For now, I want to make sure you are getting everything you want.

In regards to your News Feed, that is…

Beginning last week, Facebook automatically changed everyone’s settings on their News Feeds.  The default setting is now set so you only get information from those you are interacting with regularly or lately.

Honestly, this is really brilliant.

This intuitive design customizes our Facebook experience to be most relevant to us.

HOWEVER…

Facebook has no idea what we use their platform for or what our needs are.  They are assuming what we want based on our most recent history.

But they should know that the immediate past doesn’t always equal the future.

If it did, we’d all be on TheFacebook right now or on some Harvard Dating Site.

So, if YOU want to control what shows up on your News Feed, here is what you need to do.

Go to your Home Page.

Go to Most Recent (which is right next to Top News).

Click the Pull Down Menu and click Edit Options.

You can either receive updates from:

“Friends and pages your interact with most” or

“All friends and pages”

Trust me, this won’t be the last change…but for now, you know how to take control back.

Happy Networking.

Well, just see how lame your video campaigns look when compared this this little piece of creative genius.

You MUST watch the video and you MUST click on a choice (you’ll get it I promise.)

Oh…fair warning…there is some potentially offensive language.

I haven’t seen something this cool since the Old Spice campaign.

Just brilliant.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Most of us have probably said it.

“Get in the Power Leg!”

“We’ll blow out one leg for you!”

Please don’t get me wrong…I understand the advantages of positioning.  I clearly get it.

I have received my fair share of binary spillover and I have certainly created my share for many, many other people as well.

Given the choice…I’d much rather be the creator of spillover than the recipient.  I just like the culture it creates.

This article isn’t to dispute whether spillover it’s good or bad (we can all agree it’s a good thing)…but it’s more about the mentality and psychology that it creates.

Once upon a time, network marketing was all about personal production and building something that was really worth building.  Leaders committed to long-term growth, developing useful skills and producing stable teams with depth that would pay them for years and years.

This was the philosophy the entire industry was built upon.

That seems to have changed a bit.

For many people, this mentality has changed over the last 10 years or so.  People leap from company to company, addicted to fast cash, and if they don’t have a blown out “corporate leg” in 30 days…they are onto the next “Big Thing.”

They play the lottery instead of building a business.

When did MLM become a welfare environment based on what someone is to be given as opposed to what they can contribute?

It doesn’t work.

We have just witnessed Efusjon with their Community Pay compensation plan just go bye bye.

For people with this mentality, even when they really hit it big with a company…they are still looking for what’s next.

Why?

Because momentum slows down, as it ALWAYS does and then people really have to build.  They have to grow a business based on the merit of the company, product and the value their team brings to the table…not just the hype of “get in, get your spot, you’ll have thousands under you in a week.”

This mentality is everything that is wrong with this industry.

From a philosophical standpoint, I really do understand this.  I love to start things.  I love to launch ideas.  I love the romance stage of relationships.

It’s exciting.  It’s a rush.

But at some point, a little wisdom of experience helps you understand that the real magic to both business and life comes from developing something to a point of maturity.

It’s like the relationship where you get to the point where you just know that this person will be in your life forever.  When you can truly be yourself while still treating the relationship with honor and respect.

The same is true in network marketing.

The real magic of this business is both in the process of building it and in the beauty of genuine achievement having created something really worthwhile.

If you are a big recruiter, sure, you can jump from company to company and continue to make money.

But most people can’t.

If you really want the thrill and adrenaline that goes with that sort of a business philosophy…go be a day trader, but don’t use people’s lives as your commodity.

Seriously…step up and be a real leader.

Help people learn.

Empower people.

Teach people how to build their business ethically and get them away from the lottery mentality that has become so pervasive in our great industry.

Oh wait…you can’t do that.

If you really teach people all of those things…

They won’t follow you to your next deal.

They won’t be seduced by the promise of spillover and easy money.

What would you do then?

For the millions of people who love this industry and have been frustrated by the leadership of people that fit this description…here is my advice.

Feel free to take it or leave it.

