According to BusinessWeek magazine, 80% of consumer purchasing decisions are made by women.

The problem with most marketing campaigns is that they do not appeal directly with women, or at least are not targeted towards women. If 80% of the buying power is held by women, why would you try to appeal to both men and women? You will lose. Target women and you’ll have enough customers to last you a life-time.

First things first. Who is your target customer? Get out a pen and paper and write this down:

1. Who is she? (education, marital, lifestyle situation)

2. What is her name? (make one up…it will help you talk about her more vividly)

3. What is her problem she’s trying to solve?

4. Why does she have this problem?

5. What would a solution to this problem mean to her?

6. How has she tried to solve this problem before?

Once you gone through this exercise, you can begin to ask yourselves the questions that other people start with but can never really answer fully:

1. Does my product or service actually help my customer?

2. What does my customer need to know about my product or service in order to make a good buying decision?

3. How can I communicate this information to my customer? What words can I use? What should my site look like?

What you may discover is that the marketing techniques that you are using now may appeal more to men and are falling on deaf ears.

Here are some solutions for changing your techniques to appeal to women:

• Changing everything to pink will not convince a woman that your product or service is superior. In fact, it will probably make them think it is inferior.

• By and large, women’s lives are busier than most men would assume. Your marketing should demonstrate convenience. Tell her a story about how your product or service can do these things:
               o Can you save her time for cooking dinner?
               o Can you save her time for studying? (college student, of course)
               o Can you save her commuting time?

• Men are genetically disposed to communicating about facts, while women tend to communicate to build relationships. How does your marketing emphasize relationship building?

• Women want a perfect solution to their problems. You have to arm them with information that allows them to reach the conclusion that your product is the perfect solution, or that your service is the perfect answer. Use FAQ pages; blog posts filled with stories; testimonials; and an attentive and active support system to assure your customers that they’ve made the right decision.

• Stay away from war metaphors in your ad copy. Such examples include: dominate; win; beat; conquer; fire up; blow away. These words may never reach the brain of your female prospect. Similarly, a phrase like “this is another tool in your belt” is directly targeted towards men. For women, use something like, “crayons in the box” or “spices in the rack.”

Posted by:

 Cyle Greenwell

This blog focuses on two aspects of network marketing and direct sales: The Distribution Model and The Profit System. Much of this information can also be found in Chris Widener’s CD titled The Invisible Profit System.

Warren Buffet has purchased a number of network marketing and direct sales companies. Many large companies use network marketing and direct sales divisions to get their products to their customers. But why?

Let’s take a look at the typical distribution model. The first step in this process involves building large warehouses to store products. Next, a large fleet of trucks, trains, or airplanes must be used to move the product from the warehouse to the store fronts. The store fronts are typically multi-million dollar investments or require very large lease agreements. Lastly, thousands of employees are needed to make this all happen successfully. Just think of how much time, money, and effort is wrapped up in that model.

Now, let’s look at the network marketing model. Companies give the money (that would have otherwise been used to operate the typical distribution model) to the people who actually help get the product to the customer. It gives the money to the people rather than the process.

Most people don’t think of it this way, but you are already involved in network marketing; you just don’t get paid for it. How many times have you seen a good movie and couldn’t wait to tell others about it? That’s network marketing. Have you ever been to a great restaurant and mentioned your experience to others? That’s network marketing. You see, every single person is already in network marketing.

What you need to understand about network marketing is that companies pay you to get the word out on their products. That’s all it is.

Network marketing and direct sales are more popular than ever. Corporations are downsizing all the time. People are becoming fed up with the instability of their j.o.b. J.o.b., by the way, stands for “Just Over Broke.” People want to work from home. They want to own their own businesses and spend more time at with their families. They want to take more vacations. People want to make more money.

The people who become financially successful get into a profit system rather than a wage system. Profits are better than wages because profits are ownership in one’s own financial future. Wages means trading time for money. As soon as you stop trading time for money, you stop getting that wage. Nobody gets rich in the wage system. People get rich all the time in the profit system. Profits can be limitless. Pro athletes, on the other hand, get rich in the wage system. If you can throw an 85 mph curve ball, then maybe you can get rich in the wage system. Corporate execs make a lot of money in the wage system, but most of their wealth comes from the profit portion of their contract. For example, stock options are where they make their millions.

