Hello HBSA,

I hope you’re having a great day!

First, we wanted to make a couple of announcements.  Then, we have a special lesson for you!

1. HBSA Stand Down

Twice each year, HBSA does a stand-down, and it’s that time again!  There will be no live Q&A calls starting Dec 19.  All normal calls will resume the week of January 2nd, 2012.

This is a fantastic time to get ahead in your studies.  Many people take it easy during the holidays, which means OPPORTUNITY for you!  The support desk and mentoring team will still be available to help you, so if you need a hand just let us know!

2. Is HBSA Going Away?

In the last couple weeks, you may have heard that we joined a new opportunity.  We did, and in response, some students have been asking if HBSA is no longer a priority to us.

I’d love to address this question.  The answer – NO WAY.

HBSA has been, and probably always will be a core focus of what we do.  We love everything about this company, and nothing is changing our vision or deterring us from that.

The prospect of having HBSA join a specific opportunity, and invite others to participate with us, is a new one.  The reality is, Martin and I are always working on additional projects.  We just don’t make them public to all the student body here at HBSA.

We’ve been involved with many different ventures in the past, and will be in the future.  Some of those will be made available to HBSA students if they’re congruent, and if they’re not, they won’t.

We’re as committed as ever to what we do – helping people learn real direct-response marketing that really works, and helping people understand how to leverage the power of the tools and strategies that we use every day.

So if you joined us in our new opportunity, that’s fantastic, and we’re looking forward to a crazy ride!  If you didn’t, no worries at all!  WE will be closing the opportunity this week to focus on our current team, and to get back to business as usual at HBSA.

3. . What’s Up With This New Opportunity?

We made the decision recently (like, 7 days ago) to join a new network marketing opportunity.  It was the first time that we haveallowed HBSA students to participate with us directly in an opportunity.  We started by putting out a video (here) asking for some feedback on the concept.  The response was overwhelmingly positive.

Next, we reviewed hundreds of different companies – their compensation structures, their leadership teams, their organizational charts, their markets…you name it.  There were so many great companies out there that is was very difficult to make a decision. But, we had to make a call, and we chose to begin working with a company in the health and wellness space.

You can check out the reasons we joined that particular company here.  But here is the first week in review.

- We joined last Tuesday.

- Within 15 minutes, we qualified for their first level of accomplishment

- Within 90 minutes, we qualified for their BMW car incentive, and the position of RD

Within 48 hours, we qualified for National

Within 72 hours, we qualified for Presidential

Above that are the levels of Ambassador.

In that timeframe, we broke 3 company-held records, and were 5 minutes off breaking the 4th. And we did it all without swinging over a previous downline – they were all-new signups.

Two members of our team also qualified for their BMW’s, and we have several that are close!

So – it was a good week!  We are very grateful for everyone who participated and helped us make it happen.

A Big Lesson

When we first started talking about joining a program, some students asked us to use this as a platform to teach – to show people what we do, howwe do it, and why we do it.

We have already published a few videos (here and here) that show some of that process.  This is another VERY important lesson that I would like to convey to you.

Database Power

One of the tools we suggest to all students is Sendpepper (or any email marketing tool).  We get some blow-back from time to time from students who think it’s a waste of time. They don’t want to spend $25/mo for some email marketing tool.  Which is fine – it’s a free country, and everyone can grow their business as they choose.

But this is exactly why we recommend it:

There is NO WAY we could have gained as much traction as we did – as fast as we did – without a powerful email tool and a adatabase.

As you generate leads, you are building a database. In the online world, a database is one of the most important assets you will ever acquire.  Do you think we could have broken 3 company records had we not developed and used a database?  No way.

We use exactly what we teach every day.  When we approach any business-building opportunity, we also build databases – lists of people who are looking for something.

So as you are building your business, think in terms of building assets – of building databases.

We’ll be sharing the additional lessons-learned (the good and the bad) as we continue this journey!

WEBINAR REPLAY FROM TUESDAY NIGHT…

Hey there! 

Are you ready to join the Body By Vi Challenge, and the HBSA team?

If so, here’s all you have to do:

1. Follow this link:  http://hbsa.bodybyvi.com

2. Select “join the challenge”

3. Select if you want to join as a customer or a promoter (we recommend promoter

4. Select your country

5. Select your Challenge Kit

And you’re done!

If you have any questions or need any assistance, you can email us at support at hbsaonline dot com, or call 847-380-5022.

Thanks for joining our team!  We look forward to working with you personally!
Did you miss the big announcement?  Check this out about ViSalus

Click Below For The Big Announcement!

Click Here For The Webinar Replay!

Due Diligence Resource

1. Dial this #: (507) 726-3700 option 1 then 1

2. Watch this 25 Min Presentation Video:  The ViSalus Overview

If you want to dig into a bit more, here are some other videos worth reviewing and additional tools for use versus the top 2:

Recent Quarter 3 Results of ViSalus 2011 (Talks about this year’s growth trends)

Top Ten Reasons Networking Leaders Love the ViSalus Compensation Plan (Simple Compensation plan video for those with Network Marketing background)

A ViSalus Business Plan (on a NAPKIN!)  (Explains the simplicity of our Duplication System)

A video that RJ did for one part of his organization (explains why this group & business is unique in a fun way)

The Visalus Compensation Plan (PDF)

Visalus Comp Plan Videos

And in case you want to do some deep due diligence, click here

A recorded audio message regarding ViSalus & Healthclubs  

A  News Reporter comments on ViSalus -  Body By Vi Challenge 

Visalus Home Page

 After watching the video, please post up your comments below!  We’d love to hear your thoughts

Lol. 

