Network Marketing |

Hi there,

Long time no blogging!!

There is good reason why I have been absent at my own party!

My friend and colleague Justine Simard and I have been collaborating on an exciting project for a few months now. Our new project is SpunkeBusiness and although I've mentioned it before, we are now officially launched.. and ready to inform and assist with great free training around building a network marketing empire around a personal brand and some good old home truths about the network marketing game.

So how can SpunkeBusiness help you?

SpunkeBusiness is a free membership site that aims to assist network marketers restructure their network marketing operation around a personal brand. Now more that ever, a personal brand is a necessity if you are to be successful moving into 2012. Justine and I have proved this… We have both been successful across two top tier online businesses, but got tired of seeing our partners and team members failing.

"The truth is that just following the system like the company tells you generally doesn't work (and most companies know this)."

Think about it!

How many network marketing gurus are actually out there promoting their business upfront? Don't most attract huge numbers to their name, generally around an area of expertise… not just a blog about their life…but real value (and not crappy PLR material either!) and then have a subtle link to lead people into their business opportunity. They never really promote what they do… this is Personal Branding and this is the future of network marketing.

"Top producers in the network marketing industry do it differently and have done for years; they brand themselves and then leverage their primary business opportunity off that personal brand."

Justine and I really witnessed this when we changed our primary business earlier this year and without any promotion, we achieved Global Consultant of the Month in our third month. We realised that the personal brands we had build around our performance in our previous business meant that we have willing followers.. and already, SpunkeBusiness has created effortless sales (and we're talking profits between $1 and $10K) without any phone calls or prospecting from us. This is how you want your network marketing business to operate for you…not the other way around.

And what happens if your company folds… as my friend Sue Smart commented the other day, "we've had the goal posts moved so many times.." meaning, you can build a formidable downline, only to have that taken away from you… suffice to say, Sue now has a strong personal brand!

SpunkeBusiness houses great free training around just how to go about building your personal brand and Justine and I will be adding to it regularly as well as running free webinars around the process we are going through and how you can do the same..

What is most interesting I think is that you will be witnessing a brand (SpunkBusiness.com) being built using the very masterplan we are promoting in the training. And if you wanted to follow along and build your own using the training, then what an awesome opportunity!

See you over at SpunkeBusiness.com and please share this with your friends; it may be the most important info they get this year (especially if they're struggling network marketers!)

www.SpunkeBusiness.com

Hi there, I need to tell you about a book called Six Pixels Of Separation by Mitch Joel. I stumbled across his book at the Brisbane airport late last year. I love airport bookshops.. they always seem to have a great concentration of business books…

Anyway, I loved the title…a play on the idea that we are all connected by less than six degrees…in this case the suggestion is that in the digital world there are no degrees of separation..we are all connected..by a click of the mouse.So I want to share some of Mitch's excellent teachings around the necessity of using 'digital channels' in your business. The advantage that still exists for us is that many business people still aren't really taking social media seriously, so a huge opportunity still awaits to connect to your customers.

Online Communities
Online communities have been around since the beginning of the Internet in the form of bulleting boards etc. Joel goes so far as to say, "community is the new media". Now we have Facebook, Twitter and a whole load of networks. You can even start your own public network for free using platforms like Ning. There is a misconception, and I'm still under it I think, that these networks are for fun and games. Joel claims to have built his multi million dollar Twist Image using such channels alone.

The trick is to get involved in an online community, get involved in the conversation, add value to the conversation, become respected and the rest will take care of itself. What do I mean by that? Well, when you become visible and known in your chosen community, people will repond and you will create interest in yourself. When you leave comments in response to someone's post, you get to leave your website address and guess what? A backlink is created and Google loves that. What's more, that person may visit your website to get to know the person who has just been so kind to have engaged in conversaton. This can be incredibly powerful.

So what is the first step to getting into the conversation in a community? ..Take a look around for forums and communities that are of interest to you or your business. Spend a week just listening in to the conversation…regular contributors will appear…Use an RSS reader such as Google Reader (my choice), which is a tool that enables you to subscribe to websites and blogs (when you see the RSS sign, just click on it) and when any new material is posted, it gets sent straight through to your reader so everything is in one place. This makes is really easy to keep up with the conversation…When you are ready, start to contribute to the conversation with value, not just dribble in order to get backlinks; this is frowned upon. Remember, the key to success is 'paying it forward'. You must first give in order to receive.

Now your assignment if you are a Web 2.0 Phobe is to go and find a community of like minded individuals and join in on the conversation! Get Google Reader going and start listeining in to what's going on amongst your peers.

And stay tuned for the new personal branding and online business sustainability membership site I am building for YOU!