PARIDIGM SHIFTS, RESPONSIBILITY, & NETWORK MARKETING...Written by Thom Reece
PARADIGM SHIFTS & RESPONSIBILITY... © Copyright 1998-2005 Thom Reece All Rights Reserved
"...one of marks of a paradigm shift is that what used to be considered peripheral, moves to center stage." (Thomas Kuhn)
What Thomas Kuhn is talking about, in quote above, is a perfect example of major paradigm shift that has occurred in peoples relationship to WORK. A paradigm can be defined as a commonly held belief . When I was growing up in Midwest it was a paradigm (a commonly held belief) that road to a happy life was to: - get a good education,
- get a good job with a big corporation
- keep your nose clean
- retire in 20 to 30 years with a secure income for life.
That belief in corporate America's willingness and/or ability to "take-care" of us, is no longer valid. Anyone still holding on to that old paradigm is headed for great disappointment and failure. The only person you can depend on to take care of you in future years is person you look at in mirror in morning....YOU! No government, no company or benevolent corporation (now there's an oxymoron) is going to be there for you. Major underlying shifts have been occurring in economy of America and world. Corporate downsizing, layoffs, offshore production, government realignments, shifts from a manufacturing/hard industry economy to an information and service systems economy with all accompanying displacement in work force, NAFTA, WTO... list goes on and on. All of these trends form a checklist of reasons for you to be taking ACTION today to assure your own financial well- being and security. I am 60 years old....I do not expect Social Security to be around when I need it. The agency may be there (impossible to kill a bloated federal bureaucracy) but it will bear no resemblance to agency that has provided for our parents. The benefits to us will be a fraction of what it should be... filled with means testing, qualifiers, etc. that did not exist in previous years....and will not provide even a bare subsistence income.
| | CHANGES IN RECRUITING PRACTICES FOR NETWORK MARKETERS...Written by Thom Reece
© Copyright 2004-05 Thom Reece All Rights Reserved Three conditions now exist which will change way we solicit and recruit new MLM downlines forever... ONE: The CanSpam Act will bring mass email based recruiting efforts to a screaming halt. The risk, frankly, of being accused of sending spam is just too great. Violators of Act can be subject to stiff criminal penalties, which include fines and up to five years in prison. Civil damages can amount to as much as $250 per spam e-mail. Aggravated violations can cause civil damages to be tripled The days when we could buy a list of thousands of "opt-in" business opportunity seekers, plug them into an autoresponder follow-up system, and wait for system to do its magic are drying up fast. If you are currently using a system of buying bulk business opportunity leads from anyone... and loading them to your autoresponder system... you are playing a game of Russian Roulette. The only way to insulate yourself from very real risk of being charged under Can-Spam Act is to generate your own double opt-in leads. There are too many unscrupulous lead vendors who will promise you that leads they sell are "opt-in" or "double opt-in"... when in fact they are neither. You have no way of knowing... so why risk bankruptcy or jail. Some of major lead generation companies are already leaving business. Those who remain, are forced to restructure how they generate and qualify those leads. Most are necessarily turning to a telephone verification system...which drives price of lead much higher. TWO: The growing aggressiveness on part of ISP's to use very restrictive filtering systems that toss out huge amounts of legitimate mail. Messages, which do not pass some arbitrary screening process for words and phrases, are summarily discarded or thrown into some "bulk mail" file. Time Magazine estimates between 40% to 70% of all email is dumped (filtered) BEFORE anyone receives it. 27% of all permission- based email never arrives in recipient's mail box. The undelivered rate of email today is staggering...and getting worse. Even legitimate newsletter publishers, with sophisticated "double opt-in" subscription systems, are complaining about non-delivered mail that is filtered out by a third party (ISP's). They are paying for a service that they are not getting (email delivery), and I fully expect some lawsuits to be filed on this issue soon. THREE: Plummeting "open" rates. Tons of email that is delivered is simply discarded by person receiving it because they are getting so much mail that it is overwhelming them. The very real fear of computer viruses also has played a major role in reducing "open" rate. According to eMarketer.com and Opt-in News 2003 open rate for ezines in business-to-consumer category was a shocking 31%. This means that 69% did NOT open something that they opted-in to receive. The result... effectiveness of email marketing systems... measured by sales, profits, and conversions, are dropping like a rock.
"This is not about divorcing ourselves from technology, and all benefits it has to offer... it is about building a comprehensive and synergistic approach to recruiting and downline building which recognizes, and uses, proven methods of multi-media direct-response advertising."
What's answer??? Well, one solution, in addition to refining our web based recruiting efforts, is a return to old "tried & proven" offline methods, that many of us have gotten away from for past few years,to generate our own lead base... - Targeted direct mail
- Offline classified advertising
- Offline display advertising
- Coop post card decks
- Publicity
- Other effective direct-response advertising.
NOTE: All of these methods can be either "stand-alone" recruiting systems... or involve driving qualified traffic to a presentation website which has a lead capture mechanism built-in. This allows for an interested prospect to educate and identify themselves and request information and follow-up. DIRECT MAIL Targeted Direct Mail especially, is a wonderful tool for MLM distributors to both sell product and recruit and train new team members. A common complaint, among those who are interested in using direct mail, is learning curve involved in creating effective copy and offers, list selection, etc. In other words... direct mail requires some expertise to be effective. It's amazing that, whenever a problem or a need exists... someone comes along to fill that need. Such is case with producing high quality, MLM focused, direct mail... Here is a claim made by a new downloadable product which promises: "Now, in only 3 ½ Minutes You Can Quickly and Easily Create a Sales Letter Guaranteed To Recruit More Distributors and Explode Your Business... Without Writing! Click here for additional information- [ http://tinyurl.com/4qem4 ] . THREE KEY FACTORS... Remember that three key factors that affect profitability of any direct mail effort are: To be sure...there are other variables and factors that are important to success or failure of a direct mail effort... but key three are list, price, and offer. If you need to polish up your skills in area of direct response marketing you would do well to subscribe to several of major publications in field: i.e. Target Marketing Magazine, DM News, Direct, etc. Also, Direct Marketing Association provides tons of great information. You'll find them easily by doing a search on Google search engine.
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