Just a little food for thought on this second day of July.
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream;
not only plan, but also believe ~Anatole France
~Jennifer Fisher
That’s not really a fair title. As I explain, you’ll see why.
So many people world-wide are loosing their jobs, being downsized, laid-off … whatever you want to call it. It’s a very serious situation with no quick fix. On the other side of the coin are the people who want to replace their income, quit their job and just work from home, not to count the stay-at-home parent (Mom or Dad) who would just like to earn maybe a couple of hundred extra dollars a month to help with the household expenses.
So what happens? Because there is so much HYPE about creating instant wealth on the internet, we’ve got a gazillion scamsters out there putting up websites daily, luring the unsuspecting believer (or victims as they become) into clicking, signing up by paying our fee and then waiting for that income to just start rolling in.
Talking realities, it just doesn’t happen that way in most cases. The money doesn’t just roll in, even though it is rolling out sometimes at a rapid pace.
I’ve talked to at least a dozen jobless people in the last month who downloaded my free ebook, Success in 10 Steps, and the story has been very similar. "I don’t have a job. I can’t find a job. I signed up for this, that or the other and it’s not working. They said I could make $4,000 (or whatever the program claimed) a month using their program and could be in profit in 24 hours. It’s not working. I’m running out of money. I’m about to lose my house, car, etc ….. "
There’s not a lot you can say to someone in any of those situations other than the truth.
#1 If it doesn’t work like that in real life, it’s not going to work like that on the internet either.
#2 I’ve never seen a site that made income claims that was legitimate.
#3 Trying to create income online should be secondary to getting a job of SOME sort that will pay the bills while you build your business.
#4 Creating an income from a home based business takes time. It takes ’sweat equity’, meaning there’s going to be some time and work involved before we start reaping the financial benefits.
#5 Just like starting a traditional ’store front’ business, there are expenses to be considered, usually monthly, though the overhead liability (lease, additional utilities, various insurances that come with a traditional business, etc.) are virtually non-existent.
#6 Just because we do a bit of advertising online does not mean people are going to immediately find our ad and join. Same in a traditional business, just because we open the doors for business does not mean people are going to flock to our door in droves.
I don’t want to be the dream stealer here, but I don’t want to see others led to slaughter either.
The best advice I can give across the board is this:
#1 Find a way to create income in a traditional manner so that you can pay your bills.
#2 Find a legitimate home business to start and work it part-time, a couple of hours a day at least.
#3 Realize that expecting to make $3000-$4000 (or more) per month from you home business (though it is do-able in time) is going to take a LOT longer than 3-6 months in most cases for most average people.
#4 Don’t shortchange yourself on learning different skills.
#5 Find a mentor, someone who’s successfully building a business from home themselves and learn the skills you need. (And for Pete’s sake - don’t PAY for mentoring- that’s just insane.)
Best of Success to you!
~Jennifer Fisher
Another great tip from Tom "Big Al" Schreiter
My new distributor was complaining: "I don’t know what to do … !"
Strange.My new distributor had attended Saturday "Getting Started" training the week he joined. And then he attended the training again the following Saturday … and the following Saturday … and the following Saturday …
What was happening?
Sound familiar?
Distributors will read manuals, attend trainings, listen to teleconference calls, surf the Internet … almost everything except … prospect and talk to "live" prospects.
Why?Two reasons.
Reason #1: They don’t know what to say and do. Their sponsor didn’t teach them the skills, and they didn’t have the internal motivation to go seek out those skills themselves.
Yes, they could have learned what to say and do easily by listening to Big Al CDs while they drove their car, but they didn’t. Now they are afraid to talk to people because they don’t know what to say and do.
Reason #2: They know what to say and do, but they just can’t "pull the trigger." Something in their subconscious mind is holding them back.
They find it easier to pretend that they don’t know what to do, than to face the internal problems in their subconscious minds.
This is harder to fix, but can be done. There are skills that sponsors can learn to quickly stop the subconscious mind from sabotaging recruiting efforts. Simple goal-setting and motivation exercises are useless with this situation. We have to take the solution to this reason to a higher level, and use more practical applications.
So take a look at your downline now.
Have they stopped prospecting and recruiting because of Reason #1 or Reason #2?
