Cellphone Plan Home Business

I must admit, I’ve been around block on Network Marketing. I had a brief encounter with Amway back in the 1980’s – but that doesn’t even count. Since then I have tried other Network Marketing companies, including HerbalLife, EcoQuest, and ITV Ventures.

For a variety of reasons, none of these worked. The most significant of those is that I am not the type who can work the “Warm Market” or use the “3 Foot Rule” with any effectiveness. I’m not sure anyone can actually use those with any degree of success. I suspect the few that are really successful in those network marketing companies I left behind knew a lot of things about marketing I didn’t.

At any rate, I had turned my back on Network Marketing as recent as 18 months ago. It wasn’t until I stumbled across Lightyear Wireless that I gave it another try. What was different this time around?

Well lots of things really. Mostly my mindset. But the most important thing that brought me back was finding a Network Marketing company that actually worked. This time I have a product that everyone uses! You can read my thoughts here at this blog. You can browse back to October 2008 which was shortly after I joined.

That is a common phrase you hear in Network Marketing. It’s usually the upline telling that to the downline, assuring him or her that they won’t have to twist arms to sell the product.

But can a product really sell itself? Is that really possible?

Yes and No. No for most products. Something somewhere is doing the selling. It may be viral, it may be word of mouth, or it may be a large marketing campaign. But until a product becomes a household name (like Coke or Glad Wrap) it will not ’sell itself’. In the cases of household name product, yes they probably do sell themselves but only after the company has spent decades to build their brand name.

Network marketing products generally don’t fall under the category of household name products. They generally don’t have that kind of name recognition. Generally they will not sell themselves. The IBO will have to sell the product.

So can a product ever sell itself? Yes! Lightyear Wireless is rare exception to this problem that many network marketing companies face. The product (cell phones and cell phone plans) are indeed everyday items and in most case, people don’t need to be ‘introduced’ to them. That’s not to say that everyone is going to buy Lightyear’s phones and plans, but at least everyone will know what you’re talking about.

I was speaking with a neighbor the other day. She has been out of work for nearly 8 months and spends most of her week trying to find a job. Her search has gone from looking for that ‘dream job’ to looking for ‘any old job’.

She tells me she spent around 35 hours last week looking for work including the time she spent driving to and from places. That’s a significant chunk of time, I thought to myself. She is spending just about the equivalent of a full time job just looking for a full time job (that may or may not be something she likes). At this point, with job availability being at an all time low, she is most likely to end up with something marginal or else a terrible job that she’ll just end up hating.

I suspect she is typical of people looking for work right now. Looking for scarce jobs takes a lot of time, not to mention effort and energy. What if these people could take that same time and energy and pour it into a home based business? In her case, 35 hours per week would let her build a strong network marketing business fairly rapidly. Most people who start a network marketing business only do so part time, but a full time endeavor can bring you a full time income. So if you’re spending 30+ hours per week looking for job, have you thought about putting that effort into a home based business like Lightyear Wireless instead? Wouldn’t it be time better spent?

We’ve probably all been told to have a business plan and stick to it. How many times have you been told about the importance of a business plan? Do you just ignore the advice and go about your business simply because this is network marketing? Maybe you feel that because it’s network marketing, you don’t need a plan? Maybe you think, oh well, the company has the plan so I don’t need one.

Well if you want to differentiate yourself in your company, then you need a business plan to guide you. People tend to think, oh no, a Business Plan, that sounds so formal and awful, etc. But here’s a little secret; it’s doesn’t have to be formal. While there are formal business plans, it really can be anything. It just has to be written down in a document somewhere on your computer. I say document on your computer because it needs to be something you can edit and change as time goes on.

Another misconception about business plans is that they are fixed. The fact of the matter is that a business plan should be changed as your strategies change. Maybe something you planned to do last year no longer makes sense. I try to make a habit of revisiting my business plan at least once per year to add to it and make any changes to it.

Another thing about a written business plan is that by its very nature, it’s something you commit to writing. Committing something to writing helps solidify any ideas you might be having about your business. Furthermore, the act of writing helps you to clarify them. Often we think about things in abstract terms, but the written business will help you to put those ideas in absolute words and give them further clarity.

So don’t be afraid of a business plan; it’s a tool for your business and one that you should look at as something in your business toolbox.

Party plans are those get togethers at people’s homes where the product is demonstrated live. The party is a sales opportunity for the company’s products and there’s no better to way retail the products. That’s because the product(s) is sampled at the home party. This gives people hands on experience with the product before they buy it.

But not every network marketing company can benefit from party plans. Party plans or home parties are best suited for products that have a “WOW” factor. Products that have instantly recognizable benefits are good candidates for a party plan. Products that have more subtle benefits don’t do so well. Skin care products do well in home party plans and certain other products do as well.

For example, I have been to an Ecoquest home demonstration. Ecoquest makes those Fresh Air air purifiers. The demonstrators brought an onion with them. They cut a piece off the onion. They told me to hold out my hand and they smeared onion juice all over the back of my hand. Then they told me to smell the back of my hand – which obviously smelled like onion. Then they had me hold my hand in front of the Fresh Air for 45 seconds. And then they told me to smell my hand again. WOW …no more onion smell. That product had WOW factor and it was well demonstrated. I ended up buying a unit on the spot but did not join the business side.

The party plans work best for items that few people use. Other business like my Lightyear Wireless has little to show in home parties. I mean who needs to see a demo of a cell phone? I suppose some people might but the attraction in Lightyear is having just a great product that everyone uses. Party plans can be great for retailing the product. Retailing the product can bring in quick cash flow and some of those people might later want to be in the business.

