by George Fourie

Do you know what's tarnishing social networking etiquette and giving internet and network marketers an appalling reputation? Social networking is perfect for MLM lead generation, but not like this.

How many times have people visited your internet network marketing website purely for the purpose of collecting your email address to 'counter-pitch' their home business opportunity?

Or, you get spammed the second you accept a friend request?

Even worse, you get MLM Business Opportunities and affiliate links posted on your wall on first contact (Facebook, etc)?

What do you do? Jump out of your skin with joy, get all excited, rush over to their opportunity and hand over your credit card?

Or, do you reach for the delete button, build up a wall of resistance and make a mental note to ignore all future messages?

If you haven't earned the right to talk business, you have just shot yourself in the foot.

Stephen R Covey from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People says it best: "Seek first to Understand, then to be Understood."

No one cares about your opportunity until they know how much you care. (not sure who to give credit for that last statement!:)

Here are 6 important Social Networking Etiquette tips that will help you become a respected internet and network marketing professional, boost your MLM lead generation and build quality online relationships with ease:

1) Relationships first. Social networking sites are all about establishing quality relationships on a more professional level. Nine times out of ten people will do business with those they know, like, and trust. Learn about that person, check out their website, take time to really see if they are the kind of person you want to connect with anyway.

Building trust comes before giving a sales spiel, and the quality of relationships you build are superior to the quantity of friends you make.

2) Expand your thinking beyond yourself. Make the change from thinking that you can work your business successfully on your own, and shift toward the mentality that you can accomplish greater things when you work effectively with others.

Don't limit your outreach and effectiveness as a network marketer.

You are a valued source of resources and contacts.

You have a unique store of connections and life experiences that provide an unlimited wealth of knowledge and opportunities.

Share those with others and draw from the experiences of others as well. Everyone brings unique value to the table.

3) Practice the power of praise. Praising others brings people to a higher level of energy and awareness. We all thrive on positive reinforcement. Focusing on the strengths of others develops winners and leaders.

Send notes frequently that say:

Thanks for the support. Thanks for your friendship. Thanks for the referral. For the words of encouragement. For the opportunity to learn about your business. For the opportunity to do business with you. For taking the time to...."

Specifically tell people how they influence your life in a positive way. There is much power in praise!

Don't forget to Wish your friends happy birthday. Facebook makes this real easy with the newsfeed.

4) Give your full attention. Listening is the heart of communication; don't view this important tool as simply a matter of not talking. Listening is all about being mentally engaged in what the other person is saying, giving your full attention to create a connection that goes beyond the words being spoken. Listening is where people develop rapport and trust.

Even when there is nothing in it for you, listening and responding accordingly to people will help strengthen those relationships and will reap rewards that will come in the future.

5) Develop a complete profile. Give people something to establish common ground with; consider putting a summary of your resume or bio on your profile, or list professional associations you're involved in. Bottom line: make sure you have at least one picture and some common sense background information. It's important that others see your profile as valuable.

6) Follow them across many social platforms. Make your friend invites personal by complimenting them on their profile or work found on their sites. When you start building rapport and following them across various social networks, it shows that you are interested in their work.

If you find quality in their published blog posts for example, Stumble, or Digg their content and share them with your network. You begin promoting them and they will likely do the same for you.

by Robert Hanna
You ultimately realize that you need a good quality opt-in list. After reading numerous articles and sought expert counsel and have read various success stories of people generating a small fortune with opt-in list you finally make a decision to have one of your own. Then it occurs to you that you think you have understood everything there is to know about opt-in list and have followed their advices to the letter and you still weren't able to make a profit.

Actually, you may be losing money. You may be engaging writers to help you out, or there are some expenses incurred, even if you have a huge list, but only a very little percentage in reality buys from you, your still losing income. You will grasp that, after a few months, when you see your statistics and sales figures.

