Direct selling, multi-level marketing, and network marketing are terms used to describe a dynamic industry in which many entrepreneurial-minded individuals put themselves at risk for additional income by promoting the products and services of third-party companies. . A person often embarks on this venture because of the promise of increasing financial returns as they continue to work in the business for several years.
Often they get involved in the company through a friend who signed them up, through someone they talked to at a booth at a trade show, or through the product itself that they’ve heard about and want to try; starting first as a customer and then as a sales affiliate.
Undoubtedly, starting such a business is hard work, especially in the beginning, when you must learn the art of selling to others one on one, face to face. Doing this is a scary thing for many, and often after purchasing something and prepaying for your “Starter Kit” of some sort and after trying to meet your monthly referral fee to qualify for payment. each month (which often means that, starting out, you are buying significant amounts of the product yourself to meet your required monthly referral quotas, sound familiar?), many of you will give up after several months of effort. and spending a large amount of your personal cash.
But some of you persevere. You persevere because you are stubborn and refuse to give up or because the goal is too important to you for your future. MLMs push you to do face-to-face sales more than online sales because it’s face-to-face where potential buyers can see your passion for the product, improving your chances of making the sale. Also, the company doesn’t want to create a bad name for themselves by having thousands of potential product marketers on the internet spam tens of thousands of people to try and make a sale because it’s easier to communicate this way. , impersonally, than putting yourself in front of someone and selling them, one by one, face to face. So they’re going to regularly set some very strict rules about what you can and can’t do online when you’re representing their company, and who can blame them: it’s your brand you’re representing.
By selling online you can steer clear of some of the fears associated with “face to face selling”, cold calling new prospects becomes a lot less stressful, you can automate a lot of what you do so it’s not as labor intensive . and it is very time consuming, and you can expand your business simultaneously in many countries without leaving your chair at home.
The trick to doing this? You need to become bigger than the MLM/Network Marketing company you are affiliated with. People should seek you out because you are a knowledgeable authority in your business niche, not because they know you are promoting product XYZ.
Once you can establish yourself as an authority online, you will gain followers and evangelists for your cause. It is these followers that you can sell your affiliate products to, because you have already established a relationship with them through other means. You’re not spamming them, you’re educating them, and then offering your products to your existing followers to help resolve issues you’ve previously discovered with them.
There are many things you can do to become an authority figure online:
-
Offer advice through blogs, YouTube videos, podcasts, etc.
-
Post comments on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, Google+, etc.
-
Guest post where you can
-
Start sending newsletters and emails and build your email subscriber list.
-
Start a podcast series, run webinars, etc.
So get bigger than the products you promote. Build a fan base online by being an authority figure in your business niche, and then help them out with your products. As a result, you will see your affiliate business grow rapidly and exponentially.