Hi all,

At the time of this writing, Stephanie and I are in Quebec Cananda for a mini vacation.

This is one of the most unique cities I have ever visited, I understand why they call it the Paris of North America.

We just had lunch at a nice little Cafe' and hung out on the board walk for awhile listening to a gentleman with a French accent sing old Hank Williams Sr. country music tunes and play his guitar. That was an unusual experience to say the least.

Even though we are in another country we can still do business, because of the Internet. Last night I was back and forth via email with a gentleman who is working on our newest project. It is a 65 page ebook called MLM 2008, if you are on our ezine list you will get more detail tomorrow when we roll it out to everyone.

Back to the internet, I have been catching up on some email, and read the article below from my marketing friend Marlon Sanders. In today's marketing world "Learning is Required" and I thought you could benefit from this article by Marlon, so you can check it out below:

It is only 52 degrees here today, but quite frankly it feels good to get out of the 100 degree record temperatures we were having back home in Kentucky. 

Have a great weekend!

GUEST ARTICLE

If you’re spending all your time learning and no time doing, here’s the magic ratio to get you back on track without sacrificing critical know how

One of the members on the call said that he was spending all his time learning and no time doing. This is a trap that is VERY easy to fall into.

Now, make no mistake. A really important part of this business is acquiring skills and know how.

Just this week I hired a new designer named Frank. Frank is very talented. But I needed to put up the audio of a conference call using the Sonic Memo software by Jay Jennings.

Matt had done a Camtasia video on how to do it. But he left out crucial steps because he was trying to get a lot of instructions done in a short time span. So Frank had to muck around a day or a day and a half to get things to work right. I brought in a second person (who is working on trial) to help out.

And if you think that’s unusual, you REALLY will benefit from reading this article.

Here are 3 crucial issues:

1. Most people spend all their time learning "know how" from ebooks and courses and no time learning skills.

Learning skills like Dreamweaver and Sound Forge (for audio) are just as important as your know how in my estimation.

You don’t need to become a master. But the basics sure help. Otherwise, everytime you turn your head, you’ll be outsourcing. I’m big on using virtual assistants. I’ve been doing it since WAY before just about anyone in this industry was doing it. (I hired Lisa in Canada 5 or 6 years ago.)

But I still believe you need to learn the basics.

2. Most people waste time gaining "know how" that will be "broken" 12 months from now. The model I teach is evergreen.

It has been working for 7+ years. And will be working 7 years from now. I’m shocked at how many of my customers do NOT own "Amazing Formula" or "Gimme My Money Now." But they’ll fork over bux for the latest good-sounding whatever that comes down the pike and is promoted by a million people.

A common complaint I hear is, "I wasted money on such and such program." Yeah, you did if you bought something that breaks in a year. Money spent learning MARKETING is NEVER wasted. If nothing else, you can use that knowledge to help your son or daughter get a job, your Church get more attendees, your group expand.

3. Most people don’t balance learning and doing.

I contend you need to spend half your time DOING. And the other half learning. Even if you have no idea what you’re doing. Do anyway. You learn what it is you don’t know by doing.

So get busy. Take something you learned and go try it. It may or may not work. So? You’ll learn. Start a blog. Do a teleconference. Create a viral PDF or ebook. Do a Butterfly site. Even if it’s not the world’s best.

Here’s the thing: DOING means you’ll get frustrated with skills you don’t have. And things that don’t work. And THAT is why I say half your learning time needs to be devoted to figuring out the stuff that doesn’t work in your doing time.

So that is why I had Frank spend all that time mucking around with Sonic Memo. By the way, the program works fine. Jay has a wonderful program there. And he has support videos. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a learning curve to tweaking the audio and so forth.

Everything involves a learning curve. The good news is that in today’s world, if you spend a few hours each Saturday on your learning curve, you can knock it out of the way pretty fast.

Marlon Sanders

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Marlon Sanders is the author of "The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy." If you’d like to get on his mailing list and receive tips, articles and information about online marketing, visit:

http://www.GuruMarlon.com

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I got another phone call today at the office.  A MLM Newbie has spent nearly $700 over the last 3 months on "HOT MLM LEADS" with nothing to show for it, except a large long distance phone bill and a lot of wasted time!

It seems like I am getting more and more calls like this every month and it sickens me.

YES!  There is a time and place for lead programs, I talk more about this at www.WebCashLeads.com

However, you must first MASTER HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN LEADS IN YOUR LOCAL MARKET.

If someone tells you to start buying leads, especially if you are new…..RUN!

This course can help you!

http://www.LocalMLMLeads.com

Hello

I received an email from one of our customers in the United Kingdom.

They have found a couple of my training programs online, so I thought I would share these sites with out visitors.

