less than that so don't delay if this is something you believe is going to be right for you.

Mike Dillard does offer a 60 day no questions asked money back guarantee, so if you aren't satisfied with the course for ANY reason, simply let his office know within that time period and you will get your money back, plain and simple.

If you are interested in the 7 strategies that I personally use to build my network marketing business, make sure you sign up for my free Endless Streams of Prospects report. I personally use a combination of traditional network marketing strategies as well as internet and 21st century approaches so you will see that reflected in my free report.

Success University & World Ventures Merger - My Thoughts!

Not sure if you heard the news or not, but last month two major start-up network marketing companies announced that they would be merging. Success University, a company that provides personal development training and World Ventures, a company that markets travel and travel discount memberships have merged as a single company.

Here is a link to the actual announcement made by Matt Morris, the founder of Success University.

Before I share my comments on what I think about the merger, let's take a look at the details and how this will affect distributors of both companies.

1. The company will now operate as World Ventures. All active members of Success University are now independent representatives for World Ventures.

2. The Success University training center is now available in the World Ventures back office training site.

3. The $49.95 a month that members are paying for Success University will remain the same. In addition to getting the back office, they will also get the Leisure Travel & Consulting Package, The Dreamtrips package and the Representative Business System for no additional cost.

4. The new World Ventures will do business in the top 10 countries that make up Success University's membership. Any company that isn't including in that top 10, the current members will receive the membership for free. However, any commissions you are currently receiving from those countries will no longer be available until World Ventures is able to open up in those countries.

Both companies have a little over 100,000 members, so assuming everybody stays on the new company will have over 200,000 members.

So how do I feel about the merger?

If you are already in World Ventures, what's there not to like about this deal? The Success University training program is now going to become a part of the World Ventures back office. I'm assuming that as long as you have an active Representative Business System, you are going to get access to this program for free, so that's a great deal for you.

World Ventures also previously only operated in the United States. Now, you will be able to build your business in at least 9 other countries besides the USA.

However, I think this is a big loss for members of Success University. A lot of distributors joined Success University because they want to market personal development. Many of them have no interest in marketing travel.

Now, they have no choice if they want to continue to build the business. All of the branding is World Ventures branding and marketing the travel program. The Success University system is now relegated to an add on as part of the back office.

This is going to be a huge win for ILearningGlobal, a competitor for Success University. I predict that THOUSANDS of former Success University distributors will move over to ILearningGlobal because they want to market personal development and they don't want to market travel.

If you are in one of the countries that the new company isn't involved in, it's even worse! Now, all of those commissions that you worked hard to build over the last several years are now gone. Who knows how long its going to take to open up in your country? While you may get a free membership and that's great, a free membership isn't going to pay your bills.

I feel really bad for those of you who are going to be hurt by this merger because the new company isn't in your country. However, this is clearly another example of why I DO NOT RECOMMEND that you get involved in a start-up company. While this could happen theoretically even in a company that is older than a decade, it's more likely to happen to a start-up company.

Another group that is going to be hurt by this merger are the internet marketers that market Success University as a part of their internet marketing business, as well as the internet network marketers that use Success University as a funded proposal.

Success University was a great product for an internet marketer because it was personal development driven and they offered a 14 day free trial. The free trial is now no longer an option with the new merger. The branding is also now gone since the company is a part of World Ventures.

Jeremy Henderson wrote an excellent blog post on why this merger is going to hurt internet marketers. I agree with him.

Adam Holland also wrote an excellent blog post for those of you who use Success University as a funded proposal. Considering the fact that his primary opportunity is a competing travel company, this really puts him in a tough position.

If you are interested in keeping up to date on the merger, you can take a look at the official Success University blog, which is edited by the founder of the company Matt Morris.

If you are frustrated with Success University and you are in the USA or Canada, feel free to check out what I believe to be the best business opportunity available. You don't want to be in a ground floor company. What you want to be is in a rock solid, stable company that is in a ground floor opportunity. That is the company that I'm involved in.

