Outline Your Plan For Success

But first, re-read the WHY/WHAT list you made yesterday. Remember to keep this little puppy handy and re-read it each night before bed, and again on getting up in the morning. (Seriously, I know it sounds hoaky, but you got to trust me on this one…)

Now, let’s get started on Day 2.

Don’t let the title scare you, we aren’t going to draw up a complete plan today. We just want to shade in some broad strokes, get an idea what we will need to do. If you are “on your own” and don’t have access to an ongoing Internet advertising campaign designed to generate leads for you, you are going to have to decide how you want to generate leads for yourself. (If you haven’t yet “signed up” to be a Nussentials Representative, and are interested in joining a team already active on the Internet, please feel free to use the “Please Tell Me More” box on the right there, and I will be happy to call and answer any questions you might have (like how to sign up!)).

Here are some questions you are going to need answers to today.

• Am I going to follow “traditional” network marketing training and approach my “warm market” openly?
• Am I going to step off the beaten path and find a way to generate my own leads?
• How much time can I invest in my business this week?
• How much money can I invest in my business this week?
• What changes will you need to make in your habits/routine to be successful?

Obviously, I have some suggestions, but before we go there, let me explain that last item a little bit. We all have habits and routines in our daily lives. Yours has been built over years (maybe decades like mine were) and aren’t going to come crashing down just because you think you need to change them. This part is going to take a little work, but is well worth the effort. Start small and improve them as you start to see the positive impact it is having on your business, your relationships, your success. Let me give you an example: I used to watch at least 4 hours of television a night. One of my favorite shows would come on and whatever I was doing was “back-burnered” until the show(s) were over. At least that is what I said to myself when I sat down to watch. The reality was that after sitting motionless and mindless for a couple of hours, my drive to do anything else was conspicuously absent. So, I rationalized I could always do whatever I had intended to do, tomorrow.

Did I give up my favorite shows? Hell no! I just bought a DVR and recorded them. Now, I set goals for myself each day, and if there is time left over, I treat myself to a show or two. If I am consistently “out of time” at the end of the day, then I either am not working smart enough, or I am setting too many goals, and that is unrealistic and a sure fire way to sabotage myself. There are few things worse than feeling like you aren’t making any headway. You will quickly lose any desire to continue once that becomes the case, so avoid that trap.

Okay, on with the lesson. Listen, you got to stop me if I get to rambling…

Choose Your Lead Method

It’s time now to address the first two questions: Are you going to follow traditional network marketing training and approach your friends and family or are you going to generate your own leads from outside your “warm market”. For me, this was a “no-brainer”. I have been involved in more than one network marketing opportunity and for each one, I went first to my warm market, just like my upline told me to do. The net result? Well, let’s just say my siblings viewed my business opportunity with a healthy dose of skepticism. For a while there, I wasn’t being invited to family functions! See, I went to them first, before I had created any kind of success. These were people I was marketing to, because they trusted me, and I really didn’t have a plan, therefore, I really didn’t have success. Well, okay, I had a plan, it just wasn’t a good plan. There is only so much “product” a family member will buy before they say stop! By the time I was successful, they were burned out and definitely weren’t interested. I did it backwards! I should have built my business, become successful, and then offered the people I love a chance to share in the wealth. Okay, lesson learned.

Being a computer programmer, I got interested in the web technologies that were maturing very quickly over recent years. I had been primarily a “business applications” developer for clients wanting custom solutions, so I was already familiar with “problem solving techniques”, but the interactive nature of the Internet was speaking to my soul. I spent the next year honing those skills, learning new ones and exploring the world of Internet Marketing. What I found was astonishing — to say the least. I spent time teaching myself to write HTML (the code that web browsers read), ASP (Active Server Pages, a technology that allows web browsers to interact with a database), Dreamweaver, Homesite, WA Assist (yeah, you don’t need to know what these things are) and many more. I wrote my first web site and walked around on cloud nine for weeks.

Then I started breaking it down in an effort to be able to teach it. Oops. This wasn’t going to work. The average person isn’t interested in spending months or even years learning all this stuff, so how could I expect my downline to benefit from it? I couldn’t really. At least not then. So I had to find another way. I went back to the drawing board until I had a clear cut method that anyone (regardless of computer experience) could benefit from. (You are seeing some of the results here)

So, how will YOU generate leads? Let’s see, you can buy genealogy lists and make cold calls (yuk!), or you can use a memory jogger to help you write out the names of at least 400 people you know, that you didn’t know you knew (no thanks), or you can approach everyone you get within 3 feet of, and give them the 30 second “biz-opt script” (God no!). Any of this sound good to you?