You will want completely different solutions for each reason.
Want to receive newsletters from Tom "Big Al" Schreiter? Go to http://fortunenow.com and sign up.
Best of success
~ Jennifer Fisher
From the desk to Tom "Big Al" Schreiter, a legend in Generic Network Marketing skills training.
Are you a coach or a mentor? Or just a lousy sponsor?
Consider these definitions.To be a coach, you don’t have to know how to do what you are coaching. Many coaches simply listen to their distributors and tell the distributors they already know what to do and how to do it. As coaches, they simply hold the distributors accountable for their actions.
These coaches don’t have to be good sponsors, good presenters, or good leaders. They simply hold the distributors accountable, and attempt to motivate them into action by talking about their "Why," etc.
To be a mentor, you should already have the skills the distributor seeks to learn. In this case, the distributor does not have certain skills and experiences, and seeks the answers from the mentor. The mentor is not responsible for motivating or holding the distributor accountable. The mentor assumes the distributor already is highly motivated and will put the lessons into action.
To be a mentor, you must first master the skills the distributor seeks. And if you master the skills, the distributor seeks you.
And what if the distributor is not self-motivated?
Well, the distributor won’t be seeking you out.
Are you simply a coach that talks a good talk? Or are you a coach that motivates distributors to take action? Are you a mentor that has mastered skills and can pass them on to self-motivated people?
Or, are you simply a lousy sponsor that recruited a distributor and quickly moved on to finding your next new distributor?
Thanks, Big Al, for letting me share this.
~Jennifer Fisher
We’ve all seen them… the "Get Rich Quick" ads online and offline. "Sign UP NOW!" NO WORK INVOLVED. It’s a nice dream, but far, far, far from reality.
I remember when I first got into creating income from home. Under the guidance of my nephew, I signed up for a program (one of several - he was obviously a multiple streams of outgo kind of guy). My Nephew said "Jennifer, you just pay your $39.00 a month, you don’t have to do anything else and through spill-over, you will make a bundle."
I still laugh when I think about that. But here’s the deal. Programs that promote "No work involved" usually equal "no income" involved EXCEPT for the guy at the top who is reaping the rewards from those paying their $$ a month.
Think about it this way… with all the downsizing in Corporate America, I doubt very seriously that many employees ‘just show up’ and expect a pay check at the end of the week. Creating income from home is no different.
You have to do more than just sign up. It’s not your sponsor’s responsibility to build your organization for you (unless of course that was the deal); however, it is your sponsor’s responsibility, as a leader, to provide you the training information you need for success and to coach and mentor you. However, it is your responsibility to act upon the training, coaching and mentoring - to take those tools, techniques, etc… and master them over time. Then in time, step up to the responsibilities of leadership yourself. It just won’t work any other way.
~Jennifer Fisher
BIG PAY AND LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY ARE CIRCUMSTANCES SELDOM FOUND TOGETHER.
It is possible to go through life without ever accepting any responsibility, but such freedom from the cares of the world comes at an enormous financial cost. If you make it a practice to go out the back door when responsibility walks through the front, you will also miss out on the opportunities that always accompany responsibility. In almost any vocation, profession, or calling, your remuneration is directly proportional to the responsibility that accompanies your position. Make it a practice to volunteer for more responsibility or simply to assume it. There are times when you must get on with the task at hand without ever being formally told you’re in charge of it. If you demonstrate that you are a can-do kind of person, responsibility and the higher pay that accompanies it will come to you.
This positive message is brought to you by the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Visit us at http://www.naphill.org. We encourage you to forward this to friends and family.
Network Marketing is a Profession. When you consider that on average 155,000 people sign up for some ‘work home home’ opportunity on a monthly basis, that’s a lot of new people joining the Profession every day.
One of the biggest issues facing us all is keeping the Industry at the Professional level we all desire. Proper training, in my opinion, becomes the weakest link. One reason I say this is because of all the spam opportunity emails I get on a daily basis. I’m sure you get them too.
It’s hard to say whether spamming is something that’s being taught, if it’s the result of lack of training, or something people resort to out of desperation when all else fails. I’m not sure.
