Home    Leadership 

Becoming A MLM Household Name
By Greg Arnold

Being a MLM dinosaur has some advantages.  It gives you the opportunity to look at things through years of perspective.  Since perception tends to be our reality, the more experience we have the greater our grasp on reality is.  One of the things that I have learned over the years about MLM is that there is more than one viable opportunity out there and more than one way to successfully build a business.  I am still of the mind that it is very difficult to focus your efforts on more than one company at a time.  I believe that splitting our efforts between multiple companies will cost you far more money than it will make.

Several years ago, I was sitting in Mark Yarnell’s living room and we were talking about network marketing.  Heck if you ever get that kind of opportunity, are you going to talk about football or the weather?   At that time I was earning about $3.92 a month from my mlm career and Mark was slightly ahead of that level at about $260,000.00 a month.   Needless to say, I wanted some advice.  Over the next few months I had the opportunity to meet with him several more times.  About 12 months after the first meeting with Mark, my income was in the neighborhood of 30k a month.  Nice Neighborhood. 

While we talked about many things over that span of months, let me share just one of Mark's concepts with you.  We were talking about the difference between being one of the true leaders in the Industry with the income and longevity that goes with that or being at the right place at the right time.  Mark told me that to enjoy the benefits of the first choice that I had to become Campbell’s Soup.  In other words, I had to become a name brand in the mlm industry.  Let this old MLM Dinosaur take a minute to share some of the things Mark shared with me and a few that I have learned since that time. 

Tip #1 about becoming Campbell’s Soup 

If you can write, use that skill.  If you can’t, do whatever it takes to develop that skill.  Write articles and submit them to magazines both on and offline frequently.  Get published as often as possible.  Share everything you know about how to succeed in mlm. You may be very good at prospecting over the phone.  You may be good at online prospecting, or advertising, or training, or product demonstrations, or recording cassettes or a hundred other valuable mlm skills.  Share your knowledge liberally.  This can do four things for you.  1) It can get your name out and begin to build name recognition. 2) It can build your credibility in the industry  (This will be powerful for your future recruiting efforts).  3) It can get you free advertising (Trade articles for ad space).  I’ve experienced that an accepted article is worth about a quarter page ad.  4) Last but not least, a compilation of your published articles can be woven into a book. 

Tip #2 about becoming Campbell’s Soup 

When the time comes, write a book.  Once you have been published several times, you’ll find it’s easier than you think.  When I wrote “The Multi-Level Mangler In King Arthur’s Court”  it flew together for me.  The reason is it was mostly made up of articles I had written over a three or four year period.  Once your book is written, self publish it.  There are paperback book printers out there that will print 3000 books for you for $1 or less each.  I printed 10,000 on my last run and they cost me less than 70 cents each, including shipping.  To date I have sold about 50,000 copies, many at the $12.95 cover price.  Amazon.com has an “Advantage Program” that allows you to sell your book online, as do the book Store chain stores.  There are over 150 online sources for my book at present time. Your own book is a great credibility builder. It also makes a fairly impressive business card.  It doesn’t exactly make you “chicken noodle soup” yet, but it couldn’t hurt.  Also after you have printed your book, contact me at greg@streetsmartlive.com and I will possibly carry it on www.StreetSmartLive.com 

Tip #3 about becoming Campbell’s Soup 

Make good alliances.  It won’t get you kicked off the island if you don’t but it makes a huge difference as a career builder if you do.  Rod Cook (MLM Watchdog) and Steven Burke (Network Marketing News) have bought cases and cases of books from me at hugely discounted prices to use as give-aways. Rod and Steve are both good friends and allies in the industry.  I help them all I can with their business projects and they help me with mine.  I have also formed similar strategic alliances with Robert Butwin, Tom (Big Al) Schreiter, Ken Seto, and many others.  Have you taken a mlm cruise lately?  I never miss Tom Schreiter’s cruise.  Over the years the friendships I have made on this cruise have not only been wonderful from a personal standpoint but they have also been valuable from a business standpoint.  Most of the people that I have regular contact with outside my own mlm opportunity, I met on this cruise. 

Tip #4 about becoming Campbell’s Soup 

Have your own web page in your own name.  In other words; www.yourname.com. (and yes it should be a .com web address.  Most people will type .com even if you give them a .WhatEverElse web address.)  This page should promote you and your mlm opportunity.  It should contain articles you have written. It should have a friends and resources page and anything else that pertains to your mlm career.  If your mlm company won’t let you have your own page to promote their opportunity, don’t promote them on your page....but do have a personal website.  It also gives you a you@yourname.com e-mail address.  All these things help you to better promote you.  Get your site up, get it indexed on the search engines and work on getting it to the top of those search engines in the keywords and phrases you want to use.  Learn how to make search engines work for you, it isn't as hard as you think.  If you are somehow feeling too modest to do all this, just remember, Campbell’s Soup doesn’t spend millions of dollars a year to chant Progresso's name all over the airways.  If you don’t promote you...Who will?