So what has gone wrong? Why have others thrived where you have failed? The most general blunder is that you dived straight in. You selected a topic where you thought it might be quite all the rage and would bring in money. This is just not the case. Just because you e-mailed people from your list doesn't mean they are ready to buy immediately.

Here I will present more advise, for those who have begun an opt-in list and have failed, you can revive your failed project. For those who are starting, here are three swift and simple ways to build a lucrative opt-in list.

1. Get your customers to trust you and your products foremost.

Just launching your opt-in list would not make you an expert and a credible seller. Put numerous articles out first prior to you starting an opt-in list. Write about the subject matter you know and have and utilized for your site. Test forums first to acquire knowledge about your customers and their desires and needs and target those desires and needs.

Join forums from other sites also. Provide professional advise and recommendations when you sense that people trust you , only then you will be competent to start your own opt-in list. You can assemble a base as well with other forum users. You can ask them to sign up on your list. Friends are always good clientele. Create a link to your website so that they will be able to see what your business is all about.

The definite truth is, the money will only come in when the subscribers and customers believe and trust in you. They would like a product or service that might be a decent exchange for their money. People are not going to purchase something out of your suggestion if they don't know you.

2. Find a service or product that people want and require.

Even though it may not be your specialty, if you provide a product or service that you have examined and learned about well, you can carry it on further. Devote your time, effort and money into something that you could sell, plus the buyers or subscribers of your opt-in list could possibly use.

While it is true that its best to sell something that you have fascination in, there are not many people who have the same fascination as you if you choose to sell something that is not completely popular or lucrative. Do your research properly and you will see the earnings roll in. Also supply your subscribers with promotional material that they could essentially use and distribute around.

3. You should make friends with other opt-in list users.

This is fundamentally useful especially if it is someone who has previously launched a winning opt-in list. These are people that have the familiarity in this endeavor and experience is still the greatest teacher. While there are countless articles accessible for you on the Internet to use, there is nothing like receiving a first hand account from someone you trust.

by Glenn Dietzel
How would you like to be able to increase each and every sale by a factor of 10 times to 100 times? As a leader in the field of creating high end programs, an important key is to strategically position yourself among your ideal clients as their only option.

The Q.S.E. Process is an important method to ensure that you are drawing your ideal clients to you. First know, that there are only two ways to compete in the market place: price or value. A friend and client of mine found out the hard way that not competing on price requires some strategic thinking.

Thom who is a personal trainer found it difficult to book clients in the new gym he was training at. He would go around and help potential clients, showing them how to use the equipment properly. In his free time he spent time educating them on a program they should be following after chatting with them on their goals.

Potential clients were very excited to be receiving this attention, especially for free, and were very interested in working with Thom as their trainer. Thom would have his appointment book on him, and would open it up to a blank calendar and tell his clients to choose a time that would be ideal for them. What Thom found is that the excitement that clients had to work with him quickly faded and they began to 'hum and ha' when it came to making a commitment. Those who did sign up seldom showed up for their appointments to train with Thom.

Thom wondered why. He had the most personal training education in his gym and work-out enthusiasts were excited about working with him after talking with him for a few minutes and realizing his vast amount of knowledge. However, as soon as he opened his training book their excitement turned to hesitation.

Within some strategic thinking, Thom was able to fill his calendar full within 30 days. What he did is follow the Q.S.E. Process.

First of all, he quickly filled his calendar to provide only a few times that he would be available in the coming week. This appearance of a full calendar NOW had potential clients clamoring for his time and honoring their commitments to showing up. Soon he was not only the busiest trainer in his city, but he began to win awards for bringing in the most business to his gym.

Here is what you need to know about translating the 'full work out' appointment book principle into your business. Follow the Q.S.E. Process. It will work for you no matter what, whether you are a struggling entrepreneur or a new entrepreneur. If your desire is to create and sell the most expensive programs in your niche, here is what you must know right now:

You must set up a qualification (Q) process. We are conditioned that anything worth having or accomplishing is intertwined with an application process. Position your value in light of a qualification process that showcases to potential clients that they are selected to work with you. They should see having access to you as a privilege. In this way, you can eliminate all the potential clients who want you to compete on price.

