What looms over most new network marketers heads? A lack of money and a lack of leads. Most networkers are playing with their very own time bomb, which is the reason for their ultimate failure. Our business is not set up to be lucrative from day one. It takes hundreds or even thousands of people in your downline before you finally reach a comfortable level of steady income.
When I first started in this business I spent time and money on advertising, hoping and praying I would get some leads and that someone would sign up for my business opportunity. It felt like I was playing the lottery. Will they sign up? And if they didn’t… there was $20 – $50 – $100 or more down the drain, gone… never to come back.
What happens is, most of us run out of money to spend marketing before we finally are able to make it back, and with no money and no leads, we have no choice but to stop our autoship and reconsider.
Is there a better way? The answer is a resounding yes, and right now I am going to show you exactly what that is.What is a Self-Funded Proposal? Basically this is an offer that you give to your prospects, in the form of some training or resource they can use, that you will give them the option to purchase upon subscribing to your list. Remember that Thank-You page? This is what we can use that for.
This offer should be less than $50 and it should be packed full of value for your subscribers, so that when they go through the videos or the ebook or whatever it is, they will be confident in both your skills and your leadership abilities. This does two things:
1. It pre-sells them on YOU. It shows them that you are competent and able and, when they are ready to join an opportunity, they will remember this and want to be sure they are on your team.
2. It funds your advertising. With this kind of marketing in place, your smaller offer will cover your advertising expenses so that you can have endless advertising without worrying about if any particular campaign will succeed or fail. This will give you the time and resources you need to keep working your primary opportunity until it becomes profitable.
Like I said before, whatever you offer to your prospects MUST be full of great content and value. If it’s not, not only will you lose their business, but the business of everyone they tell that you have a bunk product. You want to meet and exceed their expectations for what you are offering to them.
Now, if you don’t have a lot of time or experience, this might be a daunting task. How do you create something you know nothing about? How do you find the
time to sit down and write a book about what you do know?
This is where affiliate marketing comes in. Affiliate marketing is basically the concept of receiving commissions on a product you sell for someone else. In most cases it is free to become an affiliate of a company. In fact, most of the online resources we have gone through so far in this course have affiliate programs you can take advantage of!
But you don’t want just any affiliate program for your Self-Funded Proposal. You want something that has great value for your prospect. You have already given them a value-packed offer for FREE to get them to your capture page, so whatever you ask money for has to be STELLAR. Choose your affiliate program wisely, and make sure you use the product as well, otherwise how to you know if it’s quality or not?
The best affiliate program I know of for this type of system is Magnetic Sponsoring. All of their products are top-notch, and you become an affiliate for free after purchasing any of these products, receiving a 40% commission on each sale. If you are new to attraction marketing I highly recommend the Magnetic Sponsoring Course to begin with. Building on a Budget is another great option.
If you are more advanced in this industry, and looking for a meatier option, Black Belt Recruiting or the Copywriters Guild might be a good fit for you. I highly suggest investing in your education. Increasing the value you have to your prospects is the only way to become and remain successful in any business. If you are not willing to invest in yourself, no one else will be willing to invest in you either.
Another great training course with 100% affiliate commission (which is pretty good in case you didn’t know) is the Traffic Dashboard.After you choose an affiliate program for your proposal, create a new page on your capture page website that will be your “Thank You” page. Set it up to thank the leads for subscribing and offer them another helpful tool or resource for their business. If you are using the Magnetic Sponsoring affiliate program you can send them to one of their professional capture pages which also have free offers there.
This is awesome, not only can you receive commissions here, but you are also showing that you truly value your prospects by offering immense value for absolutely free. Once this is all set up, go into your AWeber account and set that as your “Thank You” page for your list. Now you have a way to sell a small offer to your leads that will fund your advertising budget while you work on getting them into your primary opportunity.
Also, don’t forget to take advantage of all the other affiliate programs available to you. Many resources you are using now (AWeber, Hostgator, WowWe, etc.) have affiliate programs that you can join. Even if these are not on your thank you page you can promote them in your training to your downline, on your personal website, or anywhere else you think to place your links. This is another easy and free way to multiply your sources of income and stabilize your business.