Ask Tristram Lodge – MLM Mentor & Coach

There are lots of people these days looking to start there own home based business due to the state of the economy, lots of redundancy’s, house prices in free fall etc. There are 100s of different opportunities out there for you to do. But which is the one you should choose. I wanted to write this not to get you in to my opportunity, that’s not what this about, but to give you an insight in to what you should be looking for.

Here are some guidelines that you should be sticking to when looking into one of these opportunities. They are in order of importance and you may or may not agree with them but here is what you need to look for.

1)  The first thing and the most important thing you need to look at is YOU. That’s right you are the single most important factor in the whole business. You are the one who has to the work. Far too many people come into these businesses with the attitude that they are doing the person that introduced them to it a favour by signing up. Let me tell you, you need me more than I need you since you’re the one who needs to make more money or what ever your reason. Also are you prepared to learn new things, do things that you’re not combatable doing, take knock backs and disappointment. Are you prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals, if the answer is ‘no’ then stop reading now and find something better to do with your time.

2)  The second thing you need to look at is why you want to do this business is the support that you are going get from your upline (the person who sponsors you). How is your upline going to help and support you, do they have a system in place that will help make your business successful. If they don’t have a system how do you think your business venture will end. Ask them out right how they develop leads and how they pay for those leads. Good tip here you should never pay for leads. Also Google there name and see what they are up to online, see what kind of person they are, you will be surprised.

3)  The third thing is the training that the company provides. Do they have local and national training, website training, who are the leaders who give the training? Will you be trained about the products and how to build a business. Will your upline show you how to use the internet to bring in business. What resources do they use and do they have a system that you can duplicate.

4)  Find out about the marketing plan and how you will make money. Can your upline train you so that you will be able to stand on your own two feet and make an income.

5)  Next we come to the products, you don’t need to try the products to see if you like them unless you plan on being your only customer. You don’t have to be excited about them or like them, do you think that a man who sells women’s shoes tries the product first, or someone who sells nuts and bolts gets excited about it. The products are there to help solve a problem that’s it. The best thing to do is get your family and friend’s opinion of them by letting them use them and you will get a much better overview of the products. All you really need to know about the products is what are they and can you use them.

6)  Find out about the sales kit. Yes this will cost you some money, there is no such thing as a FREE lunch, get over it. This is an investment in your future, most people will pay into a pension that is more than likely not worth the paper it is written on and not bat an eye lid. Ask what is in the pack and can you use the products.

7)  And finally we come to the company. If your potential upline has a great system in place, a complete training    system, a way to generate 1000s of endless leads and customers, a method to put money in your pocket and is someone who can teach you to become a success then it does not matter about the company. You know what the products are and that they are a successful company then that’s all you need to get started.

These are only my guidelines you need to do what you think is best for you. Enjoy working your new business and enjoy meeting the great people you will meet in the industry. Thank you for reading.

Tristram Lodge.

This is the next in a series of articles I am writing for Facebook training and how to use it to generate good quality leads and business prospects for any MLM opportunity.

Facebook is a great way to make new contacts with people all over the world. However so many people can get this first contact wrong. I’m sure we have all had a new friend ask us to check out the latest product or opportunity.

When making new friends on Facebook or any other social networking website there are a few do’s and don’ts to take into account when you make a connection. If you want a long and prosperous relationship with people on these sites just follow these simple rules and you won’t have problems.

Remember these same rule apply to any social networking site not just Facebook, as they are essentially the same platforms.

Let’s look at the do’s and don’ts then.

Do add a message, including the person’s name when doing a friend request.

Do thank them for accepting your friend request.

Do add something that you find interesting about their profile, maybe you have the same interests, like the same books or films, and it shows you have made an effort to find out something about them.

Do add a welcome video and tag their name so it show’s on their profile.

Do send them a welcome email.

Do send them a birthday message through a video. This is great because everyone else will write a message. A video is different, you will stand out.

Don’t add links for you website or capture page and post them on their wall on the first introduction, think how you would feel if this is done to you. In fact never do this.

Don’t ask them to check out your opportunity in an email the first time you meet them.

Don’t ignore them when they accept your friend request, how would you feel?

The person you have connected with may get in first and spam your wall or post you an email spamming their opportunity to you. Simply remove the spam from your wall and thank them for passing on the info.

This can be a great way to help them out, find out what their struggles are and if they need help. You never know, you may get a new business partner as long as you don’t push your system onto them.

