You will also notice at the end of the newsletter a  place for you to leave comments and or questions please  let me know your thoughts!  Every week, It seems people take the time to send me comments and questions via email.  This should make it easier for you.

 

 

* Quick Derby Message from Dale

 

* What Night Crawlers, Magic, and Sports Collectible Have to do with Your Success

 

* Quote of the Week

 

* Video of the Week: The Principles Never Change – from Dan Kennedy

 

I am continuing to tweak the newsletter, please let me know your comments.  Thank you so  much for all the kind words regarding last week's newsletter.

 

Again, To access the newsletter:
Click Here (New: also accessible via Newsletter menu link at top of page)

 

Have a great weekend!

 

Dedicated to Your Success,

 

Dale Calvert

 

Over the years, many of you have met my little sister Christy, who is four years younger than me.  She is married to her college sweetheart, Mark and they live in central Kentucky.   Christy was a grade school teacher for several years until my niece Micah was born.  Mark started as a bank drive through teller and today is the President of the Bank, which is another story for another time.  Anyway, Christy doesn't have an entrepreneurial bone in her body, but she has always been one of my top supporters.  She has attended many of the events where I have been speaking over the years, and I have always known that she would be there for me no matter what, as I would be for her.  As we have grown older I like to feel we have become closer.

 

The story I want to share with you happened probably 15 years ago, but I am sharing this to make an important point. She called me on my cell phone, which at that time in our life rarely happened.  My initial thought was there is some type of emergency. 

 

She said, Dale guess where I am?  I knew she was in Louisiana with my brother in law at some kind of bank training, because I had talked with my Mom earlier in the week.   I said, you are in Louisiana?  She said yes, and I am in the ladies rest room at a seafood restaurant here and when I walked in the restroom there was a postcard on the vanity with your ugly mug on it.  She went on to say, I think one of your downline members must be eating here, but I don't recognize anyone.  (Some of you probably remember our postcard campaigns in the mid nineties, Drowning in Cassette Tapes, and the Hole in the Head Card)

 

She thought it was really cool that she could walk into a restroom hundreds of miles from home and find a postcard with her brothers picture on it.  Honestly, at that point it didn't surprise me.  You literally could not pull over to a rest area on any internet highway in the United States with out finding a yellow product brochure from one of our team members.  This was before internet marketing, and we had over 60,000 downline member and if there is one thing they knew how to do, it was promote and create leads for their business!   When I came into a town to do a training, I would always like to go to the laundry mats, Walmart, and other businesses with bulletin boards just to see how many bulletin board flyers were hanging.  If I didn't see pole signs, and mini billboards everywhere then the leader in that area and I would have a talk.  There was a time, when everywhere you looked, you saw local advertising for various network marketing organizations.

 

Which brings me to my main point this week ……….  ARE YOU NEGLECTING LOCAL LEAD GENERATION?

 
There was a time, before the Internet, where you saw local mlm lead promotions everywhere. Please don't miss understand what I am saying.  I believe in marketing online, and have recently just released my new MLM List Building training.  I have always believed that the internet is an addition to the proven lead generation methods of the past, not a replacement for them.

For those of you that have been around awhile, let me ask you a question. 

Have you used the Internet as an addition to Local MLM Lead generation methods, or a replacement?

I believe many network marketers have made the mistake of using the Internet as a replacement.  I have always believed that if you focus on building a strong, local organization first, your business will move nationwide and even worldwide quickly because your local team members will know an entrepreneur minded person in another state, who will know someone, who will know someone, etc.  Focusing on strong local teams first allowed me to develop over a dozen six figure earners in my home state of Kentucky and a nationwide organization from those people. 

 

What I find interesting is entrepreneurs working other business models don't seem to have ever stopped generating leads with proven local lead generation methods that  have always worked and always will.   As an industry, who convinced us to stop doing that which has always worked?  Let me give you a hint … you will find the answer here:

 

http://www.7-Lies.com

 

 

I was reminded of this yesterday on my drive home after meeting my friend at Starbucks.  We both live in the Atlanta area, but it is about a 40 minute drive for me one way.   When I was driving home, I got off the exit at I-20 and guess what I saw at the top of the exit ramp? TWO we buy houses signs.