Network Marketing is one of the few industries (some people will argue it’s not really an industry, but that’s the only word I can come up with now) that offers both Residual and Passive incomes. Both of these kinds of incomes are superior to the “time for money” type of incomes you might get with a job. What are they and how do they differ?

Residual income is income you get long after you already done the work for it. A real world example of this would be recording artist. They get paid long after they’ve done the actual work to make the recording – sometimes for decades after.

Passive Income is income you earn by doing little or nothing at all. A real world example of this would be a sports star who lends his name to a product for promotion purposes. He hasn’t really done any work – but he’ll get paid usually on one some ongoing basis for the use of his name.

You might be saying: But I’m not a recording artist or a sports star! That’s ok because network marketing usually offer both of these advantageous income types. If your network marketing product is sold with an Autoship option, that means you get paid long into the future for one sale. This is residual income because you do the work once and you keep getting paid long into the future. Passive income can be found in your network marketing team building. Presumably your team is doing work; bring in customers and building their own team. You will get paid on their efforts! Both of those criteria can be met with Lightyear Wireless.

Passive and residual income are both far superior to ‘paid by the hour’ income. When you are paid by the hour, you are simply trading time for money. And time is something that there never seems to be enough of. Often when you are working a low paying job, money is also in short supply. Trading time for money and not making enough money – that doesn’t sound good does it?

So we are very fortunate to have network marketing where both types of income are present. With some work and dedication you can build both passive and residual income streams in network marketing.

According to a recent article from the Dallas Morning News, AT&T plans to hike their early termination fees for contract customers on Smart Phones:

AT&T is drastically increasing the fee it charges smart-phone customers who want to escape two-year contracts ahead of schedule. The early fee will jump from $175 to $325, effective June 1. Anyone who renews a contract or signs a new contract for any AT&T smart phone, including the iPhone, or 3G netbooks will be subject to the higher fee. Existing contracts will not be affected.

That price is only $25 short of doubling! We are seeing a clear market shift to prepaid wireless plans in response to sour economic conditions. To be fair, AT&T is only picking on Smartphones here; they are actually lowering the fee for basic phones by $25. However, this illustrates that the telecom carriers are clearly having to scramble to turn a profit as the market shifts to pre paid plans. This discussion is mainly aimed at the iPhone which has a new version coming out next month. And at some point in the near future, AT&T’s exclusive contract with Apple will expire. At that point, Verizon may carry the iPhone too!

Source

Lightyear Wireless prepaid plans

It seems to me that the Network Marketing is heavily loaded with supplement based companies. These would include things like weight loss products, body-building supplements, and of course, various nutritional supplements. When you remove these companies from the list it seems there are not that many left.

What list you ask? Well I don’t know of a truly comprehensive list but this one at MLM Consultant comes pretty close although I see a few dead ones in there so it can’t be 100% current. It says its edited quarterly, but I see SeaSilver on there which went out of business in 2005.

I wonder why the supplement industry is so heavily represented in MLM? I think the supplement market is huge and has been huge for a while. Along with “huge” comes lots of demand but also lots of competition. I have often thought the competition level in the supplement market was a bit too heavy and I think it’s showing some strain under the present economy.

In our present day economic conditions, you will want a network marketing company that offers a product and/or service that people will use in spite of economic conditions. This makes many of the supplement products somewhat dubious now. When people start cutting back on basics because they can’t afford to have anything but peanut butter and crackers for dinner, they are not going to want to spend $50 on a supplement. I would suspect supplements are one of the first things to drop off the shopping list when times get tough.

The other day I blogged about the Lightyear Wireless exciting new Mifi product. Mifi is short for Mobile Broadband Internet. One thing I didn’t mention is that you get 5 Gigs of data with the monthly allocation for data. What exactly does that mean?

If you aren’t a techie you may not know what a “gigabyte” and even if you know what it is, it may not mean much. A gigabyte is about one billion bytes. Ok fine you might say, what good does that do? And you would be correct to ask that. So what does a gigabyte get you when applied to Mobile Broadband Internet?

Let’s put it in perspective to everyday usage. You can upload about 10,000 photos, download about 1,667 music tracks, and download about 7 full length movies. Now those are the heavy bandwidth consuming tasks. Most people don’t download an entire movie. But if you want streaming video and want to watch a whole movie on Netflix for example, that does not download the entire video. Only sections of it at a time and it’s far less than downloading the whole movie. Light bandwidth usage like email is not even worth talking about (you can send over a billion emails with a 5 gig limit). You can browse about a 2 million web pages. Frankly, most internet usage falls under light bandwidth usage.

So 5 gigs per month really goes a long way. The Lightyear Wireless Mifi does support 5 users so you can put the whole family on it. However, the more users you put on it, the more bandwidth that will be consumed. So if you have a heavy bandwidth user in your household (like a teen who downloads music tracks all the time), you may want to consider giving them their own Mifi device.

Lightyear Wireless Mifi

I was speaking with someone the other day about the Lightyear Wireless home business opportunity. She was answering an ad. While I was explaining the structure and compensation plan in brief, she said: “Oh this sounds just like that Amway”. I have heard that before too. It seems everyone holds up Amway as an example of Network Marketing. Or sometimes especially lately it seems they hold up Mona Vie as an example of Network Marketing.

I’m not sure if that a good thing or a bad thing, but it’s a shame that someone’s concept of a network marketing company would be defined by one or two companies. There are lots of network marketing companies out there and almost no two are similar, much less alike. Every company has to have something very unique to make it stand out or it won’t last long.

She did not enroll by the way. Sometimes you can get past the objections and other times, not. It is also worth mentioning that both Mona Vie and Amway are still in business. And last time I checked, they were still doing well.