Find Your Marketing Strength - Part 1

There are hundreds of different ways to market your business both online and offline. While it's good in the beginning to test out various types of marketing, you'll eventually going to want to focus on how you market best.

Finding your strength in marketing is going to have a huge impact on your business. You'll be able to spend your time focused ONLY on what works, instead of scattered in a various directions.

Also, when focused on just two or three different forms of marketing, you are able to gain the maximum benefits from those forms. When your focus is scattered, you aren't going to benefit near as much.

Let us give you an example. Let's say you are good at writing articles, and they have proved to help your business. Not just "alright" at writing, but you can write several articles a day without problems. You spend half your time on the articles, and the rest of the time doing "busy" activities that aren't beneficial to your business. Had you spent all that time on articles, how much further would your business be right now?

Here's another example. You enjoy learning about search engine optimization, but haven't quite fully learned it just yet. Instead of learning more, you throw a few keywords on your website then move on to something else. Will just a few keywords help? Absolutely not. Instead of focusing on that form of marketing, you've only done a small part thus making it almost a pointless task.

Before going any further let us say this - there is NOTHING wrong with seeking out new forms of marketing. However, most marketing is not a "quick fix" or a "set and forget". It takes time to make any form of marketing work in your favor. But if you don't enjoy it nor focus on it, it's never going to work for you.

Also realise there are certain "basics" to any marketing plan that you are going to need to learn. Websites, newsletters, and some imvolvement in communities (we say "some" because "full" involvment is a marketing form all on it's own) are all things you must do.

Bottom line is - marketing is just like chosing your business. Success comes with passion and ability to focus. Now that you understand this, in part two we'll discuss some of the various ways to market and why focus in each are important.

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Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank, owners of DirectSalesHelpers.com strive
to help women succeed in direct sales. For additional help with your direct sales business, visit http://www.directsaleshelpers.com.

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Stop Being Lazy and Run Your Business

by Kara Kelso and Anita DeFrank
http://www.DirectSalesHelpers.com

This may be harsh words, but they need be said. Over the past few months we've noticed an epidemic of laziness. It needs to be stopped!

Let us explain a little more.

Quite often we see a post on a group or message board for someone looking for free advertising. Nothing wrong with that I suppose, we need all the exposure we can get on our sites. Not paying anything for it is even better. These posts are always followed by a slue of "me too". Again, this is understandable.

Now here's where the laziness kicks in.

In the past few weeks we've made some posts in search of link exchanges, articles, submissions, and partner exchanges. In other words, free advertising in exchange for several sites. The response? Slim to none.

What happen to all those who wanted free advertising? Did the word "in exchange" scare them away? If it did, then that's a shame. They all had the perfect opportunity to promote their business, but passed it up because in required them to do something. Something other than handing over their link of course.

Even worse, you tend to see the same people asking same questions on many boards. Questions such as "how do I promote my business?" or "I need to advertise, where do I start?". The answers are written all over the place, yet they aren't being read. Either that or it's being ignored because "it looks too hard to do".

Everyone seems to want that magical way to drive hundreds of visitors and sales to their site, without spending the time or money. Let's put this to rest once and for all - there IS no easy way to build your business. It takes time and/or money to build a solid buisness. What's more, no one is going to do it for you.

So while it may sound harsh, get to work! Put those suggestions and ideas for promotion to work. Get more involved with projects others are asking help for. Don't spend all day surfing boards looking for the easy way to succeed. The only place you are going to find success is within yourself!

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Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank, owners of DirectSalesHelpers.com strive
to help women succeed in direct sales. For additional help with your direct sales business, visit http://www.directsaleshelpers.com

Is Lack of Focus Holding You Back?

There are no shortage of marketing ideas out there. Online and offline, there's literally thousands of ways to promote your business. Although if your focus isn't on any of them, how will you succeed?

We admit it - we're guilty of having focus issues. When a new idea or business comes along, it's hard not to get excited. You drop what you are doing and get right to work on it. Unfortunately that excitement fades within a few weeks, and you are back to square one. Before you know it, there's tons of unfinished projects and half-way promoted businesses.

Lack of focus is holding you back.

Here are some tips to help you stay focused:

- Set Goals
Give yourself goals or specific things you want to accomplish before you stop on any given project.