 

 

 

This is a method we have been teaching for over twenty years.  The truth is they work today as well as they ever have and hundreds of people that have gone through our 21 Ways to Create Local Leads Course, will attest that when you place these type of signs in strategic locations your phone will ring off the hook!   Like every method, you need to understand what you are doing.  If you create a sign that generates curiosity, and always use a phone number for people to call, (Never a website) they will generate dozens of calls every week to your Local Lead box.

 This is a sign we were using in the Days of VHS
Video Tapes!

 

                        
 

 On a side note, the question newbies always ask me when I start talking about Local Lead Generation Methods is how many people will join from this or that method?  If you are thinking that please follow me closely over the next three or four sentences.

 

What is the purpose of a Local MLM Lead Generation Method or Online Lead generation method?  What is the goal?

 

THE ANSWER:

 

"To create a response,  a call, to your Local Recorded Message Lead Box or completion of a web form"

 

That is all you can expect from any lead generation method.  To expect anything beyond that is naive.  How many people actually join you in your enterprise has nothing to do with how the lead was generated.  The number of people who join depend upon several other factors, such as:

 

1)  Your ability to encourge them to see the entire story presented via webinar, DVD, or Live Event

 

2)  The cost of entry

 

3)  The confidence or lack their of , of the person who contacts you

 

4) Does your opportunity really make sense to the masses or just a small niche?

 

etc. etc. etc.

 

Ok let me continue with the story.  I got off I-20 and was heading home and within a couple of stop lights I looked up and this is what I saw.

 

 

 

A website designer offering their services with a magnetic sign on the back of the car.  How many network marketing distributors today use their car as a rolling billboard?  Why NOT?   A  few months ago I was doing a webinar for a group of distributors from a specific company and was talking about the concept of turning your automobile into a rolling billboard.  I was explaining to them that  back in the day I would get to a Super Saturday training event and it looked liked college game day in the hotel parking lot.    Our teams cars would have magnetic signs on both doors, a Lose Weight Bumper Sticker,  a company logo license plate on the front and a sun shade in the window.  Some of you may think I am exaggerating, but some of your know I'm not!   On this call I shared about a dozen ways to create local leads, and one of those was Turn Your Car Into a Rolling Billboard!  

After the webinar was over I received dozens of emails from people on the call thanking me and letting me know some of the methods they were going to start implementing immediately to create leads for their business.  I had one lady that sent me an email and of course as some people choose to do, her entire focus was on what she couldn't do, not what she could!   Her comments were something like …. I really take issue with your rolling billboard idea.  I did some research and to do everything you told us to do, it would cost me at least $90.00 and I don't have $90.00 to invest, besides I think the entire idea is tacky.

 

My response to her was the same as if she had been a personal downline member it was,  first of all, our company made License plates, magnetic signs, bumper stickers, and sun shades available to our distributors, we bought them in bulk to get them at the best possible rates for everyone.  Secondly would you rather have a tacky car, or an empty bank account?

 

You see, first of all I knew for a fact that unless you are driving a 1973 Pinto, and live in a town with 17 people,  a rolling billboard is good for 3-5 sells a month, minimum.  Secondly with the weight loss system her company sells I also knew there was a $55 profit per system for each distributor in retail profit which obviously equates to $165.00 – $275.00 in profit.   How many of you would invest $90 or less for a guaranteed return of $165.00 – $275.00 each month?

I remember a team member saying once,  if you are too cool to turn your car into a rolling billboard, that just means you check is not big enough yet.  There is more truth to that statement than most people want to admit.  Well at the very least, stick something like this on your windshield while you are in the grocery store!

 

                                         

                                            www.CMGPromotions.com 

 

It is sad to me that some people are determined not to let themselves become successful.  The fact is I share at least a half of dozen other methods on the webinar that she could implement for pennies, and a few Funded Proposal ideas that would actually make her a profit for every lead she generated.  You have to at least give yourself a chance to succeed.

