Overcoming your fears with starting a new online business can be a challenging time. You will have many thoughts passing through your mind,such as:-
Is it true or is it a scam.
Does the product produce expected results
How can I sell the product
Who can I sell to
Will I make money
What will my Friends and Family think
How can I find the money to start.
Who will support me
What if I fail
You need to carry out due diligence, this generally means checking how long the company has been in existence, what is the track record of the people, running the business , carry out searches on Google and generally avoid new start up companies.
Many people choose the Multi Level Marketing (MLM) route. Which is both popular but also likely to fail due to over priced products, leaving distributors with a stockpile of products which they are unable to sell to friends and family.
There is an easy way to check on the value of a product by searching on the likes of Amazon and E bay for the products you are looking to sell and see what price they can be brought at auction. If the auction price does not reach the price you have to pay as a distributor you are likely to have difficulty finding customers.. Some MLM companies restrict you from selling online as they know their products are overpriced in order to pay commissions.
I would not suggest selling to friends and family unless the product provides a solution to their particular needs, a few might buy because they feel sorry for you but you can lose many friends.
Gather as much information about the products you are going to be selling, looking carefully at testimonials, as well as using the products yourself, this helps you speak from the heart when talking to potential customers.
The truth behind success begins with having a good product and being able to market it to potential customers at a price they are prepared to pay. Few people have experience of marketing, however having access to the right tools could be the difference between success and failure. You see all companies offer you a website but how do you get people to go to it.
I am a member of a social/ business network called MarketHive, which I invite you to join for free as it not only has the ability to promote your products, but we have experienced marketers who will help you be in profit within 30 days. Gone are the days of having a sponsor who starts you off makes money from you and then leaves you floundering. We can show you how to put you products in front of millions of people on social media.
If your start up finances are stretched we have a turn key solution. Feel free to contact me
MarketHive is the only Free Inbound Marketing Platform
MarketHive's inbound marketing platform delivers enterprise class internet marketing tools coupled with a vibrant social network…all for free!
Built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, (not opportunity seekers), MarketHive is the solution to all you entrepreneurial, inbound marketing challenges.
MarketHive is the result of over 20 years of online experience dating back to when the internet was at its infancy. Thomas Prendergast a 40 year marketing veteran, and 25 year internet marketing veteran has built the most powerful Marketing Automation platform (known as Inbound Marketing) for the little gal and guy, like you. MarketHIve is a cutting edge inbound marketing platform that combines the power and techniques of inbound marketing with that of a vibrant social neural network of entrepreneurs from around the world. With the ability to broadcast your message to 10's of millions of social accounts, you will dominate your business niche in record time. No other inbound marketing platform provides this kind of reach or interaction with an integrated entrepreneurial community and all the marketing tools you need right at your fingertips. Not HubSpot, Not Pardot, Not Marketo. Not InfusionSoft!
The Benefits of MarketHive's Inbound Marketing Platform
1. Social interaction on the same platform: While you are utilizing the tools of MarketHive, you can converse, message and communicate with like minded entrepreneurs from around the globe within the same platform. You do not have to leave you inbound marketing website and jump onto a Facebook group to ask questions, provide feedback or inspire others. With a familiar social interface, you will feel right at home in MarketHive! 2. Integrated Blogging Platform: Most inbound marketing platforms provide many of the same tools, email capabilities, capture page technology, CRM and the list goes on. With MarketHive you have a powerful blogging platform available at the push of a button. Write you blog, then with the MarketHive WordPress plugin RSS you blog post to as many WordPress blogs as you desire.Swipe blogs from other like minded entrepreneurs to use as guest posts on your own blog, providing your readers additional insights into your specific niche. Or allow persons you are aligned with on MarketHive that have the same interests to automatically post to your blog as they post to their blog. 3. Capture and Lead Pages: MarketHive puts the power to capture lead without having to pay a monthly fee to have lead pages. You have the ability to modify an impressive set of capture pages or, if you love to code, develop your own custom page. 4. Capture widgets that are state of the art, 1 click and you get the full profile of your prospect who is registering. One click, full name (real name), real email address and the Social Network they confirmed with to register account. This is forward thinking, advanced marketing technology, priceless and no cost to you. 5. Email Marketing, Autoresponders & Lead Management: No marketing platform is complete without an email platform. Again MarketHive provides the most deliverable email marketing system available anywhere. Set up a capture page to develop a lead and then drip information to that lead building a relationship of trust. Don't forget to call your prospect. Nothing takes the place of speaking directly to them. You want to segment you list? MarkHive provides this functionality. Divide your leads into groups and send a broadcast email when you have important information, a great idea to share or just want to say, “Hi!” 6. Marketing Campaign Management: MarketHive gives you a complete set of campaign marketing tools to help you develop wining marketing campaigns:
Vendor Records Management
Group Marketing Co-Op
Tiny URL Tracking
Website Rotators
Asset Maps to track your website real estate
Keyword Analysis
Backlink Tracking
This module alone will benefit you by helping you organize, track and work with your entrepreneurial group in swarming the internet with you message and product. 7. Advertising: Do you have a product or service you wish to get out to the masses? MarketHive offers unprecedented packages at far less rates than any other social network. Plus, you have the option to become a paid member and receive millions of advertising credits to use as you wish. In addition, the more you participate in MarketHive, posting valuable content, sharing content, commenting and the like, you will receive additional advertising credits. And even better, they never expire! 8. Video Integration: Integrate all your videos from YouTube directly into MarketHive to share directly with your group and entrepreneurial friends. 9. Ongoing Live and Recorded Training Workshops: We will teach you how to set ups your blog to maximize your swarm broadcasting to millions of entrepreneurs using social media 10. Thousands of entrepreneurs, at your fingertips for collaboration, sharing information, helping and bee-friending. Other inbound marketing platforms like Aweber, Getresponse, HubSpot, Pardot, charge from $200 per month to $10,000 per month and more. MarketHive (The powerful Marketing Automation Platform by Prendergast) is 100% free. MarketHive makes its revenue from Advertising and then pays you up to 50% commissions on that revenue. Advertising runs about $100 per day. The tools are powerful and the preceeding list gives you an idea of the comprehensive sophistication that makes MarketHive a powerful inbound marketing platform to Internet marketers, entrepreneurs, etc. like myself. Bryan TuckHelping Entrepreneurs Leverage the Internet To Build A Successful Business 231-373-3569 tuckb@bryantuck.comwww.MarketHive.com Bryan Tuck
MarketHive is the answer to all you entrepreneurial, inbound marketing needs. Built by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, (not opportunity seekers) MarketHive deliveres enterprise class inbound marketing tools coupled with a vibrant social network…all for free!