If you look at the Forbes 400 Wealthiest People List, you won’t find anyone who is still in the wage system. These people own their own business; which as you now know is in the profit system. Bill Gates started his own business. We all know how wealthy he has become. There is a second kind of person on the Forbes list. These are people who inherited their money.

So, why are there so many people still in the wage system? The wage system is low risk. But, as you know with any investment, low risk equals low reward. You might not lose your j.o.b., but your ability to grow to financial independence is limited. The only way to get wealthy in the wage system is to put some of your money into the profit system; such as investing in rental houses or making stock market investments.

How to Evaluate a Home-Based Business

By Robert A. Wood - June 18, 2009

Why a Home-Based Business?

The S&P 500 has declined 38% in the previous 12 months producing mass layoffs and causing six million new people to be added to the unemployment rolls in the United States. Highly educated people desperate to bring some money into the family coffers are filling even minimum wage jobs. The current economy has produced thousands of individuals realizing the need to create their own income opportunity. But with so many home-based business opportunities, how can you tell if an opportunity is a good one?

What is a Good Opportunity?

New home-based business opportunities are becoming available each month. Unfortunately, these companies are going out of business at an alarming rate. The reason why most of these companies fail boils down to two reasons, undercapitalization and mismanagement. Even though home-based businesses do not require expensive franchising fees, to be successful, you will still need to invest your valuable time and emotional and physical energy. Many people work very hard to create a sales organization that can produce a part-time or full-time income, only to have it yanked out from underneath them when the company goes out of business.

What Metrics Should I Use?

Stock market analysts use sophisticated metrics to make educated projections about which stocks will yield the desired returns on investment. Anyone considering a home-based business should also carefully evaluate the business before investing his or her valuable resources. They should carefully research several factors listed below that I call the four Ps; People, Product, Profit and Process. Do quantifiable research and don’t believe everything you hear, especially from a salesperson.

Who Are the People?

The people managing the business are the most important consideration. Find out who the top executives are and do a thorough background check on each one, especially the founder. The Internet is a good source of information, although be careful to confirm that the source is unbiased, authentic and respected. There are only two attributes that are important to evaluate – Are they trustworthy? Are they competent? Trustworthiness is absolutely mandatory. Nothing else matters if the management cannot be trusted in their business and personal relationships. If they are trustworthy, confirm that they have sufficient experience and a successful track record for the responsibility they have in the company. Many good honest people have failed because they don’t know how to do their job. Most inexperienced managers also don’t know what they don’t know.

What is the Product?

After confirming that the people are trustworthy and competent the next question is about the product. Most importantly, does the product have real retailable value? Does the product stand on its own outside of any income opportunity? Would consumers purchase the product without expecting any financial kickback? Is the company justifying the price with earnings from recruiting others who then need to repeat the process? Is the product in high broad demand and is it consumed regularly? A highly specialized product may limit your potential market of customers and recruits. If the product is a durable good sold once then your income will be based on new sales every month, which will be more volatile that a consistent revenue stream from the same customers consuming the product every month. Also be aware of commodity products that don’t have sufficient margins for significant earnings. Companies with these products typically pay most their commissions on subscription-based tools, like websites, rather than the actual product (e.g. phone service, energy, travel, shopping clubs).

How Do I Make a Profit?

One of the first financial questions in any business is how quickly do I break-even? In a home-based business that means how quickly will I recover my initial investment? How quickly will I earn enough to pay for my product consumption? And how quickly will I earn enough to pay for my monthly business expenses? The Direct Selling Association (DSA) reports that 90% of all people who get involved in a home-based business do so to earn an extra $500 a month. How easily can you get to $500 per month? How many people do you need on your sales team to earn $500 monthly? Some plans purport high payout percentages, but have hidden breakage that never gets paid out. Is the compensation plan easy to understand? Can you easily explain it to others? Can you easily calculate your earnings manually? Some plans are designed to only reward the big dogs at the top. The good plans recognize that the stability of a company is based on the number of $500 checks it writes. In the long run this stability provides the dream income for the top earners.