If you are involved in the new World Ventures and you are looking for some strategies and techniques to take your business to the next level, make sure you check out my free report on the 7 ways that I personally use to build an endless stream of prospects. Many of these strategies you will be able to use to help you build internationally now that you have that option.

World Ventures Compensation Plan

Today we are going to continue our series on taking a look at the compensation plan of different network marketing companies. Up this week we are going to look at the World Ventures compensation plan.

If you would like more information how how network marketing compensation plans work in general, take a look at this post entitled how to evaluate a network marketing compensation plan.

World Ventures is a travel network marketing company. They market travel packages as well as a travel membership club. They also offer a business opportunity where you can make money by offering these packages and the opportunity to others as well.

The company was founded in December of 2005, so it is over 3 years old. That puts it in start-up phase. If you read my recent blog post about LocalAdLink and the problem with MLM Startups, you know that I don't recommend that you join ANY MLM that hasn't been around for at least 5 years. Feel free to read that post if you haven't already done so.

Let's take a look at the World Ventures Pay Plan and see how it matches up.

The first way you get paid is through direct sales. Whenever you personally make a sale to a customer, you get paid. For example, if I were to go to your World Ventures website and book a flight, hotel and rental car, the company receives a commission from the airline, the hotel provider and the rental car provider.

50% of the commission that the company receives is paid back to the distributor who made the sale. You can increase the percentage up to as high as 80% if you are willing to actuallly become a travel agent.

So lets say I book a flight for $300, a hotel for $500 and a rental car for $200. That's a total of $1000. World Ventures will receive a commission on that package. Let's say it's 8%. The company will receive $80 for the $1000 package. You will receive half of that, which is $40.

What is that percentage? You never really know. The percentage is based on a wide variety of factors including the supplier that the travel is booked from, the agreements that World Ventures has with that supplier and the amount of travel that World Ventures books with that supplier on an annual basis.

Since I travel 3-4 times a year, I decided to do some price shopping to see if World Ventures offers better deals than what I get through Priceline. My family is flying to Palm Springs, California in July for a business trip/vacation and I'm flying to Vegas in September for a business trip. Priceline was slightly less expensive than what World Ventures was quoting me for the same exact flights.

Therein lies the problem with the travel industry. While it is a huge industry, it is also a very COMPETITVE industry. Each company is selling the exact same thing. You are selling the same flighs, the same hotel, the same rental car, etc. Therefore whoever offers the best prices is going to win.

Since there's other companies in the travel industry that do significantly more volume than World Ventures, they can get better prices and offer them to you at discount prices.

But you say "so what, I can sign up as a distributor for World Ventures and book my travel with myself, thus pocketing the commissions." That may be true, but I can do the exact same thing by signing up as an affiliate for one of the major travel websites. Plus signing up as an affiliate for those sites is FREE whereas, I would have to PAY a one time fee, plus a monthly fee to do it with World Ventures.

In addition, there is a good chance that my commissions as an affiliate could actually be more than what my commissions would be as a World Ventures representative. For example, I read somewhere that World Ventures doesn't pay on flight only packages. Affiliates for travel websites do get paid for flight only packages.

In addition to getting paid for travel bookings, you also get paid for selling World Ventures travel memberships. There are two memberships that World Ventures offers for sale.

The first is the Leisure Travel & Consulting Package. This is basically a website that you can book travel through. You can book your own travel through this website or you can promote the website to others and let them book travel through the website. It costs $199 one time to get this website, plus you have to pay $19.99 a month to maintain it.

So you are looking at $438.88 for the first year, plus $239.88 for each additional year to have this package. I personally see no reason why anyone would pay this kind of money when they can get something similiar for free just by signing up as an affiliate for one of the top travel websites like Priceline or Expedia.

The second is the World Venture Dreamtrips. With this program, World Ventures offers a number of trips throughout the year to various destinations. Basically you look at a calendar to see when you want to go on vacation. You see what trip they are doing at that time and you book it. The trips are for very low prices.

For example, I saw a 5 day, 4 night vacation to Cancun, Mexico for only $269 per person based on double occupancy. On the Dreamtrip website, they say that the best online price is $402.