MarketHive is the result of over 20 years of online experience dating back to when the internet was at its infancy. Thomas Prendergast a 40 year marketing veteran, and 25 year internet marketing veteran has built the most powerful Marketing Automation platform (known as Inbound Marketing) for the little gal and guy, like you.
MarketHIve is a cutting edge inbound marketing platform that combines the power and techniques of inbound marketing with that of a vibrant social neural network of entrepreneurs from around the world. With the ability to broadcast your message to 10’s of millions of social accounts, you will dominate your business niche in record time.
No other inbound marketing platform provides this kind of reach or interaction with an integrated entrepreneurial community and all the marketing tools you need right at your fingertips.
Not HubSpot, Not Pardot, Not Marketo. Not InfusionSoft!
The benefits of MarketHive
Social interaction on the same platform: While you are utilizing the tools of MarketHive, you can converse, message and communicate with like minded entrepreneurs from around the globe within the same platform. You do not have to leave you inbound marketing website and jump onto a Facebook group to ask questions, provide feedback or inspire others. With a familiar social interface, you will feel right at home in MarketHIve!
Integrated Blogging Platform: Most inbound marketing platforms provide many of the same tools, email capabilities, capture page technology, CRM and the list goes on. With MarketHive you have a powerful blogging platform available at the push of a button. Write you blog, then with the MarketHive WordPress plugin RSS you blog post to as many WordPress blogs as you desire.
Swipe blogs from other like minded entrepreneurs to use as guest posts on your own blog, providing your readers additional insights into your specific niche. Or allow persons you are aligned with on MarketHive that have the same interests to automatically post to your blog as they post to their blog.
Capture and Lead Pages: MarketHive puts the power to capture lead without having to pay a monthly fee to have lead pages. You have the ability to modify an impressive set of capture pages or, if you love to code, develop your own custom page.
Capture widgets that are state of the art, 1 click and you get the full profile of your prospect who is registering. One click, full name (real name), real email address and the Social Network they confirmed with to register account. This is forward thinking, advanced marketing technology, priceless and no cost to you.
Email Marketing, Autoresponders & Lead Management: No marketing platform is complete without an email platform. Again MarketHive provides the most deliverable email marketing system available anywhere. Set up a capture page to develop a lead and then drip information to that lead building a relationship of trust. Don’t forget to call your prospect. Nothing takes the place of speaking directly to them. You want to segment you list? MarkHive provides this functionality. Divide your leads into groups and send a broadcast email when you have important information, a great idea to share or just want to say, “Hi!”
Marketing Campaign Management: MarketHive gives you a complete set of campaign marketing tools to help you develop wining marketing campaigns:
Vendor Records Management
Group Marketing Co-Op
Tiny URL Tracking
Website Rotators
Asset Maps to track your website real estate
Keyword Analysis
Backlink Tracking
This module alone will benefit you by helping you organize, track and work with your entrepreneurial group in swarming the internet with you message and product.
Advertising: Do you have a product or service you wish to get out to the masses? MarketHive offers unprecedented packages at far less rates than any other social network. Plus, you have the option to become a paid member and receive millions of advertising credits to use as you wish. In addition, the more you participate in MarketHive, posting valuable content, sharing content, commenting and the like, you will receive additional advertising credits. And even better, they never expire!
Video Integration: Integrate all your videos from YouTube directly into MarketHive to share directly with your group and entrepreneurial friends.
Ongoing Live and Recorded Training Workshops: We will teach you how to set ups your blog to maximize your swarm broadcasting to millions of entrepreneurs using social media
Thousands of entrepreneurs, at your fingertips for collaboration, sharing information, helping and bee-friending.
Other inbound marketing platforms like Aweber, Getresponse, HubSpot, Pardot, charge from $200 per month to $10,000 per month and more. MarketHive (The powerful Marketing Automation Platform by Prendergast) is 100% free. MarketHive makes its revenue from Advertising and then pays you up to 50% commissions on that revenue. Advertising runs about $100 per day. The tools are powerful and the preceeding list gives you an idea of the comprehensive sophistication that makes MarketHive a powerful inbound marketing platform to Internet marketers, entrepreneurs, etc. like myself.
When you first start a business you need to identify a product that you can sell on the open market at a profit, which usually rules out MLM products as most are overpriced, with even distributors struggling to move products at even the distributor price.
What if I told you there was a popular product drunk by millions of people on a daily basis, made from 100% natural product, which not only satisfies people thirst but has the added advantage of helping people to lose weight..
The number of overweight people throughout the world is increasing alarmingly, such that governments like the UK are considering a sugar tax on popular fizzy drinks. During my work every day I see many overweight people and watch them struggle to complete simple tasks. Perhaps I am one of the lucky few who was throughout my life been able to keep my weight within controllable limits.
Having a product that sells well and makes money online is a great start for any business, however you need also to be able to market the product. The milliennials and older make heavy use of social media, so this is where you need to focus your advertising and any sites you use must be set up to be mobile friendly. I use a system called MarketHive which enables me to get my message across to millions of people with the simple push of a button.
