This post relates to the tenth e-mail (Web Marketing Formula - issue 8)   

You can be a success! Anyone can. In our country, England, we have a scientist called Stephen Hawking, you have probably heard of him. He is a very clever man, with 12 honorary degrees. But, suffers from Motor Neurone Disease (ALS). That does not stop him enjoying continued success! He says, “I am quite often asked: How do you feel about having ALS? The answer is, not a lot. I try to lead as normal a life as possible, and not think about my condition, or regret the things it prevents me from doing, which are not that many.” 

Think about it. There is an example of ‘positive attitude’ and regarding the ‘possibilities’ open to us as human beings as being very great. Basically, if he can be successful, with his huge disability, so can you. You might say, “Well, he makes up for what he lacks in body, in the mind!” Quite true, but you have enough intelligence to run a business. The e-mails you have received and the articles on the blog, can be divided into 2 sections: business basics and internet marketing. That is because we first dealt with the ‘principles’ of business. Then, moved on, to give you some insight into what Jacob and I consider to be the best vehicle for individual success, IM.  So, where do you go from here? What we thought would be most profitable, was to cover the resources you can find on this blog. Basically, that is books and web-sites. 

1) Books. You have no doubt seen the stack of books off to the right à

We start with books, because of their abiding popularity. Most people like to have something they can hold. There is a permanence about a book. So, assuming you like to read, we start there (if you do not, you might like to scroll down to the next section - 2). 

The books by Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar, Jay Abraham and Dale Carnegie are essential reading, not only for everyone in business, but for anyone who is serious about success in their career. These men are among the top writers on personal and business development, and achieving success in life. You have probably got some of these books already. If you do not know any of these writers, you must get into them ASAP. They are all a bit different. You will not agree with everything they say, but you will come away a changed person. By reading one book, you will make vast progress, wherever you are right now.

The 2 books which are a bit more ‘practical’ are by Tony Buzan and Kevin Trudeau, on reading and memory respectively. Being able to digest vast amounts of information is an essential skill for anyone in business, and of course, goes much further than that in usefulness. Memory is another vital skill for human beings. Both these men have huge experience in their subject area and are well worth considering.

The other books are more business related, in that, they cover one specific area.

There are a couple of general books on Internet Marketing by Robert Allen and Jaime Luchuck. The former is more practical, the second a great ‘rags to riches’ story. Then there are books on Affiliate Marketing, Google AdWords, Google AdSense and List Building. These relate to the 9^th posting on 7^th December - How Internet Marketing Works. The 2 books on Google’s AdWords and AdSense programs, are by specialists in those areas. They ‘know’ what they are talking about. The book on Affiliate Marketing I bought and looks very good, from what I have read. The List Building book is highly recommended.

The other 3 are on Network Marketing (or MLM). All those 3 men I highly recommend having read their books and other programs.

2) Web-sites. These are more specific. The first and most important for you is this one! This blog you are reading now. If you put your details in the form to the right, you will be given a free report all about IM by Jacob and myself. Then also, you will be able to contribute to the blog. The other sites are under the heading - ‘Recommended Sites’ off to the right à

Dealing with these one at a time:

1 - Create Internet Infomercials - this offers you a free audio on the value of putting video on your web-site. It explains that this is how to get visitors to interact more with your site and what you are offering, raising the value of your site.

2 - How To Maximize Google AdWords - again, this is something for free! You get the transcript of an interview of Simon Leung by Matthew Glanfield. Simon, a Google AdWords expert, explains how to make the most of this vehicle in building your list.

3 - 3 Business Opportunities Reviewed - this presents you with some of the best off-the-shelf business opportunities on the Internet, including a paid survey.

4 - How To Get Traffic - this is an amazingly cost effective traffic generation solution. Great value for money. This program is worth, at least. 4 times the price. Anyone with a web-site needs traffic. Affiliates earn 100% commission.