Sometimes you may get people spam your wall who use the same system as you. I have people in my group who have the same system as me and I belong to their groups and we do get the same info but for someone to spam their system on your wall just proves they have intention of building a relationship with you.

Now you don’t have to do all of the do’s when connecting with someone, pick one you like or mix and match it’s up to you. After you have made your connections check out the status updates on your home page to see your friends update and post comments. It’s a great way to build rapport with everyone.

This is very easy to do, just follow this Facebook training and other’s as I post them on the blog and you will start to build a great relationship with all your new contacts.

Have a great day and thanks for reading.

Regards

Tristram Lodge

When you start out in your new business, advertising can be very daunting. Do you start a Pay-Per-Click campaign, advertise on classified, run ads in newspapers and magazines. Well I have tried many different types of advertising for my business opportunity and I want to share with you what I have learnt over the years.

There are thousands of places on the internet where you can advertise your business opportunity. Some of it is FREE and some you have to pay for. But the best thing you can do is not to advertise your business opportunity. What I mean by that is don’t advertise you primary opportunity, you your main MLM system.

Now you maybe thinking if I don’t advertise my business how will it ever grow. The thing is most people out there couldn’t care less about your how great your marketing plan is, how wonderful your product is or that the company CEO is a family man. What they care about is can you help them achieve their goal.

You should be advertising yourself and what you can do to help people. If you’re already doing this your onto a winner, if not start doing it today.  I have talked about this on other post on this site so check it out.

So you need to advertise yourself and not your opportunity, so what’s the best method to use. Well like I said earlier there are many different types of advertising you can use.

The best and quickest method to use is Pay Per Click, due to the fact that it is targeted marketing. You can setup a campaign and within an hour you can be getting quality leads to your website. You can advertise for any kind of person you want, chose how many leads you get a day and how much you are willing to spend.

But be warned if you don’t know what you are doing this will cost you a lot of money and time and you won’t get the results you were looking for. If you are going to use this get some training if you have never used it before. I use this method and it gets results but I start without the training and it cost me a lot of money. Please don’t fall into the same trap I did.

The second best way is video marketing. There are hundreds of sites out there at the moment for you to use. The video can be about anything as long as it is useful to the viewer and it’s free! Video market is great because potential prospects get to see who you are. Remember people buy people not products. Get this right and you’re on to a winner.

The next fantastic way to advertise is through social networking sites. By setting up a profile on these sites and joining the various groups you can but a network of people and contacts easily and quickly. The best thing about these sites is that they are free to use and some even pay you. If you want to get paid to use these sites I can point you in the right direction.

The same social rules apply on networking sites as they do in the real world. Please do not spam your opportunity to people, it is very annoying, it will make you look like a newbie and true leaders don’t do it! You wouldn’t start going on about your opportunity to a complete stranger in the street would you? Offer help and support and build a relationship with people and you can’t go wrong.

The only downside to this type of marketing is that it takes up a lot of your time, which is OK if you have the time, but if you are doing this part time you need to look at something to suit your needs.

The next and possible my favourite is content or article writing. This is great if you don’t want to get in front of the camera as you can do the same thing but in words. The other great thing about this kind of marketing is that once you upload to the internet it will stay there forever, which means you will get traffic from your articles for years to come. So you do the hard work now and pays over and over again for years to come.

There are two areas which your article will been seen, the first is from the site you put the article on in the first place and the second is from Google. If you do article and content writing correctly you can get on the first page of Google in a matter of hours. All you need to do is keyword research and place the words in the title of the article and throughout the article itself.

It really will pay to get a good wordtracker as if you get the keywords wrong you could end up wasting your time. Your article will be picked up by the people on the site you uploaded to but it may not figure very high in Google no matter how great the content is.

There are a ton of other advertising options open to you. I would recommend that you start with one or two and master them first before moving onto something new. I have only given you these as they are my favourites and the ones I enjoy using. I don’t do anything that’s not fun and enjoyable.

So go out, start promoting and advertising yourself, have fun and enjoy it. Thanks for reading, until next time.

Tristram Lodge

So in part 1 we talked about why people run out of money how something could be done to stop this from happening. As you know we have all been told that the money we make from our retail can be used to invest back into the new business venture. Well why would you want to use the money you have just worked so hard for to put back into your business.

At the end of the last post I mentioned a Funded Proposal System. Now you may be wondering what it is and how do they work. Well they are very simple. As network marketers we can offer people a solution to there problems. If you do this business the traditional way you will have made your list and gone out and pestered your family and friends and may have not gotten very far.