I suppose that the hardest part of the processof making money online is actually writing the blog posts, but even here the MarketHive system has what is called blog swipe where you can edit and use someone else's blog, adding your own twist to the story and pointing it to your own capture pages. It does not become much easier than this.
Unlike a traditional MLM, you will find the members of MarketHive's business and social network are a friendly bunch, willing to help one another achieve their goals, even though they may be in different lines of the business. this cooperation is the root of MarketHive's success.
If you have struggled in the past to make money online, like I have in the past, this could be a life changer, please contact me if you want more details.
Most MLM emers seem to end up to end up with excess products that they can't sell at a profit because the products are overpriced in the first place. You only have to look on E bay and you will see what I mean. Some companies even ban members from selling except from approved sites online.
I have found a company who is different and not only do they have a good weight loss product but it sells at a competitive price so that Independent Representatives can still make a profit even when selling at auctions.
Now some people face challenges when it comes to marketing, partly due to the price of the product as mentioned above and sometimes because the do not know where to start. Now I have teamed up with a company called MarketHive which is making a special offer to all people who join Valentus at the $500 (Ruby) level. Now $499 is a lot of money, however you starter pack product if sold online will recover this cost and put you in profit.
MarketHive special incentive is an upgrade in MarketHive to the Alpha Entrepreneur membership level. This is an amazing deal as it normally costs $5000 and includes One time deposit of $10,000 in Ad credits and contributes $300 in Ad credits per month so long as the member maintains their Ruby level, if you drop below ruby level month credits will be suspended until you return ruby level.
Within MarketHive you will find a new type of entrepreneur, groups of people who will go the extra mile to ensure you can build this business, teaching you how to extend your reach in social media. We currently have Valentus groups in the UK, Europe, and the USA, so you will not be alone, we all help one another, no matter which group you are part of.
All the tools you will ever need, blogs, auto-responders, rotators, combined with active social media media, messaging and conference rooms.
Many people join an MLM company as a distributor, only to find, that their so called sponsor, offers little help or advise, because he or she earns from sponsoring you and is in reality in competition with you about building his business. You can be left with draws or cupboards full of product which you are unable to sell to friends or family. Does this sound familiar with you.
People tend to recruit distributors, who in reality are little more than customers as they do not recruit many in any customers. Customers are the key to building a success business, so you need to carry out some preparatory work in the area of marketing to start making contact with potential customers.
One thing I have learnt in the years I have been working online is it is easier to to become successful if you are supplying customers with some thing that suits their need, rather than trying to persuade a potential distributor to part with money to set up a business.
One problem a distributor faces is that they become a one man band who has to do everything, however, I have found an answer thanks to the foresight of Tom Prendergast, and his development team who have created a social media and marketing site, where budding entrepreneurs, gather and discuss and help one another to build each others business. It does not matter who you are, what you know or where you live, you will be helped along the road to success.
One example is the promotion of a company who has realised that customers are at the centre of success for their independent business owners. The resources of MarketHive are used by interested groups who work together blogging and sharing information, on social media ,within not only their own sphere of influence but also those of other members involved. The result is you communication can reach millions of people at the push of a button.
It is a mind boggling concept that is starting to stir the industry, if you would like to learn more about swarm marketing, I would like to invite you to contact me
Here I sit awaiting my initial order of Valentus Weight Loss Coffee. I am anxious to try the coffee as well as the energy drink and immune booster.
My journey into Valentus started just about two weeks ago while hanging out at MarketHive.com. MarketHive is a free inbound marketing platform coupled with a vibrant social network. Truly an amazing concept. More on that later because it is important to my decision to take a journey with Valentus.
If you have not heard of Valentus, here you go.
Valentus is a two year old company dedicated to health living with its flagship product SlimRoast Weight Loss Coffee.
Yea, I know, I was thinking the same thing when I first heard about it, “thats weird.”
I enjoy coffee most of the time. There are days I can live without it. However I have been enjoying iced coffee more and more during these summer months.
I also enjoy food, thus the additional 35 pound resting on my frame. So I thought, “what the heck”, I may as well give this a try and see what it does for me and my girth.
From the WeightLoss Coffee testimonials some people have done very little about their diet and exercise or lack thereof. I am physically active, but I don’t do anything like running or lift weights.
There are currently for products in the Valentus line:
Prevail Slimroast Coffee
Controls appetite
Regulates sugar absorption
Regulates fat absorption
Promotes brain health and focus
Elevates mood
Antioxidant
Prevail Immune Boost
Packed with antioxidants
Loaded with vitamins and minerals
Supports immune health
Perfect when feeling of colds of sickness are coming on
Prevail Energy
Boost your lagging energy
Lasts for hours
Works for you in minutes
Athletes
Drivers
Afternoon Slumps
Mornings
Students
SO MUCH MORE!
Prevail Trim
Perfect for healthy weight management
All natural
Formulated with natural appetite suppressant
Ingredients to help detoxify your body,
I will be journaling my journey with Valentus and the Prevail line of products with detailed reviews and updates on my physical and mental well being.
Profile Pages: “Online Branding and Building Authority”
What is the difference between online branding and building authority? Some would consider it the same thing, but in reality it can be two completely different processes. Online branding is a way to get more exposure for your brand on all levels of online marketing, especially search and social.
Building authority takes online branding to the next level by making each online presence for a brand authoritative. It goes beyond just about creating a blog or social media account. The following are ways you can build your online brand as well as your authority.
Blogs are beneficial for brands for three reasons. First of all, blogs help you rank well in search engines – Google loves fresh, unique content on websites that are constantly updated. If you’re looking to meet this goal, be sure to use Markethive’s blog platform and build a blog team in a Markethive group to assist in greater content and curation.
RE: WordPress Markethive’s technology super charges WordPress campaigns.
Next, blogs provide for great content to share on social media networks. It’s hard to get traction if your just sharing product and sales pages. But if you’re sharing informative blog posts about your industry, you’re likely to get a lot of traffic and social shares.