5 - How To Giveaway For Wealth - this offers another very cost effective product, showing you how to give products away for free and explaining why this is so important for your online success.

6 - How To Use Articles - another important ‘specific’ area of IM. This is one of Jacob’s sites. He is a traffic expert, and here he shows you the value of writing articles and how to use them to drive visitors to your site.

7 - How To Build Your List - this is a very practical training course. In fact, this was the first program I joined that launched my internet business. The good thing is, you can keep going back to it.

8 - Get Your Web-site Built - this is a 2 stage program: first designing and getting your site built, and then, showing how to promote it.

There are more resources coming up. In the pipe-line are 3 sites that will show you exactly what to do, in the areas of: Affiliate Marketing, Resale Rights Products and List Building. Also, there will be more free reports and other products, and very cost effective information for you, all designed to help you.

Now is the time to get really involved with ‘Web Marketing Formula’ and take your own success to the next level.

To your success, and a happy future!

Richard Mortimer

This post relates to the ninth e-mail (Web Marketing Formula - issue 7)   

Up to this point, you have generally been fed positive information regarding Internet Marketing (IM). That is not going to change drastically today, but you ought to know some of the dangers of IM. That way, by being aware of where it is easy to trip up, you can avoid costly mistakes.

Internet Marketing is like a minefield, there are lots of ways you can get blown away. But, the important point is this, there is something worth crossing for on the other side! You want financial freedom, IM is one of the easiest ways of getting it. You want your own business that will provide you with a long term income, IM can provide that. You want a bit of short term cash, yes, IM can get that for you too. You want a better life style, IM can even provide that for you. If you look at it, you will find that IM is a terrific vehicle for achieving many goals in life.

So, that is the first thing you need to do, decide what it is you want to achieve. This will determine your route across the minefield. It is no good shooting for long term income, if you cannot put in the time without seeing a return at first. Equally, you could be very frustrated if you managed to get some short term income, only to find that you had to work equally hard the next week. The route you choose is important.

Probably the best way of starting is to do some affiliate marketing. If you learn how to run a Google AdWords campaign, you will get up and running quite quickly. If you cannot dedicate the time required, pick an online survey company to go with. Once, you have some money coming in you can be a bit more creative, and start building a long term income that should, eventually, run on auto-pilot.

Right, assuming you have picked your route across, now you have to contend with the mines! How do you do that? Obviously, you do not cross a minefield by closing your eyes and hoping for the best! Lets talk about the mines, so you can recognise them, then steer around them. That is the safe path. The first thing obviously, is to take action. You are a bit scared of the minefield? That is perfectly understandable. It is daunting. The IM Minefield is very large, and so is very imposing. So first, you must decide on a route and take action. Now, you are set on a particular course of action. You are focussed and going forward. 

1) Focus - keep to the path! Do not look back. Press on. Keep going until you complete your task. Whichever route you take, stick to it. A better opportunity might come along, but do not get diverted. Do not consider another route until you have crossed on this one. If you divert from the path you are on, you will get blown up!

It is very tempting to look around and see what looks like a better path. It is shorter. It seems to have less mines on it. The goal at the end is greater. As you gain confidence in your IM business, it is easy to get tempted away by a rosier looking way of doing things. They say, “the grass is always greener on the other side.” Focus is the first key to your success.

2) Offers - as you become a member of the IM community, you will become increasingly bombarded with offers. Of course, they are all very tempting, they are meant to be. The best marketers make fantastic, ‘irresistible’ offers. But, as a marketer yourself, you want to be making them, not taking them up. What will happen, if you are not careful, is this, you will buy up many ‘good’ offers which you will never use. They will be like books filling up your book shelves and simply gathering dust. You will fill up your hard drive with information you will never use. Believe me, I know because I have done it. You soon forget: where things are; who you bought them from; whether they are incurring a monthly charge. It is very easy to ‘max out’ your credit cards. Please don’t get blown up by this mine!

