How Much Are You Worth?
Today, I was listening to a DVD by one of my favorite personal development gurus, Jim Rohn talking about value. He asked the question, “How much are YOU worth?’
Why do some people get paid $8 an hour, while others are given millions to perform their job? It has everything to do with value.
The amount of money you make is directly related to your
VALUE IN THE MARKETPLACE
People make minimum wage at a job because they don’t have much value to the market. I’m talking economic value only here. A person may be extremely valuable to society in other ways, as a parent, a son or daughter, or a church member, for example. But when talking about value to the marketplace, I am specifically talking about the skills you bring to the table.
On the other hand, a CEO who is bringing in BILLIONS of dollars to his company is paid MILLIONS per year.
Why? because of his value to the company.
That’s why I have always been adamant about EDUCATION AND TRAINING. There’s not better way I know of to increase your value to the marketplace.
Take the example of Network Marketing.
You have just started your Network Marketing business, having never done anything like it beforehand. Flash forward 3-6 months down the road, and you still haven’t made any money.
You haven’t made any money because your value to the marketplace is still very low.
Let me ask you this.
During those 3-6 months, what have you learned? What training have you received?
Here is what my wife and I did in our first 3 months after we started our Network Marketing home business.
We signed up for specialized training in Pay Per Click advertising. Then we signed up for specialized training in Social Marketing. We bought and read as many books as we could get our hands on. We purchased CDs and listened to them in our car on the way to work. We purchased DVDs and watched them over and over instead of watching TV.
In other words, we improved our knowledge 100 fold, and in the process we increased our value to the marketplace.
When we first sponsored someone in our business (and there were very few at first), we didn’t know much and had little more to offer our new members other than the training the company offered.
But now, months later and several training courses later, we can COACH our team with a high degree of certainty that we can help them make money in their business FASTER than we made money with ours.
Why? Because we know more.
And because we know more, we have attracted more new members to our team. Along with this has come a corresponding spike in our income. It’s been very obvious to us what has happened.
WE INCREASED OUR VALUE TO THE MARKETPLACE
And now? Now we have people calling us to join our team.
How has our life changed? Not much, because we are still on a mission to INCREASE our value to the marketplace.
We recently signed up for one on one training with some of the very top leaders in our industry, to learn the hidden secrets that only the most successful network marketers know.
Why would we do this if we are already making some serious money online?
Because we know that as our knowledge and value to the marketplace increases, so will our income.
To your success!
This is the business and the automated marketing system that I chose above all others
MLM vs. Direct Sales: How Would You Rather Get Paid?
If you are in MLM and haven’t seen Mike Dillard’s famous (or in some MLM circles, infamous) Coffee House Letter yet, you should definitely take a look. You may not agree with it all, but Mike definitely makes some valid points.
The Coffee House Letter has drawn some controversy from MLM loyalists. I read one blog post yesterday from someone who was incensed over Mike’s letter. His main argument was that MLM is stronger than ever, and the key to building a strong downline is in building relationships with your team.
I don’t think anyone can or would argue this point about building strong relationships, and it wasn’t the focus of Mike Dillard’s letter. Rather, it was the concept of residual income versus getting paid first (or GPT, as in Getting Paid Today).
I have been in both business models, so I think I can speak on this with some level of expertise.
During my MLM experience, it took us months to build a downline where we were receiving a decent residual income each month. And truth be told, over half of that income came from one consultant.
One month, this consultant just disappeared, apparently moving to another opportunity. This was exactly the scenario that Mike Dillard painted in his Coffee House Letter, and it was devastating to our team.
We are currently involved in a Direct Sales opportunity where the commission structure is much like that of the mortgage and real estate industries. Our main commission flow each month is from the direct sales of our company’s products, and we get paid UP FRONT for these sales.
There is also a one-level residual income built into this commission structure, giving us both direct and residual income each month.
The best part of this commission structure is that we get paid today, not waiting for residual income to build up. And we don’t worry about someone leaving our organization for another opportunity. If someone does leave (and this doesn’t happen often), we have already received the commission on his main product purchase(s) to gain entry into the program. If we lose the residual income from this person, it will sting but not be a major hit on our monthly income.
There are merits to both the MLM and Direct Sales business structures, but having experienced both and given today’s unstable economy, I would much rather get paid upfront, today rather than wait for residual income to build.