However, I have a friend on Facebook, Nathan Hill, who recently wrote an article that resonated with me so much, I asked his permission to share it here with my readers. I’m only going to share a snippet of it here. Please follow the link and read the whole article.
"I’m here to sell you."
"I have the latest and greatest internet opportunity that has ever hit this side of the planet. It’s in pre-launch so I’m sure you will knock my door down to be a part of it. You would be stupid not to."
I really don’t care what your current business is or what would help you be more successful in business. The only thing I’m interested in is you signing up with my business and helping me with my success. Oh and by the way, this incredible offer expires at midnight tonight. Hurry up and secure your place. You don’t want to be the ONLY one left out". I know it sounds ridiculous but we have all received emails like this. Desperation and greed thinly masked by words of excitement and hype……. (click here for the rest of the article)
Successful Professional Network Marketers know that building a business comes through building relationships, not spamming. I can tell you quite honestly I have yet to build any kind of relationship with my spam folder and those who drop into it. Now my delete button and my "In-Box" - that’s a different story.
Let’s train our teams to be Professional Networkers instead of spammer-slammer-jammers. Please pass Nathan’s article on to your business partners.
~Jennifer Fisher
I was listening to a podcast from Len Clements a few days ago. One of the topics was an interview with Randy Gage, known as an International leader, speaker, coach, trainer, author, consultant, top distributor in the Network Marketing Profession.
During the interview Randy talked about one of his passions, the mind set of the Network Marketer, our prosperity consciousness, that many have a ‘lack consciousness’, a poverty mindset, a shaky belief system.
Some of us have trouble believing we can do what other average people are doing, building a successful home-based business. However, it is more than OK to Believe In Yourself, in fact, it’s a must.
Developing the mindset, which starts with belief is the FIRST step to success! Enjoy this short video… and then Dare to believe in YOU.
I’ll conclude this post with The Thought of the Day from the Napoleon Hill Foundation
Thought for the Day
June 8, 2009
YOUR PROGRESS IN LIFE BEGINS IN YOUR OWN MIND AND ENDS IN THE SAME PLACE.
Every great accomplishment began with the germ of an idea in the mind of a great person, then was shaped for practical usefulness and finally transformed into reality. Make your mind a fertile ground for ideas through constant study and learning, and condition through constant practice to discipline yourself to follow through on your good ideas. The most brilliant concept in the world is only a dream unless you take action. Even a mediocre idea that is put into practice is far more valuable than a flash of genius that languishes in a fallow, undisciplined mind.
This positive message is brought to you by the Napoleon Hill Foundation. Visit us at http://www.naphill.org. We encourage you to forward this to friends and family. They can sign up for this free service at our web site.
~Jennifer Fisher
Why Does the Company Publish $100 Billion Dollars in Sales
and I Am Making Peanuts?
Being a youngster in the 70-80’s, I thought it was pretty cool to wear
rose colored glasses (and sit on Santa’s lap). Though the time for
Rose Colored glasses is past, some still unknowingly wear them
when considering a Network Marketing home based business.
I was on a coaching call with a woman last week. Her issues were primarily centered around marketing her program, whether to pay for advertising or just use free advertising. (Let me say this right now, in my own experience, I have not ever found paid advertising to be any more successful than free advertising sources.)
However, as we talked, the conversation moved to income expectations. Though we never got down to just how much she expected to earn, and even though we were on the phone and I could not see her eyes, I could feel her eyes get bigger as she realized in one of her programs where she only earns $1.00 per person, she would need 10,000 people. Break that figure down to $5,000 a month, she would still need 5,000 people.
Some think getting 5,000 people will be an easy task, especially when, as she said, “Everybody needs this service”. But do they? Does everyone need the service? Does everyone want it? Probably not.
It’s the same with commodity type programs like Electric and Telephone… Everyone needs and uses these things. When we join, we just naturally expect everyone we know will want to convert… but they don’t. The problem with commodity type programs is that there is very little mark up available, much like travel programs. And if you crunch the numbers in the pay plan and look at the fact that you may only get paid 50 cents per customer, realistically, how many customers are you really going to need to make your desired income?
Let’s look at retailing versus selling at wholesale while we are here… Let’s say for easy calculations that Betty is encouraged to get her prospects to ‘join’ as affiliates to get the ‘wholesale price’ for the products. She receives 5% commission on the wholesale volume of 100 points in her company.
