To sort through the myriad of choices available, you need to ask many important questions. Here are ten to get you started:
1. What is the product or service being sold?
2. Does it represent value to the consumer?
3. How much does it cost to join the company?
4. How much is the monthly requirement?
5. What type of compensation plan is used?
6. What marketing tools are provided?
7. What training and support are provided?
8. Does the company have a track record or is it a new start-up?
9. What is it about the company or its product that sets it apart from the competition?
10. Can the average person make money?
Especially in today’s economy, everyone needs a Plan B. Network Marketing can provide the extra income you need, but you must choose carefully.. Request the special MLM Report before you make any decision as to which company to join. Receive a free report of specific niche markets and solid products to capitalize on those niches. Know which companies to currently avoid.
Learn why the Trump name alone is no guarantee of success.
Find out why the açaí berry has lost it’s title as top antioxident in the world.
Discover a company which gives you it’s entire business for free for just trying one of their products.
Understand why a company with seemingly boring products has continued to shine for 25 years.
Learn about a company that is putting people back in control of their finances and helping the average person reduce their debt.
If you combine a topic that people are passionate about with effective products, you have a superior formula for making money. I recently discoved a video that makes a perfect follow up to my previous post. The post disusses marketing globally and finding the right products and marketing theme. Listen to what best selling author, Paul Zane Pilzer has to say about wellness:
Mr Pilzer has hit the nail squarely on the head. Wellness is an industry that is destined to only become larger. Tapping into people’s desire to stay healthy and being able to combine that with an solid line of nutrition products and a way for you and your customers to make additional income is what I would definitely call a perfect combination. The current wellness industry has only begun to tap the ever growing demand for quality products and services.
I highly recommend once again checking out the marketing page at Time to Earn What You Are Worth. Put in your contact data, see how well the system works, and receive information on a line of products that fits extremely well into the wellness theme. See how you can personally tap into and profit from this burgeoning industry.
If you prefer face to face marketing, find a good niche product with some sizzle and go for it. If you want to make money on the internet, you need an affordable product with worldwide appeal and virtually no marketing boundaries.
To achieve the best advantage for your time and efforts, additional factors come into play when you sell on the web. Consider the marketing avenues open to you. You can spend your money on pay per click and other forms of paid ads or you can spend your time on free methods such as traffic exchanges, social networks, and list builders. Either way, your advertising will be seen by eyeballs from all over the world. Here are some things to carefully consider:
Rebrandable ebooks are simple, but are incredibly competitive and are basically a one time sale
Selling services or subscriptions that net you only a dollar or two each require massive volume
Marketing intangibles such as memberships, unless there is something of true value for the customer, will prove to have very low persistency
Ideally, choosing something consumable as the underlying product will create residual income for you
Once you have chosen the product, use multiple coordinated campaigns to reach varied demographics
We recently discovered a line of products that fits virtually all these criteria. They are health and nutritional in nature so they have universal appeal. The company is in the process of adding new innovative products to the line. They allow you to market in over 200 different countries and have a 7 year track record. Importantly, they provide an entire suite of marketing tools, including websites, lead capture pages and fresh leads to help get you started. All of the tools are provided at no cost to you. To access all these benefits all you need do is try one of their products for as liitle as $30US + s&h.
You can focus on the excellent products or in these tough economic times an even stronger initial approach is to promote the ability for others to make money. Since the company has a network marketing structure, the ability to receive overrides and residual income is already built in.
I was particularly impressed with the variety of marketing tools. One of their themes is Women Empowering Women. The income opportunity paired with the existing products which appeal to women and a new very exciting product to be introduced in January make this a very powerful approach.
On a more generic approach, their Time To Earn What You’re Worth theme hits home with everyone who ever dreamed of running their own business from home.
For those who prefer lead with products first, there are also very effective product specific customer capture pages ready to go, such as the Super Immune Page. All of these pages come with a built in contact manager and auto responder system. And did I mention all these tools cost you nothing! I think you starting to see why we really like this company. But don’t take my word for it. Click on one of the bolded theme links above and experience the professional response system for yourself.
