Mixing Breakfast With Business

Lucy Martin from Juice Plus and a NEIS panel interviewer invited me a couple of weeks ago after my panel interview. I attended as a guest and was very excited to meet other people who were in business as well. 17 people attended the breakfast and everyone had an opportunity to exchange contact information and talk about their business.What Is the Leads Club?This breakfast event was not just any ordinary breakfast where business people come along. It was a very organised and systematised approach to helping both members and guests come together to share their businesses and to help each other generate leads. Hence the name the Leads Club.Over the years I've been involved with network marketing and running other people's businesses and never once have I been invited to an event like this. I've attended Toastmasters, local chamber of commerce events and many other networking seminars and this one has been the most effective for me. The first thing that struck me was how smartly organised and upfront they were about this meeting. Graeme Inglis from Smartline, who chaired the meeting today stated at the beginning that "we are here today to talk about our businesses and to provide leads or referrals on to each other". By saying this at the beginning I felt more comfortable to approach the meeting from a business perspective and be open to share my business without any hesitation, knowing that I will be able to help others and vice versa.How Can A Leads Club Benefit You?For me I could see lots of benefits by attending the weekly meetings and becoming part of the club as the service I provide is quite applicable to most businesses. Though, there are some factors to consider and how a club like this may benefit your business:1. Am I offering a niche product or service that is suitable for local businesses? e.g. I ran a Dragonboat business that sold paddles to Dragonboat club members. Unless you know or are involved in the sport it would be quite challenging to get leads from other local businesses.2. Can I generate leads faster from other sources? If so, should I still attend?3. Does this lead generation technique fit into my business plan?If you are interested in getting more information about the leads club in your local area, visit Leads Club Australia.

MLM Prospecting System - Expand Your Business and Increase Your Income

Since network marketing involves the collective effort of large numbers of people it is greatly essential to identify a source that will help you identify all the people who are interested in this marketing method. It is also essential that this prospecting system should segregate various kinds of information into to highly prospectus and medium prospectus category.After the segregation process it is possible to give varied level of importance to different kinds of people. Thus the mlm prospecting system will be one of the most important that will help to expand the business in a great manner. There can also be a great level of flexibility that can be achieved due to the wonderful software systems and tools availability.Using a prospectus websiteUsing a prospectus system will be highly beneficial since this system provides a wonderful opportunity to contact with many thousands of people in a very fast manner and it is also possible to track the attitude of the people who are interested in this system. The website should be developed in such a way that they convey great deal of information about the product ranging from price, specification and quality of the product.Another important aspect is that they should also be highlighted about the various kinds of advantages they will be able to enjoy once they enter into your marketing network. All the claims that are being made by you should be greatly genuine.Developing separate website for prospectingThe website that is being developed for the purpose of prospecting should be separate from that of the original website. This is because this concept will enable you to activate the filtering process. The filtering process will be of great use to attract the customers who are greatly interested in the product and also eliminate people who are interested in other products produced by some other developers.

Is AlivaMax Dead Or Alive

I want to review AlivaMax for you. I have nothing to lose and nothing to gain in AlivaMax. From what I can tell about the company is that they are still in pre-launch here in January 2010. The mission statement is to deliver unique, cutting edge anti-aging products backed by science.The GoodIt appears to be very focused with the core product for anti-aging and wrinkles. They say that you can have 45% less wrinkles in 2 months. Now, I have not tried it and I can not see that they have a track record to prove the results, so you will have to try the products to see if it really produces the results. It says it works with dual pepitides to repair the fragmented collagen. Now, I will tell you that they get very deep into the science aspects, but for the average user like you or I, that is all good, but proof is in results.The BadI will tell you at first glance at the company, I was impressed for about 5 seconds. As I went back to the mission statement, they talk about cutting edge backed by science and every other company is already or has been doing something similar. So I do not see that they are really cutting edge. Now, let me ask you, if taking acid to your face was cutting edge, would you do it? The answer would be no on my part and hope yours too. Before you do anything with your skin, you want to see the effects of the products. I also have seen products that deliver results a lot faster also backed by science. Also, they allow you to get an idea on marketing plans, and talk about three way calls and friends and family being recruited. If they think their products are cutting edge, then neither is their marketing plans. Now, if you want to trust this product or if you try it and it actually works, I can tell you after I have built several businesses, the business plan is old school. You will want to update yourself on a marketing plan or learn that plan from someone with a track record and learn from them. Do not fall for the old school methods that everyone is your customer. You really need to profile this product and chose your prospects carefully.In Conclusion:Well, I can say that the data is scarce. It is a very new company and with high risks. You will first need to validate the claims and make sure it works. I will tell you the only way you can see if it works is do the treatment only on half your face, and be prepared to wait 2 months before you can start the other side. You can compare results in the mirror. Most people will not do this. If it works, be prepared to design a system to attract qualified people into your business. The choice is up to you, I would lean to thumbs down or not a deal.