The first is an audio training I recently did at the Ameriplan National Conference called “Fannies in Chairs”

You can listen here:

www.FanniesinChairs.TipForSuccess.com

Next is a video training we have available called THE GREAT AMERICAN BOX

Click here to watch
Dale Calvert's video

"The Great American Box"

This particular training is on DVD and great to give your new distributors, you can purchase this here at MLMHelp.com

Have a great week!
Dale

PS MY NEW Ebook MLM 2008 is scheduled to be released with the next few days. If you are a member of our newsletter list, watch your email box for updates!

If you've read anything about or studied Search Engine Optimization, you've come across the term "backlink" at least once. For those of you new to SEO, you may be wondering what a backlink is, and why they are important. Backlinks have become so important to the scope of Search Engine Optimization, that they have become some of the main building blocks to good SEO. In this article, we will explain to you what a backlink is, why they are important, and what you can do to help gain them while avoiding getting into trouble with the Search Engines.

What are "backlinks"? Backlinks are links that are directed towards your website. Also knows as Inbound links (IBL's). The number of backlinks is an indication of the popularity or importance of that website. Backlinks are important for SEO because some search engines, especially Google, will give more credit to websites that have a good number of quality backlinks, and consider those websites more relevant than others in their results pages for a search query.

When search engines calculate the relevance of a site to a keyword, they consider the number of QUALITY inbound links to that site. So we should not be satisfied with merely getting inbound links, it is the quality of the inbound link that matters.
A search engine considers the content of the sites to determine the QUALITY of a link. When inbound links to your site come from other sites, and those sites have content related to your site, these inbound links are considered more relevant to your site. If inbound links are found on sites with unrelated content, they are considered less relevant. The higher the relevance of inbound links, the greater their quality.

For example, if a webmaster has a website about how to rescue orphaned kittens, and received a backlink from another website about kittens, then that would be more relevant in a search engine's assessment than say a link from a site about car racing. The more relevant the site is that is linking back to your website, the better the quality of the backlink.

Search engines want websites to have a level playing field, and look for natural links built slowly over time. While it is fairly easy to manipulate links on a web page to try to achieve a higher ranking, it is a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from other websites. This is also a reason why backlinks factor in so highly into a search engine's algorithm. Lately, however, a search engine's criteria for quality inbound links has gotten even tougher, thanks to unscrupulous webmasters trying to achieve these inbound links by deceptive or sneaky techniques, such as with hidden links, or automatically generated pages whose sole purpose is to provide inbound links to websites. These pages are called link farms, and they are not only disregarded by search engines, but linking to a link farm could get your site banned entirely.

Another reason to achieve quality backlinks is to entice visitors to come to your website. You can't build a website, and then expect that people will find your website without pointing the way. You will probably have to get the word out there about your site. One way webmasters got the word out used to be through reciprocal linking. Let's talk about reciprocal linking for a moment.

There is much discussion in these last few months about reciprocal linking. In the last Google update, reciprocal links were one of the targets of the search engine's latest filter. Many webmasters had agreed upon reciprocal link exchanges, in order to boost their site's rankings with the sheer number of inbound links. In a link exchange, one webmaster places a link on his website that points to another webmasters website, and vice versa. Many of these links were simply not relevant, and were just discounted. So while the irrelevant inbound link was ignored, the outbound links still got counted, diluting the relevancy score of many websites. This caused a great many websites to drop off the Google map.

We must be careful with our reciprocal links. There is a Google patent in the works that will deal with not only the popularity of the sites being linked to, but also how trustworthy a site is that you link to from your own website. This will mean that you could get into trouble with the search engine just for linking to a bad apple. We could begin preparing for this future change in the search engine algorithm by being choosier with which we exchange links right now. By choosing only relevant sites to link with, and sites that don't have tons of outbound links on a page, or sites that don't practice black-hat SEO techniques, we will have a better chance that our reciprocal links won't be discounted.

Many webmasters have more than one website. Sometimes these websites are related, sometimes they are not. You have to also be careful about interlinking multiple websites on the same IP. If you own seven related websites, then a link to each of those websites on a page could hurt you, as it may look like to a search engine that you are trying to do something fishy. Many webmasters have tried to manipulate backlinks in this way; and too many links to sites with the same IP address is referred to as backlink bombing.

One thing is certain: interlinking sites doesn't help you from a search engine standpoint. The only reason you may want to interlink your sites in the first place might be to provide your visitors with extra resources to visit. In this case, it would probably be okay to provide visitors with a link to another of your websites, but try to keep many instances of linking to the same IP address to a bare minimum. One or two links on a page here and there probably won't hurt you.

There are a few things to consider when beginning your backlink building campaign. It is helpful to keep track of your backlinks, to know which sites are linking back to you, and how the anchor text of the backlink incorporates keywords relating to your site. A tool to help you keep track of your backlinks is the Domain Stats Tool. This tool displays the backlinks of a domain in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. It will also tell you a few other details about your website, like your listings in the Open Directory, or DMOZ, from which Google regards backlinks highly important; Alexa traffic rank, and how many pages from your site that have been indexed, to name just a few.

