November
11

3 Steps to Double Your Sales
Benefits Versus Features

A friend that works at a car dealership was recently discussing a sales technique with me. “We’re not allowed to let customers leave…until they take a test drive,” she said. “If they take a test drive, the chances that they’ll buy really improve.”

What does this have to do with today’s topic? The car dealership’s policy clearly illustrates the difference between selling features and selling benefits.

So what’s the difference?

Feature: The structure, physical description, or attributes of your product or service.

Benefit: The emotional reasons or connections your prospect makes with your product or service.

At a car dealership, putting the consumer in the driver’s seat changes the way they view the vehicle. No longer are they looking at the “features” of the car, they are experiencing the benefits. (Hence the increase in sales.)

So what can you do to make sure your message is speaking to your prospect’s heart and not their head? Ask yourself a series of questions:

How will their life be better, easier, or more fun with my product or service?
Why will they want to tell their friends about my company?
Without my product or service, what will the prospect be missing?
How will the prospect justify this purchase to themselves or their spouse?

By answering these questions, you will discover the benefits that will attract your prospects. No matter how tempted you may be to point out the incredible “features” of your product, sell with the prospect in mind.

When you constantly put the prospects emotions first, you will create marketing messages that drive sales like you’ve never seen before.

Clate Mask
CEO, Infusionsoft

Free eBook: 9 Proven Techniques to Double Sales

 

October
6


One of the things I am very proud of is I try to keep all my readers, customers, and business partners away from MLM. A blogger has no business being in MLM. Why? I’ll explain.

MLM correctly stands for Multi Level marketing. What this means is someone created a product or service and convinced other people to sell it. To get these people to sell the product the creator says I will pay you 50% of the sales every time you sell my product. If you can get other people to sell my product I will give you 25% of the sales they make. If they get other people to sell my product, I will give you 10% of those sales, and if those people get others to sell, I will give you 5% of those sales.

Now anyone with half a brain realizes the money is not in selling the product but in getting others to sell the product. If the product is worth $10 that means a person makes $5.00 for every sale they make. However if they can get 5 other people to sell the product for them, they make $2.50 off each person who makes a sale. The idea is the more people selling for you the more money you make.

There are a lot of problems with this type of marketing. Ultimately only the guys on the very top of the chain make any money. Why? Because statistically products sold in this manner, are not wanted! They are hard to sell. That’s why the MLM was introduced.

It means if I sign up under a friend of mine, and then I get 10 more people to sign up, but along the way I realize I can’t make any money in this, I drop out. This is EXACTLY what the people on top of the chain want to happen. That means I make NO money off the people I recruited in and the profits and earnings skip me, putting more money in the high up pockets!

Are you confused? If so don’t worry, thats exactly what people involved in MLM want you to be!

Okay that explains why I think MLM is really just a scam but doesn’t tell exactly why a blogger more then anyone should avoid MLM. You see a multi level marketer has two jobs. His jobs is first to recruit people into the MLM business. To do this the marketer spends every waking moment socializing with people who may seem interested in the business. The second thing he must do is teach all the people he recruits about the newest and best ways to market both themselves and the product in question.

Why would this be bad for a blogger to do? Because they are losing money by doing it! If you start a blog with the sole intent of teaching people about your MLM then what about all the people not interested? They are just lost sales – people who will never spend money at your site. This is a HUGE loss! Also if you are spending all your time recruiting and training, how much time do you really have left to blog?

A blogger does have an alternative though. The alternative to MLM is called MLAM. MLAM is rarely talked about and its sad really because the most successful MLM’s of all time have actually been MLAM. What is MLAM? It stands for Multi Level Affiliate marketing.

When I think of MLAM two companies pop into my mind. The first is Avon and the second is Tupperware! What makes these companies different from MLM? Well I will explain. MLAM means you are not only a multi level marketing but also an affiliate of the company. This is another way of saying a glorified sales person who works on commission.

MLAM companies provide you with a complete product lineup for you to sell. You are given enough different products to run your own store. This is where the idea of avon and tupperware parties came from. Women could sell these items and make a fortune off commission based sales. At the end of any given month, they would get paid based upon how many sales they made that month. This is how they differ from MLM. MLM companies do not give you enough products to run your own store. You MUST have a HEAVY downline (people signed up under you) to make real profits).

However MLAM were also different from affiliate programs because they gave you the option of making more by signing up other affiliates. So companies like avon said “you’ll make a LOT more if you put in the effort to set up a storefront, but if you are really good at MLM we also give you that option”. Either way it was a win for the avon company.

These programs ARE what you want to get involved in as a blogger. They give you products to talk about and sell on your blog. They give you signup codes so others who like what you sell can also make money the same way you do, and generally they are products people actually DO buy!