Markethive provides plugins and widgets and tech that allows visitors to subscribe to your blog from their Social Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, thereby allowing your new Markethive posts to publish to their news feed automatically.
Finally, great blogs can help your brand build authority in your niche. This is where you go above and beyond cookie cutter posts that talk about your product to creating awesome content in the form of:
Tutorials
Infographics
Videos
Industry Interviews
Awesome content will show fans of your industry that you know your stuff and therefore are the brand to go with for their business needs. A great example of this is the blog you are reading right now – Markethive has Inbound Marketing technologies, the go to Social Network and infographics that have been tweeted and liked over 10,000 times and posts that have been viewed on Facebook, LinkedIn and Stumbleupon over 100,000 times.
There are two great fears that brands have when it comes to blogging. One is that they won’t have anything to blog about, and this is a complete myth. Everyone can find something to blog about. You just have to expand your definition of the target audience. Imagine you had a body shop. You probably won’t get a lot of attention if you’re writing about paint booths and sanding tools all the time, but you will if you think about broader topics that would interest the people likely to visit an auto body shop. You can blog about the latest coolest Hot Rods at the coming Hot Rod Nationals show or the latest NASCAR winner to grab fans of those programs. Or you can blog about environmental issues and the Prious to grab environmentalists. Just think bigger!
The other fear is that they will be giving away “trade secrets” and lose their business. This one is especially common within industries like SEO, where a brand might feel like giving out ten steps to link building will give their customers the info they need to just do it themselves. But this just isn’t true. I have found that most of the time, if you give a complex, in-depth tutorial, a potential customer will see that your brand has the knowledge to do the service, but they won’t have the time or resources to do it for themselves. Hence, they’ll go with you because they feel confident that your brand has the expertise demonstrated in the content provided on the blog.
The key with your brand’s blog is to make sure that it is apparent who is behind the content. Whether you have your blog on your domain (yourbrand.com/blog), as a subdomain (blog.yourbrand.com), or as a separate site (yourbrandblog.com), be sure that it is matched to your brand. Check out Markethive’s site, blog, and subscribers profile pages, logged in dashboard and display variances on hand held devices. All are unique yet all are well branded and follow a conventional identity protocol (all on separate domains and different devices) as an example of great branding.
Guest Blog for Others (This is a major component in Markethive)
When it comes to blogging, you don’t want to keep the good stuff all to yourself. Guest blogging (join a Markethive Group to share content is that easy) is a great way to build your online brand presence and authority. The basic goal is to find a (GROUP) blog whose audience will be interested in your brand, and create a great piece of content for that blog.
Notice I said great piece of content. I would go so far as to say that the content you create for another (GROUP) site’s blog should be even better than the content you create for your own site. You want the content you create for another blog (GROUP) to rock. You want that content to generate additional social shares, comments, and traffic for the blog owner.
As you create GROUP posts for others, be sure to save the links to those guest posts for future reference. As you approach new GROUPs that you would like to guest post upon, you will want to include those links as examples of your successful guest posts in other Markethive GROUPS. If you can convince the GROUP owner that your post will be a perfect fit for their audience and will drive significant traffic and response, the GROUP blog owner will have a hard time resisting.
My main tips for GROUP blogging for your brand include:
1. Find the best GROUPs to guest post on.
When it comes to blogs you want to get a guest post on, your goal is to find those whose audience would be interested in your brand. The blog should get a significant amount of traffic and social shares as well – there’s no reason to post on a blog that has no visitors just because it has high PageRank or any other criteria – you want to get some brand exposure out of this! Use the Markethive GROUPs directory to start your search for blogs in your niche or industry.
2. Find the GROUPs blogging policy.
If you see that a GROUP allows guest bloggers or outside contributors, the GROUP should have some page or post posted that describes their post policy. If they do have a policy page or post, then be sure to note any and all criteria.
3. Start building a relationship with the GROUP owner first. (Markethive Groups is excellent for this)
Now that you’ve found the blog you want to pitch an idea to, don’t just jump in and pitch them yet. Start by getting to know the GROUP owner first by following their Markethive blog posts, their Twitter and their Facebook fan page. Comment on some of their latest posts – make those comments valuable to enhance discussion and demonstrate your writing skills and expertise in the industry. CoPromote their posts using Broadcasting tools and widgets. Do this for at least a week or two before pitching content to them.
4. Research and pitch great topic ideas. (Join others in our live Markethive Work Shops)
Don’t create the content first and then try to find it a home. Once you’ve found the right blogs and started engaging with the blogs themselves, you’ll get a feel for the type of content they publish.
To get an even better idea of what content is successful for each blog, subscribe to them in your Markethive back office blog platform. Then you will be able to see the site’s latest traffic scores. The higher score, the more comments, tweets, Facebook likes, and other social shares the post received. Use these high-scoring posts as an indicator as to what content does well on each blog.
Now you can message via the Markethive message system or request to join their group saying that you have recently enjoyed reading their blog (as evidenced by your commenting & social sharing) and would like to contribute to their site as a GROUP member. After reading their guidelines, you would like to see if they would be interested in the following topics. Then add three to four great post ideas that you believe will fit their audience to choose from. And of course, if you’ve done guest posts elsewhere, include some of your best links. If not, just include some great links from your own brand’s blog.
5. Create Awesome Content.
Once you get approval from a GROUP, your next job is to create an awesome piece of content. Make sure it fits the theme of that blogging GROUP and that it has the overall feel / tone of the GROUP blog you are submitting to. Also be sure to add in relevant links throughout your blog post – not to your own properties, but internal links to the blog itself. This shows the blog owner you’re really giving it 100% for them and their audience and not just trying to promote yourself.
The self-promotion piece should come at the end with your guest bio. Check out other author bios on the blogs and create yours to match. This is where you can say you are John Smith, an industry enthusiast from ABC Company.
