Ramblings From a Frustrated Internet Marketer
Today, I decided to join an MLM company. I found the website on Google. They talked about the fabulous new pre-launch product that was going to set the network marketing industry on its ear. They talked about how the power team had come on board with this new venture and how much money had been spent to promote this thing world wide. I thought that the business looked interesting. I had heard of this super networking legend and what a powerful entity that he was in the MLM industry. He had spent years and built several multi-million dollar businesses, so, I took it on faith that this would be a great MLM business to join.
After submitting my $997, I received a congratulatory email. They welcomed me with open arm into the fold. They told me that I needed to register my new effective traffic gather site. So, I took all the information down and started the journey. I got my new site up and running. It had all the details upon the site like my name, my email address, my phone numbers and I just had that certain feeling of excitement that this was going to be something really special. I must admit that I have been in many MLM companies. I have promoted anything from Goji to Xooma. All of them sounded really good, but this just had a different flavor to it.
The first teleconferencing call was scheduled for Saturday, so instead of playing a round of golf, I decided to make every effort to dial in. I did just that. I was greeted and was able to state my name, along with the hundreds of other marketers who had joined the same business. Right off the bat, the super-networker came on and sounded so excited that the adrenalin started pumping through my veins. He spoke of the wonderful product and how we were going to be shaping the MLM business from now on. He brought other guest speakers on to do the same thing. All in all, their speeches talked about the proprietary new and wonderful product, the compensation plan, the customer support, the team aspect and all the wonderful bonus pools that were available to us all, if we would just get busy and promote our business.
The conference ended after about an hour, and reality began to settle within my bones. They talked about making money, the compensation plan, the benefits, the customer support and how we were all going to be making money within the next thirty to sixty to ninety days. The thing that I knew was missing was the fact that no one bothered to tell me how I was to go about promoting my business.
The excitement soon wore off. I decided that if I were going to make money with this home business, I would have to invest some additional money for online advertising, leads, hand out cards and maybe even do some mailings. I started searching Google for a reputable leads broker to buy some fresh qualified never before been sold prospecting leads. I found what looked to be a good organization and I bought $750 worth of the top level leads. They were delivered to my inbox in a timely fashion, and I just knew that I could get my money back with the first couple of sales.
I immediately started calling these prospects. I think that they call this cold calling. I would definitely like to call it freeze calling. The people that I talked with either would not answer their phone, hung up on me, or started telling the most awful stories about their personal life. I even called one elderly woman that had fallen within these leads. She cried on the phone that many people had been calling her and were trying to sell her another product. She was living on social security, and did not even have enough to eat most months. I talked with person after person who had no knowledge of why I was calling them, and I was politely asked to never call their number again. I even got threatened that because they were on the do not call list, they would be filing suit with the FTC.
I became frustrated very quickly and I had that gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach that the $750 I spent on these leads, was money absolutely wasted. I decided to go a different route. I went to Craigslist.com and decided to place some classified ads. Here again, I paid for these ads to be really targeted. I decided that I would budget another $750 to the cause, as I was really serious about building this great new pre-launch business. I pulled out the plastic and purchased some ads. I wrote some really good ads thinking that people surfing on Google surely must be looking to start a home business, and this had to be the best one so far.
I patiently waited day after day. I soon began to realize that this was just not working. I had heard about Google pay-per-click advertising, and actually, the big powers of this MLM company told me that this was the best form of advertising to reach targeted areas. I started a campaign, and decided that i would budget out some more money. I was buying traffic. The traffic started coming to my site. One day, I spent almost $250 in Google clicks. I thought to myself that this is significant traffic, but the problem with all this motivated traffic was the fact that I was not making $1 in revenue so far, and I had spent a tidy sum. I decided to wait this out for one month on the Google, but at the end of that month, I had used over $5000 in advertising money, and once again, had not earned $1 in revenue.
My order from the MLM company started coming in, and they even wanted me to buy additional marketing tools to help me build my business. I bought more product, tools and of course, followed their directions to the letter. I started hearing of John Smith, who just make $40,000 this week alone, in the MLM business and I began to question my sanity. Was I crazy, or just stupid? I had spent good money on bad leads, made cold phone calls, bought Google pay-per-clicks, handed out flyers, passed out business cards, bought more product to pass around as samples, and literally done everything that I could to make money with the MLM business, but had not turned $1 in spendable income.
I decided to call this big networker who had brought me into the business to see what I was doing wrong. Would you like to know what he said? "Just give me another thirty to sixty to ninety days, and I am going to make you rich. I am going to rain people into your downline. You will get rich here, so just keep doing what you are doing, and I will take care of the rest."
Well, I may not be the sharpest crayon in the box, but I began to get the feeling that I had just been given another online home business that was never going to make me one dime. I decided to quit and go try to make money on ebay or something. There has got to be a better way to run a home business than this.
Sound like a familiar story line to you? Don't go the usual way of building a business. http://itsgoodbusiness.net
No comments:
Post a Comment