By the way, an interesting fact that I have seen coming from over 1,800 video case studies, is this: the biggest successes with clients have come with those who have invested the most. Why is this? Subconsciously there is a greater buy-in when someone makes a significant investment. It is interesting to note too that most people who want to invest in your highest end programs will consider you not good enough if you are too cheap. They will think that you really do NOT bring good value to the market place if there is not a significant investment?

Secondly, you must be seen as the standard (S) of your market place. In every discipline today there exists a set of standards that allow for people to speak and communicate properly. For example, when you fill up your car you expect that a gallon of gasoline is the same as a gallon of gasoline in every other state or country. All fields have standards including the fields of Mathematics, Science and Medicine for example. In each of these disciplines a set of standards exist or that discipline cannot exist.

As someone interested in creating and selling high priced programs, there is a strategic way of creating this standardization. This begins with your ability to control the conversation that your would-be clients are having. You must become the person that influences their silent Q&A Session. How do you do this?

This begins by knowing the critical questions that your target market should be asking in order to solve their problems properly. These are not the questions that they think they should be asking, but the ones that they should be asking. The key to being the standard, and to increase your value instantly, is have the fortitude of character to tell your potential clients that before they go with anyone in your industry, here are the critical questions that they should be asking of them. By appearing objective, you in effect position yourself as the standard of your niche market.

By using the Socratic Method of questioning, you provide your target market powerful 'Ah Ha' moments. When you are able to begin to influence how clients should be seeing their problems you position yourself strategically as the standard of you industry. Would-be clients will think, "If I have already been educated more profoundly than I have ever been before by merely the questions that I should be asking "imagine what this person is able to do for me!"

Finally, you must be the source of education (E) for your target market. What does this look like? Here are three guidelines. First, you must position your company to out- educate your competitors. This begins by controlling the conversation that they should be having as I have just stated. Your education should involve 'moving the free line' so that you can showcase in case study format what you do to solve problems.

Secondly, case studies provide you powerful leverage in building the correct context for delivering your content. It is one thing to teach content. It is quite another to do it in the context of real people who represent your ideal clients.

Thirdly, the most powerful way to educate your target market is to customize your education. As there is currently not another system that I know about that does this, I recommend the use of the Expert Positioner Software to ensure a perfect market-to-message match. Think of the power of delivering education that is perfectly fitted to the problems of your target market.

by Susan Friedmann
A virtual trade show is a cross between a webcast meeting and a video game. And it's the next big trend in trade shows. Although a mere 1% of all trade shows are now held online, industry experts expect that by 2015, more than 25% of trade shows will be conducted in virtual environments. That's a market you can't afford to ignore.

Like online meetings, a virtual trade show can be simple or breathtakingly realistic. The simplest assemble a series of pages, each one a virtual booth for an exhibitor, plus instant messaging so exhibitors and attendees can talk in real time. The more complex are complete environments like high-level video games or such online worlds as Second Life. In these, each participant controls an avatar. VOIP (voice over internet protocol) can allow you to talk to attendees, and you can easily email brochures or allow attendees to download them.

But why bother when face-to-face meetings are so much more satisfying and real? Because virtual trade shows offer some solid advantages.

1. Triumph Over Tighter Budgets

Imagine a trade show with no costs for transportation, shipping, hotels, hospitality, or booths, and just a minimal cost for exhibit space. That's a virtual trade show.

With travel costs rising and travel budgets falling, more industries are turning to virtual trade shows as a less expensive way to showcase their wares. Electronics and high tech companies are naturally comfortable with the online format, but they're not alone. Plenty of other industries, from plumbing to candy-wrapper design, have held successful virtual shows.