Find a company that you can really see yourself building for 10 years…one with a vision, management, funding and market that you are excited about and believe in.

Does this mean you never change companies?

Of course not.

But if you are going to make a move…make a move and commit.  Most true leaders in the industry have built in far fewer companies than you would think.

If the person you are following has been in 10 companies in the last 5 years…that’s a clue.   Where will they be in 6 months?

Remember, everyone loves romance.  The beauty of business and life comes from keeping the romance alive for years and years and creating true depth of experience.

That is real.

That is genuine.

That sort of philosophy will reward you more than you can imagine.

That is what it’s all about.

Please forward this to five marketers you know who will benefit from this message.  As always, thanks for being here and thank you for your contribution to my world.

I am not even going to address how some people think MLM’s are a scam and they are illegal pyramids. With decades of history to review, anyone who thinks MLM is a scam is just simply ignorant.

There are illegal companies in every industry. There are franchise scams, insurance scams, internet scams, and scams in every business. It doesn’t mean those industries are scams.

Seriously, some people are just funny.

As of year end 2009, there are roughly 68 million people in the industry worldwide and direct sales produces annual revenues of over $105 billion a year. Bottom line, as a business model to move product into the hands of consumers….MLM works, and it works very well.

Many people get involved with MLM to make money and with the challenges in our current world economy, more and more people are looking at the industry as a viable solution to either supplemental or full time income.

This article is going to lay out the most common myths of the industry. We are going to hit the top 5 most common and look at what truth there is in each.

Unfortunately, millions buy into the myths rather than the reality. Let’s see if we can change that.

Most Common MLM Myths
I took some time to survey a ton of my friends in the industry and got some feedback on what they hear all the time. I also took some time to talk with my non-MLM friends and learned what they think of the industry.

The interesting thing about MLM is that the industry isn’t branded by the companies themselves. For the most part, it’s branded by the independent distributors. That means, a customers experience of any given company is influenced much more by the distributor than by the actual company. This is unique in the business world to network marketing.

One of the greatest aspects of MLM is that anyone can get involved. This can also be a challenge. This means that millions of people every week are learning about a new business from people with all different levels of talent, skills and ethics.

This phenomenon creates the variety of the perceptions and misconceptions people have about network marketing. So, let’s dig into some of those right now.

1. MLM is a get rich quick scheme – We’ll also add this one…”you can make money with little or no effort.” Making substantial money in MLM quickly is possible, but only a very small percentage of people achieve it. Most people who are currently making $10k+ per month have built that check over some time.

This instant lottery mentality is often the downfall for many distributors. If they don’t hit a home run instantly, they quit. Many distributors think they have to over-promise results, when the reality is, if they would simply manage people’s expectations and support them in creating solid daily productive habits, the results would be there.

Network marketing is rarely a get rich quick business, but if you do it right, it’s a get rich and keep it forever business. I would much rather build it once and make it last.

2. Only the people at the top of make money (or you have to get in early) – One of the reasons people from the international community love MLM so much is they see it as one of the purest forms of capitalism in the world. Making money in this industry is about production not position. If you are at “the top,” and do nothing, you will make nothing. If you get in early in a company’s life and do nothing, you will make nothing.

MLM compensates for performance, nothing else. Everyone is “the top” of their own team and can out produce and out earn everyone in their upline if they want to.

Getting in early or towards the top of a company’s structure can certainly be an advantage for those who produce. If you create a big team early and your team’s reach is large before most people hear about a company…then you have set yourself up a solid foundation and will likely reap the rewards.

But let’s put this to bed right now. You produce, you make money. Period.

3. You don’t have to sell anything – This is a funny one. We can create as many euphemisms as we want but at the end of the day, in order to make money in any business, you have to sell something. In MLM, you can sell the product, the system, the opportunity and yourself…but it has to be something.

It’s true that good companies have great tools that do the presentations for you. Good companies even have tools that will support you in doing your follow up. But let’s get real here…someone needs to buy something in order for revenue to be generated.