Another tool to help you with your link building campaign is the Backlink Builder Tool. It is not enough just to have a large number of inbound links pointing to your site. Rather, you need to have a large number of QUALITY inbound links. This tool searches for websites that have a related theme to your website which are likely to add your link to their website. You specify a particular keyword or keyword phrase, and then the tool seeks out related sites for you. This helps to simplify your backlink building efforts by helping you create quality, relevant backlinks to your site, and making the job easier in the process.

There is another way to gain quality backlinks to your site, in addition to related site themes: anchor text. When a link incorporates a keyword into the text of the hyperlink, we call this quality anchor text. A link's anchor text may be one of the under-estimated resources a webmaster has. Instead of using words like "click here" which probably won't relate in any way to your website, using the words "Please visit our tips page for how to nurse an orphaned kitten" is a far better way to utilize a hyperlink. A good tool for helping you find your backlinks and what text is being used to link to your site is the Backlink Anchor Text Analysis Tool. If you find that your site is being linked to from another website, but the anchor text is not being utilized properly, you should request that the website change the anchor text to something incorporating relevant keywords. This will also help boost your quality backlinks score.

Building quality backlinks is extremely important to Search Engine Optimization, and because of their importance, it should be very high on your priority list in your SEO efforts. We hope you have a better understanding of why you need good quality inbound links to your site, and have a handle on a few helpful tools to gain those links.

Network marketers are quick to spout off the famous quote by Zig Ziglar

“You can have anything you want in life if you help
enough other people get what they want”

However over the years at numerous training seminars I have asked these distributors to write down the name of their top 3 team members.  After they have completed this task, I ask them to write down the specific TOP 3 REASONS these people are building a business.

The response is always the same, they look like a deer starring into headlights!

Everyone understands the truth in Mr. Ziglar’s quote, but very few actually take the quote to heart and live and work daily with the goal to help others get what they want.  Those that do take this task to heart become sought after, recognized leaders within their particular companies.

Why don’t more network marketers experience what I call the Leadership Paradigm shift?

Because when you join a network market company everything about you is put to the test:

*  Your Persistence
*   Your Self Image
*   Your ability to Handle Rejection
*   Your time Management Skills
*   Your ability to Focus
*   Your Leadership Abilities
*   Your communication Skills
*   Your ability to put your pride away and  seek help
*   Your ability to maintain relationships with family and friends

And the list goes on and on and on and on some more!

Network Marketing requires more personal growth than perhaps any profession you can choose.  However it also offers more personal freedom and wealth than any other profession as well.

When you join a Network Marketing organization everything about you is tested.  These constant tests create an unusual focus on yourself and your personal growth.  This is just a natural progression of your thought processes, does this make sense?

As you begin to grow as person, learn new skills, and develop new attitudes the business ultimately becomes easier as you start to create systems that maximize your performance.

After you develop an organization of a couple of hundred of people you must realize that you have accomplished more at this point, than 90% of the people that ever join a network marketing organization.  You should congratulate yourself.  The fact that you have made it to this point proves that you have the internal make up to build a huge organization and the residual income lifestyle you are working for.

However at this point, something must happen.  The Leadership Paradigm must occur.  You must learn how to take the concentration and focus off of yourself, and place it on the development of your team members.   You probably don’t realize it at this point, but you really are over the hump.  Your income and lifestyle may not outwardly show this with a group of a couple of hundred people, but the fact is YOU HAVE MADE IT OVER THE HUMP.

The bad news is very few potential MLM Leaders have the ability to change focus from their self and onto helping their team learn, grow, and develop the skills and attitudes necessary for success.

At this point if you can focus on Zig Ziglar’s quote and develop a heart for helping people, you will have a great future in this industry.   Without the MLM Leadership paradigm shift you will probably still achieve financial success, but you will miss the 2 greatest benefits of the business.

The friendships and Relationships you develop

The true leadership and growth within yourself.

Don’t get me wrong, without the MLM Leadership Paradigm shift you will still experience personal growth, but not leadership growth.   True leaders focus 100% on helping others. 

There is a Bible verse that says “He who wishes to be great let them become the SERVANT of many”

Where is your focus right now?   Be honest with yourself when you answer this question.  Are you focused on the growth of your organization, or are you totally focused on helping your team achieve what they want?

My hope for you is that you will experience the MLM Leadership Paradigm Shift!

Dale Calvert is a self made MLM Millionaire and CEO of Calvert Marketing Group, a training, consulting, and seminar company within the Network Marketing Industry. 

Get more of his insights into the MLM Industry at http://MLM2008.Biz