Is There a Simple Duplicatable Process?

According to Entrepreneur Magazine, 80% of independent businesses fail in five years; conversely, franchised businesses with a proven system have a success rate of 91% for the same time period. Does the company provide a proven system to build and retain a successful sales force? Many companies provide recruiting tools like lead generation pages and contact managers. The real question is not only how quickly you can recruit others, but also how well you keep them and help them become successful. The most successful companies also provide support and self-help systems, complete training and certification systems, and leadership and mentoring systems.

About the Author

Robert A. Wood was a senior technologist for Bill Gates and Ross Perot, and the developer of the first Internet Product Search Engine that was the precursor to Google Shopping, eBay Stores and Amazon Stores. He has provided business, marketing and technology consulting services to the corporate and direct sales industries for over 29 years. In 2004, he founded the Pinnacle Performance Institute headquartered in Plano, Texas, which provides sales organizations with an affordable solution to build a successful sales force with professional and innovative sales and marketing tools; and to retain them with the necessary support, training and leadership tools. "Click here to learn more about Pinnacle"

Mr Wood can be reached by email at bob@pinnaclep.com.

RECEIVE 5000 VISITORS FOR FREE

It is 100% Free. This is a totally free offer no catches.
You will also get access for free to a broad range of market- proven tools & tutorials developed to help you in your internet maketing efforts.

"Click Here To Signup" http://www.marketing.co.ee

Often times, a networker can find themself putting a great deal of effort into builing their business but not see the results they desire or should expect from their efforts.  When you begin to see this, perhaps it calls for an evaluation of what it is your doing. 

Simply doing more is not always going to be that answer.  Doing more of what's not working may end up giving you more of the same results.  That's not to say that constantly changing what your doing is the answer either.  We all know that being consistant is essential as well.  But we should all hope that we're being consistant at being effective.  The popular phrase is "Sharpening the Saw" comes to mind.  Learning about being effective rather than using tools that are worn or that were broken to begin with can save you a lot of frustration.

So what it was that may be keeping you from sponsoring more people into your business.  It comes down to four things:

1. Talking To The Wrong People

When you put your network marketing opportunity in front of people who are "broke", you're talking to the wrong people.  Now most people won't tell you they're broke up front, right?  Wrong.  They will tell you.  You just have to make sure you're listening.  When your prospect says:  "how much is this going to cost me?" instead of:  "how much can I make with a business like this?," they just told you! 

Are you asking questions and listening to your prospects?

Stop attracting people suffering from the "I'm broke" mentality and start attracting success driven people by changing the way you think about yourself and others.  You are not a "rescuer," you're an entrepreneur seeking like minded people.  See people as they are, not as you want them to be.

2. Rising Above The Noise

There are a lot of distributors out there but few leaders.  If the right prospects are not responding to you, then it's likely because you're failing to "rise above the noise."  Every day prospects are bombarded by offer after offer in their inbox.  They see ad after ad online.  Most prospects suffer from serious information overload.  They're so overwhelmed with "choices" they don't know what to do, so many do nothing at all - or worse, they "throw the dice" and land in a bad business.  This represents real opportunity for you as a professional networker and as a leader.  An opportunity to rise above the crowd and take your prospect by the hand and introduce them to YOU and a "REAL" business.

Learning about the principles of Attraction Marketing can aid you in this area.  Information sells.  Do something to educate your prospects and not just pitch them.  An essential element of attraction marketing is to openly share information and demonstrate what sort of sponsor your going to be for them.  Educating new networkers or existing networkers is a great way to share your special knowledge and by you delivering something other than a sales pitch to prospects, you may very well postion yourself as an expert that they want to join.

When you also can learn to interact with your prospect as a "consultant" rather than a sales person, you immediately set yourself apart.  By educating your prospect and helping them ask the questions they should be asking, (but don't know to ask) it's easy to rise above the fray and position yourself as a professional in the mind of your prospect. Prospects WANT to work with someone who has genuinely helped them, and who will continue to help them get to where they want to be.