2. Spread Your Wings

All too often, the sheer size of trade show investment keeps the marketing department stuck in a traditional rut of "what worked last year." The new medium will free you to experiment with innovative exhibit ideas—and rapidly change the ones that don't work. At a virtual trade show, you don't need to worry about the flow of foot traffic or many other design constraints.

Moreover, you'll have help designing your display. Set-up on virtual trade show sites takes less than an hour, and the software is supplied. Depending on the site, you will have an exciting array of multimedia tools at your service. Some offer VOIP (voice over internet protocol), so you can chat by voice with attendees. Most offer instant messaging capabilities, so you can chat in real time with attendees—and keep several conversations going at once.

3. Open a Stall in a New Market

Not only will you be able to test fresh approaches, you will also have the freedom to explore new markets without fear of blowing the annual budget. Because of the low overhead, you can dare to attend non-traditional trade shows you might not otherwise attempt.

4. The Future Is Green

Compared to traditional trade shows, virtual trade shows are "greener." Lowering environmental impact is an increasingly important goal for many companies. Tax incentives for cutting fuel costs are also likely to increase, making virtual exhibits an even more attractive proposition.

5. Follow That Lead!

Traditional trade shows often generate exciting leads. Unfortunately, 80% of those leads are never followed up - a statistic bound to discourage the most enthusiastic marketing professional. The reasons are myriad: disconnects between marketing and sales departments, the difficulties of reading hand-scribbled names and addresses, the tedium of entering contact information by hand into databases.

However, virtual trade shows collect the data for you - and most include built-in lead management software. Suddenly tracking those leads becomes simple. In addition, many systems offer tags so you can make notes on attendees or companies, making it easy to follow up. You can also keep tabs on both staff and attendee activities.

Virtual trade show systems generally allow you to run analytics as soon as the show is over. Instead of entering all the data separately, the virtual trade show tracks and analyzes it for you. You'll be able to start following up leads immediately, which can greatly improve your return on investment.

6. Market to the Twenty-First Century Customer

Most important of all, virtual trade shows will help you reach out to the digital generation. Over time, more and more corporate decision makers will be at least as comfortable with the virtual world as they are with text on a page.

Already members of the digital generation are taking over key positions in government and business. President Obama's transition team was co-chaired by a Wharton professor distinguished not only for his scholarship but for his skill at World of Warcraft, a virtual raiding game. Plenty of people now in their thirties could use a mouse before they could clutch a pencil, and they spend their spare time on Second Life and other virtual realms. A virtual trade show will seem as natural to them as the telephone does to older people.

This demographic trend is bound to continue. Gaining experience now in the virtual world will give you an edge in marketing to this vast demographic.

by Joanne Black
We've been told that getting more sales is all about your "activity," but is it?

Our job as salespeople is to move as many qualified prospects through the sales funnel as quickly as possible—leading to more sales, better clients, and more income.

The traditional sales funnel to attract new business has maintained the same structure for years. There's a wide opening at the top and a skinny tube at the bottom. The traditional prospecting method crams as many prospects into the top of the funnel as possible, hoping that new clients will magically pop out of the other end. The only thing that mattered was sheer activity.

Today, I'm going to debunk the myth that sheer activity is the ONLY thing that matters along with two other myths that are holding you back from getting more clients now.

3 Sales Lead Generation Myths That Will Hold You Back From Closing More Sales

Myth #1 Sheer Activity is the Only Thing That Matters in Sales

Wrong! Of course, activity is still important, but what really matters is that you feed the right people into the funnel in the first place and nurture those prospects who have been referred to you. Then hasten their passage through the sales funnel. This will decrease the amount of time it takes to you close your sale.

Picture the funnel from the traditional "olden" days. If you just stuff as much as you can into the top of the funnel, it's more likely that weeds, rocks, sand, and other debris will clog the opening and prevent the steady entry and flow of good business. Try pouring water in a funnel that is filled with debris. The water backs up and nothing moves through. Not a pleasing picture, and not functional business model. It's certainly not one that fosters an environment for attracting new business.