3) Information overload - if you do not focus, you will try to do too much. Learn every traffic technique there is to know, etc, etc. Do you have hours of free time and a brain the size of a pumpkin? If so, then you will not have a problem here, and will be fast on your way to being the next IM superstar. But, most of us ‘mere mortals’ struggle to take it all in. Better to focus and succeed in one area, then either milk that or move on to something more profitable. Again, it is all to do with focus and staying on the path you are committed to.

4) Too ambitious - it is easy to get very excited at a brilliant idea you have, without first counting the cost. Perhaps the biggest problem with the minefield is getting your site to work properly. The more complicated it is, the harder it is to sort, and can be a real head ache! For example, I was given the opportunity to resale a product I have used myself. I was excited about this. I even had a potential customer lined up, before I went for the offer! But, I had not thought long enough about one thing, how to deliver the product to my own customers! I need a matrix of delivery pages for all the different permutations! This is something I do not even know where to start creating. I am going to have to consult an expert and probably pay him to solve my problem, or ditch my project and lose my investment. Basically, I was too ambitious.

When building a web-site, everything needs to work. One link in the chain not working, and the whole thing falls to the ground. For example, when I built my first site, I had a problem right at the start. I like domains with a hyphen. But, when logging in to set the domain up on my hosting, I had to ignore the hyphen! Fortunately for me, Jacob knew this problem, so it was quite easily solved. Start small is the best advice.

5) Running out of time - of course, it takes time to plan and digest all the information you need, especially at the beginning. So, please be aware that you can easily run out of time. This is, again, where focus is important. Buying all the offers you will receive will take time, and you might have been better spending it on your current project. It should not be hard for you to find a simple, straight forward project to start with. Affiliate marketing with Google AdWords is probably the fastest, most lucrative way to start, and you can ditch it easily, if it does not work out. If it is OK, you can almost leave it to run. Perhaps the best thing to do is, work out what time you have per day, per week, per month, and then halve it! That way you know you are on the safe side.

By all means, buy information that relates to your project. It is prudent to learn everything you can up front. It should not cost you too much to learn all you need. But, even there, set yourself a realistic budget. Right now, I am having 3 sites built that will teach nearly everything that you need to succeed at affiliate marketing, resale rights and list building. You could buy all 3 sets of videos for under $100. Maybe you would need some information of traffic generation in addition. But, you would be pretty much there! It does not have to cost an arm and a leg! If you had the time, you could work through each set of videos to decide which path best suited you and your goals. You would pretty much know what you had to do to succeed, before you even started!

If you need some advice. Why not join the blog by entering your details to the right at the top. You will get the free “Web Marketing Formula for Beginners,” e-book. Then, reply to this post, and ask me your questions. If I do not have an adequate answer for you, I promise to find someone who can help you. Jacob has coached me, and is still offering his list-building training.

To your prosperous future!

Richard Mortimer

This post relates to the eighth e-mail (Web Marketing Formula - issue 6)    

Today, you will learn the very basics of Internet Marketing. It is very simple. If you know anything about IM, then you will already know this. But, it is always good to start with basic principles. Like with any kind of business, IM is concerned with providing people with what they want and need. All business is about solving peoples’ problems and fulfilling their desires. IM is no different, obviously. Basically, you will get paid in your own IM business by providing what people want.

There are 2 clear and distinct elements that both need to be fulfilled, in IM, for this to happen. 1) You need traffic. That is people who are called visitors. 2) You need to direct them to a web-site. And, obviously, this must be a sales site. If you have your own site, that is where you want visitors to go. The more the merrier. So, IM is all about: 1) Finding a need that people need fulfilling. That is often referred to as a ‘niche.’ 2) You need to have a site that fulfils that need. Either, your own, or someone elses. 3) You need to generate visitors to that site.