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.

When life is hard, it’s a challenge to be grateful for anything.

I’m not sure why this is so, but I do know that it is in fact true.  When people face challenges, they tend to forget the many blessings they have in their life that they can (and should) be grateful for.

No doubt, 2010 has been a challenging year for a great many people.  Overall, I think it’s been a year of reflection and analysis.  People are starting to ask questions about some of their previously-unquestioned assumptions, and many have had to rethink their ideas about fiscal management, priorities, security, health, and other personal concerns.

I have no idea what kind of year you have had.  If you have had a particularly challenging year, I’d humbly offer you this quick video about the power and purpose of challenges.

Next, I would like to give you some ideas of what you can be truly thankful for.  The truth is, you ARE blessed and fortunate in ways that many others are not.  Here are some things for which I am personally quite grateful – I hope it inspires you and gives you the ability to discern those things in life for which you can be truly grateful.

You can be thankful for:

• Your spouse
• Your children
• Your parents
• Your home or apartment (it’s prolly a lot better than THESE PLACES)
• Freedom to worship and follow religion as you wish
• Craigslist
• Cell phones
• Facebook
• Chick fil-A
• Crossfit (Oh yeah!)
• A brain to think what you wish
• Ten fingers
• Ten toes
• Two eyes that allow you to see the world
• The ability to communicate (albeit less than perfectly)
• Relative safety from tyranny
• Ability to start a business whenever you want
• Ability to grow hair
• The fact that you don’t suffer from these terrible diseases
• Ability to invest in other people any time you want
• The sun (people where scared to death of a Nuclear winter in recent decades
• Ability to choose how you want to live your life
• Printers (you used to have to do a LOT to get something printed)
• Ability to read (literacy is a huge blessing – many people still cannot read)
• Ability to discern truth
• Opportunity to enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables even though you didn’t personally grow them
• Opportunity to rely on a machine to wake you up in the morning (what did people do before alarm clocks?…)
• Opportunity to buy someone else coffee
• Choose when you want to go to bed
• Ability to enjoy coffee, tea, milk, beer, and other delicious beverages
• Ability to walk (many cannot)
• The opportunity to vote for your elected officials
• Ability to cut and style your hair how you want
• Opportunity to have a pet
• To see the sunrise
• To see the sunset
• To watch video at Youtube.com for FREE
• To live in a country in which others are willing to die to protect your freedom
• Indoor plumbing
• Electricity
• You can drive wherever you want
• You live in a country that has law
• Ability to choose where you want to live (yes, it is a choice)
• Ability to dance (even if it’s poorly)
• Opportunity to drive in just about any direction and find a place to eat relatively quickly
• Ability to learn a musical instrument
• Teeth.  If you have them, you should be grateful for them
• Sobriety.  Many people fight their whole life to remain sober
• Ability to choose your own entertainment
• Humour.  You can laugh at whatever you want
• Shoes.  Many don’t have ‘em
• The opportunity to be a feminist
• The opportunity to make fun of feminists
• Refrigeration.  It wasn’t that long ago that ice was a novelty
• The opportunity to forgive other people.  Yes – it’s an opportunity
• The opportunity to watch children learn.  If you don’t have kids, there is no shortage of children that need people to invest into them
• Ability to speak your mind, regardless of how educated or not-so-educated your opinion may be
• A way to earn money income for yourself
• Taste.  Many people can’t taste their food -  can you?
• Ability to write. You can fire up your own blog at Blogger or WordPress if you were so inclined.
• Ability to learn how to ride a motorcycle (and crash it)
• Opportunity to get books for free on Paperback Swap
• You don’t depend on a currency with 98% daily rate inflation (like Zimbabwe did)
• You didn’t have the misfortune of being memorized by Jim Jones
• You have the opportunity to open a Google Adwords account
• You have the opportunity to get Google slapped
• You can sleep (many cannot)
• You have bones that don’t break when you walk
• You don’t lose control of the “waste removal” organs of the body at inopportune times
• You can enjoy Skype
• You can improve the relationships you have with your existing friends whenever you want
• You have relatively clean water to drink
• You can learn from the experiences of others without having to make their mistakes
• You have clothes to wear
• You can twitter about whatever you want
• You can find a lost family member
• You can discover how to make your body perform better
• You can be hopeful (yes – it’s an opportunity)
• You can give an unexpected gift whenever you want
• You can learn something new every day
• You can choose to marry whoever you want
• You can go climb a mountain if you want
• You can choose to invest yourself into the lives of people who feel they aren’t worth it – and show them that they are
• You can inspire others to action
• You can choose to do things – ALL things – in an excellent way
• You can remember good memories
• You can make good choices for the future
• You can set goals – and achieve them
• You can help old people feel like they lived a valuable life
• You can help young people learn how to live a valuable life
• You can choose to live a valuable life
• You can learn from challenges
• You can inspire others by overcoming challenges
• You can choose to not make the same mistake twice
• You can choose to be honest
• You can choose to be vulnerable (and yes, you will be hurt, but it’s worth it)
• You can choose to share your knowledge (others would pay you for it)
• You can choose to live for something bigger than your own vainglory and comfort
• You can choose to love others well
• You can choose to DO something that helps others in a way in which they cannot help themselves
• You can make a choice.  And yes – making a choice is an opportunity.

Enjoy your day.  Live it like it’s on purpose

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