It has been a very, very long time since we held a live meetup.  The last one was held in 2010.

We may hold a live training event this year – but if you would like to meet Martin and I in person, you’ll have a chance shortly!

Here’s the deal:

When you make Ambassador with ViSalus, you walk across stage and go through a ceremony to recognize the achievement.

We will be gong through that ceremony this next month – February 24th and 25th -  in Kansas City, MO. 

So if you are in the Kansas City area, or if you want to come over and hang out, we’ll be there.

This invitation is open to ALL HBSA students, clients, and newsletter subscribers.  We’ll be available for questions, feedback, or just hanging out.

If you wanted to get more information about ViSalus, this is a great opportunity!

If you could care less about ViSalus, but want to get some answers from some people that walk the walk every day, this is a great opportunity!

If you want to just hang out and have some laughs, this is a great opportunity!

The event info is below.  I believe tickets are like $25/ea (that’s to get into the ViSalus event – if you just want to hang out with Martin and I then it won’t cost you anything).

We’d love to meet as many HBSA students as possible there – we always have a blast at these things! 

Other News

We have had 7 members of our team now qualify for shiny new Black BMW’s  They worked their TAILS OFF to accomplish what they did, and we are SO proud of them. 

We have had a few people now say we are not focused on HBSA anymore, that we’re “only growing ViSalus”.  The truth is, we are more focused than ever on HBSA.  We have huge plans in store for 2012, and working on some very exciting projects to help people succeed even faster! 

We have had students (for years now) that have wanted to work with us in a network marketing opportunity, and we are very proud to be able to offer that now.

We have the majority of HBSA students that want to focus on THEIR opportunity – which is fantastic!  If that’s you, then I would encourage you to take note that you are working with a system that works.

When we launched ViSalus, we didn’t “swing a downline over” or any shenanigans like that.  It was all brand-new enrollments, using the strategies and techniques that we teach every day.

We wanted to make a point, and send a very clear signal to all the haters and doubters out there – THIS STUFF WORKS.

So we used exactly what we teach…

We started from scratch…

And we broke 4 company records, built a 7 figure distribution channel inside of 30 days, and have helped people on our team see REAL SUCCESS. 

We’re not bragging at all – we just use techniques that work.  Techniques that YOU can leverage just as easily as we can.

2012 is going to be a great year for people who choose to learn the skills, apply them, and get results. If you’re reading this, I hope YOU make the choice to be that person.

For the negative Nancie’s that like to complain, find excuses, whine, and blame – 2012 will just be “another crummy year”.

Here’s my vote:  let’s work TOGETHER to make 2012 a winning year for you!  And if you’d like to start that journey by meeting us in person, here’s where that can be done:

Event Location:

February 24 – 25

Kansas City Convention Center
301 W 13th
Kansas City, MO 64105

Event Lodging: Special Room Rate at adjacent hotel Marriott Kansas City Downtown

Marriott Kansas City
200 West 12th St.
Kansas City, MO 64105

Call Today (816-421-6800 800-810-0850) and Book Your Special Room Rate (Must Mention ViSalus): $144 Cut off 2/1

Reservation Link: https://resweb.passkey.com/Resweb.do?mode=welcome_ei_new&eventID=8133440

FRIDAY
Regional Directors and Above ONLY
6:00pm-7:00pm REGISTER
7:00pm-10:00pm TRAINING
RD Training costs $10
(cash at the door per person)

SATURDAY
General Admission
8:30am-10:00am PRE-REGISTRATION
10:00am-6:00pm REGIONAL SUCCESS TRAINING

For more information, click here.

Big thanks to everyone who attended last night’s webinar – it was awesome!

Below is the recording of the webinar, as well as some additional resources to help you out.  If you have any questions, post ‘em up in the comments below!

Below is a document we have put together for you to help you get a move with your online campaigns.  Enjoy!

Yeah...laser focus!

Many home-based entrepreneurs talk about multiple streams of income. It’s a concept that dazzles – having streams of a word picture that shows money flowing in from all over the place.

There’s merit to it – and I recommend it eventually.  If you’re just starting out trying to be successful, let me introduce you to your most powerful ally:

Focus.

Focus makes all the difference in success.  It’s one of the key determinants between those who succeed and those who fail.

Distraction is your enemy.  Avoid it.  Run from it.  Have no tolerance for it.

Focus is what makes the difference between a candle and a laser.  One cuts through steel – the other gets snuffed out.

For you – your business – you want to be a laser.  A highly-magnified, powerful, light with a singular focus.

