New to MLM? Overwhelmed? Been Around For a While But STILL Feel Stuck? Read This!

I got a letter the other day from Hannah, a young, brand new MLM rep. She wrote me, overwhelmed and frustrated because there was just so much she needed to get done in order to get her business up and running.

A part-time teacher, a house wife and a mother of three, she simply didn’t have the hours to put in. In fact she didn’t even know where to begin. The fact that limited funds were keeping her from outsourcing any of her work or from tapping into more turn-key marketing methods didn’t make things any better.

Her only option was to actually learn, herself, how to market -- which, when you look at the big picture, is actually one of the smartest things she could do for herself and her MLM business...!

Anyway, she turned to me hoping to get some pointers. Where should she focus her time and energy right now? By building a website? A capture page? Writing auto responders? Blogging? Networking? Posting videos on YouTube?

So I wrote her back, trying to help her prioritize. And if you’re new to this industry and you too are struggling to see the forest for all the trees...if you're suffering from that same “too-much-left-to-do-at-the-end-of-my-hours” syndrome, then hopefully this will be of value to you too. :-)

Here’s my reply to Hannah:

Create a Strong Internet Presence

"When you are just starting out, when you’re brand new to MLM, you want to focus on creating a strong Internet presence: Get as much material as you can out there -- articles, blogs, videos etc. When people search on your name (and they will) they should be able to find lots of great content that you have published. This is the most effective way that I know to establish yourself as an expert and build trust and credibility with your prospects.

The better of a relationship you are able to build with your prospects, the greater the chances they will actually end up joining you in your MLM business and not just remain a lead that goes cold after a while. Sure this takes time and effort at the front end but it's a long-term, tried-and-true strategy that will ultimately pay off big time. "Big time" as in being able to endlessly generate leads and sales on auto-pilot, and with killer conversion rates.

Leverage, Leverage, Leverage

"Leverage is key on the Internet. Distribute your videos to as many hosting sites as you can. There are free video distribution tools you can use for that purpose that will save you time, the most popular being TubeMogul.com.

And when posting blogs or articles, be sure to leverage those as well: Post each and every blog on at least 3 of the following sites: Wordpress.com, Hubpages.com, Squidoo.com, Wetpaint.com as these are some of the most highly trafficked ones. I can also tell your from personal experience that content posted to these sites tend to rank high on Google.

Likewise, articles should be submitted to all the major article submission sites. If you can’t outsource it, at least use article submission software. Remember, you are out to dominate the web here.

If you post regularly on these sites (every few days at least) and continue to put great, informative, fun videos out on Youtube, and use MySpace for networking (post the same blogs to your my-space profile where others can subscribe to them), you will not only create a strong Internet presence but before long you should also be able to see some highly targeted traffic coming in to your websites converting to leads and sales.

Remember that what you lack in marketing dollars you are going to have to make up in time. You'll have to leverage one or the other...no exceptions. So take a deep breath, be patient, and stay the course. Again -- traffic will increase with time, and persistence always pays off.

A Word About Keywords

"On the Internet it is all about keywords. If your sole objective is to create a presence on the net so that when someone does a search on your name they actually find something, keywords don't matter much. Because then you are not trying to rank.

But if you want to use the same posts to actually draw traffic to your sites (which of course is exactly what you want), then you’ve got to know what keywords and tags people are searching for and how to use them strategically in your posts to get ranked with the search engines.

The Purpose of a Personal Website

"When it comes to a personal website that talks about you, yes, you should definitely have one of those, as this is perhaps the best ways to build trust and familiarity with your prospects. (People buy from those they like and respect, remember). But this is not a web page that you will advertise on Google to try to drive traffic to. This site is simply a place to which you'll send your prospects to learn about you as a person and a leader. It's a site that promotes you, not your MLM products.

Also, no reason to go too "fancy" here: A clean professional site, well-written (good copywriting is key), with your picture, your personal story, some marketing tips and training resources (I recommend free ones as well as your affiliate products) and your contact information…those are the majors.

The Sales Funnel -- Just Plug and Play

"Then of course you need a system, a sales "funnel" -- somewhere that you will drive the traffic you generate. You need a system with pre-made landing pages, websites (i.e. "thank you" pages) and auto responders all set up and ready to be plugged in to.

You’re asking me if you should start creating these yourself, which puzzles me a little. Doesn’t your company provide you with them? To set all this up yourself involves a pretty steep learning curve, (take that from someone who's gone through it,) and you should be spending your time learning to generate leads for your MLM biz, not building complicated websites from scratch!

Leads, remember, are the fuel for your business.

Time, of course, is your most precious commodity, and as you say yourself in your letter, you don’t have much of it to spare right now. So you obviously want to spend the limited time you have wisely.

Further down the road when your skill set has improved and you've started to generate sales, then by all means, look back into customizing your capture page to tell your personal success story, and start personalizing your auto responders. Or hire someone to do this for you -- since by then you’ll have the funds to do so… ;-)

Long-term Strategies: Building "You Inc"

"Now as you move on to the next level -- and the next, and the next -- you WILL continuously need to do more and better than everyone else. And the way you do this is by giving more value and building stronger relationships with your prospects than do your competitors.

It’s certainly true in the long run that the more unique and the more personal you can be, the more of a leg up you will get on your competition. And it's all a part of building “You Inc”.

But don’t get ahead of yourself. It will all work itself out naturally with time as long as you are committed to keep learning and growing.

For right now -- if your company doesn’t provide you with an automated marketing system you can easily plug into (i.e. landing pages, 'thank-you' pages, online MLM opportunity presentations, and follow-up auto responders) -- I will simply say this: go find one that does.

It’s that important...

Because at this moment in time you need to focus on one thing, namely to get to that place where you are generating sufficient leads for your MLM business -- and that’s at least 200 leads per week.

So get some fuel on that engine. Get moving.

And take the rest, bit by bit, as you get to it…

Hope that helps."

--LB