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.

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.

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.

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.

Most indicators hint toward an ongoing recession. Unemployment is still up, spending seems stable, but rather fragile and the Fed is toggling rates again. Of course now there are global issues adding to the problems. Is this bad news for network marketers?

No! Actually economic downturns are a great time to get into network marketing. It’s times like these where downsizing and layoffs occur at a more rapid rate. People begin to get tired of the layoffs or fear of layoffs and what seems like an endless cycle of hiring and firing. It’s in times like these they are more receptive to the idea of starting their own business.

They may have had the idea on the ‘back burner’ for several years now, but when the economy goes south, suddenly the idea surfaces again. Your leads and prospects may be more ‘ready and willing’ to take on the responsibilities of a new home-based business under these conditions. There were will always be those who are just willing to ‘wait it out’ until companies start hiring again. Get a McJob until they can find something better. But there will more of those who will want to strike out on their own.

Since the current recession started, Lightyear Wireless has grown exponentially. So ‘recession’ may be a dirty word everywhere else. But in Network Marketing, recession presents new opportunities and you can think of it as your friend!

Not only are jobs getting more and more scarce, but the quality of the existing jobs is rapidly diminishing. We’ve already heard about pay cuts and forced furloughs recently. I read recently in my local news that Boeing is cutting back drastically on tuition assistance for its employees and that Group Health Co-op is eliminating vacation accrual for the remainder of the year.

Benefits used to be one of the main reasons for taking a job. But now even that advantage seems to be disappearing. I held on to my job long after I should have let it go just to keep the health care benefits. Now I pay my own health care premium and of course I get no vacation accrual although I can take off whenever I want. Oh and of course there’s no tuition assistance for me either, but that’s something I can write off if ever choose to return to school.

The point is, working a job is becoming less and less attractive. Not only are they paying less now, but they are giving fewer benefits. I expect this trend to only increase and drive up people’s interest in starting a home based business. People are going to find fewer and fewer incentives to go work for someone else. And starting their own business is going to look more and more attractive. I hope that anyone who reads this will consider a network marketing home based business such as Lightyear Wireless. Network marketing is a business that has a low cost of entry and a high income potential. And the biggest benefit is being your own boss!

Network marketing is often compared to the franchise model of doing business. Is that true? Yes and No. In a franchise, you pay a fee to join a company. For this fee, you to get to use their name and branding efforts. You also get some training provided by them.  Franchises also grow their business (in part) by adding new franchisees. These are similarities to the network marketing model.

But the differences in costs between the two models are huge. Start up costs for even the most expensive network marketing company are dwarfed by the start up costs for the cheapest franchise!

Yet with those similarities, I never hear anyone saying a franchise company is a scam. I never hear anyone say that about McDonalds or Subway (they might say other things but they don’t call them scams). Yet you have a lot of people who claim that all network marketing companies are scams and no one but a few make any money from them.

People who are anti network marketing often cite the so-called high rate of failure in network marketing as a reason to question the business model. Yet there are failures in franchise businesses too. What’s the difference? The start up investment!

It’s much easier to walk away from a network marketing company if you’ve only plunked down $100 for example. It just isn’t that much of an investment for most people. On the other hand, it’s not that easy to walk away from a franchise business. If you’ve plunked down 1.5 million dollars on a franchise business, you’re not likely to just turn your back on it. You will try very hard to make it work. You will be very certain before you even spend that kind of money.

So the very thing that makes network marketing so attractive (its low cost of entry) also contributes to its reputation as a high failure business model. Failure really isn’t the right word; quitters is a better words. People just quit network marketing because they claim they can’t make any money. But there is usually an underlying reason why they “can not” make any money. That reason is usually they are not taking their business seriously.

So even though you may only pay $100 to get into a network marketing business, treat it like a million! Take it seriously and you will earn serious income from it. Speaking of that, you can join Lightyear Wireless for less that $50. Click Here to Learn more about Lightyear Wireless.

Before I joined Lightyear Wireless, I spend some time probing Network Marketing opportunities because I feel by now I can ‘probe’ without letting my emotions get carried away and ask the right questions; the tough questions. One of the questions I asked has to do with Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition. Those are two the biggest hurdles for people who join Network Marketing businesses (or for just about any business for that matter).

How to get me to lose interest really quickly? I posed the following question to a certain distributor in a certain NM company who will go nameless.

What tools and advantages does [NM company] offer in the way of (a) Lead Generation and (b) Customer Acquisition?

It’s a rather open question but yet it asks about two specific things. Here is the dance around I got.

Is it going to take work ..yes it is. Am I going to tell you that it is going to be easy…no I won’t. This company has:

The Integrity I am looking for
The product I was looking for
The leadership I was looking for

Either this company is “for” you…or it is not. I knew…after doing the research “on my own”…that this was the company for me. I did not wait for anyone to feed me canned information…stuff they thought that I wanted to hear. I could easily do that here…but I will not. Do the research Ross. If [NM company] is not for you…I wish you well on your journey for the perfect company. If it is what you are looking for…I welcome you with a hearty hand shake and a promise that I will work as hard as you do on your business.

I never replied to him. I don’t remember asking hime about whether it would be work or not. If he can’t directly address my two points, then I am left to assume there is nothing new in the Lead Generation and Customer Acquisition areas of this NM company. If all he can do is paste what is probably a template response, then I am left to assume this just another old school NM company without anything new to bring to the table.

This conversation occurred over two years ago and I found it when clearing out some old email. But it gives a valuable lesson in answering a direct question. If someone asks a direct question; answer it directly. If they ask a general question, then you might be able to get by with answer like that one above. Otherwise it ends up sounding like a song-and-dance routine.

It also bears mentioning that this person is no longer with that NM company. As far as I can tell, he has changed companies twice since then. So if you are on the receiving end of a scenario like this, who will you trust more? The person who can answer your direct question or the fly by night song and dance person?

If you have been on the receiving side of a network marketing person trying to get you onboard, did he/she remind you of an auto salesperson? In old school MLMs, the most successful network marketers were aggressive and treated their prospects a lot like customers coming into a car dealership. Personally I hate car buying. The culture is manipulate, manipulate, and manipulate until the person has signed the next four to six years away. Any person coming into a car dealership is considered fair game as long as they have some credit.

Unfortunately a lot of network marketers still operate in that mode. Think about how many times you hear from your car salesperson AFTER you drive off the lot. A lot of network marketers do the same thing: get someone to sign up and then move on; never checking back with the person again.

Fortunately there is a new wave of network marketers which I consider myself part of, that does not operate this way. A prospect is not shopping for a car to me. They are looking for a way to make money either on the side or full time. They are looking for a way to solve their problem (needing to earn extra money or move away from a job, etc) and I am here to help them do that.

Maybe I can help them, maybe I can’t. Smart network marketers will say no to the prospect if they don’t feel they are a good fit. The reason for this is that if the prospect signs on, he or she will be someone who will need guidance and contact well beyond the initial sign up. The prospect needs to be someone the smart network marketer can work with, not just a 1 time bonus.

Click Here to Learn more about Lightyear Wireless