Everybody knows that building a downline is hard work and that steady residual cashflow is not immediate. It may take months to years of dedicated work in building strong relationships and sponsoring people to eventually generate enough income so you can walk away from the daily business building activities and retire to the MLM lifestyle.
In the meantime, networkers must spend a lot of time, money and energy promoting themselves, and their “solutions” to attract the right prospects. For most people, money is the major issue. They need money to pay for their monthly autoship, for advertising, for the long distance phone calls and other overhead.
So what’s the solution to this money problem? Is it the “Funded Proposal”? There are quite a few people who say that it is a great way to generate “instant” cash and even make a substantial profit while you build your network marketing business for leveraged income. But is this really true?
There are ALWAYS two sides of the coin…
For those who are not familiar, a funded proposal in the “attraction marketing” circles, is the front end sale of a low cost generic “how to” information product that will benefit the people in your target market.
The best target market for a network marketer are other people already in network marketing or are familiar with the concept. That’s why you’ll find a lot of network marketers on the internet selling, or trying to sell information products (in the form of books, ebooks, audio or training videos) or generic lead generation systems to other network marketers.
I do believe in the concept of the funded proposal. Used effectively in your marketing funnel, the leads who purchase the information product you’re selling are potentially the best prospects you can get, because they are seeking your solution on how to be more profitable in building a business from home. Plus, it puts a bit of money into your pocket to cover some of your recurring costs.
When you get a prospect who purchases your information, the next step is to pick up the phone and see how you can really help the person on the other end of the line and establish a trustworthy relationship. That’s the only way you can sponsor people into your business.
Here’s my concern about how some people are using (or abusing) the funded proposal concept – the other side of the coin…
Funded proposals are causing people to lose focus. They turn their focus away from building relationships and sponsoring people, and instead they put a lot of time and energy into promoting several affiliate programs. Instead of picking up the phone and calling their leads, internet networkers are simply bombarding their list with promotions.
What this means is they’re trading long term leveraged walkaway residual income for short term profits. Affiliate programs don’t provide you with leveraged residual income like that of downline, even if it’s a monthly subscription that you’re promoting. To make more money, you always have to keep finding new customers.
I don’t know about you… but I’ve found that marketing affiliate programs on the internet is pretty hard work. Especially now that “everybody” is doing it, which means you have to work harder to differentiate yourself from the multitude of novices spamming the internet with affiliate products.
You could spent a lot of time, money and energy promoting multiple affiliate products and not get any return. Wouldn’t that wasted time and effort be much better invested in developing relationships with people in your target market? After all, your business IS relationships.
I can hear you say “There are people making tons of money promoting hundreds of different affiliate products!” Yeah, there are those people. But let me ask you this: “How’s that working for you?”
People join REAL people in this industry, not some marketer that just wants build a huge list, stay at arms length and shove more “how to” information down their throats. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s NOT network marketing.
Your best bet is to focus on your long term success. Use a well chosen affiliate program as a funded proposal if necessary. But please, get on the phone and build relationships.
To your MLM success,
Wayne Wu
P.S. I would love your input! If you have an opinion that would contribute to this discussion, please leave me a comment below.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Good work Wayne.
It’s great to be able to sit back and enjoy an article.
You have nailed it.
Mantaining focus and your eye on what your ultimate goal is can often become a daily battle for entrepreneurs. thank you for reminding me.
Pete
Hey Pete,
Welcome to my blog and thanks for the encouragement.
For some, the money can’t come soon enough and I can empathise with that, especially in current times. But you must continue building that solid foundation, or you’ll be peddling for a long time to come.
What makes a solid foundation in this industry are the relationships you build with like minded people.
Cheers,
Wayne
Wayne you’re on point with this post. While I too understand and use the funded proposal, it can take our focus away from our primary purpose of establishing and building relationships. We d need to remember that we are network marketers and the focus should be on people.
-James
.-= James Hampton´s last blog ..Network Markerters – It’s All About Your Value =-.
Wayne,
Good, sensible stuff!
I’ve had excellent success with funded proposals, but they have to be driven by intelligent strategy and reliable technology, so that they add to your leverage and multiply your results, not distract and diffuse your focus and energy. Any affiliate income streams involved should be as automated as possible and complementary to your core business — your primary MLM opportunity.
These are the principles I apply to my own funded proposal concepts, like this one, just released last week: a FREE, 7-page Special Insight Report to find more qualified, informed and eager prospects with little or no effort from you!
http://viralleads.info/nmreport (download it at no charge).
John
John Counsel´s last [type] ..Recorded interview with George Fourie of thatMLMbeat.com
Very good point. I’ve never understood this before but now I’m working on completing my first funded proposal. Your article should remind me that no matter how clever and valuable the information I have, personal relationship is still essential in establishing a solid network of team partners. I will incorporate personal training (constant follow up by audio or video form and if possible face to face interaction) with every written materials my business partners purchase from me. Without a training workshop those materials will sit on their hard drive like a book collecting dust when nobody motivates them to pick up, read and put the information into action. A book is only useful to a student when guided by a teacher.