Putting All the Pieces Together

When starting a business, how do you put all the pieces together when you don't know what the pieces are?

I've attempted to build a few businesses in the past but I failed miserably before I even started because I was never told what I needed to know in order to be successful.

This time around I decided that I had to take responsibility for my own business. My sponsor, although a good man, can't possibly be held responsible for my business. Regardless of promises made prior to signing up. Afterall he has his own team to build. The very first piece of the puzzle is to take responsibility for your own business.

The next piece is to know the company and it's policies and procedures inside and out. You must know every aspect of your business and this includes the P&P. In the policy and procedures document that every company has you will learn what you need to know in order to stay compliant with the company. Read this document entirely. Write down any questions that come up and then consult the company's website FAQs. Any questions you may have left should be directed to your sponsor. Any questions that your sponsor cannot answer need to be submitted to the legal or compliance departments.

It's important for you to give at least two weeks for these departments to respond to your question. You are not the only person asking questions and they respond in order of receipt. This also means that if the way you build your business will be impacted by the answer then you need to wait for the answer and move forward in your business with the things that you already know are in compliance.

Now it's very easy to get the attitude of, "It's my business and I'll do what I want!" but please understand this attitude may cost you your business. Even major fast food restaurant franchisees have to comply with the corporate office's regulations. It's only to protect both the company and your business.

Another piece of the puzzle is marketing/advertising. Please understand that this one piece contains lots of smaller pieces. When you put all or most of these pieces together you will find that your business starts to grow with little help from you. You must first check to see what marketing/advertising materials are already available so you don't re-invent the wheel. Then you must submit your own materials to the right department for approval before using them. Besides submitting your marketing/advertising material to the parent company may result in your material being used company wide..

As I said earlier there are a lot of smaller pieces to the marketing/advertising piece. Here are a few of them:

* Email blasting with autoresponder
* Leads for cold calling
* Lead capture pages (aka landing or splash pages)
* Ezine ads
* Newspaper / classified ads
* Free For All link sites
* Search Engine submission / optimization
* Personal Website
* Blogs
* Articles
* Joint Ventures
* Viral Marketing

The list goes on but the above are most used. Now when you start looking into all of these it's easy to get confused. I mean which company offers the best service for the price? How do you know the leads you're purchasing aren't just recycled lists that everyone else has gone through also? The questions can gone forever.

The short answer is this....your sponsor should be sharing with you everything he/she is using that has worked for them complete with costs involved. This should be part of the team training process. Let's face it - you can't sign up for a business and expect to have people knocking down your door while you continue to do nothing. We also need to understand that the entire reason that Network Marketing works is because when someone in our team experiences growth, so do we.

Why aren't sponsors sharing their marketing/advertising strategies with you? Great question, I'm glad you asked...

I think this is a very good question. Why aren't sponsors starting the training/learning process by introducing you to what works -- or at least what's worked for them? Simple....

Some sponsors have built their business the old fashioned way -- warm market followed by cold calls and building relationships with total strangers in an effort to increase their business numbers. Actually, I shouldn't say "some" but most have done it the old fashioned way.

Now I'm not saying that you need to sit at your computer all day and deal with people only through email -- I hate that just as much as the other guy. What I am saying is that more and more people are staying home and getting everything they need from the internet. We can now order everything -- including pizza -- by logging into the internet and searching for it. Why does everyone prefer the internet over leaving the house?

Easy -- search engines can find you whatever you're looking for -- all you have to do is ask for it. They don't give you a hard time and ask why you want to know.

Can you do that at the mall? I mean really -- can you go into any store in the mall, ask a question and get the best possible answer without a hassle? Heavens NO! You'll be lucky if the store employee can direct you to the nearest restroom....

We all must move to marketing online or our businesses will die a slow, painful death....okay perhaps a little too dramatic but you get my point.

The problem? Your sponsor may not know where to begin either BUT...you could learn together. Make sure that you keep track of everything. Track your URLs (there are a few free sites for this) so you know which advertising campaigns are working and which ones aren't. Learn how to write effective emails - search online for free courses. And discover where to buy the best double opt-in leads for your company. Unfortunately the best to figure this out is to purchase a small list, run your ad and watch how well it does. Only then will you know if it was worth your money.

Keep a WORD file of every site you're using, the ad copy you used, when you posted, when you have to renew the ad, etc. Remember to keep track of the costs as well. The ads no good if it's costing more than it's bringing into your business.

Then....

Share the information with your team AND your sponsor. Perhaps if we would remember we're in this together we'd all be doing better.

Remember what we all love most about Network Marketing....everyone has the ability to win at the game of financial independence. This includes YOU.

It's also important to remember that you must keep it all going at the same time. If you stop doing one thing just so you can do another then you're not going to get anywhere. You need to do as many of the things mentioned earlier as possible.

How do you do that without going nuts or spending all of your time on marketing/advertising?

Schedule time everyday just for marketing/advertising and give your business a marketing/advertising budget. Stay within that budget - no matter what.

Getting started will take the longest. I'd recommend creating your ads and emails first -- even before you know where you're going to post them or who you're going to send them to. That way once you know what sources you're going to use all you have to do is copy and paste from your file then make notes about each campaign.

Keep it as simple as possible and learn how to automate it so you can get back some of your free time. For now though, remember that you'll have to give up some of your free time in order to get this set up and working for you. Get serious, stay serious and hit the ground running. We're starting a new year make this one count...

About The Author-- Angie is a homeschooling mother of 8 who lives in Kansas on a small, family farm. She is working on her Doctorate in Natural Health while building two businesses. http://www.ourextraincome.com

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