You run out of people to talk to about your opportunity, you spent a load of money on leads and advertising and still no much to show for it. The reason is actually very simple; by offering your opportunity you are in fact offering another problem. How do you expect someone to do a business without having a clue how to do it?  

By going in all guns blazing with your opportunity is going to be a disaster. But by offering them a solution to a problem they will see you as a leader. This is where the system comes into play.

A Funded Proposal System is a low cost front end product. It can be a book, an ebook, anything as long as it adds value to that person. By low cost I mean £15 – £30, and forget all about your main opportunity at that time.

So who do you offer this to, well other network marketers who have had the same problems as you in there business. By offering them a solution to the problems they face they will be more receptive to you. Suddenly you are someone that can help and not give like everyone else, trying to get them to join there business. I mean why would they join your business when they are having problems with there own?

Now most systems pay out a commission to there affiliates which can anything up to around 50% of the course. Now if we take 50% of £15 that’s £7.50 in your pocket just to prospect. That money can then be used to put back into your business, also you have a great lead who is already involved with network marketing, so knows the system. Also it allows you to advertise for FREE.

So the money you get from your information product pays for your advertising, which gives you endless FREE leads, which in turn gives you endless business growth. It dose not matter if that person never joins your primary business, as now you have made a new contact who you can share ideas with and network with and best of all you will meet others through that one person.

I have been using a system like this for over a year and I will not do business any other way. The system I am using is Magnetic Sponsoring and you can join today at www.MLMHintsAndTips.com

Don’t waste your time and your money talking to your family and friends. They have no interest in your business. Spend your time working with people who want to be successful. Now I’m saying that everyone you know at the moment will not be any good for your business as you may know people who are already successful but are looking for a change.

Thanks for reading

Tristram Lodge

P.S If you don’t get success from Magnetic Sponsoring with in 12 months I will buy the book back from you at the full price. That means zero risk to you.

P.P.S If you do want your money back I will let you keep all the bonus material you get with the course just for you trouble. Sign up today at www.MLMHintsAndTips.com

A few months ago I started to use Facebook as a way to generate leads for my business. I have decided that I need to use this system and learn everything I can over the next year or so then move onto learn something else. Now what I am going to share with you I really want you to pay attention to as I lost a lot of hard work when my account got disabled.

Now the system I use has some great training in the back office so I spent a day going through the training and making a start to learn what some people are doing to use Facebook to generate leads. I was ready so started doing the things I had learnt.

Everything was going well for a couple of weeks with no problems, no warnings flagged up or anything. Then I started to get a couple of warnings when adding friends and wall posts. I slowed down what I was doing, then started to push the system again and you guessed it, bang my account got disabled.

So what did I do wrong, some of you will know this but some will not and you could end up having your account disabled and allot of your hard work being lost. With Facebook you must treat it with respect, if you abuse the system you will get banned.

Here are some of the things to be careful of doing when using Facebaook. First adding friends, take your time with this one. Do not add more than 50 friends a day. When you are adding friends add between 5 and 10 at a time and always add a message.  Rotate the groups where you add friends from each time. Once you have added 10 friends post some wall posts on group walls.

When posting on group walls do a maximum of 3 at a time and rotate the post you put on the walls every 3 times. Do these after adding 10 friends. What I do now is log out of my account and spend half an hour doing something else. Come back login and carry on. Make sure you do not post the same post in all of the groups you belong to in the same day, this is the quickest way to get your account disabled. Also do not do all your wall post at one time even if you are rotating them. I believe this is how my account got disabled.

I have also noticed that wall posts on group walls and on peoples profiles seem to be classed as the same thing by Facebook. Even sending someone a message after doing wall posts can throw up a warning.

If you do get a warning, stop what you are doing logoff your account for 24 hours then carry on. Do not try and keep going, it will only throw up another warning, then your account will get disabled.

If you send a welcome message to new friends by tagging them in your video make sure you delete the old tags before you start this or you will get a spam warning. I do this once a day now and have not had any problems.

These are just the items that I have found, I don’t want to find any more but if anyone else out there can add to this I’m sure it would be most welcome. Please treat Facebook with respect, you will get a number of warnings before your account is disabled but if you take your time when using it you should not have any problems. Spending a bit more time each day is better than having your account disabled and you losing all your work.

If you do have your account disabled you can try and send Facebook a very grovelling email and hope they enable your account again. It worked for me so I have been luckly and have learnt a big lesson.

Hope this helps you guys out and Thanks for reading.

Tristram Lodge