HBSA

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!