Are you just starting out in network marketing or looking for ways to boost your business? If so, then you are in the right place. In this post, I’m going to share my best 12 tips for those who are new to network marketing on how to succeed.
1. Choose a product or service you believe in.
This first tip can literally make or break your entire network marketing career. By choosing something you believe in, your path to success is automatically going to be 100% easier.
Why do I say this? Because it’s simple. Here’s what happens when you believe in something.
- You don’t have to force yourself to work every day. You’ll want to work because you’ll be passionate about what you’re doing.
- You don’t have to force yourself to talk about it. You’ll want to talk about it to just about everyone you meet naturally.
- You don’t have to force yourself to sell it. You’ll want to sell it because you know it is going to have a positive effect on someone’s life.
- You don’t have to force yourself to get others involved. You’ll want to get others involved because the more people who are selling it, the more lives can be impacted by it.
- You don’t have to force yourself to be motivated. You’ll love the results of what you are doing beyond just the money. Therefore, you will be motivated every day.
The great part about network marketing is that it is easy to find a product or service you believe in. There are hundreds of companies out there that offer network marketing opportunities in the form of direct selling, multilevel marketing, affiliate marketing, and referral marketing.
2. Get a mentor.
Once you’ve chosen a product or service you believe in, you might want to consider getting a mentor. This could be the person who recruited you into network marketing in the first place. If that’s not an option, then the next best thing would be another successful network marketer in your area.
Your mentor should be someone that teaches you how to do network marketing right. They should be someone that can teach you how to set up your business, how to establish yourself, how to network effectively, how to sell your product, and how to recruit others.
While getting training online is an ideal place to start and to continue your network marketing education, having someone you can ring up with questions, chat with over coffee, and introduce you to the right people is a great way to solidify the information you learn online and make it actionable for your business.
If you don’t know someone who can be your mentor, you can always search for direct selling and MLM mentors and coaches online. Refer to their blog, social profiles, and other sources of information about them online to determine if they are a good fit for you.
3. Create a business plan.
Business plans are not just for startups that need funding or multi-million dollar corporations. If you are starting or running any business, including a network marketing business, then you need a plan. Even if you never show it to anyone else, a business plan can help you in a variety of ways.
Here are the sections commonly included in a business plan, and what each of them will ask you to cover.
- Company Description – This section asks you to define what you do, what differentiates you from your competitors, and who your target customer is. You will get asked this a lot throughout your network marketing career, so it’s important.
- Market Analysis – Have you thoroughly researched network marketing and your potential customers? This section encourages you to research your industry, market, and competitors.
- Organization & Management – Are you going to be the lone star in your business, or do you have one or more partners? This section asks you to define each person in your business – how much they own, what their skills are, how long you have worked with them, etc.
- Service or Product Line – If you chose something you believe in, this part will be simple. This section asks you to get into the details of what you are selling, including how it will benefit your customers, what is the product lifecycle, and what the story is behind your product or service.
- Marketing & Sales – Have you decided how you plan to increase your revenue? This section asks what your business’s marketing and sales strategy is.
- Funding Request – You can skip this unless you actually need funding for your business.
- Financial Projections – How much do you realistically think you can make from your network marketing business? This section asks you to outline your projected income and expenses.
- Executive Summary – This is a summary of the above information placed at the start of your business plan.
You don’t have to go into formal details with your business plan if you don’t plan on actually submitting it for funding to banks or investors. But the more detailed you get, the more of a solid view of your business you will have.
4. Come up with a tagline and story.
It’s important to know how to answer the question of what do you do when asked, especially since that can segway into making a sale of a valuable new addition to your sales team. Hence, you will want to come up with your tagline and network marketing story.
The simplest explanation for both of these items is this.
Your tagline should be one or two sentences that explain what you do based on who you are talking to. For example, if you are talking to someone who would be a potential customer of your network marketing product, you would use the following tagline.
- Hi, I’m Lisa and I create customized plans for people who are looking to get into the best shape of their life.
If you are talking to someone who would be a potential sales rep for your team, you would use the following tagline.
- Hi, I’m Lisa and I help people who are passionate about getting others in shape turn their passion into a career.
Your network marketing story, on the other hand, should be the full explanation as to why you are doing what you are doing in the first place. It should tell people who you are (and how that qualifies you to do what you do), how you got started in your network marketing career, why you love what you do, and how your network marketing career has changed your life.
Your network marketing story is what you will follow up your tagline with if the person you are talking to looks interested in learning more on the spot.
5. Create a website.
If you don’t have a personal website already, now is the time to create one. Your website is the place you will ultimately send your visitors to collect lead information, make online sales, and much more.