Now, there are several ways that this all fits together. I like to think of IM breaking down into 5 basic ‘models.’ Lets look at them in turn:

Paid Surveys - this is a popular way to make money on the Internet. This is probably the fastest way to get some extra cash in your back pocket. But, two things ought to be said here:

1) It is not really IM. Strictly speaking you are the visitor! You do not earn money by getting visitors to a site and making a sale. You join a survey company and become their panelist. As they get to know you, you will receive offers for surveys you can take. Some pay quite well.

2) There seems to be a lot of scams. I have done quite a bit of research, and found some that are highly recommended. From what I can gather, it seems to be black and white. Very good or very bad.

Probably the best bet, if you can find a good company, is to have this as an extra source of income. You will not make a fortune. But, you might find you can build up your income with one or two survey companies, so that you can quit your job. This would, perhaps, be a good option for those who are financially challenged.

Google AdSense - again, this is not strictly IM according to our definition. Why? Because it does not require that you sell anything, although it does require you get traffic to your site. AdSense is a program offered by Google. Companies pay Google to be included. When they do so, they agree for Google to display their adverts on related sites. When any visitor to a site with Google AdSense adverts on it clicks on one of the ads, the company to whom the ad belongs will be charged. The amount varies depending on how competitive that particular market is. Above are Google AdSense ads.

Three steps to profiting with Google AdSense:

1) Can you set up a blog, like this one you are viewing right now? It is quite simple. If you cannot, can you find someone who can do it for you?

2) Can you find a ‘niche’ and write some articles about it? Get creative! Anything will do to start with. Your favourite: sport, past-time, pet. Any business area that could be of interest. D-I-Y! Anything that could interest other people. Travel. Food.

3) Then, all you do is sign up for an AdSense account with Google. (They will help you if you get stuck). The hard bit is putting the code into the blog messages (again, it is not that difficult. If I can do it, you can)! And, if you can’t do it, the person that built your blog for you will do it, I am sure!

Affiliate Marketing - this is a very popular way of starting out in IM. Some people have literally made millions with affiliate marketing. This is the entry level of true IM. But, just because of that fact, do not despise it, it can be very lucrative. One of the reasons it is so popular, apart from the potential rewards, is because you do not need a web-site to do it. So, in that way, it is opposite to Google AdSense. You can do affiliate marketing 2 main ways:

1) Without a web-site. This would require you to send people to someone else’s web-site, and them pay you for bringing them sales. Many people have an affiliate program. Right now, I am having several sites built, which will all have the capacity for accepting affiliates. To the right is a link for my Traffic Secrets GPS site, “How To Get Traffic To Your Web-Site.” That offers affiliates 100% for every sale. à

The easiest way to send visitors to another web-site is by ‘Pay Per Click’ advertising. The top company offering this facility at the moment is Google, not surprisingly. Your adverts are displayed in the search results for keywords you select, and you only get charged when someone clicks on your ad.

2) The other way is to have your own web-site. The first company to offer an affiliate program was Amazon. Their affiliates are called ‘associates’. You can see an example of Amazon ads to the right. à

They look posh (I hope you agree), but they are very simple to do. In this case, I wanted specific books listed that I had read or were highly recommended to me, and that were relevant to setting up in business, different business models or personal development. All I had to do was sign up for an Amazon associates account, look up the right type of ad, browse for the book I wanted and paste the code into the side bar. It did not take very long. Think about it. I stocked a ‘virtual’ book shop in minutes with exactly what I needed, and I have no stock at all!

Resale Rights Marketing - moving on from affiliate marketing, we come to resale rights products. These are usually digital products. If you buy resale rights to a product, you can stick them on your own web-site and sell them. The main difference between this and affiliate selling, is that you have the potential of greater returns. Yes, sometimes you get an affiliate product that offers 100% commission, but with resale rights products that is always the case.

It will be harder work getting it all ready, but the returns should be greater in the long-run. For one thing, you have a customer of your own that you can offer related products to. If you do this well, they will learn to trust you and know that you never offer them rubbish just to make a few bucks.