So I decided to google that resort and see what I could find. I went to FunJet.com and found the same resort for the same time period for only $279 a person, which is a $10 per person difference. It didn't take long. It was the first website I pulled up on Google.

To become a member of World Ventures Dreamtrips, you pay $199.95 + $19.95 a month. So you are looking at a total of $439.95 for the first year, plus $239.40 for each additional year. That's a lot of money to pay to get a $10 per person discount if you ask me.

Whenever you market one of these $199 packages, you receive $50 in direct commission.

The second way you get paid is in overrides based on the sales that your team makes. World Ventures uses a combination of what is known as a binary compensation plan as well as a stairstep breakway compensation plan. However, you don't qualify for the stairstep breakway portion of the plan until you achieve at least the position of Director.

Binary plans look good when you present them. However, the way they work in practice is a different story. You can read more in my article about How To Evaluate MLM Compensation Plans, but the problem with them is that more often than not, your volume in one leg will almost always outpace the volume in the other leg, thus limiting your income.

In World Ventures, you have two legs, a left leg and a right leg. You need at least 4 active customers and/or distributors, two on each side to qualify to earn commissions. If you have 6 active customers (3 on each side), every month you maintain this, your monthly membership fees for both the Travel & Consulting Package as well as the Dreamtrips package are waived.

I actually like this feature of the compensation plan. I wish more network marketing companies waived fees after having a certain amount of customers on the books monthly.

Once you have at least 4 active customers and/or distributors, you earn $100 whenever you have at least 6 sales made in your organization. 3 sales need to be made on the left side of your organization and 3 sales need to be made on the right side of your organization in order for the $100 to be earned. This is known as a cycle.

The maximum amount that you can earn from cycle bonuses is $2000 a week. Therefore if you have more than 120 sales in a week (60 sales minimum on the left and on the right), any additional sales made, you don't earn any money on those additional sales.

Keep in mind BOTH lines of sponsorhip need to have at least 3 sales in order to get paid. If one line of sponsorhip has 100 sales and the other has 2 sales, guess how much money you make? Absolutely nothing. They do allow you to carry over volume to the next week and continue to carry it over until you reach at least 3 sales on both sides

Now one good thing is that because everybody has only 2 lines of sponsorship, that means that if you have someone in your up line that recruits a lot, there is a good chance that you are going to have distributors placed underneath you. Of course, that will only happen if you also happen to be in that leader's "weaker" organization.

However, if you earn at least $25,000 in a month, you can start all over again. What happens is you create a new position above your current position. Your current position becomes one side for your new position and you can now start building a 2nd side of customers/distributors to try and match the volume created from your original position. You can do this repeatedly each time you reach at least $25,000 a month.

That means even if you are in a strong recruiter's "weaker" organization, when that recruiter maxes out, you won't get anymore people placed under you by that leader because that leader will move on and start a new business unit and try to match the volume of his/her original business unit.

By the way, if you sign up a customer but that customer doesn't opt to do the business (i.e. purchase a RBS), that customer's membership will automatically balance to your weakest leg to help maximize your income. Customers don't go into the binary, only distributors.

In addition, whenever you earn at least 6 cycles, you also earn $100 in travel dollars. This money can be used to purchase travel from the company.

The third way you get paid in WorldVentures is in residual income. However, in order to qualify for residual income, you must be at least at the Director position. This requires at least 180 active customers (90 on the left and 90 on the right).

When this happens, you now earn $20 a month for every 6 active customers in your organization (3 on the left and 3 on the right). This maxes out at $1500 a month.

World Ventures also has car bonuses and house bonuses when you hit some of the highest levels in the compensation plan.

So now that you know how the World Ventures marketing plan works, lets see how it matches up to the areas I evaluate in this blog for compensation plans.

1. How easy is it to make $500 to $1000 a month?

You really have no idea how much money you are going to make on travel booked on your website since the commissions vary so significantly. Therefore, your best bet in evaluating your income is to look at how much money you will make selling the memberships

Since you make $50 for each membership you sell, you will need to sell 10 services a month to earn $500. You can either sell 10 services to 10 different customers or you can sell 5 customers both services.