3. Following Up

Life is busy.  Once you've made contact with your prospect, is natural to assume they are carefully considering your opportunity and that those who don't get back with you are simply not "interested" or are not "serious."  In a perfect world, this might be a safe assumption.  Unfortunately, we do not live in a perfect world.  We live in a world of distractions.  Family issues, car problems,  kid problems, you name
it. So follow-up with your prospect.  Don't chase, but DO make it a point to follow-up.  Don't rely on only one method, test several:  phone, email, even a card.    I also recommend using an autoresponder in your business.  That way, if it's simply a "timing issue", your system continues to drip on them till the timing is right.

4. Finding QUALIFIED prospects to put your business in front of.

This is a challenge for MANY networkers.  Eventually, you will run out of our "warm market" (and some don't even want to go there to begin with).  So the question becomes, WHERE do we find people?

Many turn to buying "leads," and end up losing a lot of money because of all the "garbage" out there in the lead industry.  Others try to create prospects of their own through advertising (but this can also be a costly gambit).  Savvy networkers learn ways to generate "THEIR OWN" leads through low-cost and even no-cost methods.  There are several interesting ways to do that.

Imagine enjoying an never-ending flow of prospects week after week, and knowing  it's not costing you a dime to acquire them!  How cool is that?  I plan to share some of these methods with you in future posts but you can also learn about some of these method which I discuss in greater detail on my website.

In the meantime, here are a few resources to get you started.

To learn about Attraction Marketing and how you can use it to build your business, here is a good place to start.

To learn about generating pre-qualified leads, here is a great place you can go every week to learn about that.  Free Weekly Lead Generation Webinars.

See you on the Forums...

There are tons of different ways to succeed in the industry of network marketing. There are tons of different theories out there about how to be successful in the industry of network marketing. The question is not how to succeed in the industry of network marketing, but...

How To Succeed In Network Marketing In 2009 and in the future.

Many people believe that there is no difference in what needs to be done to be successful today and what needed to be done to be successful ten years ago. The majority of people joining a network marketing business bail out within the first three months. This is proof that there is in fact a big difference.

We live in a modern world where the Internet is connecting people from all around the world. MLM marketers must imply strategies on the internet to be successful. There are four basic principles that must be followed in order to succeed in the field of network marketing.

1.Target Marketing:

You need to attract potential prospects to your business that will hunt you down rather than have you hunt them. Find prospects that are sincerely interested in what you have to offer. By using a system with carefully developed tools you will be able to attract prospects that you can build a relationship with over a long period of time.

2.Continual Flow Of Prospects:

Having a continual flow of prospects into your business is extremely important if you want your business to survive in the early years. If you do not have prospects your MLM marketing business will surely fail.

3.Action:

Taking action is extremely important, but taking effective action is even more important. It is important that you focus on actions that will help your business grow and bring income in to help your new business survive. Effective actions involves helping your prospects find the solutions that they are looking for and using effective tools to attract people to your business.

4.Proper Skills:

Developing the proper skills to succeed is extremely important to succeed in the industry of network marketing. You must learn how to effectively bring new prospects into your business and also find a way to make targeted prospects become attracted to you and your business.

Having these elements in place and training your team to do the same can establish an effective skill set and system that can duplicated. 

How do you identify SERIOUS builders for your network marketing opportunity?

Simple really... and it has a lot to do with your perspective on your business.  In a way, there's a difference between recruiting and building a business.  Recruiting almost puts the power and leverage into the other persons control by letting them make the decision about doing business together.  But building a business means that your choosing the ideal people to work with.  So how do you do this?

Interview your prospects! Ask them questions and make them convince you that they're someone you should be investing your time and effort with.

Just because someone is "interested" doesn't mean they're a good prospect.

When companies hire for key level positions, the don't just hire people who walk in the door and say they're "interested" in working there, or willing to listen to the offer the company has for them.

No.

They interview those candidates hard, and so should we.

I like to ask questions and invite my prospect to convince me why he (or she) would be someone I would want to work with. If they're not, I'm more than willing to disqualify 'em and move on to my next prospect.