If you have, what is called, Private Label products, you can re-brand them, edit them and put your own name on them. Thus you can create a product of your very own, quite easily.

List Building - this is the ‘ultimate’ IM technique. They all say, “the money is in the list.” And, of course, they say that because it is true. The way to build a secure long-term income is to build a subscriber list. It is generally reckoned that you will receive about $1 per month for every ‘receptive’ subscriber you have. The generally accepted way to do this is to offer great value up front. Many marketers will offer a free report of some kind. Of course some people will grab your report and quickly ‘un-subscribe.’ That’s life! Of my first 30 subscribers, 6 un-subscribed (about 20%) at different times. One or two did so straight away. But, most are getting used to receiving e-mails from me. I keep offering them useful information. The idea is, that it is a ‘positive’ experience being my sub-scriber.

You can do this too. It is not hard. What do you need?

1) A free report you can offer when people first see your site.

2) A mini-site that shows your free offer and is able to capture details from subscribers.

3) An auto-responder from which you can send e-mails to your subscribers.

Jacob taught me using his www.listequalsmoney.com coaching program.

Traffic - you can start on all these different methods, but if you get no visitors, you will not get anywhere. You need traffic for all these IM techniques, apart from 1) Paid Surveys. This is perhaps why most people who fail in IM do, in fact, fail. They can put a site together, but they stumble at traffic generation. You must do both. Do your preparation. Decide what you are going to do. Put the various components together. Test that it all works. Then, you must get some traffic. The more traffic you get, the more money you will make, it as simple as that.

There are various ways of getting traffic, but basically, they break down into 2 areas:

1) Paid traffic. Generally, this would be using a pay per click (PPC) method of  advertising, such as Google AdWords.

Also, you could pay someone to do traffic generation for you.

2) Free traffic. There are many ways of doing this. Using articles. Using videos. Making press releases. Finding joint venture (JV) partners. The list is endless. It is best to understand one or two techniques and master them.

Summary - We could put it like this. It depends what you want to achieve. If you need short-term cash, then the easiest way is to take paid surveys (with the right company). These 5 areas listed are really in ascending order. The first are for short-term cash, the later for long-term wealth. This is necessarily a very basic and compressed ‘overview.’ But, hopefully, it has given you an idea of what can be achieved and what is involved. The important principle is focus. Focus on one kind of marketing and a few methods of generating traffic.

Here is to your future success!

Richard Mortimer

This post relates to the seventh e-mail (Web Marketing Formula - issue 5)                                 

You know all about the expansion of the Internet. First, there was the concept. Then, the hype. Then, there was the explosion, in both senses of the word! The explosion in use and profit, followed by the bursting of the dot.com bubble. But, that is all in the past. Things have settled down now. When the crash came, many thought that was the end of ‘Internet’ fortunes. But, since then, there has been e-Bay, Google and You Tube, amongst other colossal successes. The Internet is here to stay. And, as many have pointed out, the impact of it can, in some ways, be compared to the invention of the printing press in the 15^th Century. The impact it has had on life is terrific.

In the short time the Internet has been going, individual fortunes have been made. And, the number of millionaires is set to increase as fast as the opportunities. Why is this? Well, just think about what the Internet actually is. It is like an entire ‘virtual’ world. The big difference being this, the ‘real’ world is 2-dimensional. The Internet though, is more like a 3-dimensional world! Your ‘virtual’ shop can be visited by anyone on the Internet! How many people get on-line every day? Each one is a ‘possible’ visitor to your shop. And, you can sell, just about, whatever you want in your shop. There are very few restrictions. The possibilities are endless, as are the permutations. If anything, that is the draw-back with ‘virtual’ business, you are totally spoiled for choice. Your ‘virtual’ shop can be stocked out with hundreds of items, and the storage costs are minimal.