As you go about your day, set your objectives, set your focus, and hold yourself ruthlessly accountable.  And you will succeed.

You don’t meet too many people with 150,000 people in their downline.

But Mark Comer is one of those rare people. Not only that, he’s established himself as a serial entrepreneur, and has developed several other business ventures that make him millions every year.

In this rare and candid interview, he shares his perspective on the factors that have led to his success, the pitfalls he sees aspiring entrepreneurs fall into, and discusses why he considers himself an accidental guru.

Check Out Our Interview With Mark Comer

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Get Mark’s Book Here!

Thanks for all who participated and made this a great teleseminar.

Now – take the info…and make it happen!

Check Out The Replay (once you click play, please wait for the seminar to start)

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It’s a brand new year of exciting opportunity here at HBSA!  To kick things off proper, we want to invite all students to join us for a very special teleseminar, where we’ll help you develop a blueprint to ensure you hit ALL your objectives and goals in 2011!

All the details for the teleseminar are on the HBSA FanPage.  See you there!

I see way too many networkers fall for this pitch.

“Hey, come buy some FRESH, double-verified opportunity-seeking leads!  These people are VERY interested in starting their own home-based business.  They are practically ready to jump into the first business they see!”

Not true.

I’ll first explain why these leads are a pure rip – and then I’ll explain the proper way to grow your business with leads.

Because we’re not against lead-getting.  We love leads.  Leads are a very necessary part of growing your business.

But these lame-o opportunity-seeking gigs are not the way to do it, for several reasons:

1. Price

Most of the time, these types of leads are sold for $5 – $30 per lead.  If you are buying leads, you should never pay more than $0.25 per lead.  Ever.

2. Positioning

These leads have been generated by someone else – not you.  Which means that someone else is getting the positioning – not you.  Which means that these leads won’t convert as highly as your own positioned leads would convert.

3. Exclusivity

Most of these types of leads are sold – and resold – and resold – and resold again.  Each person that buys them is told that they have “exclusive” access to them…but not really.  By the time you get to them, the lead has been called by four other hungry marketers, all claiming that they have the BEST opportunity.  Now, you have to not only close your prospect on your company, but also un-close them on the other four opportunities that they just heard about.

4. Mindset

Allegedly, the mindset of these leads is that they are looking for a hot opportunity.  In reality, most are looking for a job.  They are wanting a way to earn money RIGHT NOW.  Network marketing is a residual-income compensation structure – which means you get paid tomorrow on the work you do today.

So what happens when you put a person who needs money yesterday into a program that is designed to pay out over time?  They quit. The result is that your downline becomes a constantly revolving door – new people in, old people out.  Not the best way to structure a long-term business.

I could go on, but you get the drift.

So how DO you grow a business with leads?

You either buy targeted leads, or you generate your own.

Let me ‘splain it you:

1. Buying Targeted Leads

You should first target your leads based on the benefits of your product/service.  Now, you may be saying “NO! I need business builders!”  Yeah, I know.  Of course you need business builders.  But you also need product users.  If you signed up 500,000 people, all of whom were just business builders who didn’t use the product/service, you’d have no residual income.

You need business builders AND product users, and if you lead with the benefits of the product/service first, then you avoid many of the pitfalls that befall motivated-but-uneducated marketers that get brainwashed into thinking they can build an empire with a bunch of biz-op seekers who have no interest in the product or service.

So list out the benefits of your product service – what does it do for people?  Does it:

Save them money?

Help their alopecia?

Let them communicate better?

Provide great travel deals?

Give peace of mind?

Alleviate joint pain?

Improve vision?

Remove wrinkles?

What does it DO?  The answer to this question will fill in the “what are my benefits” blank.

Now that you know what benefits you offer, you can then go find lead brokers who have leads that fit your profile.

Let’s run through a couple of examples:

Say you’re marketing a beverage that helps improve energy.  Your profile could be:

Men and women between ages 30 – 50, who have been diagnosed or sought treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome or depression, earn over $40,000 per year, have a credit rating over 650, and have inquired about a home-based business in the last six months.

This is a much more targeted profile than your run-of-the-mill biz-op seeker.  You know they have a need for what you have – and that they are actively seeking a solution.  You also know you can help them, and you can bet that if they love our product, they will probably be one of your best business builders because they are truly passionate about what they are marketing.

Let’s try another.

Say you market a telecom program – people sign up with your company, and they get to sell their products (including video phones).  A simple profile could be:

Men and women between ages 40 – 60 who have children that have gone off to college in the last year, earn over $40,000 per year, have a credit score over 650, and have inquired about starting a home-based business in the last 6 months.