Arbonne Review - Is the Arbonne International Opportunity the Right Fit For Your Home

Overview Of The Arbonne International BusinessArbonne International is a Swiss company that has been in business for over 20 years. They sell skin care products, cosmetics, weight loss products, and nutritional supplements. Arbonne International is in compliance with two of the toughest companies when it comes to cosmetic safety. They are the European Cosmetics Directive and the European Chemical Agency, which is known as REACH. These 2 companies have tougher safety standards than USA compliance agencies and therefore, their skin care and make up products are just as good if not better than anything else that was made in America. Their products are made without any animal testing or animal by products. So there is no questioning the quality of the products Arbonne sells to the consumer.My main goal in this article is to talk more about Arbonne business opportunity so that you can determine for yourself whether or not you want to be an Arbonne consultant.How To Get StartedTo become an Arbonne consultant, it will cost you $109. Consultants receive a 35% discount on all purchases. There is also a renewal fee of $15 each year to remain active. Consultants have the option to purchase the Arbonne pre-built web site for $30 per month.In order to start selling products you have to do one of two things. Either buy the products you want to sell at 35% off the retail price or buy their Right Start Value Kit. This kit costs you $350 and its suggested retail price is $700. You can order a maximum of 2 Right Start Value Kits in your first 2 months. So with each kit you can make a $350 profit. After you run out of your maximum allotted 2 Starters Kits each worth $700 retail, you can still buy the same product but now it will cost you $450 instead of $350 dollars.Arbonne International Compensation PlanArbonne consultants are able to make a 35% commission on their sales. Arbonne's compensation plan allows you to recruit as many people as you want and the people under you can recruit as many as they want too. So there is no limitation on the size of your team.Now in order to be qualified for commissions and bonuses at all times, you must order at least $100 of product every month. Now to some people this can be a disadvantage because you might not be able to sell those products causing your inventory to stockpile. But for some it can be an advantage if these are products they will use personally. Everyone is different and it's up to you to decide if it is worth your time to spend $100 per month in order to remain qualified to receive commissions and bonuses.As a new consultant you'll earn 4% overrides off your team members. For example, if one of the team members you recruited made $200 in sales for the month, then you'd earn $8 (4% multiplied by $200). And remember, you only qualify to earn this 4% override if you are ordering $100 worth of products during that month. So you can see that you really need to do a few things to make a legitimate income. First you need to show your team members how to generate sales. Then you need to show your team members how to recruit new people to join the business opportunity. You also need to continue recruiting people on your own. And it's up to you to become a leader and develop a training program that is able to duplicate success. So as you can see this is no easy task and is totally up to you to decide if this is a commitment you can make to succeed in the Arbonne business opportunity.There are many other distributor levels you can get to in the Arbonne business. The level you get to will depend on how much sales you generate and how much sales your team generates. Now the one disadvantage with Arbonne is that are a lot of requirements you must meet in order to get to different distributor levels. This can be confusing. And this confusion can turn people off to this business opportunity.For example, to just initiate the qualification process to get to the 2nd level distributor called District Manager you must purchase $1,000 worth of products in a single month. This will cost you $650 dollars at the wholesale price. Or if you don't satisfy this rule then your whole team including yourself must have a minimum retail volume of $2500 in a single month. Remember this is only to initiate the qualification process to become a District Manager.Now to complete the qualification process and actually become a District Manager you have 1 to 3 months to meet the following requirements:1. You must make $6,000 in retail volume the 1st month, or you must make $6,000 in retail volume in months 1 and 2 combined, or you must make $7,500 in retail volume in months 1, 2, and 3.2. In the last month of qualification, your team will need to have a retail volume of $2,500. 