Internet Marketing is all about utilising the power of this amazing, new world, for commercial purposes. Marketing on the Internet. If you are thinking about become a new Internet Marketer (a ‘newbie’), the possibilities for you are simply staggering. This does pose a difficulty. At first, it is best to keep it simple. One product, with one sales page. But, you can achieve that very easily, and there you are, you are in business! You have a shop. Now, all you need is visitors! That is the hard part. We will cover all this in upcoming posts.

But, I want to encourage you to take a look at IM. You can have one shop…10…100, as many as you want! You can sell software and digital products that can be downloaded. You can sell the same on CDs and DVDs, etc. You can sell cars, toys, clothes, paintings, houses, you name it, it probably can be sold on the Internet. A friend was looking for an unusual musical instrument the other day. He did a search on Google. He got to two sites that looked like they might have what he was looking for. He contacted them. Neither had a ‘physical’ shop. But, they were very obliging, and could get him what he was looking for. Another friend visited recently, who often sells things on e-Bay. He took away with him a box full of car brochures that I had collected from the motor show in 1973 and 4. He has already sold some. One fetched £30 (about $60), another £40 ($80). It is a sort of business he is running! Alright, that is about as basic as it comes.

You could do this to start with. All you need is a digital camera and to learn how e-Bay works. Then, there are paid surveys. Right now, I am having some reviews done on these. There seems to be a lot of rubbish, even scams. But, there are good ones as well. The trick seems to be, to be a regular submitter of surveys. Then you can make a small part-time income from the Internet. Alright, it is not really IM proper, but it is a start. Then, you can become an affiliate marketer using a PPC campaign with Google, or one of the other ‘Pay Per Click’ search engines. Now, you are a true Internet Marketer, and still you need not have your own site. The sky really is the limit.

In IM, you can have a business that runs 24/7, and on ‘autopilot.’ It takes time to set it up, but once the work is done, it is there to stay. That is why I say that, compared to conventional business, it is 3-dimensional opposed to only 2! You can go in any direction. The limitations of a conventional business, are simply not there. Where in the world can you build a shop in minutes? Then, have it stocked in hours? And, have thousands of visitors in a very short time? Of course, to set up such a web-site takes effort and resources. Not everyone is able to do it. But, if you can afford it, you can pay others to do it for you.

Internet Marketing is truly global. For example, Jacob and I have never met! We have talked on Skype and are in daily e-mail contact, but we do not know where the other lives! Yet, we are doing this project together! Jacob lives in Utah, USA, I live in England, thousands of miles apart. It is staggering to think of it. Recently, I had a programmer do some work for me. He lives in Russia. A company in India did some traffic generation for me. To be in IM is a big privilege and thrill for me, I love it. And, so I commend it to you as an area of business with tremendous potential and opportunities. Like all business, it is not easy to make a success of it, but it does seem that it is easier to have a go, without getting into too much trouble. Imagine buying a real shop, only to find a bigger, better rival opening down the road within a year. Then, even if you decide to pack up, you have a building to dispose of. OK, in a buoyant market. But, what about if property prices fall, even by a small amount? ‘Virtual’ real estate always starts at zero value, and you build from there. At least take a look at it.

May you find success and prosper!

Richard Mortimer

This post relates to the sixth e-mail (Web Marketing Formula - issue 4)

After considering that there are really only 2 ways of doing business:

Being competitive on price, or having at least one part of your offer that is unique to you, we turn to different business models. Here we are thinking about the various ways of structuring a business. This could be a very lengthy discourse, which, naturally, I wish to avoid. It is a bit complicated, so I have done my best to simplify it.

1) The basic business model is the ‘Tradesman.’ He works for himself. You can put into that category, farmers, shop keepers, and a whole host of such ‘trades.’ The second hand car dealer is another. Probably the property developer, or as you call him, the real estate entrepreneur, falls into this group. It is a business that is based on one man. He is a ‘Jack of all trades.’ He has to be good at a lot of things, and he is! If he hires other people, they very much work for him, and, most often, he will ‘contract’ hire. He will use others on an agreement method, hiring them as he needs them, but mostly avoiding permanent staff. My father is a surveyor who has his own practice. It is a ‘partnership.’ But really, this is just like a tradesman set up, only that he shares responsibility with his partner. 2 instead of 1. Most business opportunities would involve becoming a tradesman of some sort, even if it is on a very small scale. With this set up, you are going to have a lot of hats, and you will need to wear them all:

boss, secretary, salesman (most important), accountant, cleaner, product developer and manufacturer, the list goes on. 