- Set Hours
If time is an issues, set specific work hours. Don't go anywhere between those certain hours. Even if it's just 3 hours a day, it's something.

- One Project/Business
Instead of splitting your focus among many businesses, keep your focus on just one or two businesses or projects. Do whatever time allows you, not just what sounds interesting at the time.

- Wait a Week
If you spot a new business that sounds interesting, don't jump on it. Focus on your original business for awhile. If it still sounds exciting a week or two later, then it might be something worth giving a second look.

There are other ways to keep focus, but these are just a few.

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Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank, owners of DirectSalesHelpers.com strive
to help women succeed in direct sales. For additional help with your direct sales business, visit http://www.directsaleshelpers.com

Free Start Up vs. Kit Requirement

Some people won't join a company unless it's free to join. To be very blunt, you're better off without them on your team. These people are what some might call freebie seekers. Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with this. We all love a freebie, right? However, this really isn't something you need on your team. Why you ask?

When someone isn't required to invest at least a little bit of money, then they're also not required to put any thought into it either. I mean after all it's free, what's the loss? Since there's no need to invest any money, there isn't any. So they jump in head first without learning anything more than the "free sign up" only to find out later that the company isn't a fit after all. And think about this ... How many free companies have you joined simply for the discount? When you join a company for the discount, you really don't have any interest in marketing the business at all, do you? Now keep in mind, this isn't always true. Not by any means.

It's been my experience that when people are required to put a little money into it, they're more likely to actually think about it before they join. They will likely read all the fine print of becoming a consultant. Hopefully they'll actually make a purchase to test the ordering process, the shipping costs and time, the quality of the product and most importantly do a little research to see the marketability in their area. In other words, are they going to be able to sell this product in their area? How many other people are selling the same product or something similar?

Another point to keep in mind is that there is now an investment. They at least want to make that money back, right? There's more than likely a spouse or other family member who is going to expect them to at least give it a good try because there is now an investment.

Most companies offer start up kits that are perfect to give your business a jumpstart including some of their best sellers, samples, brochures, catalogs etc etc. Of course what each company offers is different but for the most part, this is generally what is included. Some companies have expensive start ups. However, most companies offer these products as greatly reduced prices making it very affordable to start your own business.

With that said, it brings me to my next thought. If your prospects can't afford an inexpensive start up kit, they may want to consider getting a j.o.b first and start their new business on the side. It takes time and money before your business will start making business. Against the popular belief, your business cannot survive on free advertising/promotion methods alone. You're going to have to invest some kind of money at some point. At the very least, you need business cards and catalogs. That list itself, can be longer however, you can at least get a small start there.

So to wrap up a long story, having a business that requires recruits to pay to start is not a bad thing. Happy recruiting!

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Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank, owners of DirectSalesHelpers.com strive
to help women succeed in direct sales. For additional help with your direct sales business, visit http://www.directsaleshelpers.com

How to Train Your Team

How to Train Your Team

Your downline is one of your most important parts of direct sales.
Your sales come first of course, but having a well trained team
selling for you can account for half your income.

The following are three simple ways to train your team, while
building your own income at the same time.


1. Hold Meetings
Use meetings not just to direct your team, but let it be open for
ideas as well. Holding monthly meetings to talk about the month is a
great way to help everyone as a whole. Talk about who sold what and
where, and any special tips anyone might like to share. It's a great
time to answer questions as well!


2. Teach by Example
If you aren't selling products yourself, this needs to be at the top
of your list. Just as children pick up things from their parents,
your team is doing the same.


3. Newsletters
Publish a weekly or monthly newsletter. Include expert articles
designed to help motivate and train your team. You can also include
a summary of your meeting as well, for those that didn't make it.

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Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank specialize in helping direct sales
consultants succeed with their business. Need help building your
team? You can find expert articles to train your team at
http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/team-articles.html

Search Engine Optimization Exposed

How do they Find You?

Search engine optimization is utilizing techniques and methods in order to make your website rank as high as possible on search engine result pages. The higher the ranking, the higher the probability of "getting the click". So, it stands to reason that higher rankings equals more clicks which equals more traffic which eventually equals more business.

There are many aspects you can change on your website or add as well to make your website a little more search engine friendly. A few little examples would be adding titles, meta tags and alt tags. Done in moderation and properly, link exchanging is also a good technique to acquire backlinks. The amount of backlinks you have is another one of the components search engines use to rank sites.