Again, be sure to consider the blog’s guidelines and previous guest author bios when deciding to add one or more links back to your brand. The blog owner ultimately reserves the right to edit it as they feel is necessary.
6. Support your GROUP post once it goes live.
It’s not over yet. After that guest post goes live, you should give it your unconditional love in the form of social sharing with your brand’s audience on Twitter, Facebook, etc. as well as coming by to respond to comments. That kind of response on your guest post will further boost your brand’s reputation as a great guest blogger as well as a confident authority in your niche.
Don’t Forget Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is a great branding and authority building exercise you can do on any blog in your niche. I would suggest subscribing to the top blogs in your industry in Google Reader, and each time there is a new post, be sure to read it thoroughly and add a valuable comment. Remember this isn’t about link building – this is about building your brand’s presence online as an authority in your industry.
Get a Disqus account as well as it is a sort of social network of people that comment.
You can use the blog’s previous comments as a guide as to how you should format yours. Some blogs require you to only use your real name, while others are a little more lenient in using your name – your company. I would suggest linking your comments to your blog as people are more willing to click through to a brand’s blog than their main website.
Your Online Branding & Authority Building Strategy Using Blogs
What is your brand’s strategy when it comes to building your brand’s authority using blogs? Be sure to share what you find brings your brand the best results in the comments!
Create a Consistent Brand Image for Each Profile
Have you ever visited a company’s social profile, and you were not sure that it belonged to the company? One of the most important parts of branding is keeping a consistent image across all of your online properties so that no matter what path a person takes from one property to the next, they will always know it is your brand. For example, someone might:
Find your fan page through a friend’s activity stream and then follow it to your blog, then website
See a tweet from someone they are following, visit your Twitter profile, and then continue onto your website.
Start at your website, then go to check out your social profiles to see if your company is engaging with fans. Engaging is fuel and grows awareness, authority and respect. Comment, recommend. Just drive by liking and endorsing does no one any good and makes you look like a tire kicking couch potato.
Just like you wouldn’t want pages on your website to be different themes, you will want your social profiles to do the same. Markethive also leads the way in doing it right as well:
MARKETHIVE
Markethive probably does the best with branding between their website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube accounts as shown above. All five are branded with the honey comb logo, color theme and climbers ascending Mt. Everest in representation of the entrepreneurial social community of entrepreneurs helping each other achieve their agendas, so you can feel the consistency moving from one property to the next.
BMW
The above shows BMW’s branding between their website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube profiles. Each online property uses the same color scheme and is currently focused on automotive technology. The logos are all consistent, and the auto focused in the pages is different perspectives, the coloring and themes are consistent as well
BOLTHOUSE
Bolthouse’s (organic farm fresh juices) branding between their website, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube profiles as shown above uses the same color scheme, logo, and focus on their primary product, carrots and selections of juices. Excellent example of branding and consistency!
Help People Find Your Profiles
I do a lot of competitive analysis in my line of work, and one of the most frustrating things I have to do is search for a brand’s social profiles. Don’t hide your social media presence – flaunt them! Be sure to:
Put Social Icons on Your Website – Let visitors to your website know that you are engaging with your audience on social media as well by adding social icons to your website design. The most common places to place them include the header / menu bar, sidebar, and footer. They don’t have to be large and in charge – BMW’s are none existent on their main page and Bolthouse are right up top left of center where they should be and get the job done..
Put Social Links in Your Communications – Do you send emails regularly? Add social links to your email signature. Do you send newsletters? Add social icons to them.
Make Your Profiles Search Friendly – If I Google your brand name + Twitter, I should get your Twitter handle in the search results. To make this happen, be sure that the name of your social profile (and the username if possible) matches your brand name. You might be tempted to keyword optimize your profiles instead of optimizing them for your brand name – this is something you need to resist. You can learn more about social media SEO on how to optimize for both effectively for search engines.
Another frustration is the direct sales industry.
Even though the size of this industry is huge by any comparison with a market measured in the trillions, even the top 100 fail miserable branding with social media. Do not be like them, rather show them a good example with your efforts. After several days of research I was able to find one such company that at least had the top 5 Social Medias registered with a similar array (not the same name) of usernames. The super majorities only have a token Facebook page, even less with Youtube and Twitter and nearly nonexistent with a Google+ and for that almost none of them are engaged.
BEACHBODY
Team Beach Body with a yearly market of 250 million, struggles with social media but has managed to set up the top 5 social medias, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin and Google+, albeit, the account usernames vary, and across the media branding is seriously lacking. It becomes painfully clear this industry needs Markethive or at least their distributors seriously do.
Get Engaged with Your Followers, Fans, and Subscribers
You probably know that it is important to maintain an active account by posting lots of updates, and that it is best to do something other than blasting advertisements non-stop about your brand. So the question is, what should you be doing to stay active in your social networks? Get engaged with your audience, of course. Here are the top networks to get socially engaged in for your brand.
Twitter Engagement
If you’re goal is to build a strong presence on Twitter and demonstrate your brand’s authority in your industry, you need get involved with your following. Some ways to do so include:
Monitoring Brand Mentions – If you use Twitter itself, just do a search for your brand and save the search for future reference. If you use a Twitter management tool like HootSuite, create a keyword search column that will constantly update you with brand mentions. Anytime someone says something about your brand, whether it is good or bad, you should be responding to it if at all possible. This may mean adding some extra team members to your social media GROUP as a response staff. But over time, if people see that you are always on top of any discussion of your brand, you will gain trust and receive lots of great word of mouth marketing. People will tell their followers what a great response they’ve received from you and likely recommend you based on their satisfaction level.
Monitoring Industry Conversation – One of the best parts of Twitter is that you can jump into any conversation, anytime. So if you are a company providing Inbound Marketing services and technologies like Markethive, you can monitor anyone who talks about Inbound Marketing, SEO, linking, Entrepreneurial interests, and other related topics and just answer simple questions that anyone asks about those topics demonstrating your expertise.