Note - At the time of this writing World Ventures has a limited time promotion where a customer can get BOTH services for the price of one. However, they will need to pay the membership fee for both services. Therefore if the customer buys both services under this promotion, you only make $50 because they are only charging the customer $199 for both instead of $199 for each.

Let's look at the numbers and see what your sign-up ratios will need to be to make 10 sales to 10 different customers...

50% - 20 people a month (5 per week)
25% - 40 people a month (10 per week)
10% - 100 people a month (25 per week)
5% - 200 people a month (50 per week)
1% - 1000 people a month (250 per week)

These numbers are reasonable for a part timer as long as you are signing up at least 10% of the people you get to look at the presentation. To do that, you would need to get at least 5 people a day (5 days a week) to look at a presentation, which is possible for a part timer who is serious and consistent.

2. How much does the product cost and how much does it cost to get started as a distributor?

The travel prices are in line with what other travel companies are charging. You can probably find a website that sells them for cheaper, but it's not like they are charging significantly above what other online travel websites are charging.

The Leisure Travel & Consulting Package is $199 + $19.99 a month. That's way too high in my opinion. As I said before, I can sign up as an affiliate with other travel websites for free and save money by booking travel myself and sharing it with my friends and family.

The World Venture Dreamtrips is $199.95 + $19.95 a month. This is also way too high in my opinion. I can book the same trips on other websites for a little more than what World Ventures is charging.

The only way this would make sense from a customer standpoint is if I was booking a significantly large amount of travel (i.e. 12 trips a year for a couple). How many people do you know go on 12 vacations a year?

To get started in the business, you will need to invest $99.95 one time plus $9.95 a month in the Representative Business System. The Representative Business System (RBS) is an online tool that includes a Personalized Website and Back Office System as well as an online Training Program with essential Sales and Marketing tools to help Representatives build their WorldVentures business.

RBS purchases are not commissionable (this is good...there's another travel company that makes these types of sales commissionable that is in trouble right now because of it.)

In addition to paying this fee, you must also either personally sign up for at least one of the two services and make your monthly membership fee each month OR you must sign up at least one new customer a month to stay active.

So other than the actual travel (i.e. flights, hotels, etc), the prices are way too high in compared to the value you get from them. That is a BIG red flag because what that means is that the only reason why people would pay these prices is so that they can participate in the compensation plan, which is one of the areas state and federal regulators look at in determining whether a company is operating an illegal pyramid scheme.

I would love to know what the percentage of World Ventures customers that subscribe to these two plans are NOT participating in the income opportunity.

3. Is there competition for your products and services?

There is a SIGNIFICANT amount of competition for World Ventures products and services. I already showed you one website (priceline.com) where I can get flights cheaper than what World Ventures charges you. I also showed you how I was able to find a similar package that World Ventures Dreamtrips for only $10 per person more than what World Ventures is charging.

At this point, I cannot recommend that anyone get involved with World Ventures at this point in time. The products are priced too high compared to what you can get otherwise. The company is too young so we don't even know if they are even going to be around a few years from now. There are no residuals until you reach one of the highest levels in the compensation plan.

In addition, MLM travel companies have a history of high failure, more than any other type of MLM company. The reason why is because the commissions made from selling travel are too small to fund a compensation plan.

In fact two of the founders of the company were involved in another travel network marketing (Mike Azcue and Wayne Nugent) called GTT Travel. This company tried to do network marketing to sell travel, failed and had to reorganize to become a traditional travel company. Azcue and Nugent left GTT Travel to start World Ventures.

Until I see some actual examples of deals that I can get booking through World Ventures that I cannot find elsewhere that justifies the $400+ that you have to pay for EACH membership for the 1st year and $200+ that you have to pay for EACH membership, each additional year, there is no way I can recommend this company.

Plus, do you really want to be starting a travel business in a recession? People aren't traveling more in a recession. They are cutting back on their travel during a recession. That is why travel is significantly cheaper than it was even a year ago. Very few people are traveling right now.