Myth #2 Sales 2.0 Leads are Qualified

There's so much that's wrong about the traditional sales funnel, and it's gotten worse in the Sales 2.0 world. It's not a referral-marketing funnel. In the past, we were schooled to throw as many prospects in the funnel as we could find. For example, we were taught to get so-called leads from mailings, trade shows, advertising, networking, newsletters, and speaking. Now in the 2.0 world, we are taught to get so-called leads from blogging, videos, eBooks, free reports, press releases, eZines, affiliate traffic, RSS feeds, and email lists. We can now choose to waste our time by following up on these so-called leads.

I call the leads above "So-called leads" because these aren't really leads.

They're inquiries, possibly names—or people just interested in free stuff. Everyone likes free stuff. If we take the time to weed through all this trash, we might actually find a prospect. These people are just prospects. They're not business referrals. And, they're still not leads.

Myth #3 It's Important to Sort "Leads"

We have to change how we talk about leads. Inquiries are not leads. People wanting free stuff are not leads. Neither are those "coveted" lists or files of names. Calling these "leads" borders on insulting.

Leads are people who:

- Are truly interested in talking directly to you about your products and services to see how you can help them

- Match the profile of your ideal client

- Have a budget

- Have a need that you can fulfill

- Are open to pursuing how you can help them attract new business.

Now that's a qualified business referral.

The best leads are those you have received through a referral. When you receive a qualified referral, you are pre-sold. You have credibility and trust. Your sales time shortens. And, you ace out the competition. When you've been referred, you get a new client more than 50 percent of the time. Get more referrals and get these results.

So stop calling everyone and everything a lead. It's is a waste of your valuable sales time. I'm not just splitting hairs over terminology. It is downright misrepresentation when companies position themselves as lead-generation experts. It sounds so good (so easy), so we jump. And that's when we get our sales funnel clogged with trash instead of getting more referrals

by Jeremy Gislason

Anybody involved in the internet marketing industry or your specific niche can be a joint venture partner. One of the most common joint ventures occurs when one partner has a new product to sell and another partner has an existing mailing list to promote that product to.

Although this is the most common setup, joint ventures can be arranged between any of the following partners:

> Membership sites

> Promoters

> Customer mailing list owners

> Trainers

> Copywriters

> AdSense marketers

> Subject matter experts

> Consultants

So how do you find good JV partners?

Step 1. Decide what you need from your joint venture partner. What expertise or resources do they need to posses to contribute to your project?

If you are looking for someone to promote your membership site it may be tempting to approach the internet marketers that own the largest mailing lists. However, it may be more productive to look for individuals that are experts in your niche subject, whose customer lists will be more targeted to your project even if they are not as extensive.

Step 2. Networking is the key to finding a great joint venture partnership.

If you identify someone you would like to partner with, be careful about how you approach them. If you think they would make a good JV partner, the chances are many other internet marketers will have the same idea and they will get asked on a regular basis.

The following tips may help you when contacting your prospective JV partner:

> Find out everything about what they do beforehand. Read any reports or e-books they have written.

> If they have a membership site, sign up for it and get to know their subscribers. Is the project you want to involve this person in, or the product you want to sell really appropriate for their customers?

> Marketing Seminars offer a multitude of networking possibilities. Many great joint ventures have been conceived over a drink in the hotel bar, or over dinner at one of these seminars.

Step 3. Contacting a potential partner with your proposal.

> Try to get hold of their telephone number if possible rather than sending an e-mail.

> If you must send an e-mail, make it a personal one and not a standard request, or the chances are they will simply delete it.

> You need to try to build a relationship with this person. If they are going to enter a project with you, and potentially promote your product to their customers, they will want to know something about you and the way you work.

> Don't give them a sales pitch. A more straightforward approach will be appreciated.