2) Then there is the company or organisation. Here you will find a hierarchy. A boss of some kind. A board of directors, or equivalent. Then, the managers. And finally, the bulk of the workforce. Of course, in such a situation, everyone in the organisation’s tasks are much more focussed. It really is a trade off with flexibility compared to the tradesman. He can alter what he is doing and how long he does it for.

In a big organisation, it is much, more difficult to achieve. However, the fact, if you are the boss, that you have a large number of people working for you, adds security and, more importantly profitability. Paul Getty said, I would rather have 1% of a 100 people’s time, than 100% of 1! Now, it is unlikely that you can start off in this sort of position, although, of course, you can be a tradesman and outsource all sorts of functions. But, in terms of starting with a company and being the boss, the only way to do it, really, is to buy a business! Not quite as difficult as you think. Jay Abraham has a superb program to coach people to do this. Although, the last time I looked, it was fully subscribed! You would need to be very brave!

3) Another business model for you to consider is, in a sense, a combination of 1 & 2. That is, of course, network marketing. It is like a little company within a bigger one! The big company is the one making the products. You do not develop your own products. So, from that point of view, you are working for a big company. The products you sell have their own identity (and USP if they are any good), from a large entity. But, you start like a sole trader. You build your own business within the business! This model, also known as MLM (Multi-Level Marketing), you have probably heard about, and it will be either good or bad. Probably bad! However, I think most of the bad reports are due to people not understanding this business model. Succeeding in MLM is about selling and teaching. If you cannot teach, you should not go into MLM. The best companies have great products. To sell them, you use them yourself and share them with your friends. Some of them will love the products. There you have a customer! Alright, you use, you share. But, that is not going to build a big solid business, with the sort of income you no doubt want. Now you need to upgrade your customers to become agents, just like you. It is not that hard, if they use a number of products. Alright, now you need to teach them how to do what you have done. Is that it? No, you have not finished yet. You must teach all your agents, or distributors, to teach. Now you have properly ‘duplicated.’ Your business will now grow without you! But, how long will this take? Years probably. MLM is good in that you do not have to produce a product and the products have to be good to sell. If you are considering MLM, buy the products first. Only join a company whose products you love. It seems to me that most failures in MLM, and there are a lot of them, are because they do not understand what is required.

4) There is one last business model that you ought to think about. This is really a sub-set of 1. We are thinking of the franchise. And, as with 3, there is an aspect of 2 in it (I did say it was complicated). A franchise, of course, is a ‘tradesman’ buying into a big company. He is his own boss. It is his business, but he is buying the branding, etc. from a company that has an ‘image,’ or some other reason to charge him a great deal of money. Sometimes people compare business opportunities with franchises, always unfairly, but there is a big difference. When you buy a franchise you are buying a ‘name’ and also a ‘proven’ business model. If you bought a McDonalds franchise, you know it should be successful!

So, basically, there are two different models, 1) & 2), the others being combinations of those two.

Let me finish by saying a little about Internet Marketing. That is Jacob’s and my business. Right now, I will not say too much about it. There will be a complete article on the blog to coincide with the next newsletter. But, the reason I am involved in this area of business is because of the huge possibilities. You are really a tradesman, working for yourself, but it is very easy to come up with a USP. The danger is to try to do too much, as I have found to my cost. But, it is like having a shop that can be visited all over the world. That is something truly amazing, and needs to be pondered about for a good deal of time.

May you find the success you are looking for.

Richard Mortimer