What do you think?
To your success!
Bob Clarke
November 11, 2008; Cresskill, NJCompeting in Today’s World — Google Style
Talk with any of the most successful network marketers today and they will likely tell you that a strong component of their marketing strategy is getting their message out on Google. This can take 2 forms.
- Showing up in the Organic Search Listings (i.e. the middle column of the search page results)
- Advertising using Google Adwords (the right column of the search page results)
Today, I am going to focus on the second option: Google Adwords.
If you have never advertised with Google before, it can be a very scary proposition. And if you are an experienced Adwords user, it is even scarier in today’s society, because Google is changing.
How are they changing? Like everyone else, they are reacting to the plunging economy. But Google is a huge money making machine. Rather than laying people off or lowering salaries, they have reacted in a different way.
Google is tightening up on the relevency of the advertisements they display. In other words, Google is redoubling their efforts to be extra sure that, when you put in your search term, you will get results that will satisfy you. If you, the customer, are not satisfied, Google loses.
And Google NEVER loses.
What does this mean to the people, like me who advertise on Google? It means we had better have ads that are relevent and that give the Google customer what they are looking for. If not, Google will cut you off at the pass. You will never have a chance.
What do I mean by this? I mean having compelling ad headlines and ad copy that will draw people to your advertisement. But more importantly, it means that your landing page must DELIVER exactly what you promise in your ad.
If someone clicks on your ad but is sent to a landing page that doesn’t deliver the promise of the ad, they will click off in seconds. Google can track that. Google knows EVERYTHING.
And Google will punish you for it. How?
By giving you less traffic, or more likely, less of the prime traffic you are looking for.
Google will NOT be forgiving here, guys. It is their reputation and their bottom line.
Overwhelmed?
No worries. I am training with a person who I consider to be one of the top 3 experts in the world in Google. She has been giving training sessions for about a year with Carbon Copy PRO, although she is not a member. I also saw her present her unique Google methods at both Live Carbon Copy PRO LIVE Marketing Events over the past year.
My wife Rosemary and I decided we wanted more.
We started specialized training with Cherie Yvette, The Urban Cowgirl about 6 months ago, and our business profits jumped 100%. She will show you how to construct top quality campaigns that will allow you to compete with the big guys on Google.
Or, if you prefer, she will build campaigns for you and teach you how to optimize them for peak performance.
She is a tireless teacher who will do what it takes, for as long as it takes, to make you successful on Google. I cannot recommend her services highly enough.
Visit The Urban Cowgirl Website for more information.
I do not get paid one penny for recommending Cherie. This is not an affiliate link.
This is just one VERY SATISFIED CUSTOMER who wants to pass this quality resource on to his loyal readers.
To your success,
Bob
November 7, 2008; Cresskill, NJMLM Success Secrets: Can I Make Fast Money?
The quick answer to this question is: NOT USUALLY.
You’d be surprised how many people I talk with who really want to start a home business, or so they think. But when I really start asking the tough questions about their motives for wanting to be a home business owner, things often get a little dicey.
My first 3 questions are always the same:
- Do you have any prior sales/marketing/home business experience?
- How much capital are you willing to spend to get your business started and positioned in the compensation plan?
- What is your monthly income goal and how quickly are you looking to attain this goal?
By the time I get to the 3rd question, you can just see the eyes starting to glaze over. It’s about this time that they realize that a home business is going to mean HARD WORK and some MONEY to get it going and maintain it until a profit is seen.
It’s also at this point that I lose alot of prospects, but that’s okay with me. I’d rather find out now than to invest a lot of time in training and mentoring, just to have them drift away from disillusionment.
In the next few blog posts I will examine each of these factors in more detail, but in general, here’s the truth in making money with a home-based business:
- You’ll make money faster if you’ve had prior experience in sales and marketing, or if you’ve owned a business before.
- You’ll make money faster if you buy into the opportunity at a higher level in the compensation plan (consider this your capital investment).
- You’ll make money faster if you have a marketing budget that will allow you to get the word out. In general, the more you can spend in marketing, the more extensively your product will be in front of people, and the more sales you will make.
We’ll discuss these more in future posts, and how you can shorten your learning curve if you are lacking the experience that will put you in the winners circle.
To your prosperity!
Dr. Bob Clarke
October 4, 2008; Cresskill, NJ
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