Jen

Anyone who has signed up for our informative series probably knows by now exactly how I feel about selecting your company and product. However, if you haven’t already signed up, I’ll recap a bit so that what I’m about to say makes more sense.

Our team is built on many principles and strategies to get us from ground level to having a full thriving business. At core, it’s how you market yourself that is going to determine your success, not what MLM you get into. A good networker can be successful in any company. However, there are still two things to be said choosing your MLM wisely.

First, a good and fair compensation plan will always make you achieve your specific financial goal quicker than working with a poorly structured system. So yes, you can achieve your goal the same way with a crappy compensation plan, it will just take much longer.

Secondly, I don’t feel good about selling snake oil. Hey, I’m not looking down on a lot of you who are in this strictly for the business. In fact, I’m in this strictly for the business. I just feel a lot better about doing my business honestly. There are also some fringe benefits from working with a product that you truly believe in. Such as getting to utilize your product, and being able to give your personal testimonial without having to lie. It made it very easy for me to tell people all about my product with Via Viente because I had my own true story successful health story, based on using the product, to tell them about it. I don’t care what anyone says…people can sense lies. We’re not stupid this day and age, and we’ve been sold to so much over the years that babies are practically popping out with a skeptical mind.

So on to the good stuff.

My mother, sister and I have decided to put marketing Via Viente on hold for a while. For many reasons. I could write a big long list, but I’m just going to sum it up as best I can. This does not mean that I’m no longer going to drink the stuff. We’re going to remain customers because it’s truly has benefited us greatly, and I wouldn’t trade the stuff for any other.

Via Viente is still an amazing product that has helped myself and many people I know with various serious health issues. Maybe I can’t say that it’s a cure or whatever, but all I know is that we all feel a hell of a lot better taking it than not taking it. Via is what I would classify as an alternative health product, also known as a preventative health care product. It’s a big up and coming market these days. My family has been all about this since I was little. So I was inclined to market it, instead of some fuel additive or cosmetic line.

The trouble with Via is marketing it online. Corporate has recently decided to dominate web marketing. Meaning that all distributors are not allowed to have their own non-generic website for sign ups. They now insist on selling you their useless generic page for sign ups. This page provides terrible marketing methods and materials, and honestly isn’t going to sell anyone anything. I have a better chance of selling snow to an Eskimo online. Furthermore, there seems something morally wrong about this whole situation. I thought Via was an MLM, not in the business of selling web space. Now I’m not against them offering it. All companies do. I don’t think you’ll get anywhere at all with it, but to each his own. It’s that they’re forcing us to purchase their terrible marketing materials online, if we choose to market online at all.

If this wasn’t enough in itself, the Via website now has a button that says, “Buy Now,” which tells me that Via will be making it possible to purchase their product directly from their corporate headquarters. Isn’t the whole point in MLM to purchase directly from a distributor? This was one of Via’s biggest attractions as an MLM, as you can only buy from a distributor. I’m not sure what is up with that, but it’s a good sign for us to jet. I’m not ok with that kind of MLM corporate structure.

Well on to the good news. Like I said earlier, we’re marketing ourselves, not our product. So this isn’t going to affect our team. They will go where we go. We have decided to follow our own direct upline into a new MLM called Oceanside Wealth. You can check them out here: http://oceansidewealth.com/winkiton. I am so impressed with how their have structured their matrix pay plan and the additional investment options and freedom available to you. They actually make it possible for you to be in profit with only 6 people underneath you, at $60 per month. In addition to the MLM portion of this company, they also offer an optional integrated system for investing in Forex. I was already happy enough with all of this, but what really sold me on the idea was the amount of free valuable training available to myself and my downline. I prefer to have user friendly resources to give prospective customers, and our team. They offer just that.

Well long story short, build your team based on your relationships, not your product. Then they will always go where you go. It’s sad, but companies fold all the time. And a lot of the time, it’s not even because there is anything wrong with the company other than someone made a critical mistake that got them majorly sued, or one top leader did something very bad that caused his leg to fall apart along with the company. Or you might even be in the same boat we’re in where they change something important about their structure that you no longer want to deal with. Sadly, you’ll have to deal with it, if you want to keep making money. But it will be much harder to deal with if your team is built of customers and people who love your product, not you.

Until next time, you gossips!

-Jen

Danielle

Hello everyone, Danielle here- your local tech support and internet marketing friend.

So everyone may wonder why it is that I’m in charge of stuff like websites and the internet more than other two in our little trio. Now aside from the fact that they both don’t understand html, I figure I should get this out in the open even though it may come as a surprise to you. I’m not an outgoing person.

Yep, that’s right. I’m rather shy and always have been. I remember last year, when my mother introduced me to the world of network marketing she showed me the process- how you need to approach people and explain to them about the product and all and I’m going to be honest… The thought of approaching people (even people I knew) made me want to crawl under my desk and die. And I’m sure for some of you the idea of this may make you feel the same way. Soon after hearing about this, I started observing the situation. I thought, “This is actually a really cool business, great product, great payment structure- This should be cake. If only I was a social butterfly, I might actually get this to work, right?”. Wrong. Here I am trying to make myself into something I’m not, smiling excessively and crying on the inside trying to approach people about something I knew they were barely interested in.