If you are among those who currently do not have a group health plan through their employer or an individual major medical policy, you still have options. Even though there is NO substitute for a major medical plan, something is definitely better than nothing. Whether you can’t afford a major medical plan, have been denied coverage, or are just seeking gap coverage, you need to read this.
The least expensive option is a discount plan. Like many things in life, what you pay is reflective of what you will receive. Discount plans including access to doctors and hospitals generally cost from $20 to $80 per month. You need to understand that a discount plan is NOT insurance. You pay a monthly fee to access health providers and other related services and are charged at discounted rate. These providers are not being reimbursed in any way. They join these networks as a way to gain more clients. The providers may include doctors, hospitals, dentists, chiropractors, eye care, hearing care, prescriptions, nurse lines, and a variety of other services. Remember, you are expected to pay the discounted fee at the time of service. Since there a discount plan is not insurance, you can not file any claims. Some plans do include a repricing service which allows you to submit a hospital bill for negotiation and a possible reduction in charges.
A minimed plan is a more expensive option ($90 to $350 cost per month for an individual). A mini-med is a limited benefit hospital indemnity insurance policy which is sometimes bundled with a discount plan. Because this is an insurance policy, the plan allows you to submit a claim for reimbursement of charges up to the limits of the policy. These are not major medical plans, but do provide a range of benefits and are guaranteed issue. If you are age 18 to 64, you will not be turned down for medical reasons. Some mini-med policies contain pre-existing condition clauses which preclude payment for 6 to 12 months on those conditions that you have when the policy is issued. Maternity may be included in some policies as a pre-existing condition. It’s always an excellent idea to read all the terms and conditions of any prospective plan or policy.
A Minimed will reimburse for of a variety of expenses to include hospital stays, doctor visits, surgery, anesthesia, xrays, and others. The primary pricing factor of a mini-med plan is the amount to be paid to you per day for inpatient hospital stays. Depending on the company, this may range anywhere from $100 to $1000 per day.
Many mini-med plans come with a discount network. You do not need to use a doctor or hospital that is in the network to submit an insurance claim, however, if you do use a network provider to receive a discounted rate, you may still file a claim for reimbursement on the reduced amount. This will save you money. To see examples of how this works go to Mini-Med Chart or for specific plans and pricing information go to Freedom Financial Solutions.
Let’s discuss marketing. One of the first lessons everyone teaches is to do your research and find a good niche product. This certainly makes a lot of sense. If you concentrate your efforts in specific areas as opposed to trying to be everything to everybody, you will always do better. When looking for your niche markets, don’t automatically go for the flashy, exciting ones. The competiton in those could be fierce. Sometimes the boring ones can really surprise you and make money.
Case in point. I have been in the financial service business for many years. My speciality was mutual funds and life insurance. As I became involved in marketing to associations a need arose to provide discount dental and health plans. To satisfy this need I created a website called Best Discount Benefits. Almost as an afterthought, I included some pages on the site for Oxyfresh dental products. The main reason was that I had been personally using the products for almost 20 years, knew them to be of excellent quality, and they seemed a logical extension to the promotion of discount dental plans. I didn’t think much more about them.
Fast forward to this year. I’ve always been fascinated by internet marketing and recently ran across an online course that looked interesting. As typical, the first step told me to do market research and find a good niche product. I spent days exploring every category I could think of, looking for that super sizzle product. Every time I thought I had something, I would do the keyword and SEO research and discover enormous competition. Then it suddenly hit me, for a couple years this really boring product, toothpaste, had been sitting on my website. I had not really promoted it, talked about it, or even thought about it. Yet, it had been quietly bringing in in sales every single month.
I was forced to take a deeper look. Yes, on the surface this was a boring product, but almost everyone uses toothpaste. Of course, toothpaste wasn’t their only product. There was also the mouthrinse, and better yet a whole line of pet products. People love their pets, and these products are used by veterinarians and pet groomers. As I read further, I realized these products have been getting a slew of media attention. Magazines, newspapers, television, and even an inclusion in the gift bags at the Oscars and the Emmy’s. A great niche product was sitting under my nose the whole time!