Curate the Best Content – Even if you are the best content creator in your industry, people often like to see a second opinion. Find out who other authorities are in your industry and share their opinion on industry topics with your following. You will gain more relevant followers simply for sharing the best news.
Facebook Fan Page Engagement
There are several different ways you can engage with your fans using your fan page that will keep your current fans active and bring new fans to your brand. These include:
Updating Your Fan Page on Facebook – It’s tempting to use HootSuite and other automated programs to update your fan page. But it’s becoming more and more obvious that if you want your updates to show up in fan’s news feeds that the updates must be organic, or originating from your fan page itself. So take the extra time to disable all of your autofeeds and start updating your fan page manually on Facebook. And when people start engaging with your posts or posting directly on your wall, be sure to respond to them. If they know they’re getting response, they’re more likely to return. No one likes a one-way broadcast.
Try Out Different Types of Updates – Don’t just post links or ask questions. Spice it up – add some video updates and photos. Different types of people like different types of content – be sure to try to cater to everyone by mixing your content up!
Thanks to the last major update to Facebook fan pages, you are able to use Facebook as your fan page. This means you can like pages as your fan page instead of your personal profile and then comment on them as your fan page. If you can find pages that are not direct competitors but whose audience will be interested in your brand, you will want to get active on them. For example, social media consultants should be living on Social Media Examiner’s fan page to connect with other individuals and businesses looking for social media help.
LinkedIn Engagement
If your brand isn’t on LinkedIn, you are missing out. LinkedIn allows you to add a company page where you can post your products, services, job openings, and even send status updates to your company followers including your latest blog posts. But some of the best branding and authority building activities for this network lie in the activity of the professional profiles including:
Participating in Groups – There are lots of great, active groups on LinkedIn in a wide variety of industries. Find the groups that have your potential client base within them and start getting active in discussions and posting useful content. Just be sure not to do anything that the group moderator would consider as spamming!
Answering Questions – The next best area to build a great professional reputation and strong authority in your industry is in LinkedIn Answers. There are questions asked every day in topics ranging from administration to technology. The people who answer the most questions are also featured on the answers’ home page as the week’s top experts!
Gaining Recommendations – Last, but not least, is recommendations. You can get recommendations on both the company pages and the professional profiles of your employees. Imagine if someone is browsing your company’s page and sees that the top employees have a ton of recommendations. It will show that you have a lot of experts in the industry which will make potential clients even more confident in your brand!
An entrepreneur mindset is what sets apart the winners from the losers on the internet.
During a recent high-level webinar I attended, this was revealed in detail. The vast majority of people working to earn a living or make extra money with an online business are "Opportunity Seekers".
Are You?
I know I was.
I would bounce around from program to program and tool to tool, looking for the magic pill that would change everything and have me raking in the dough.
In the immortal words of Homer Simpson…Dohhhhhhhhh!
Not only did I NOT make any money, I gave a ton of money much away to people who’s sole purpose was to relieve opportunity seekers, like I was, of that money.
I liken it to a casino. You may as well just walk up to the casino door, open the door and throw your money in and then go find something else to do that is more productive. The ROI is lousy in either instance.
Have you allowed this to happen to you at least once? Twice? Three Times or more?
The issue here is NOT excessive greed or trying to take the easy way. It is education.
The internet is a vast playground and people from all walks of life are making a living and even crushing it online. The ones who are earning money as an entrepreneur online understand the difference between an Opportunity Seeker and an Entrepreneur.
Once I became properly educated on what it really takes to make it as an entrepreneur online, there was this giant paradigm shift. It no longer became about me making the sale. It became about me providing value and committing to the long haul, come thick or thin.
What differentiates an entrepreneur mindset from that of an opportunity seeker?
Let’s take a look at each.
An Opportunity Seeker
Has no strategic plan of action
Is looking for quick fixes
Is looking for answers
Is afraid to spend money ( but we spend a lot, don’t we?)
Wishes it was easier
Will “try” everything
Will start and stop their efforts.
Can you relate to these?
An Entrepreneur
Has a strategic, detailed plan
Implements their plan
Provides answers
Has a long-term vision and goal
Understands investment
Works at bettering themselves
Develops the discipline to say “No”
Stays the course toward their goal
You have one of two choices to make. You can either keep chasing the money like an opportunity seeker or focus on how to build a real online business as an entrepreneur.
But you must have a long-term vision and marketing plan.
The biggest mistake that online entrepreneurs and marketers make that cripple their business before it even gets started.
The numero uno mistake new online marketers make when first getting started is what I talked about earlier in this post…
They focus on sales.
This is very easy trap to fall into. Most people who go online to make money are looking to fill a financial gap. They are likely spending money they really don’t have to spend which in turn produces "I have to make a sale" anxiety.
They live and die by the almighty dollar.
Many many marketers who were online seven and eight years ago followed this pattern. More and more entrepreneurs are coming to understand that this direction leads down the road of internet business failure.
It has been my agenda for nearly 20 years to reform an industry that is for the most part built upon a shifting and unreliable foundation that has always been broken and is heading for total annihilation. If you have attempted to build a business in MLM Network Marketing) you will relate to what I am addressing.
For over a decade this vision has grown in urgency and definition to help direct a broken industry towards developing a customer based centered direct sales model. All of this was originally inspired by a maverick move towards customer acquisition by a company called Trivita. In 2001 I was introduced to this new direction in MLM by the simple statement, just buy your customers. I had already been engaged in the MLM industry for nearly 10 years at that time. My first exposure to MLM was in 1992 with the first to market a consumer (customer) based ISP, nationwide dialup Internet access for $20 per month.