How about this idea then… become the “hunted” rather than the “hunter”. Yeah right you say… well, I am serious. Let’s flip the dynamic a little and see what happens. If you want to attract people/customers/representatives into this business, you need to let them know what you have, right?

Old School Network Marketing says to do this you have to talk to people all day, every day. How many times a day can you “present” your opportunity? And hold down a full-time job (until you can replace that income with your Nussentials business)? Let’s be generous and say 5 times a day. (And frankly, that is more than even the hard-core network marketers can do everyday). Okay, presenting the opportunity 5 times a day, 7 days a week (I did say I was being generous) is 35 times a week. With a 2% “sign-up” rate, that’s 0.7 people a week. Oops, I don’t want any partial people, so I will just wait until I have a whole one, so 10 days. One new representative or customer, every 10 days, if I talk to 5 a day, 7 days a week and “convert” at 2%.

Internet Age Network Marketing takes a little different approach. Craft your message, build your site, spend a little time putting together a “perfect” presentation. Then “turn on the tap” and flood the page(s) with web traffic of people searching for you! Remember that 35 people a week number from above? On the Internet, that can be the number of people per day that see your website. And if your “targeting” is on, your conversion rate will be higher than 2%, because you are talking to people already looking for some type of opportunity! But, let’s be fair, and keep the same 2% number from above. 35 people a day, times 7 days a week is 245 people. (Well, it’s 350 people if you take the same time frame of 10 days, but I am trying to be generous). If 2% of them “sign-up”, then you are looking at 4.9 people hearing your message, reading your presentation and saying yes.

So, which will you choose? “Generate My Own Leads” you say? Excellent choice.

What Time Investment Can You Make?

To get started, this doesn’t have to be a large number. In fact, depending on your “goals” mentioned above, you can choose any amount of time you want, but, you do need to choose something. And here is the important part… you need to stick to that. Let’s say you decide you can only realistically spend 4 hours a week building up your business, then you need to spend that 4 hours every week, doing something that promotes your business. Does this mean you can’t spend 6 hours this week because you have jury duty next week? No.

Now, don’t answer this question off the cuff, plan to spend a little time thinking about it. Get out your notebook (you did go get one yesterday, right?) and make some notes on what your current schedule is, determine where you have some slack time that can be better used investing in yourself. Lunch hour? 2 hours in the evening? Only on Saturday? If you look hard enough, I know you will find a little bit of time that you can reallocate. Keep this in mind though, the less time you spend each week, the longer it will take to get where you want to be. On the other hand, don’t commit to 30 hours per week if that doesn’t work for you consistently. Once you start the habit of “breaking” your time promise, it’s all down hill from there.

What Amount Of Money Can You Invest?

This is another question that requires some thought. If you were to start a brick and mortar business, you would have zero qualms about detailing all the expenses, your current income, your debt to asset ratio and all that other stuff, so don’t expect to skip this step just because you are planning to work on the dining room table for a while. In your notebook, start a section on the “tools” you will need, such as business cards, standard office supplies, long distance on your phone service, Internet access (an absolute MUST in my book), reference books or motivational tapes/CD’s, personal improvement books and Nussentials product. That last one is a real necessity that most people overlook. How can you talk about the product and extol it’s virtues if you haven’t used it? Also, Nussentials (and other network marketing companies for that matter) require that you either personally sell, or personally use a certain amount of product to stay qualified for your bonuses.

There will also be some minor expenses associated with your lead generation process as well. Domain names (between $8 and $35 each, depending on where you purchase them), web hosting (between $5 and $10 per month), autoresponders ($10 – $25 per month) and either tools to produce the “landing” pages or a little money to hire this step out ($50 – $150).

Now, don’t let these numbers or processes scare you. I plan to take you through it all step by step, building on previous lessons. I have produced video’s showing you exactly what to do and will repeat things frequently (no, I don’t have a memory problem, just want to learn this). I will even show you how to “gather leads” without a web page that you don’t host yourself. Here is my pledge to you… stay with me, and I promise I will teach you exactly how to be successful in Nussentials (or any network marketing opportunity)

Assignment:
In your notebook, thoroughly and as completely as possible, answer the questions at the beginning of this day’s lesson. Remember, all this is prep-work for the nitty gritty success building we are about to do. DO NOT SKIP THESE STEPS.