So what kind of questions should you ask?

I like to start off with background questions to get a feel for who they are... then I began digging for why they want a business at this time in their life, and what a successful business is going to do for them.

1) What do you do for a living? How long have you been doing that? How do you like?

2) Have you ever owned your own business?

3) What kind of income are you looking to generate? (I sort for "big thinkers", and people who can see themselves generating that kind of success).

4) Beyond money, what's making you investigate a business venture at this time in your life? (this is tough for some people to answer, but it's important. I want to know what's driving them!

5) What kind of TIME will you put into working your business? (If they've got big goals but can only put in 3 hours a week, then you gotta seriously doubt their commitment level).

These questions a just examples and not meant to be a script. The whole idea is to uncover who it is you're really talking to. Are they curious or serious? Do they have goals and if so, how commited are they to reaching them? What's driving that commitment?

Are your prospects giving you "pat answers"? If so, challenge them! Say, "you know Dave, you're giving me all the right answers but I'm not hearing any real committment behind them... what am I missing?"

Put it back on them... remember, they have to convince you that they're a good prospect for your team. We're not in the convincing business, we're in the interview business.

Learn to be a great listener and listen to what they're really saying, not just what their words say.

It's "what's driving them" that matters the most.

Listen for that and ask questions to uncover it.

If your looking for future diamonds and team leaders in your organization.  You will need a constant flow of pre-qualified people to talk to and interview.  A great way to lean how to generate these contacts is by starting here.

This forum is for submitting helpful work from home articles. Please do not submit advertisements under the guise of an article.

Please feel free to include an author link and a personal link at the bottom of your article, but please do not embed links in the content.

Here is an article that may be of interest on how to do MLM Lead and Downline Training. Please let me know if it was helpful.

3 Web 2.0 Tactics To Automate Your MLM Downline Training
by Rebecca Holman

It does not matter what your network marketing opportunity is, it is time to challenge your thinking on how to make your living using the new Web 2.0 tactics. I am sure you realize that you now have access to limitless prospects that enter the world wide web every day, seeking home based employment.

Using these new Web 2.0 tactics, you are now free from the burden of making that silly warm list of 100 people. Didn't you always feel unpopular that you didn't know 100 people? The "3 Foot Rule" no longer applies, because you can now sponsor people that are 3000 miles away, all on autopilot.

In the next few paragraphs, I am going to paint a picture of the future of MLM Downline growth through automation. By working Smarter and not harder, you can now grow a downline, with out even knowing a soul. I too have been frustrated by the out of date prospecting rules our uplines shared. It really was not duplicatable- unless you were both popular and a public speaker, but now I will show you how to be the leader you have always wanted to be.

Tip 1. YOU, Inc. This is the new way to do what is known as Magnetic Sponsoring or Attraction Marketing. No matter that you represent Arbonne or Carbon Copy Pro you need to learn these new skills. This way your list belongs to you, and should you decide to move on, you CAN take it with you.

Tip 2. Todays opportunity seeker is looking for a leader, and an organization that will provide great training on new techniques. I am sorry to let you know that they are NOT looking for you OR your opportunity...at least not up front. Provide a service and they will flock to you and want to join you.

Tip 3. Set your downline up with a system that puts them on autopilot. Duplication is easier than ever if you have the correct system in place.

3.a. Your  MLM Training system should provide a website with capture pages, that allows for custom changes to the page, so they can brand themselves, not the opportunity.  3b. Your network marketing training system must provide the latest in Web 2.0 traffic building tactics.  3c. Your Lead Training System should provide an initial autoresponder series so that your newbie members do not have to struggle with the initial follow up.

Web 2.0 is here to stay, and while in its infancy, it is proving to be the new way to market. You need to take your business into the 21st century as well and incorporate these marketing aspects to your home based business. If you work for a company that is still asking you to do it old school, RUN AWAY from them, they are keeping your broke and tired.

By using a MLM Lead Training System that is automated as described above, you can show your downline how to market to 50-100 prospects a day- every day - 24/7. You just can't do that the old fashioned way.  "Welcome to the Real World, Neo"