I have been an entrepreneur my whole adult life and a good portion of my teen years as well, with my first business started at the age of 14. Prior to my exposure to MLM, I was and still am a traditional business entrepreneur. Therefore to say, I found the MLM model of exclusive distribution to and consumption by distributors and only motivated to this action by pursuing profit; "alien, illogical and disturbing".
Let me explain:
My introduction and very successful sojourn with Trivita helped me discover the stark contrast between the artificial economies of a distributor based sales company in contrast to a customer based sales company. I studied this comparison for many years and it became painfully clear, the reason traditional MLM fails, regardless of the compensation plan, regardless of the motivational speakers, regardless of the training to sell the “Hope and Dreams” as that is the only way to promote when the products and or services are frankly, always overpriced and usually underwhelmingly ineffective. There are very few exceptions. So the glaring difference I found in Trivita was the fact that for every distributor I recruited, I averaged 100 customers. Then the fact, I did not have to sell Hope and Dreams and instead, the pitch was just buy customers. The reaction from the potential distributor was always extremely positive and the close rate of a distributor was very high. When you factor in that every distributor usually meant 100 customers, the potential success was superior to anything else like it.
This was just a company that offered co-op acquisition of the leads and customers Trivita acquired via their infomercials and not much else. Even Trivita’s products lacked true demonstrability and the pricing was not competitive. The only viable benefit regarding being customer centric was the fact you could just buy customers, that for the most part, only about 20% stayed a viable reorder over the years.
Because of this one aspect with Trivita, I have enjoyed a significant income for over 10 years with little attention, a true residual income. Over the years as a vendor to the MLM industry, occasionally getting involved with a few companies because I was promised they were going to offer customer centric solutions. None of them ever did and in my opinion, the super majority of MLMs are run by greedy sociopathic owners, that understand the game and that being the 3 month rule. They build their businesses to inspire, motivate and separate their new distributors from as much money and contacts they can. They know their business model only attracts distributors seeking some semblance of financial success therefore they lay their snares with grand claims of Hopes and Dreams. I consider it borderline criminal. Now we finally arrive to the meat of this article, that being what is a true Customer Centric direct sales company look like. Being that there really isn’t any yet, we have to go to the imagination and vision that to some part is guided by good business principles and look at some of the true customer centric businesses on the scene today.
Amazon could easily be the epitome of customer centric.
Wow. “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.”
That is big, it’s bold, and it’s risky for a brand to make the promise to fulfill on that 24/7 every week of the year.
Service recovery design pays off
Of course the shopping and purchasing experience on Amazon has been exceptional for years. But what if a customer has a post-purchase problem? A big part of customer experience design is a focus on “service recovery,” or designing and refining the process when something goes wrong for the customer. Beloved brands like Zipcar know this is a critical opportunity for delivering moments of delight.
The latest results from the American Customer Satisfaction Index reveals Amazon.com as the reigning and undisputed champ in both Internet retailing and across the entire department in overall customer satisfaction. Amazon’s CEO, Jeff Bezos perhaps more than any business leader has taken the philosophy of truly caring for the customer and ushered it into the digital era. Bezos has built a company from the ground up purely based off of the unbending, unyielding philosophy of serving the customer across all departments. With a 164 million Amazon customers, few would argue Bezos as the key architect of building an authentic, customer-centric company.
1. Don’t Just Listen to Your Customers, Understand Them
Everyone has to be able to work in a call center.”
2. Serve the Needs of the Customer
“We’re not competitor obsessed, we’re customer obsessed. We start with what the customer needs and we work backwards.”
3. The Empty Chair
The Most Important Person in the Room “Focusing on the customer makes a company more resilient.”
4. Never Settle for 99%
“We’re not satisfied until it’s 100%.”
5. Respect Today’s Customer
“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet,
they can each tell 6,000.”
6. Strive to Create a Customer-Centric Company
“If we can arrange things in such a way that our interests are aligned “with our customers, then in the long term that will work out really
“well for customers and it will work out really well for Amazon.”
7. Don’t Be Afraid to Apologize
“We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.”
Over the past two decades, Amazon has held a steady pace of positive press due to their industry-altering company and great customer service. However back in 2009, the foundations of the online book mogul were shook when they remotely deleted copies of the books “1984” and “Animal Farm” from users’ Kindles. The incident prompted an outcry of Internet users to see the dark, “Big Brother” side of Amazon – one that Bezos had worked hard to steer clear of. Amazon quickly made an apology with the usual dry and inhuman statement from the press team. But what really turned people back towards Amazon, was an informal and heartfelt apology from Jeff Bezos:
From “MLM” aka “Network Marketing”,
to a sustainable Coop Customer based Marketing Platform!
Now the vision for a better kinder direct sale company
I have run MLM companies, built them, serviced them as a vendor and engaged with them as a distributor for more than 20 years. I have touched and serviced and influenced over 100 million associates over this period of time. The following is my agenda to change this industry to service the little guy and gal, offering a real solution to build a middle class sustainable income for everyone, not just the elite few, we know as “leaders” in their respective company.
1. A Viable and Competitive Product
First and foremost, the “company” must offer a viable product and or service that does what it says and better than any of their competitors and better yet, have a product or service that has no legitimate competition. I could go into great detail here about the MLM industry and their underwhelming and over priced products with many making spurious claims to eventually be shut down by the FDA, etc.
2. The Virtual Warehouse
This may be putting cart before the horse. Inspired by Amazon’s virtual warehousing for their merchants selling in Amazon, it is time the MLM industry moves forward with a similar solution. Storing and paying additional shipping, your monthly product commitment in your spare bedroom, garages or den has been the standard fro decades. With today’s technology and database management abilities, there is no excuse to not move toward a virtual solution for distributors. This can be done in house by the company, or, use Amazon’s virtual warehousing that is available on a global scale.
This one upgrade to this industry will make reselling, shipping and distribution automated and easy for every distributor, regardless of location or available storage abilities. Bottom line is a doubling or greater movement of product.