And, for the love of God, stop asking for what you don’t want. If the “systems” did ALL of the work, the company would have NO USE FOR YOU.

Here is where the irony comes in with MLM. For your own personal recruits, the more you sell, generally the less successful you will be. Most people don’t like to sell or can’t sell and MLM is a duplication business.

Whatever process you use to introduce someone to the business will largely be what they think they’ll need to do to be successful. Hard close them and they will think they need to do the same. Let other people and systems inform your prospect while you facilitate the process and you are off to a great start.

Let’s just own the fact that we are in sales. Stop avoiding. Come to terms with it. Then just be smart about building your business. Get yourself out of the way and let new people see the systems that are in place. If your company doesn’t have great tools, either create them yourself or find a new company. Great tools and great training are keys to building huge businesses.

4. You will lose all of your friends – There are two sides to this one. First of all, if you lose friends while building your business it’s probably because you are being annoying. You were probably annoying well before you started your business. Now you are just annoying with a purpose.

If you are losing friends, stop doing what you are doing. If your friends don’t see what you see, just keep being a great friend. They may come around and they may not, but if they are a quality person, you should want to keep them in your life.

The second part to this is that often when people get into the industry, they start to hang around with some different people. They are surrounded by positive, driven people who want to live a big life and make a difference in the world. That’s what MLM is all about.

Sometimes our current friends aren’t exactly this way. Someone doesn’t have to have money to be a quality person, but they need to be positive. They need to be able to see opportunities and possibility rather than just problems.

When you set yourself on a course for success, one of the things you must do is take a good look at your social circle and see if your close group of friends are supporting your dreams or squashing them.
Some of the relationships you currently have may not be that healthy. It’s important to look at whom you associate with. Your associates are incredibly powerful.

5. Only special people with tons of contacts can make money – Here is the deal. In order to succeed in any business, you will need to develop certain skills and you must learn the strategies to make the business work. This is definitely true in MLM.

There are countless stories of average people with average talent with average contacts and average ability making fortunes in network marketing. There are a few things that are common amongst virtually all of these stories. These people had above average desire to succeed and they worked closely with a mentor.

What this means is that you need to be open to coaching and literally go on a mission to learn the strategies you need to win and the skills you need to develop to grow a massive business. You can do this by chance or you can do this by choice. Choice is faster.

I am going to add a bonus #6 to the list.
This one would only have made the list in the last few years.

6. Traditional MLM is dead, you only can build your business through the internet now – Remember, internet marketing is just that…MARKETING. The entire internet network marketing platform preys on people who are struggling and provides this wonderful miracle fix to your problems.

These marketers tell you that your upline has lied to you, that you can’t build your business with friends and family or traditional networking. This, pure and simple, is crap. Of course you can.

I am a big fan of internet marketing and it definitely works….for SOME THINGS. And for other things…well, not so much.

For example…

If someone gets started in my business TODAY and I want to help them build their business this week, where would I need to go?

Exactly…people they already know. These people already know and trust them and are already open and interested to speak to them.

I personally believe that EVERYONE has 3-6 new enrollments in their warm market within their first 60 days if they would simply introduce their contacts to the business.

Think how fast your business would grow if you simply helped everyone get started that way.

With that said, what strategies someone is going to use to create enrollments in month 3, 4, 5 and beyond is another story. The internet is a fabulous solution for that and a great way to advance your business…but it’s not a great way to start it.

I am going to talk a lot more about this in another article
“Old School vs New School,” but for now, I will just say this.

Look, let’s just let the results speak for themselves. Take the top 25 earner list from the top 100 companies in the entire industry and see just how many internet marketers are in that list of 2,500 people. I’ll give you the answer…NOT MANY.

You have to understand what works and what doesn’t work and also decide how you want to grow your business. Like I said, I’ll give you a lot more on this in my next article.

Okay, so if you have read this article all the way through (it’s a bit long) then I can assume one of a few things.

First, you are currently in MLM and enjoyed the content. Perhaps you are looking for more training and tools to improve your skills. Congrats on your commitment to your business and for seeking out training to continue to build your toolbox.