Keep in mind though, a large portion of SEO revolves around properly using keyword phrases about your niche or website theme within your pages. Do not (and I repeat ... DO NOT) mutilate your webpages with keyword phrases. Yes, you want to include your keyword phrases throughout your page for search engines but keep in mind, they are not your customers. You need to find a nice balance between keeping both the search engines and your readers happy. So in other words, if it cannot be read smoothly and make sense ... change it. Would you place an order on a website that looks like it was written by a child?

Don't be afraid to do a little research and reading on how to make your website a little more search engine friendly. There are plenty of articles, ebooks, reports and other information sources of the like available. It might cost you a little money and it'll certainly take some time, but the benefits will come back tenfold over and over again.

Search engine optimization does require a little bit of work but it's really not much more than using a little bit of common sense. Start optimizing your site today so you too can reap the benefits of more traffic. Besides, we're all in business to make money, right?

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Anita DeFrank is the author of Kick Start Your Online Business. The online world is full of possibility. It gives you the power to meet people from all over the world that you could never dream of meeting and better yet, Do Business with these people. Stop wasting time sifting through all the advice that may or may not be useful and learn from her mistakes. Learn more about her book at http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/kickstart.html
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Content is King - Even In Direct Sales

You've heard it said a hundred times before - content is king. But did you know this applies to those in direct sales too?

When your potential customer lands on your rep site, are they getting all the information they need to buy? Or are they just seeing short descriptions and price information? We've said it before and we'll say it again - all direct sales reps need their own website.

Direct sales companies are only concerned with selling one way - through reps. They aren't concerned about search engine optimization, content, link exchanges, or any other methods of selling online. They pay you because it's YOUR job to drive the traffic to the site and make the contacts.

The only way to sell online (other than starting your own direct sales company), is to offer content. Lots and lots of content. This is what it all comes down to.

Here's just a few things you can use more content for:

- Search Engine Optimization
Search engines crave content. The more words on the page, the higher the rankings for certain terms will be. If this is an area you are concerned with (and you should be!), you absolutely need content.

- Articles
Write your own articles and submit them - you'll be amazed at how much they increase your traffic.

- Product Reviews & Descriptions
Just imagine how many more sales you'll make if you give your buyers more information. Give them details on how you used the product, why you like it, how it worked for you, and what it could do for them. Or better yet, details on how other customers used the product, why they liked it and how it worked for them. They are more likely to buy if they are given more facts and opinions about the product.

Learning to write online is an important skill, but not a hard one to learn. It simply takes practice....which to get practice, you need to write!

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Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank, owners of DirectSalesHelpers.com strive
to help women succeed in direct sales. For additional help with your direct sales business, visit http://www.directsaleshelpers.com
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Why You Need to Use Search Engine Optimization

Selling online is a cut throat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper tools and know-how to make your website a cut above the rest. Everyday more and more people are clambering to optimize their websites and if you let down your guard, you just may get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many other failed websites.

Search Engine Optimization, also known as is SEO, is widely used by many website owners. For quite a few years in the past and many, many years to come, search engines are the most widely used tool internet users use to find the websites they need to go to for a product, service and/or information they're looking for.

Most search engine users only use the top ten search results on the first page. Very seldom do they move onto the next pages. Therefore making it on the first page is a goal for most website owners. Ideally however, being listed in the top three should be the ultimate goal. The higher the rankings, the higher the ratio of the probability of "getting the click". So, it stands to reason that higher rankings equals more clicks which equals more traffic which equals more business.

Now it must also be mentioned that once you grab a hold of that top spot, it's important to keep a hold of it. As I mentioned, each day is a new day for all website owners to make themselves rank higher using SEO. It is extremely important to make your site better everyday.

So, the answer to why you have to use search engine optimization is an easy one. You need SEO to rank high in the search engines so you can make your website an income generating website. With you SEO you can get the benefit fo generating a high traffic volume. As mentioned, more traffic equals more business.

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Anita DeFrank is the author of Kick Start Your Online Business. The online world is full of possibility. It gives you the power to meet people from all over the world that you could never dream of meeting and better yet, Do Business with these people. Stop wasting time sifting through all the advice that may or may not be useful and learn from her mistakes. Learn more about her book at http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/kickstart.html

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