3. Customer and Lead co-op acquisition
This is where the company marketing people run ads, driving vertically targeted prospects to an 800 number or website, acquiring quality pre enrolled prospects or customers who have purchased or best have enrolled into auto ship. The distributor’s contribution enhances the company’s budget and the “partnership” enhances the customer’s retention. The company also makes available to the distributor mailing lists to their “enrolled leads and customers” to assist in the continued purchases etc. It is a win win situation and is a proven technique as proven by Trivita.
4. Becoming an E Retailer (automated back office shipping)
Now that the distributors have their inventory, products and samples (if applicable), online, in an offsite virtual warehouse, the process to send product or samples becomes effective and easy. As simple as logging into the back office of their respective MLM company, entering the product (pulling from existing inventory and/or purchasing additional inventory), quantity, and drop ship address, with a simple click, the product or sample is easily on the way, while the distributor is still talking to their prospective client, prospect or distributor on the phone. This seamless process makes the potential growth of the company and distributor 100 times greater than the typical cumbersome processes today.
5. 800 telemarketing service platform
Today’s technologies not only make this proposed service affordable, but extremely effective. Typically, new distributors are assigned an ID# number. The number resides within the servers database to track sales, commissions, etc. of the distributor. Thus the hardest part is already done for an 800 sales number. [A little explanation of current tech] 800 number technology software interfaces display the originating number, or forwarded number. IE: If the distributor develops a radio commercial with a phone number (toll free or not) then forwards that number to the company 800 number, all he or she needs to do is register that number (via the back office) or calling it in. This way the telemarking operators receiving the incoming calls, or the technology, know who originated the call and the orders are taken and assigned appropriately to the distributor.
It can be as simple as the distributor takes a call from an ad, the prospects decides to buy the product. The distributor can easily 3 way into the 800 platform and assist the sale. It can be as easy as an ad running offering a product with the company main toll free number offering free shipping and handling with the special pin number. It can be very easy to build.
Imagine the projected results with the distributors taking the initiative, no more need for mentors, no more need for narcissistic leadership, no more need for motivational events, because the motivation is found in the system and the results. Imagine!
6. API (Application Programming Interface).
Distributor selling on Amazon, Ebay, Alibaba, etc.
Basically, the MLM company has an API developed that interfaces with Amazon, Ebay, etc for the distributor. This allows the distributor to develop an online store on Ebay, Amazon, Alibaba, etc, drive and support the prospects and customers, but the sale interfaces through the company. Thereby the company controls the pricing, collects the money (connected to the distributor) and ships the product. All the collecting, shipping, tracking and commissions paid out is done by the company.
API: In computer programming, an application programming interface (API) is a set of routines, protocols, and tools for building software applications. An API expresses a software component in terms of its operations, inputs, outputs, and underlying types.
Basically allows the company to remotely control pricing,
merchant collection, shipping and communication via the
Traditional MLM companies give a distributor a self-replicated web site that is upfront and focused on selling the Hopes and Dreams of the opportunity, the money, the comp plan, the hype and flash of it all, designed to recruit more distributors. This is death to a retail customer. Very few MLM companies even consider a dedicated self-replicated retail sales only site for their various products. I have yet to even hear of any companies making a simple widget that allows the distributor to have the retail site hosted via the widget on their own domains, much less the ability to add any customization to it. Below is one of the first and rare MLM retail sites I am aware of. It sells the coffee, the coffee benefits offers one off sale and free shipping with autoship.
Marketers, merchants, etc. need a portfolio of tools, to get the message out, to build awareness, to build a sphere of influence and to build a customer and distributor centered loyalty program. Very few people, even entrepreneurs have all the skill sets to achieve this. However, automated marketing, email auto responders, social broadcasters, coop advertising, blogging platforms, materials and videos are necessary tools for the entrepreneur. When you do not supply these types of tools in a controlled environment, the message being broadcasted may not meet the criteria of the company nor abide by regulations.
There are solutions and Markethive is one of the best options. Markethive supplies all of these tools and more, integrated and easily configured and controlled within the communities vertical structures built for DSA companies like yours. It is called the company Directories and within a company portal in Markethive, your distributors will find all they need; Broadcasting platforms, self-replicating personalized PDF documents, Coop advertising systems, blogging platforms, email auto responders, everything needed for marketing, in one place.
9. Training and videos
I do not mean motivational speakers and cheer leading. I mean, real world training how to build the businesses. Daily classes offered by competent experienced teachers, so the distributors develop a strong understanding, expanding their customer territory and acquisition and operate like a real business.
Summary;
With the accelerated market place awash in innovation and technology, technology that puts the human element right into the center of the equation, you can understand why you see the MLM industry sluggish and many companies dying on the vine and others falling flat on their faces with their much heralded launches. Entrepreneurs (distributors) that once upon a time, a flashy video, a charming pitch man, and a compelling comp plan, worked to explode the next greatest MLM launch.
Not today.
It is only a matter of time a young bold, innovative entrepreneur launches the first true customer centric MLM similar to the framework I have discussed here. And when they do, the world will quake, the swamps will empty and the first multi trillion MLM enterprise will rise to srtand head to toe with the great innovations today like Facebook Google, PayPal etc.
Written by:
Thomas Prendergast
CMO: Markethive
Since this article was written a new comany Valentus is looking to build on this model in conjuction with MarketHive
Most MLM emers seem to end up to end up with excess products that they can't sell at a profit because the products are overpriced in the first place. You only have to look on E bay and you will see what I mean. Some companies even ban members from selling except from approved sites online.
Many people join an MLM company as a distributor, only to find, that their so called sponsor, offers little help or advise, because he or she earns from sponsoring you and is in reality in competition with you about building his business. You can be left with draws or cupboards full of product which you are unable to sell to friends or family. Does this sound familiar with you.
Profile Pages: “Online Branding and Building Authority”