As a part of the internet marketing course, I created a blog, wrote a squidoo lens, a hub page, and an Ezine article. That has all been during the past month, and my orders for Oxyfresh products have doubled. Internet marketing does work and you can make money, but start off simple. Fishing for the little boring fish can many times bring you cash flow faster than hunting for the whale.
PS. For those who know a dentist, veterinarian, pet groomer, or are just intrigued by the Oxyfresh line of products, here is the link for information on their agent program.
A few words today on being cautious and using common sense. A caution flag always comes attached to the word FREE. There is always an angle. A little logic goes a long way in determining if FREE is worth it. A few examples:
1. The guy singing in the TV commercials about his bad credit and offering you a free credit report. Yes, you can get a free credit report at their site, but this is not the official free credit report site mandated by the Fair Credit Reporting Act. That is annualcreditreport.com. This site will sign you up for a credit monitoring service and start charging your credit card after 30 days if you forget to tell them you really don’t want that service. There is nothing wrong with the monitoring service, bit did you really want or need a credit monitoring service?
2. A very similar technique is used by the friendly video professor. He will send you that free advertised program and even some extra software gifts, but if you really didn’t want more software programs and are the forgetful type and don’t call in your cancellation request, you will find a monthly charge appearing on your credit card. Again, there is nothing wrong with the product, but many people will neglect to take the required action and end up paying for things that they really didn’t intend to buy.
3. Another marketing approach is charging a small amount for something of perceived value to capture your name and phone number. There are both internet and television versions of this. The real product is a mentoring package which is sold for thousands of dollars. The phone sales people are very good and will use an interview technique to “see if you qualify”. A couple offers that use this approach are a TV infomercial to make your fortune on eBay and an internet pitch called Project PayDay. The latter combines the follow-on sales pitch with the “if you don’t forget to cancel, we will start billing your credit card every month”.
4. Last but not least are the hundreds a websites offering a free gift in return for your name and email. The gift may or may not contain anything worthwhile, but be certain you are about to be offered an expensive upgrade and be added to a mailing list. Nothing wrong with this method, but you just need to understand that there is always a hook.
5. Most FREE offers make sense once you figure them out. There’s the one offering you free phone conversations anywhere in the world. When you read the details, you discover that you must listen to a short ad before each phone call. If you don’t mind the commercial, there’s nothing wrong with the offer. You know where they will make their money.
My point is always do your homework. You can find out the real story on almost anything today if you google it the right way. You must be creative in your searches. Just attaching the word scam to the search will typically lead you to more promotions of the same product or service. The marketers are getting more clever. Don’t spend your money, if the offer doesn’t make sense!
Finding money to pay the bills and to save - for most people that’s a tough challenge. Yesterday, I mentioned the Smart Consumer Group page that gives ideas on how to save money. The first item on the list is very important to getting off to a good start. It suggests that you examine every potential purchase as a want versus a need. Today for many that distinction has become very blurred. The ease of flashing a credit card and the emotion of thinking that you need it right now has contibuted to a massive amount of impulse buying. Most things really can wait. In addition to the list on the smart consumer page, make sure you scroll down to the middle of that page and download the free pdf book titled “66 Ways to Save Money“.
If you really do need something, we all know about shopping around to get the best price. The internet has vastly simplified this task. If you haven’t already discovered them, the internet has also brought us additional ways to save in the form of discount, rebate, coupon, and free sample programs. Most of these are free programs that provide you with additional savings. Some even allow you to refer others and make a bit from their purchases also. You will find some of these programs listed at Best Discount Bargains. With a little research, you will find hundreds more similar services out there.
For those who have the time and motivation, the next step beyond saving money is earning extra income. There are thousands of offers swirling around the internet. Most are full of teasers and bait and switch offers trying to sell you books on how to make money. As you probably know, the people making the most money on get rich quick books are the ones selling you the books. We will examine some of these in later posts. In the meantime, a site that can give you some initial money ideas is Best Extra Income. This site features several free and low cost ideas to consider and doesn’t force you to divulge any personal information in order to get the facts. Give it a look.