Again – look at the targeting.  Now why would we want to target people who had kids go off to college?  Well, if you have a video phone as one of your products, then they’ll probably be interested in seeing their wittle Joey’s cutsey-wutesy face in between all his classes instead of just getting his lousy text messages.

The key is targeting based on the benefits of what you have.  Now, you can go shop some lead brokers to see if they can help you out.

When dealing with leadbrokers, you need to understand that their job is to sell you leads – as many leads as possible.  There are several snakes out there, but also several quality guys as well.

Here’s a couple of keys when negotiating with lead brokers:

1. Don’t pay over $0.25 per lead.

2. Buy as few as possible on your first batch. If they work out, you can always get more.

3. Have realistic expectations.  Some people think that they should sign up everyone on their lead list, and it ain’t gonna happen. The stats you are looking for are a 12% – 20% connect rate, a 3% – 15% response rate, and a 15% – 30% close rate.  It basically means you’ll be signing up 2 – 5 people out of every 500 leads you purchase.   That may not look great, but let’s look at the numbers:

At $0.25 per lead, you paid $125 for your 500 leads.

If your average commission is $75, that means you made yourself $150 – $375 in immediate commissions, not to mention the residual income.  It’s a profitable, sustainable way to grow a business.

For leadbroker recommendations, you can just Google “lead brokers” and interview them to see if they can help.

Here is a link to our lead broker – we actually buy them in bulk from our broker, and provide them in smaller buys.

What if you don’t want to buy leads from a broker?

No problem - just generate your own.

This strategy is about using targeted advertising methods to generate leads that are positioned for you specifically.  This is our favorite way to grow a business.  It’s predictable, simple, and fun.  I’ll probably write up a full post on this in the future, but for now, you can just go here and download our free report on the subject.  We talk about how to add 700 reps into a networking business, and doing it with targeted marketing methods and strategies.  Enjoy.

Thanks for those of you who participated and helped make this an awesome teleseminar!  We had a great time putting it on.

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Give us a shout on our Facebook wall – let us know what you thought about it!

Network marketing is, at it’s core, just affiliate marketing with a residual income compensation and re-seller option.  That’s all.

So what’s affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is just selling something that you don’t personally own for money.  Let’s say you’re a real Mac fanboy.  Let’s say you want to make money promoting Mac.  An affiliate program allows you do to be paid when you give them exposure, and that exposure results in business.

Easy concept, right?

You like something.  You promote it.  People buy it.  You get paid.

This type of model is win-win.  The company gets to leverage other entrepreneur’s marketing efforts.  The entrepreneur gets to make money by simply marketing – little-to-no fulfillment cost, headache, customer support, etc.

Affiliate programs have been around since the dawn of man.  They are not new, novel, or remarkable in their structure.  The difference in a good program and a bad one is:

Terms

Payout

Product

For terms, we are talking about how the parent company treats their affiliates.  What do they provide for support?  How committed are they to helping their affiliates succeed?  What tools and training do they provide?

For payout, we’re talking monies.  How much?  What percentage?  For how long?  Some programs pay out for an initial sale, and that’s it.  Some pay out for the life of the customer.  Some pay out low percentages (we consider anything below 15% to be low).  Some pay out high percentages (we consider anything above 50% to be high).

For product, we are talking about what they actually provide you to sale.  Do they have multiple products?  One single product?  How good is it?  Doesn’t do any good to sling a crappy product that gets refunds/chargebacks.

We don’t like the word “expert”, but we do have a fair amount of experience in affiliate marketing, and we earn a good chunk of change every month in affiliate commissions.  We categorize two types of affiliates that exist:

Network Affiliates

Direct Affiliates

Here’s the breakdown:

Network Affiliates

These are people that take offers that are compiled in a network, and promote them.  This is pretty basic – you sign up for a network, pick some offers, and start sending traffic to them.  If people take the required action, you make money.

Some networks require that you have a sale generated.  Some networks just want a lead.  Some networks want a zip code.  Whatever it is, you target the traffic, and make money when the traffic takes the desired actions.

Some decent networks are:

Neverblue Ads

Copeac

Max Bounty

Clickbooth

The big thing with a network is finding an Affiliate Manager that will help you out.  Many are completely useless.  Some are worth their weight in gold.   They will tell you what’s converting, what’s not.  They may well lie to you.  It’s a fact – affiliate marketing is dirty.  Finding people you can trust in business is key, so if you want to succeed in this environment, build good relationships.