Second, you are looking at MLM as a possible business for yourself. I encourage you to learn all you can about this great industry. Done right, it will pay you back immeasurably for the effort and commitment you make.

Either way, I’d love to speak with you personally. Opt into my private list here, “like” my fan page if you haven’t already and feel free to drop me a personal call. My personal cell phone number is in the info section.

Cheers to your massive success.

With Love & Laughter…

When entrepreneur Howard Shultz bought Starbucks back in 1987, among his many goals was to build Starbucks into the most recognizable brand in the world.

I am not sure he has done that yet, but he is arguably on his way.  The Starbucks model is brilliant and the branding is world-class.  It’s about the coffee…but it’s not about the coffee.

What can we gleam from Starbucks to help us build our businesses?  It’s way more than just a great place for 1 on 1′s.  If you pay attention…we can learn a lot from the way Starbucks does business.

In this video, I dive into all the aspects that make Starbucks the amazing brand it is and how we can transfer those strategies into our business today.  I start this video at my local Starbucks store…but had to finish it at home.  My apologies that the lighting isn’t as good at home.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Have you incorporated any of these strategies into your business?  If so, how?  If not, do you plan to?  Let me know.  Please comment and re-post.

What did the flashing lights, massive billboards, car signage and bike peddling smut providers teach us about our network marketing business?

Plenty.

And yes…I talk about why it’s better at the top of the pyramid.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Anyone who leads people in any capacity or markets to them in any way can benefit from this powerful talk by Simon Sinek at a TED Conference.

This is why in every great network marketing training…we begin with defining your “why.”  This is also why we tell stories, share testimonials, partner with great causes and work to really connect with people…regardless of our product, pay plan, features or benefits.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What’s YOUR why?  Please share.

Why has video marketing become so popular over the last few years?   You can chalk it up to a couple of main reasons.

Reason #1 – It’s simple to do & can be really effective (especially when done right).

Anyone can shoot and edit a basic video.  High quality cameras are really inexpensive these days and incredibly easy to operate.  Not everyone makes a great video…but everyone can at least bang out something they can put online.

YouTube is the 3^rd (some say 2^nd) largest search engine on the planet.  If you think about that for a second, that means more people go on YouTube to find something than on Yahoo.

Google (who owns YouTube) loves videos when it comes to search engine ranking.  A video ranks quickly and can hold a top position for a long time.  This means a video don’t right can yield you traffic month after month after month with only minimal work.  It’s a great example of pull marketing.

I have some videos that took me literally 15 minutes to shoot and edit that have had thousands of views and produced a ton of leads and sales.   This is why video marketing can be so powerful.

Think about that for a minute.  Let’s say you have a video that gets 400 views a month and it produces 10-15 leads from those views.  That may not seem significant but what if you put out ten videos like that or 20 or 30 videos like that?  It’s unlimited.

You can see that over a short amount of time, your little video soldiers will be out there all over the internet consistently creating opt-in leads for your business.

Reason #2 – It’s personal and people would much rather watch a video than read.

Think about it.  We are the TV and Internet generation.  We want our information fast and without having to work to get it.  Video provides all of this for people.

Video let’s people see the real person and their personality…or lack thereof.  It’s real.  It’s immediate.  It’s drive-thru information.

Additionally, videos add a level of entertainment value that is not found in print.  Whether it’s music, lighting, special effects or just the person in the video being creative…it’s easy to add attention-grabbing content to videos.

Here are a couple core fundamental principles for video marketing that you really must follow to create solid results.

1. Create a clear, simple and powerful message – think out what you will say and how you want to say it.  If it’s a live video, it shouldn’t be scripted, but it should be planned.  If someone can’t follow your message, you’ll lose them in 60 seconds.

If you are camera shy, pick up a program called Camtasia or Screenflow (for Mac) and create a screenshot video that you can simply narrate.  These videos can be incredibly powerful and are really simple to do.  This way, you can really just read a script if you choose.