Joe’s company does not have a ‘wholesale’ price, so Joe does not have to encourage people to join his business, he just retails his products. Joe receives 40% commission on the retail volume of 100 points in his company. Betty is going to earn $5.00 per 100 points while Joe is going to receive $40.00 per 100 points.
Betty is going to end up working 8 times as hard, going to need 8 times as many customers as Joe. (Yes, I realize I have not addressed receiving benefits of building a team and earning on their efforts also, but when you consider the average statistics that those with no system for duplication beyond making a list of friends and family will only sponsor 2.7 persons into their organization, the bulk of creating that residual income is going to fall on the shoulders of YOU, the distributor, affiliate, IBO, IPC, etc….)
It’s easy to get lost in the big numbers at the bottom of the compensation chart. It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement more than the real facts. More times than not, we don’t consider HOW and WHAT it is going to take to get down to that level where those BIG $$$ are.
Though it may still be cool to wear rose colored glasses, when considering a Network Marketing home based business, best you take off the rose colored glasses while you do your due diligence. Determine your desired income and then crunch the numbers of your pay plan… at least you will have a realistic idea of how much work you will need to do.
~Jennifer Fisher
I got this in an email and it really made me stop and reflect on life in general. It’s not my normal kind of post, but I wanted to share it with you even though I do not know who to give credit to.
IT’S ALL RELATIVE………………………
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Now, THIS is really fascinating - it’s rather dazzling to see it presented this way. |
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BEYOND OUR SUN …. IT’S A BIG UNIVERSE. |
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ANTARES IS THE 15TH BRIGHTEST STAR IN THE SKY. |
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NOW TRY TO WRAP YOUR MIND AROUND THIS……… |
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NOW HOW BIG ARE WE? |
Hmmmm….
~Jennifer Fisher
What do I mean by "Red Flags"? Red flags are those tell-tale signs that tip you 
off to something being a-miss about an opportunity. It’s those things that hit
you in the gut that make you feel uncomfortable. Some see the Red
Flags quickly, but others get so caught up in the Hype, they prefer
to ignore the red flags or don’t even catch them.
I believe it’s far easier to spot the Red Flags in Affiliate Programs than it is in a home based business opportunity. (And yes, there is a difference in Internet Affiliate Marketing and Network Marketing businesses.) In an Network Marketing opportunity, you usually have to comb through the Policies and Procedures, Business Partner Agreements and other legal, binding contracts to find them.
Affiliate programs, for the most part, usually only have a Terms Of Service as far as legal contracts go. Unfortunately not many people even read them until it’s too late.
What I’ll list here are the most common Red Flags. No matter HOW GOOD the program sounds, you’re headed for disaster in the long run if you ignore the flags….
A company claims because they are Internet Based rules of licensing and registering do not apply.
They use free webhosting sites like freewebs, live. Or their email address to contact is a free email account like yahoo, google, hotmail, gmail, etc.
They say the ’special’ is only good for TODAY, "Limited Time Only", or for the next 5-10-15– 100 people who join.
The program promotes itself as something that was previously only offered to the ‘elite’
The contact person only gives their first name.
The company provides no form of contact other than email… ie… no phone number, no physical address
The website has proof of payment screen shots (it’s illegal to make income claims and is called "Enticement". If you look, on some sites, those proof of payment screen shots will have old, old dates on them, as with proof of payment checks.
There is NO Terms of Service posted on the site.
Check the Terms of Service to see where disputes are handled. If any dispute resolution is out of Country, off shore, etc… you could be in BIG trouble.
The Terms of Service states that the program can be cancelled at any time without notice.
There is a "NO refund policy".
AlertPay, Safepay accounts are the only method for paying and receiving commissions. (Pay Pal has really cracked down over the years and does not like home based income opportunities…. too many disputes. If the program at least offers credit card as a form of payment, in some cases you can get the charges reversed should you find yourself in a scam.)
The offer sounds too good to be true, make $1000 a day, earn $10,000 in 2 weeks, only takes 15 minutes a day, etc…
As I said at the beginning, these are the EASY to SPOT red flags.
~Jennifer Fisher