So the way this works is that you sign up – they ask you what traffic you have.  If you have no traffic, then you really don’t bring anything interesting to them.  If you’re brand new to affiliate marketing, work on building traffic first (diet traffic, business opportunity traffic, travel, anti-aging, whatever).

The key is choosing an offer (or group of offers) and a traffic channel (PPC, SEO, Facebook, whatever) and make it work.  Many, many affiliates throw some traffic at an offer, don’t make money immediately, then try something else.  They burn their budgets, and go home broke.  The thing is, nearly any offer will work on any traffic channel, and nearly every offer WILL NOT WORK AT FIRST.  We have never had an out-of-the-box winner.  You have to work with it – test your landing pages, bids, presells, etc.

Direct Affiliates

These are affiliates that partner directly with a company or product/service provider.  They don’t use a network as a go-between.  They find a specific product or service, promote it directly with the company, and work with the company to do so.

With network affiliates, they typically specialize in a type of traffic, and throw offers in front of it.  With direct affiliates, they choose an offer, then build traffic around it.   There’s always more than one way to get it done, but that’s the path that we’ve used and it’s worked well.

Personally, we prefer the direct-affiliate approach. It’s where we’ve had more success, and we like the model better.

Now what does any of this have to do with network marketing?

Network marketing is just affiliate marketing with two twists – a resellers option, and a residual income compensation plan.

With a residual income comp plan, it means that you get paid tomorrow on the work you do today.  It should be viewed as a long-term investment.  Most affiliate programs are set up to pay out a commission on a sale. Network companies take those commissions, cut them down and distribute them over longer timelines.  That’s the first twist.

The second is the reseller option. You can recruit resellers, which means you can build a people-based sales channel and be paid on their work.  Compensation varies depending on company, but they typically reward the acquisition of both product users and resellers (business builders as they are called).

So what kind of business do you want?

There’s no wrong answer to this question.  The challenge is that some people get involved with a specific type of program or company, and never evaluate their needs.  Do you need money like yesterday?  Well, a residual income compensation plan probably isn’t the best choice for you, as it’s set up to be a longer-term investment.  If you need money starting yesterday, I suggest you read this post on how to make legitimate money online {fast, free, and fun}.

Do you want a business where you get to interact with others?  Don’t choose an affiliate program, where all you do is hide behind your computer and type all day.  Do you hate interacting and communicating with other people?  Don’t choose network marketing, as you MUST communicate with people on a regular basis verbally and in written form to succeed in that line of work.

The Game Plan

After you decide which type of business you want to promote, the next step is to make it happen.  The steps look slightly different depending on which approach you take.

Affiliate Marketing (Network)

Find a network, choose an offer, and start giving it traffic.  Test, optimize creatives.  Make money.   Pester your affiliate manager (they love it, really).  Ask questions all the time.

Affiliate Marketing (Direct)

This begins with finding a program to promote.  This is easy.  If you already have something that you use and love, call ‘em up and ask about their affiliate program (many companies have them in place).  If they don’t, tell them to get one.  Strike up a deal.  We do this – if they are a newer company, they may not have an affiliate option, and you’ll get to set your own terms.  Not a bid situation

Still having trouble?  Find a niche you have an interest in (diet, business opportunity, software, exercise equipment, whatever).  Do a google search for:

“keyword related to niche” “affiliate login”

So let’s say you wanted to promote some exercise equipment.  Here’s how it would look:

Now let’s say you wanted to promote organic milk.  Here it is:

Did you eat some fungus that finally helped with that Crohn’s disease?  Great – promote some fungus:

You can modify the search so that it just looks up “affiliate” in lieu of “affiliate login”, but you get the idea.  There are plenty of ways to find products for any niche (no matter how bizarre or unusual).

Network Marketing

If you want to roll with network marketing, it’s easy to find a company.  Check out NPROS.com, as they have a huge master list of network marketing companies and their descriptions.

Still not sure?  Check out this teleseminar we did on choosing the right networking gig.

We get a lot of questions from people asking why we don’t talk more about network marketing specifically.  The reason is that to become a great network marketer, you must be a great marketer.  Companies come and go.  Opportunities come and go.  But being a great marketer means you have a skill-set that will serve you in up and down economies, and regardless of what individual business opportunities and their leadership teams choose to do.  A skill-set is what is important – and it’s the only security in a very insecure world.  It pays you regardless of what company, opportunity, or service you are promoting. It serves you in up and down economies.  And NOBODY can take it away from you