2. Be attractive – no, I am not saying you have to be physically good looking…attraction is far deeper than that.  Attraction is about energy, confidence, poise, posture and clarity.  Be YOU all the time…be authentic and real.

And for the love of God…please smile.  Seriously, you are asking people to listen to you and follow you.  People want to make more money for the lifestyle it provides.  You should at least look like you are enjoying yours.

3. Just Get It Done & Get It Out – People who are new to video marketing often sit and agonize over what to say, how to say it, what shirt they should wear and where they should shoot the video.  They get stuck in all of the little details and never get the actual product out.

Plan it well, but then just get after it and crank the video out.  A decent video is better than no video.  Some of the videos I have done that I didn’t think were very good at all have produced great results.  Here is one of them.  I mean, it’s not bad, but it’s no Avatar!

4. Research Your Keywords – if your video isn’t seen by anyone, it doesn’t matter how great it was or how clever your message is.  You have to get it in front of people.  Since videos rank so well in organic search results, you want to specifically target the keyword phrases you want to compete for.

There are a ton of different keyword search tools available online.  Google offers a free a Free Keyword Tool as does NicheBot Classic.

If you want to take things up a notch, Market Samurai is an amazing tool for a really nominal one-time cost.  You can hone in on some golden nugget keywords and dominate search results.

When you are just starting out, here is a really, really basic way to look at what keywords you might be able to rank for on the first page.  Do a search.  If page one of Google doesn’t have any videos, blogs or article sites, you can probably get a video to rank on page one.  That is a very simplistic approach…but it will work.

5. Promote Your Video Everywhere – YouTube is the largest video sharing site on the internet…but there are hundreds more.  Sites like AOL Video and Metacafe and nearly a hundred others offer some great additional sources of traffic for your video.

There are two main ways to get your video out to these video sites.

The first is to do it manually.  You would go and set up accounts with each of these video sharing sites, then manually upload your video to your account and manually put in the title, description, keywords and such.

The second way is to do it automatically.  If you are like me, I am all for automating whatever I can, especially when it comes to routine, mundane tasks.

Probably the best F*REE software is by TubeMogul (www.tubemogul.com).  They offer a solid platform that is easy to use, but they are limited to only about 20 sites submissions.

By far the best software on the market is Traffic Geyser. Traffic Geyser lets you pump your video out to all of the video sharing sites with the touch of a few buttons.  I am a non-tech guy and I find it very easy to use.  There are a ton of other features you can add, but you can explore those when you go check out the Traffic Geyser product.

Now you have the Why’s and the How’s of video marketing. Now all you have to do is figure out what you want to say, get the tools to support your efforts and get to work.

Let’s get after it.

I have too.

Education is powerful, but all the information online about how to make money can be overwhelming.  If you tried to pay attention to everything, you could easily go insane.  You buy a course and start to study it, then before you can even really apply anything, the same “guru” is upselling you to a bigger, better course.  You buy that one too and before you can really apply those strategies, you get distracted with anyone program.

Then you finally get to work.  You run into something you don’t understand and you have nowhere to turn.  You are stuck in a techno black hole with no understanding of how to get out.

This is by far the biggest challenge with making money online.  Over stimulation creating massive distractions.

If you don’t focus, you lose.  Period.

I don’t care how great your business is, your system is or your talent is…if you don’t really dig in and focus your efforts, time and energy…you will fail.  And you will fail every single time.

You want the magic bullet?  FOCUS.  Let nothing interrupt your commitment, persistence and work ethic.

If you are committed to really getting after it, let’s talk about getting your business going online.  Building an online MLM business can be one of the most rewarding projects you can ever work on and reward you with an incredible lifestyle.  There are some absolute basics that you need to understand to get your online business going.

First, and this one is almost so silly I feel badly saying it, you need a website…a good one and a really good funnel system. If you are not familiar with what a funnel system is, it’s simply an online process that interested prospects flow through before they come to you.  With each step of the process, the system provides value and gauges interest, so the ones that come out the other side are highly targeted and highly qualified.  Please don’t think you are going to find a quality website and funnel system for free.