Currently my number one selling MLAM is called IM Buzz Software This is a company that gives you enough HIGH QUALITY software to start your own software company. All the software packages are free and you can rename them, add banners and affiliate links inside the software, and add your company name to the packages! You can give the software away as promotional software or you can completely sell it as your own. ‘

Whats the catch? The idea behind this program is that as you begin to profit from it you will see the benefit in upgrading your account to have even more software and more rebranding options. In fact, I guarantee you’ll upgrade if you use this program!!

I have been running the IM Buzz software on my blog marketing blog for some time now. Although I haven’t made any sales directly through the affiliate program of IM Buzz I have sold a LOT of copies of some of the software. In fact one of the software packages ‘the forum seeker’ is currently on page two of google search results for its highly targeted name and brings me a lot of traffic and sales to my blog.

Find out helpful information about the topic of bdsm tube – please read the web site. The time has come when concise info is really only one click away, use this possibility.

October
5


Most Multi-level marketing products are sold at the retail level with a pretty good profit margin. This brings up the question of why people do not sell more if there is so much money to be made?

Let’s analyze that a little bit closer.

1. They do not have a high belief level in the product they are selling. Depending on the product line many MLM distributors do not use their own products often enough.

The best way to develop a belief level in a product is to use it and understand everything about it. This makes it much easier to retail the product both online and face to face.

2. Many Multi-level marketing products are overpriced for what you get. One problem that network marketing companies face is justifying the prices they charge. This is especially true on a product line that a person can go down to a local retailer and purchase for half the price.

Of course the draw of an Multi-level marketing business is often times the compensation plan. To be able to a pay commissions on several levels deep there has to be profit built into each level. This can present a problem for people when it comes to retailing their products.

3. Many people work full time jobs and retailing products can be time consuming. Everyone knows that the real money to be made in multi-level marketing is through building a large downline.

Ultimately the dream is to create a walkaway income that will continue long after you quit working your business. That’s what drivews people to spend most of their time on sponsoring and not on selling the product.

4. Many Network marketing marketers are not Internet oriented and therefore do not take advantage of the opportunities Internet marketing offers. This is especially true on selling products that offer autoship.

Today you can earn very good money retailing products just by getting visitors to your company provided website. If you can get the visitors you stand a great chance of making a few sales and creating repeat retail profits.

This really makes it possible for more people to do retailing if they just learn basic internet traffic generation techniques. By doing this you can earn some healthy profits on the retail level without spending time talking to people, delivering products, or picking up checks.

5. Many people do not really understand how much money there is to be made in retailing MLM products. At the very least you could fund all of your Internet marketing efforts just on the profit you make selling some products.

It is a given that a lot of volume is created off of wholesale purchases. There certainly is nothing wrong with this as you want everyone in your group to be ordering products from themselves.

However there should be more emphasis put on retailing Network marketing products. This is both for the profit it creates for your business, and for the example it sets for your downline!

Jeff Schuman invites you to visit his make money online website for the #1 network marketing business, ways to make money taking surveys, and JV With Jeff free training.

October
3


If they had even a tiny bit of success I know for a fact that more people would stick with network marketing. In this article we want to talk about your role as an upline distributor and exciting your downline to have more MLM success.

1. Help them save money in a real way. If you are marketing a product that people actually use on a regular basis saving money should be a no-brainer.

I am not talking about altering the way people go about their daily lives. For example many MLM products are not a part of a normal persons daily routine.

Let me give you a good example. You work in an MLM company that offers a discount shopping card. Since people shop on a regular basis this is something that they can use to save money with.

You can excite them, and help them stick with the program if they realize how much money they are certainly saving using this card. The same thing can be true for almost any product people use on an regular basis.

As long as they are really putting money back in their pocket there is no reason for them to ever drop out of the MLM company you are in together. The key is to get them using the products and saving on a consistent basis.

2. Help them sell products at the retail level. To have an impact on their financial well being most people need to make a few extra hundred dollars a month.

I think many multi-level marketers miss the magnitude of helping their downline actually retail products. There is good profit to be made in selling the products so why don’t more people do it?

With a tiny bit of help from their upline more people would sell products. This is really true online today where you no longer have to get checks or deliver products to your customers. You can automate much of your selling efforts by just referring people to your retail website.

3. Sponsor new distributors in their downline. If you are in a pay plan that rewards you for working in depth you should thank your MLM company.

The best network advertising companies today reward you personally for enrolling people by giving you checks on a weekly basis. They also reward you by placing distributors downline from other distributors.

This is one of the great things about mlm advertising. You help other people build their business and excite them when you place new distributors you enroll downline from yourself.

These are fairly fundamental ideas yet most network marketers do not do them. Work with your MLM downline to help them save money, make money online retailing, and sponsoring new distributors underneath them.