3. You will also need to have a $1,000 personal volume during the qualification period.So these are just the conditions to qualify for the District Manager. There are more distributor levels you can get to. I just wanted you to see an example of the conditions you and your team must meet in order to get to the 2nd level distributor. Some people may or may not mind the complexity of this compensation plan. It's up to you to determine if being an Arbonne consultant is right for you.Arbonne TrainingArbonne International recommends that their distributors sell face to face. So they put emphasis in teaching warm marketing techniques to the Arbonne consultants. This means consultants will promote and sell their products to people they know like family, friends, and close associates. This is an old method of marketing and today this tactic makes it very difficult to get to your goal of financial independence. It's not guaranteed that all the people you know will be interested in the products you're promoting to them.After you're done promoting to the people you know what's next? It is very necessary that Arbonne start moving away from warm techniques and start teaching their consultants how to use online marketing strategies that will allow their consultants to flourish. With warm marketing techniques, your market is restricted to your local area. But with online marketing knowledge, you are opening up your marketing beyond your local area. This will allow you to get more customer leads, which means more opportunity to sell your products.Now in order to grow financially with Arbonne or with any business opportunity, you must find the right coach that will show you the effective online marketing techniques that will generate customer leads. Why use the warm marketing technique talking to people hoping you can get them interested when you can use the right online marketing strategies to only attract people and talk to people that are already interested in what you have to offer.There are many ways to generate customer leads. You have to personally brand yourself, which means you have to somehow differentiate yourself from the competition. Now one of the disadvantages with Arbonne is that it's very difficult to brand yourself because you're restricted to only use Arbonne's corporate template web site. It's known that the best way to brand yourself is to be yourself by showing people your skills and your personality. And to do this, people make their own web site and provide useful information on their website that solves prospects' business problems. This useful information can be in the form of articles you write and videos starring you. Even on your web site you can have people sign up to your newsletter and then constantly provide them useful informational emails. All of these things mentioned are used to personally brand yourself and are considered customer relationship building tools. People will end up trusting you and viewing you as a leader. And because of this they may start buying your products or better yet join your business opportunity.Arbonne does not allow distributors to make their own custom web site to brand themselves. If you want a web site you have to buy Arbonne's pre-built template web site. With the pre-built Arbonne web site, none of these marketing techniques can be implemented to build your customer base with strong long lasting relationships. How can you personally brand yourself when all the Arbonne distributors get the same cookie cutter web site?So this can be a disadvantage for those people that want to utilize the new marketing strategies to generate customer leads and differentiate themselves from the competition online. However, there are people out there that don't care about marketing online and who don't mind using the warm marketing techniques by talking to friends and family and getting business through word of mouth. If you are this type of person then the Arbonne business opportunity can be a right fit for you.Because Arbonne consultants can't create their own personalized web site to promote Arbonne, you will see distributors using auction sites such as E-Bay to sell their products. Because there is so much competition among Arbonne consultants at these auction sites, the prices of the product will go down therefore making it difficult for consultants to make a reasonable profit.ConclusionThere is no questioning the quality of Arbonne's products. They are regulated by the top safety agencies in Europe and they don't use animal by products or perform any animal testing. Their products can be quite expensive as a 1.5 ounce bottle of facial cream sold by Arbonne is close to $50. But it's known you're paying for high quality.Before committing make sure to answer the following questions:1. Can I profit from products with high quality and high cost? 2. Is it okay for me to use the old marketing strategies of warm marketing by selling to family and friends?3. Is it okay for me not to be able to develop my own web site to brand myself and to promote the Arbonne products? 4. Am I okay with being restricted to the template web site that all other distributors have? 5. Am I willing to learn exactly how the compensation plan works?If you answered yes to all the questions above then this is the right business for you. However, if you're not sure and answered no to some questions, then it's best to continue to look at other business opportunities before committing to the Arbonne business opportunity.