Second, you need to get traffic to your site.  No traffic equals no leads.  No leads equals no sales.  There are tons of ways to drive traffic – Pay Per Click, Article Marketing, Social Networking, Blogging, Classifieds, Video Marketing…and so many more.  Choose one or two strategies that you really enjoy and become masterful at it.  Again, we are back to focus.  In order to get any real traction online, you need to get at least 100 visitors a day to your site and that is just a starting point.

Next, you need to learn how to convert those visitors to leads. Traffic without conversions is just entertainment.  You want to make money.  You will need to learn to tweak your web copy so that a higher percentage of your visitors turn into leads.  Even 3% over the course of a year can add up to a lot more money in your pocket.

Finally, you need to build a relationship with your new subscribers, adding value to their lives and businesses and over time, so you will generate profit from them time and time again.  This is where masters win where unfocused amateurs fail.

Every single one of these steps is a group of skills that you can focus on building.  How do you become wildly successful online?  Look at these four steps, determine where you need to focus your efforts and commit to becoming masterful at it.  If you really focus, you will win…every single time.

If you want to take advantage of a complete Online MLM Success system that has all four of these components in place already and all the free training you will need to become masterful at each, fill in the form below for my complete system.

Fill Out This Form Right Now
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David is an up and coming internet network marketer who has done some fabulous work in the area of Article Marketing.  Article Marketing really isn’t anything new.  Internet marketers have been using articles to create valuable content, brand themselves as an expert and drive traffic to their sites for years and years.

So what’s so different about what David is doing?

He’s created some really interesting niche techniques that are very, very subtle…but incredible powerful.  Although he’s been in the network marketing industry for a while, he is brand new online and in the last few months, David has driven over 100,000 visitors to his sites…all for free.

If that isn’t enough, listen to this.  He has been able to use his techniques to get his landing pages (from a marketing system that over 15,000 people use) ranked on the first page of Google.   That’s right.  He’s gotten a replicated web site ranked on the first page for some seriously competitive search terms like “Online MLM Training,” all through article and videos.

If you never have been in internet marketing before this may not mean much to you, but the internet marketers reading this are either thinking it’s BS or falling off the back of their chair.

That is incredibly hard to do.

If you are new to business online, let’s look at it this way.  Among other things, Google ranks sites by Relevancy, Popularity and Originality.  (A lot like people used to rank each other in high school!)  So here you are with your new company and you are really proud of the amazing looking replicated site the company gave you.  When you search for your company…your personal site is nowhere to be found.

And it never will be.

Your site isn’t unique in the least bit…it’s just like all the other affiliates with the company.  No offense, but Google could care less about your replicated site.

But learning some basic (and some very clever) strategies with blogs and article marketing, you could be raking in dozens of leads a day for your business.

To give you an example, here’s one fantastic strategy that is just incredibly juicy and can get you ranked fast and stay there.

• Write your article (after doing a little keyword research) and publish it, preferably to your blog since the search engines love blogs so much.
• Spin your article out to the top social bookmarking sites.
• Promote your article with some video.
• Publish your article to as many sites as possible all linking back to your blog. (There are tools to help you do this that you can find on my site)

Anyone can do that.  All you need is some guidance from a mentor/coach, some tools to make your life a bit easier and the will to make it happen.

If you follow some basic strategy and are consistent in your efforts, you will get rewarded.  Marketing online in many ways is no different from marketing offline.  You use some tools, you lead with value, you engage people in conversation, you follow up and you stay consistent.

Just like David Wood Article Marketing Strategies, there is a ton of great content online to support your marketing efforts.  You just have to find someone you connect with and trust and is someone who you would want to work with.

It’s all available for you to take advantage of.

The only reason that you wouldn’t have tons of leads everyday waiting for you to follow up with…is because you don’t take action.

And that choice, my friend, is all yours.

To learn how to capitalize on artitcle marketing and generate an endless amount of leads just like David Wood, subscribe below for instant access.