The discussion yesterday was about making a plan. The first question is where do you find the money to put towards your goals and to put that plan into ACTION. Later posts will deal with different ways to earn extra income, but let’s focus for now on how to save money. If you don’t know where you are it’s hard to set off on your journey. The best way to answer this question is to run a quick inventory of what’s coming in and what’s going out. Yes, I’m talking budget and no, it doesn’t have to be torture!
I won’t bore you with budget basics. We will just hope your income is adding up to more than your expenses. One technique that is used as a part of the debt roll-up strategy can be very helpful at this point. It is called finding accelerator dollars. This is simply examining your cash flow and spending habits to find any areas where funds can be repositioned to reduce debt. There are hundreds of great ways to create accelerator dollars. Several are listed in the link above. Specific ideas, such as how to reduce healthcare costs, can be found on sites such as Best Discount Benefits. I know many people have come up with some very creative ideas on how to find accelerator dollars. This would be a great post to add comments with your ideas.
Step one was setting your goals. You now have your destinations. You, however, are still at the departure line. How do you get from here to those various points? Any good traveler knows that you need a map. In this case your map is your financial plan.
You actually will need a map with several stops along the way, since you should have short (1-4 years), medium (5-10 years), and long term (11+ years) goals set for yourself. The route you take will differ for each. For instance, if one of your short term goals is education money needed in 3-4 years, you certainly wouldn’t want to start putting money for that goal into a long term account which charges stiff penalties for early withdrawal. Make sure the strategy fits the goal. Like goals, your plan needs to be reviewed and updated at least annually.
If you need help with initial budgeting steps and dealing with debt, there are many helpful hints at Smart Consumer Group.
Wanted to start with a couple basics to ensure everyone is on the same page before we get into specific topics. I have done hundreds of lectures over the years, many to young members of the military. When you talk to those just starting out, the foundation has to be laid before you can really start building. The most basic topic of all is goal setting. Without this step in place, the rest becomes extremely difficult. When I speak to military, no analogy has ever worked better than that of the rifle range.
Simply put, I can still vividly remember mornings at “zero dark thirty” slogging down to the rifle range and locking into position. The question for the audience is, “What if they forgot to put up the targets that morning?” If you don’t have something to aim at, it is impossible to fire accurately. The same holds true for goals. If you haven’t sat down and laid out your goals IN WRITING, you will be aiming with no target in site. You should never have just one goal. Always have several goals spread among the categories: short term, mid-term, and long term. Re-evaluate your goals on a regular basis and once a goal is accomplished set a new one. Goal setting should not be relegated to just financial matters. All aspects of life can benefit from goal setting. As mentioned in the first post, we are headed in to uncharted financial waters. If you haven’t logged your destination, STOP and do it right NOW. There is no better time. If you are married, make it a joint session with your spouse. We don’t want your ship drifting aimlessly in what could be dangerous waters.
If you prefer face to face marketing, find a good niche product with some sizzle and go for it. If you want to make money on the internet, you need an affordable product with worldwide appeal and virtually no marketing boundaries. 
If you are among those who currently do not have a group health plan through their employer or an individual major medical policy, you still have options. Even though there is NO substitute for a major medical plan, something is definitely better than nothing. Whether you can’t afford a major medical plan, have been denied coverage, or are just seeking gap coverage, you need to read this.
Let’s discuss marketing. One of the first lessons everyone teaches is to do your research and find a good niche product. This certainly makes a lot of sense. If you concentrate your efforts in specific areas as opposed to trying to be everything to everybody, you will always do better. When looking for your niche markets, don’t automatically go for the flashy, exciting ones. The competiton in those could be fierce. Sometimes the boring ones can really surprise you and make money.
A few words today on being cautious and using common sense. A caution flag always comes attached to the word FREE. There is always an angle. A little logic goes a long way in determining if FREE is worth it. A few examples:
Finding money to pay the bills and to save - for most people that’s a tough challenge. Yesterday, I mentioned the 