 

 

I have people that contact me every month that want to spend an hour over the phone with me and pay me a $500.00 hourly coaching fee to teach them how to create leads for their business.  I never accept these people as clients, my response is always the same.  You don't need a coach, you need a course.  Then I ask them two questions, what methods have you used in the past to generate local leads?  The next question is what methods are you using now?

 

You would be absolutely shocked how many network marketers have successfully used drop cards, road signs, or whatever method in the past to create leads in their local market and then for whatever reason STOPPED, and are now looking for new ways to create leads.   As humans, why are we like this?  Why do we ever abandon lead generation methods that have worked for us?

 

I have always taught that after you properly expose your warm market and get referrals that you need to develop a minimum of 5 ways to create leads in your local market and focus on building a strong local team first.  So what 5 methods are you using right now to create leads in your local market?  Focus on your local market first then move forward from there.  The reason local market is so important is the social aspects of the business and recognition opportunities that are possible.  

 

We would have cookouts in the Summer for our team members,  a group of us may go to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game or rent a huge houseboat for the weekend.   Every Christmas we did a banquet for our team and gave out special awards for that year. 

 

Build it in your back yard first, don't go across the country until you have gone across the street.  Please don't send me emails telling me that I am nuts for telling people they only need 5 lead generation methods to build their network marketing organization!  That is not what I am saying.  I believe everyone should strive to become a MASTER at lead generation.  I also believe that with the network marketing business model it is a progression …….

* Warm Market

* Local Market

* Online & Offline Classifieds

* Funded Proposals

*  Online Leads

*  After you are full time, buy leads and do voice broadcast

I talk about thin great detail in my free ebook  The Six Dimensions of MLM Training which I assume most of you have probably read, and as  say that I realize there is a good chance that maybe you haven't.  You can download it here if you want Six Dimensions of MLM Training.  If it is on your hard drive it is worth finding and reading again!

 

Free at www.6DMLMTraining.com

 

I understand that there are a lot of network marketers who have been taught to do it all online.  I believe you have to match your prospecting and lead generation methods to your market.   I have written about this in the past, but I will make this my final point today.

 

Over the past few years internet marketing, affiliate marketing, and network marketing opportunities have kind of all been lumped together, but in reality they are 3 separate business models.  Network marketing companies have moved away from calling their distributors, distributors, and some even call them affiliates which does nothing but compound the confusion.

Network Marketing is ultimately about developing people.  It rises and falls based upon field leadership.  It always has and it always will.  So ultimately everything you do is about helping people become the best leaders they can become.  To do this you must focus on more than developing skill sets and lead generation methods, mindsets are even more important, and like many have neglected local lead generation methods, leadership mindset training is quickly fading away as well.

Internet Marketing and Affiliate marketing has always primarily been about list building and lead generation.  Unfortunately that somehow distorted into  teaching people to call themselves home business consultants and start teaching people how to do something you have never personally done as we talk about in detail in The 7 Lies of Attraction Marketing.

 

You are starting to see a trend toward what I call "All Inclusive Marketing Systems"  Some of these programs combine the best of Internet Marketing & Network Marketing and combine them together.  The challenge with these type of systems is finding products and services that offer real value to the end user.  However ALL INCLUSIVE MARKETING SYSTEMS is something I am sure we will be talking more about in the near future.

So the first question you need to ask yourself is what is the business model I am working, and don't confuse or lump the three.  The second question is what skill sets and mindsets do I need to maximize my production.  If you are involved in network marketing, don't neglect local lead generation, and I guess that is the main point of this article.

Don't neglect local lead generation, you owe it to your team to show them how to build locally.  We need to teach network marketers how to MARKET online, offline, and locally with the ultimate goal becoming a lead generation expert.  If you do this one then I am sure someone hundreds of miles from your home town will call you, and say something like XYZ company isn't that who you work with?