In time, even though my realization wasn’t overnight, I realized something. Why am I coming to them? So I decided after reading a really informative E-Book from my up line, that I needed a new plan. I mean, trying to explain my product while my lips were trembling didn’t pan out so well. This was obviously time for a change. So, after beating myself up about what I could contribute to our trio, my sister Jen said we need to make this website better looking and market it to people who actually want to speak to us. I realized my strength wasn’t necessarily public speaking, but maybe writing and privately speaking to prospects who are actually interested. If people are coming to you, they obviously are interested in what you have to offer, why be so scared?

Well everyone, my point is even for a shy person in a people driven business, there is a place for you. You have to work with what you have and how confident you are in what you have will definitely show through. So start looking at your flaws not as road blocks- but as detours in your little journey. Even if you don’t have a type A personality, it doesn’t mean you can’t speak to people, it just means you have to find your own method of reaching out to people. We all have our strengths, and if I wasn’t here, our webpage might look like this. =p

-Danielle

Jen

The network marketing business was first introduced to me by my mother, who has always been my inspiration for creative financial thinking. She was introduced to network marketing by chance through an online investment group. When she first came to me with it, I was not inventive enough to respond with anything other than the typical narrow minded responses that most family members will give you. “Oh not another million dollar idea that will probably lead no where,” or “What new crazy fad are you on about now, Mom”? Despite my inner doubt, I eventually concluded that she was after all, my mother and I would be a total idiot of a daughter if I did not support her in her endeavors. So I allowed her to drag me along to one of those company overviews that most top of the food chain uplines host. This was all to “support” her, I called it. This led me on an entirely different path than expected. I came home feeling completely empowered and changed. Now, I’m not a sales person, oddly enough. And that was the first thing that threw me off about this whole “marketing” idea. But, I liked the product so much and was inspired so much by our upline’s presentation and leadership that I knew I wanted to be involved heavily in my mother’s new frontier.So I began my quest to salvation and financial freedom. I mean, this was simple, according to my upline, so I don’t see why it wouldn’t be for me.

Turns out not so simple.

They told me I should approach my friends and family first. I created this huge list of people I planned to solicit. Well, the first problem with this for me is that I care too much about the opinions of other people. So, naturally, when I tried this method, I was timid and nervous about what they thought. And that came right through in my pitch. “Well, like I got this product and uh, I don’t know it seems like a really good idea to make money”. Yeah that went over great. My confidence was just beaming from within. Or not. I suddenly felt bad for my poor Mom who had to pitch to me for the first time.

The thing is I think marketing to your family and friends can work out just fine. That is, IF you have the personality for it. Well…I don’t. I care too much about what the people I care about think. My mother, on the other hand, does not worry about what people think as much as I do and does have that “personality”, and that is why I strongly suggest reading her posts.

About now was the time I thought I should market to my cold market, just like my upline told me. I mean what other option do I have now that I’ve already spent the past three months hitting up every person I knew?

So out into the wilderness I went from every professional and business person I could muster up. “Check out my juice!” I gave out bottle after bottle after bottle. And everyone was like, “Oh this is pretty sweet and my leg feels better…but 40 bucks!?!?” Then of course it was time for me to swoop in with my “business opportunity” speech, since they already believed in the product, but just figured out it was kind of expensive. “Yeah….blah, blah, 3×3x3×3x3×3 = ???, blah, blah….”. Then I would hear something along the lines of “Let me think about it,” which, of course, meant they weren’t going to ever “think about it” again. I found this out by calling them up afterwards to see how their “thinking” was coming along.

Now the problem with this is most people are not entrepreneurs. It takes either a certain type of person to think like we do or a person open enough to learn the way we think. I’m sure if you look around in your life today you will see there are tons of businesses. But I’m fairly certain that if you take a second look you would realize there are one hundred times as many employees. I’m also certain I could go to every single person I had pitched my product to and try to explain to them the advantages of being your own boss. However, out of 100 people, only a small percentage of them would bite on my ideas – a very small percentage. And, out of those 5 (on a good day), the chances of one of them wanting my vehicle of making their own money is even slimmer. So now I have not only given away a financial education to 100 people, most of whom have no interest what I am talking about, but I have also spent over 100 hours of my time for practically nothing.

1 person who gets

3 people who get

3 people who get

3 people = 27 people

Now if all 27 people get

3 people who get

3 people

I would have 243 people on my team.

Most people give up now. But I’m stubborn and probably a little insane. At this point I would even venture to say spiteful, because I’ll be damned if some juice is going to get the best of me. Around now was the time I needed to do some deep inner searching for answers. But while that was going on my mother came to me with a better idea and started implementing ideas from our direct upline. His inspiring leadership led me to a new way of thinking. What if I could pick out the 5 people out of that 100 that already were business minded, and show them my business model? What if I could even make them come to me before I went to them? And so was the start of our online marketing campaign.

-Jen