by Debbi A. Ballard, MLM Consultant and INLC President copyright, 2003, Debbi A. Ballard All rights reserved.

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The one decision that can make or break your MLM/network marketing business is this?

PICKING THE RIGHT COMPANY.

Time and again, I see networkers who work hard (and smart in many ways) but they?re frustrated because they are NOT achieving their goals. When I speak with them about amount of due diligence (?homework?) they did in researching company and evaluating their own priorities in what they wanted in an opportunity and what they wished to achieve, I often discover that there was little research done. What resulted was?

THEY ENDED UP PICKING THE WRONG COMPANY!

What do I mean by this? How do you know that you?ve picked wrong company?

You know you?ve picked wrong company when you?

1) Feel little or no passion about your product offering. In fact, you?ve never bothered to learn more about products other than brief descriptions your company may have supplied in brochures. People who have a passion for their products are eager to learn everything they can about development, benefits and features of products. They learn what competitive edge products have in comparison to similar products on market. They want to share news about products because, first and foremost, they have a genuine belief in them. In addition, they know that knowledge is power in sales process. When you have inquisitive customers, you?ll know how to respond so that sales won?t be lost.

Time and again, when I speak with leaders in various MLM companies, they are people who are extremely passionate and knowledgeable about their products. Don?t ever let anyone tell you that in this competitive environment, consumers buy all products and services based strictly on emotions. Think about it. Is that how you make all your purchasing decisions? It simply is not true.

2) You have few or no retail customers. This results when passion for your products is just not there. It also results when a company promotes its opportunity to you as building volume by ?just buying products for yourself each month and getting others to do same.? This is nonsense and has been extremely harmful to networking community. This type of promotion puts company AND its distributors in legal jeopardy.

Understand that regulators look at retail sales as most important factor in evaluating legitimacy of a network marketing company. Are you going to succeed with a company that may not be on firm legal ground because it diminishes importance of retail sales? Do you even want to associate with such a firm? This leads to next issue.

3) Your company has unresolved legal challenges. MLM companies fall under an array of legal requirements at federal and state levels. If you are working with a company that has had past legal challenges, you should check to see that they have been resolved. If you company is facing current legal challenges, keep informed. The company should be willing to respond to your questions and/or concerns. You should also try to find out if there are any serious legal challenges against firm?s principals that could affect company and your endeavor. Unfortunately, we have had some individuals who had engaged in unethical and/or illegal activity in an MLM endeavor, and who had gotten stopped by a regulator only to resurface years later to manage an MLM endeavor in same unsavory manner.

An astute MLM company will address legal issues with its distributors to help them stay within ethical and legal guidelines. The best way is to educate distributors through training programs and support tools (books, tapes, etc.). Remember that you are running a business and also need to be informed of these issues since you, too, are held accountable to government authorities for your networking business.

It is important to be aware of fact that there have been legitimate charges made against networking companies and certain distributors BUT there have also been claims made by regulators who totally misinterpreted compensation plan or their own states? statutes. Also, as you probably know, because of high costs of prolonged litigation, an innocent company may sign off on an agreement just to avoid these expenses. It is extremely important that your MLM company has legal counsel knowledgeable about our industry. (Typically an attorney who specializes in our industry is preferable, particularly when it comes to scrutinizing compensation plans, policies and procedures, and networker agreements.) It is wise to ask management name of legal counsel being utilized to advise company. Then check up on firm?s knowledge, experience and reputation.

HENCE, BE CAREFUL NOT TO PREMATURELY JUDGE A COMPANY ?GUILTY? WHEN IT IS UNDERGOING LEGAL CHALLENGES. HOWEVER, DON?T WORK A COMPANY?S PROGRAM IF IT IS IN BLATANT VIOLATION OF FEDERAL AND/OR STATE LAWS. (For example, you certainly don?t ever want to be accused of promoting a pyramid.)

Traffic alone, however, does not make a site successful. By "connecting dots" between your marketing programs and end results, you can improve performance. Ultimately, site success depends on how well your site performs with respect to your goals. Measuring actual results against those goals tells you how well your site is succeeding.

Have a Plan

Whatever your Web site goals, a marketing plan helps you better meet them. By including two or three general strategies to meet each goal as well as *specific* programs under each strategy, you are better able to evaluate and improve upon performance.

For example, let's say you make high quality, custom-made scarves and wish to sell them regionally:

* A Web site goal could be to begin selling scarves online and achieve "x" amount of sales in first six months online.

* One general strategy for meeting that goal could be to get site known locally by fashion conscious ladies in your community.

* A specific program to support this strategy could be to hold a contest on your site, with prize being a free, customized scarf. To promote contest, you could issue a press release, which you send to fashion editors, etc.

By taking this funnelled approach - planning down from broad goal to specific program - you are better able to evaluate how well each program supports (or fails to support) your goals.

From start - when you are developing your plan and deciding upon site structure - think about how to measure performance. Measures will differ, depending upon situation, but should be both quantitative and meaningful with respect to helping you improve site performance. Choose a set of measurements that tell you not only how your marketing programs are working but also how well they support Web site goals.

Evaluate Marketing Programs

In order to evaluate a marketing program's success, first decide your objectives. Then, most importantly, "connect dots" between those objectives and your site goals. Later, when analyzing program results, evaluate not only whether program succeeded in meeting objectives, but also how well it moved your business toward its Web site goals.

It is possible to meet a project objective while failing with respect to site goals. A frequent example is traffic generation programs. I often read stories of a business participating in "hit" programs with disappointing results. They reach "hit" objectives, but move closer to site goals.

Consider Return on Investment (ROI)

One way to evaluate marketing project results is through a Return on Investment (ROI) analysis. The ROI is a computation that tells you how much you got back compared to what you put into a project. You can express ROI in terms of a dollar amount or as a ratio. Either way, formula itself is simple.

The dollar amount formula tells how much you increased profit in total dollars as a result of project:

(Cost savings and earnings as a result of project) minus (Dollars invested)