> Don't assume they are only interested in the amount of money they can make from your project. They may be more concerned about the quality of your membership site and their credibility with their existing customer list.

by Karin Gamble
Ten years ago I founded NetMediaReps, Inc., an advertising agency for online companies, specifically online newsletter publishers trying to find advertisers for their publications. My decision to found my own company grew out of my frustration in trying to obtain agency representation for my husband's company.

After calling more than 25 ad agencies, I discovered that most agencies charged exorbitant commissions and were only interested in representing large companies with deep pockets. As a new startup, my husband's company fell under their radar and follow up was minimal to nil.

Back then, the internet was just emerging as the new frontier of business and it was apparent that small and medium-sized businesses needed effective marketing representation to compete in this new marketplace, to receive the broadest possible exposure and to find other companies which could help facilitate their growth.

My thought was that these companies had an even greater need for a marketing platform than larger companies to be competitive in the growing online commercial market. I decided to fill that niche and started by signing contracts with several online publishers who needed assistance in selling their ad inventory.
The rest is history - NetMediaReps.com was born.

Knowledge of how to do business, and advertise, on the internet has grown significantly over the years and data tracking of take rates, website conversion rates and ROI have become increasingly sophisticated, helping online businesses to better target their advertising dollars in a successful and productive way.

Despite these advances in knowledge and technique, there are still a surprising number of individuals who display a remarkable naivety regarding advertising and who ask questions that indicate the lack of a well thought out marketing plan or a basic understanding of the advertising mediums available to them online. Below are some examples of not so uncommon questions we receive and our responses to them:

Question: Your publisher mails to a list of 500,000 subscribers so I should get 500,000 responses - right ?

Answer: An online publication using a mailing list is like a newspaper. Recipients don't always feel like reading or looking at the publication on a given day. They may be busy, on vacation, disinterested in the topic, or otherwise indisposed. And, like a newspaper - just because they see your ad doesn't mean they want to buy from you - at least not at that given moment. It is, however, a good idea to advertise in publications that archive past issues or editions providing advertisers with permanent or semi-permanent back links and the opportunity of receiving trickle through clicks and sales at no additional cost.

Other factors that can affect response rate are:

- the number of links in a publication. Newsletters typically run 1 to 2 web pages in length and are comprised of several sections all of which contain a few to numerous links. As a result reader interest and click activity is diffused across the newsletter rather than focused on a particular ad or link.

- Ad clarity. A concise, definitive statement describing what your company is selling and how it benefits buyers is essential as is an unequivocal call to action.

- Ad Uniqueness. An ad that stands out generally performs better.

- Spam triggers. Generally, words and phrases that are the most effective in evoking reader response are also the ones that trigger spam filters both at the ISP level and the reader's In box. Blatant commercial message subjects and ad copy rarely do well.

- Message Subject. Shorter subject lines are usually more effective than longer ones. More importantly, large web-based mail services like Yahoo! Mail, MSN/Hotmail and AOL truncate message subjects that are greater than 38 - 47 characters.

Question: (After receiving ad specs, including dimensions and file sizes.) Will my 700 x 300 pixel ad be accepted?

Answer: Most publishers will strive to assist you in placing your ads but are restricted by their newsletter templates from accepting ads that don't conform to the specs provided.
Submitting an incorrectly sized ad simply delays the start of your ad campaign.

Question: Why should I advertise when we are obviously in a recession? Does that make any sense?

Answer: McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies and their marketing spending from 1980 to 1985. After 1985, the facts showed that the firms which had kept or increased their advertising budgets during the recession in '81-'82 boasted an average sales growth of 275% over the next five years. The companies who cut their advertising? They experienced paltry sales growth over the next five years of just 19%. (1)

So, when is the right time to market your business? All the time.

Question: I noticed my competitor in your publications - can you tell me how they did, so I can decide if we want to use you ?

Sorry. You wouldn't want the details of your campaign provided to your competitors. Our advertisers have an expectation of privacy and confidentiality in regards to performance criteria such as click-through rates, sales and ROI. Ad agencies and publishers have an ethical obligation to keep campaign results confidential.