Networking and Marketing

To operate a successful network marketing company, it will be very helpful if you learn more about networking and marketing as well as the company and products you are ready to share. Let’s try to break down the parts and see if we can understand what it is and what you may be doing wrong and more importantly, how to improve.

Understanding Networking and Marketing…
According to Wikipedia:
In general, the term network can refer to any interconnected group or system. Several different types of networks exist, including: human, media, technology, etc.
Or
According to the Dictionary:
1) A complex, interconnected group or system: an espionage network.
2) An extended group of people with similar interests or concerns who interact and remain in informal contact for mutual assistance or support.

So, in order to network effectively, you’ll need a group of people with similar interests. Where do you find those that are interested in your product or your company? Think of groups of people that would be interested in what you’re offering. How do you reach them?

Start by becoming more involved with various groups of people. Does your product cater to women? Lucky you, women typically are in charge of the family household budget and
mostly determine what to buy! Join a women’s gym, a book club, bingo, church events, happy hours at bar that offer a ladies night, school events, grocery stores school events, yoga or dance classes. The most important thing to remember once you join a group is this:

TAKE AN HONEST INTEREST IN OTHERS, WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED

You never want to join a group and then immediately babble on about your product or opportunity. People will see right through that and you’ll just be labeled a ‘salesperson’….. you probably don't like that and neither will people you know or meet.
People don’t want to be sold, they love to buy!

It is said over and over by numerous successful entrepreneurs that network marketing and multilevel marketing is not about products or companies, it’s about YOU. That means that people will buy from you once they know and like and trust you. So, first start with that. Get to know them, let them talk about themselves, let them know you care, you’re there for them, learn about them and their needs so that you can help them. Once they feel that you are genuinely interested in them as a person, they’ll be more than willing to hear your presentation and to buy what you’re offering.

In order to network most effectively, you’ll also need to understand marketing - it's the second half of your business.
Marketing is a social process which satisfies consumers' wants, needs and interests. The term includes advertising, distribution and selling of a product or service. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers' future needs and wants, often through market research.

Marketing is the process of interesting potential customers and clients in your products and/or services.
The key word in this marketing definition is "process"; marketing involves researching, promoting, selling, and distributing your products or services. It takes time and energy.

Marketing involves everything you do to get your potential clients/customers and your product or service together. Success won’t happen if you don’t have a plan or if that plan excludes any of the important components.

When you're putting together a marketing program for your business, concentrate on the marketing basics, the four key components of any marketing plan:
• Researching your products and services
• Promotion
• Distribution
• Selling

The purpose of marketing is attracting and retaining a growing base of satisfied customers. Creating and implementing a marketing plan will keep your marketing efforts focused and increase your success of finding and keeping customers.

Many times people will get involved with a company based on their products, attend a few trainings and think they can go out and sell them effectively. They quickly learn that this is not the case and they get discouraged and quit before they’ve understood or developed the process of marketing.

Let’s look at the first two ways to develop your marketing plan for your business so that you can achieve success with your company at the early stages and onward:

1) Researching products and services
It is important to know your products and learn the services that you will be providing to your clients. This shouldn’t consume all of your time and prevent you from beginning to share your products. Sometimes, people get so caught up in feeling the need to know all there is about their products that they dwell only on this one step. Frustration will occur and before the rest of the marketing plan can be implemented, they quit.

Learn as much as you can to understand your products and company to feel comfortable in sharing them. Just learn a few key things that you love about a particular product. Utilize the information from your company about products as well as some study on your own. Understand that this will be an ongoing process and vow to continue to learn for growth. Take action daily as you already know more than your customers and you don’t need to be an expert immediately. This will come in time.

2) Promotion
This is a step that is often eliminated in a marketing plan or without a marketing plan that causes many people to stop the pursuit of success with their company. Currently, 300,000 people daily are starting their own business. If you don’t have the ability to promote yourself, your company and the products, you’ll miss key opportunities to find new customers and members of your group/team.


There are many ways to promote your products and company.

Some of the older methods include cold calling, bombarding your friends and family, random prospecting and referrals. With the internet available, the possibilities to promote your business are becoming endless. If you don’t have an internet presence in this day and age, you’re missing many of the people shopping online or looking for a business online. Google adwords, twitter, facebook, craigslist, pennysaver, blogs, numerous social networks and online marketing systems that promote for you as well as your company website are all great ways to assist your marketing promotion.

You can still promote and advertise by way of local media, bulletin boards, church bulletins or mall events. These won’t cost you a lot of money and will only attract those that are actively seeking what you’re offering. Start to work smarter, not harder.
If you utilize any or several of the systems above, you will be marketing towards the people that are actively searching. This will help avoid the frustration that other typical ways of getting in front of people usually lead to.

A very effective approach that I just used recently is worth mentioning and taking ACTION on soon! Have a yard/garage sale to reduce your clutter and as a great way to meet some of your neighbors. Post signs calling it a MEGA sale and try to involve your neighbors to increase the size of the sale. Make a beautiful basket of your products and have a little survey card, response slip in front of it.

As people come to your yard sale, offer a chance for them to fill out your response slip, you’ll enter them in a drawing to WIN your gift basket. Some won’t be interested—that’s OK. Some will- that’s MARVELOUS! Make sure you include brief lines on the response slip that state:
1) I am interested in products
2) I would like to arrange a personal consultation
3) I would like to schedule a party or home demonstration to receive free products or discounted products
4) I would be interested in hearing more about the business opportunity

Their name, phone, email and best time to call at the end will secure their information for you to contact them in a few days.

Make sure to contact the gift basket winner, thank them for entering your drawing and set up a time to deliver their gift. Ask them when is a good time to set up their complimentary facial. Ask them if mornings, afternoons or evenings are better for them.Offer them a choice of X date or X date (depending on your schedule). Set up the appointment, verify the date and time and thank them. Offer for your winner to invite a friend or two over for the free facial and tell them that if their friends like any of the products, she could earn free hostess gifts from the company. Call the day before the appointment and tell her how excited you are to meet with her for her free basket and to give her a facial. Ask her if she has a friend joining so you can bring enough product and supplies.

In future posts, we'll explore the other aspects of marketing so stay tuned or subscribe if you want the information as soon as it's posted.

I hope this information will be useful and most helpful to you in understanding networking and marketing a little better to help you grow your business.

Thank you for following along with me as we discover together the effective ways you can grow your business by taking ACTION today. You can make it happen if you decide to! Never give up.

What is your most difficult part of networking or marketing? Share it in the comments section so that we can develop more posts around what you need.