How to Evaluate a Good MLM Company

Many people are now joining a multi-level marketing (MLM) company in the hope of opting out of the recession. It is a good plan and a concept that has already helped many people become financially independent. To increase your chance of building the income that you desire, there are several ways to evaluate a good MLM company.First lets start with a discussion of the MLM industry.MLM is a 50+ year old industry. Multi-level marketing is a term that describes a distribution system where the manufacturer makes a product or a company provides a service and that product or service is marketed or sold through a network of people. Products or services are distributed directly to the consumer, bypassing traditional retailing. Since there is not as much overhead with MLM, the money saved on warehousing, retailing, etc. is paid in the form of commissions to the network of distributors. The terms multi-level marketing and network marketing are used interchangeably.When evaluating a MLM company, you should look for a company that has strong leadership, solid performance and clear plans for the future. The company should have a good support system in place so that customers can order online and contact the company directly if they need to make a product return.The next thing to look for when evaluating an MLM company is the products. Afterall, you will be a representative of this company and you should use and be a strong advocate for them. The company should have products in more than one market segment (for example, weight loss products and skin care). This will likely increase your sales since once you introduce a person to one product line, they are more likely to try some of your other products. You should also choose a company whose products are consumable. That way, there are built-in repeat sales. It is really preferable if the company offers an autoship option. And, finally, the products should be in high demand and target a large market (for example, baby boomers).Another important component of your MLM search should be the training available to you. The person who enrolls you (or someone else in your upline), should be available to personally train you. The company should also have online training and/or webinars. This training should include product information, compensation plan explanation, and personal development.One more element to investigate is the compensation plan--that is, how are you going to be paid. Most MLM compensation plans are quite complex; with different commission rates paid based on product volume that your downline generates. The important thing here is to ask questions if you don't understand something. Also realize that you may not understand all of the details until you qualify for the various levels. Keep in mind also that most MLM companies pay their distributors in multiple ways; cash bonuses, car bonuses, material items, trips. All of this should be evaluated when looking at the compensation plan.Never rush into choosing a particular MLM company. If possible check for reviews and advice from past clients; this will help you to make a better informed choice and ensure that any money spent is a good investment.

Articles Are the Quickest Way to Generate Free MLM Leads

Article marketing is a way of promoting your network marketing business for free. This method will increase your sales and sign - ups, and may end up doubling and even tripling your income.How can article writing increase traffic? The resource box below your article should contain a link to your main website. The most effective way is to link to some type of marketing sales funnel. After reading your article readers may choose to click on the link and you have successfully generated free traffic. Having your articles the free content sites also makes them available to other network marketers who may wish to use your article as content on their site. This is helpful because it creates very needed back-links to your site.As you write more articles, the total number of links to your site increases also. This is perfect because Google places a lot of importance on links popularity. This will help you get ranked in the search engines quickly. Articles are also a great way to help buyers make decisions. Chances are, they may read one of your articles, get interested by the contents you wrote, and go to your site to join your network marketing opportunity or subscribe to your list. Search engines index articles quickly, and articles populate the top ten rankings often. This means high quality free traffic for you just from writing articles.Generating quality leads is easier if you have articles increasing the links and traffic to you site. Having your site on the search engines through your articles is one way of letting the world know about you and your business. If you think about it, only a few minutes of your time is spent on writing one article and submitting to free content site. Before you know what is happening, you are getting more visitors than you previously had and your lead list will continue to grow. If you think you are wasting your time writing these articles, think again. You will see your work rewarded by the new leads and distributors in your business.Try writing one article a day and you will be impressed by the increase in traffic your site will receive.

Building a Network Marketing Business by Building People First

One of the best tips I can give you to become successful in network marketing is to learn how to build up people first, before expecting them to help you be successful. There are a couple of key points to keep in mind when doing this.1. Most people are not ready for success in their personal life. This is why you have seen network marketers spend so much time on personal development in the past.This included things such as books, tapes, rallies, weekly meetings, and so on. These were all designed to help network marketers build their downline by enriching people's lives with self help as well as business tips.The problem in the past was network marketers were spending so much time attending meetings, and purchasing self help material that they really did not spend enough time building their business. Today the Internet makes it much quicker to do the same sort of things.For example you can have a tip of the day sent directly to your downline distributor's inbox to read by email. This could be something short yet meaningful that can help keep them on track.You can create video and audio training that they can access online to help improve their lives as well as their business. The network marketing company that you are in is probably offering business building training as well.2. However, it is equally important that you build your group by giving them useful skills that will help them succeed. All of the positive thinking in the world is not going to build their business without Internet marketing skills.People who truly want to succeed will do the things that are necessary to motivate themselves. However learning how to use the Internet correctly to build a business does require some basic skills.As a leader in your group your job is to pass on tips to help them be more successful based on what is working for you. How you do that is to become successful yourself and learn what works and what does not as it pertains to Internet marketing.This is why it is important to combine both personal development with Internet marketing skills. Having one without the other is going to leave you short on what it takes to really build long-term success with.By building up people first, and then teaching them skills, you are helping guarantee your own long term success. That is what leaders do!