There are a number of other companies that I would recommend over World Ventures. In fact, any of the other companies that I reviewed so far (i.e. Avon, Mary Kay, Primerica, Arbonne and Mona Vie) are better options than World Ventures.

However, there is one company that I believe has the best compensation plan in the network marketing industry.

For example, if you sign up 1 customer and they buy both the $199 Leisure Travel & Consulting Package and the $199 Dreamtrips package (after the promotion expires of course), you would earn $100 commission. The customer spends about $400 and you make $100.

However, if I sign up 1 customer for two services that costs $45.95 for the first month, guess how much money I make? I make over $207.

Who do you think is going to make more money? Someone making $100 for a $400 sale or someone making TWICE that for a sale that is TEN times LESS?

You can click here to learn more about the company that I am involved in that has what I believe to be the best MLM compensation plan out of the literally hundreds of MLM companies that I have looked at.

If you're already involved in World Ventures you can sign up for my free report that will share with you the 7 strategies that I personally use to build an endless amount of prospects to talk to. These strategies can be used for ANY MLM company, including World Ventures. This report has a $67 value, but you can get it today for free.

If you are reading this blog at a point in the future and the report is no longer free, I'm sorry but you just missed out. So if it's still available sign up today and get it for free while it's still available.

MLM Traffic Formula 2 For Free?

I just finished watching MLM Traffic Formula 2 by Mike Dillard. No, not the actual course because it's not out yet. However, Mike has released a free video where he explains the entire formula in a nutshell.

A lot of you are probably wondering whether you should purchase this course when it comes out. Here's my take on the matter.

The traditional method to build a MLM business is not dead by any stretch of the imagination. Making a list of people you know and sharing the products and opportunity not only still works today. It is the foundation of my business.

No exaggeration, I would say at least 80% of the production that comes through my organization as well as the new recruits that join my organization come from a situation in which a new person who joined the business shared the product or business with someone that they already knew.

Whenever I do a training, I might ask the audience to stand up if they were sponsored by somebody that they already knew prior to being exposed to the opportunity. 80% of the people in the room typically stand up.

That being said, there are a lot of people who are either afraid to approach their friends and family or they don't want to approach their friends and family for whatever reason. Therefore, when someone like Mike comes along and says that he has a way to build the business that doesn't require you to do this, people are going to flock to it.

So if you are looking to get this course because you believe talking to your friends and famliy doesn't work, save your money. It works and it is the foundation to the strategy that I have used to personally build my downline organization all across the United States.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people who would lead you to believe that talking to your friends and family is all you have to do to build the business. That isn't true either. Some people might be fortunate where they know a lot of people. However, the large majority of us will HAVE to learn how to talk to someone we don't know in order to build the business.

Mike Dillard's Traffic Formula will teach you ONE way to do this. Is it the only way? No! Is it the most effective way? For some of you, yes it will be. For others of you, no it won't be.

However, it is a way that works. It is a way that I have incorporated into my own business and have gotten results from. I've signed up new customers with it. I've recruited new distributors with it. I also make money every single month with it regardless of what anybody does in my primary network marketing opportunity.

So if you are interested in knowing what the MLM Traffic Formula is for free, go ahead and take a look at the 38 minute video that Mike Dillard created that explains the entire formula. Once you know the formula, you have two options...

a) Look up strategies and tactics on the internet that will teach you how to implement the formula for free. You can start right here on this blog because I have written literally hundreds of blog posts that cover some of the components to the formula.

b) Purchase the course when it comes out and have the exact formula and how to implement the formula right at your fingertips.

If you got the money, I recommend you purchase the course. You'll get everything in one place and it will save you a lot of time and money as well. If you don't have the money and you can't get the money, then learn the strategies for free. It will take you longer and it will cost you more money doing it this way. However, you can still do it.

After all, I learned all of this stuff before I even knew that Mike Dillard's Traffic Formula was available. However, had I known about it, I would have gotten results a lot faster!

Also, if you can't wait for the 2nd version of the course, you can go ahead and purchase the original MLM Traffic Formula right now. The large majority of this course is still relevent and will still give you a lot of value.