If you’re sitting on a network of 5,000 Facebook connections, you may be wondering why you need a website in the first place. The reasons are simple.
- You don’t own Facebook.
- Facebook could close your account at any time for violating their rules.
- Your 5,000 connections on Facebook could be lost.
Those are just a few reasons why you need a website. When you collect leads off of your website (names, email addresses, phone numbers, etc.), you will own those leads. You can back them up, export them, and contact them at any time by reaching their inbox or their mobile.
No one can take those leads away from you.
Hence, you will want to create a website that has a minimum of one page’s worth of content that tells who you are, what you do, who you can help, and how you can help. That page should include a contact form or email list sign form (or both) so that people who are interested in buying your products or becoming a member of your team can submit their information to learn more from you.
6. Create a presence on the top social networks.
Of course, having your own website doesn’t mean that social media will be useless. Networking on social media is a great way to build relationships and drive traffic to your website so you can gather important leads for your network marketing business.
If you choose only one social network to join and actively participate upon, it should be Facebook. Facebook is the most popular social network in the world. It has the most active daily users and thus, has the most opportunity for you to connect with potential customers and sales recruits.
- You can use your personal profile to connect directly with people.
- You can use your page to advertise to people.
- You can use groups to get people interested in your network marketing business to convene and engage with each other.
Twitter should be the second choice for your network marketing business. I recommend this network because you can engage with just about anyone, regardless of whether they are connected with you or not. This makes Twitter a great place to meet new customers and sales recruits.
From there, a lot will have to do with the nature of your network marketing business. If your business is related to B2B or selling to business professionals, try LinkedIn. If it is B2C and retail based, try Pinterest.
7. Put your tagline and a link to your website on every online profile you have.
Every online property you have should have should have two things: your tagline and your website link. This will allow you to make the right first impression on anyone who encounters you online and ensure that they can get to your website so they can become a lead.
On a daily basis, look at the networks you log in to. Social networks, forums, discussion boards, etc. If they allow you to have a profile, and that profile allows you to describe yourself and link back to your website, do it.
8. Make the right kind of online connections.
Don’t get overly caught up in the numbers game online. It’s great to max out your 5,000 connections on Facebook, but only if those connections are the right ones. In addition to people you want to connect with personally, you will want to make sure that you are only connecting with people who have the potential to do the following three things for your network marketing business.
- Become customers who buys your products or services.
- Become sales reps who sells products or services under you.
- Become advocates who tells others about you and your products or services.
If you don’t know someone personally, and they don’t have the potential to fit in one or more of the above areas, then you don’t need them in your network. Online or offline.
9. Get a business card.
To become successful in network marketing, you will have to pursue both online and offline connections. Before you pursue the latter, you will need a business card. Some may consider them old-fashioned, but when you meet someone in person, you’ll need it to make an impression.
Your business card should include the basics: your photo, your name, your tagline, your phone number, your email address, and your website link. This will ensure that the recipient of your card will not forget who you are and why they need to get in touch with you.
Just be sure not to completely rely on the recipient contacting you. Get their business card or information directly in your phone so that you can follow up with them too.
10. Find the right networking events in your area.
Once you’re armed with a business card and a plan, you will want to find networking events in your area where you can meet potential customers and sales recruits. BNI, Eventbrite, Meetup, your local chamber of commerce, and the events calendar on your city’s official website are great places to start.
If you’re friends with other network marketers, potential customers, and potential sales recruits on Facebook, you can use the handy Facebook search option to find the upcoming events your friends plan to attend. This search will show you events that they are both interested in attending and plan to attend.
11. Look for ways to turn hobbies into networking opportunities.
Remember that networking can happen anywhere. It’s just a matter of determining where the best places are to find your potential customers and sales recruits. If you sell a health product, then any place people go who want to become more healthy – gyms, sports clubs, hiking hotspots, etc. – are options that you can turn into networking opportunities.
To utilize these types of places as networking opportunities, you need to actually be into them yourself. You can’t just walk through a gym and hand out your business card. You need to join the gym, workout there, take some classes, and get into the places where you can start up a casual conversation.
You also need to be good at spotting the right opportunities. Trying to deliver your tagline to someone running up a hill isn’t going to be as effective as trying to deliver it to someone sitting on a bench tying their shoes.
12. Recruit in quality, not quantity.
When you are ready to start recruiting sales people to work under you, remember that the goal should be quality, not quantity. You don’t want to spend a lot of time recruiting people that are just going to lose interest in a couple of weeks or people who are not effective at sales in the first place.
Take the time to get to know someone to make sure they have the same goals and passions as you. If you choose them as part of your sales team, take the time to train them properly so that you know when they go off, they will be ready to sell and ready to recruit additional quality members for your team.
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