Where the REAL Money in MLM is Made and
Why Your “Negative Friends” Are Right About Your Business… Kinda

“Everyone wants to believe they already know something about what you are talking about. It’s an ego thing to fill the void ignorance creates. Therefore, know that everyone you talk to probably already made up their minds long before you opened your mouth about what you do.”

Almost 1 1/2 years ago, my friend Eric and I had returned from a night out on the town and were hanging out at my place in L.A. and we got into a heated exchange at about 5am at my house, after he looked in my kitchen and noticed a fresh shipment of my company’s products (for my personal use).

Eric is what most of us in the industry would label a “negative person”. To say he has contempt for the MLM industry would be an understatement. He’s seen loved ones and acquaintences get chewed up and spit out by this industry and lose money in the process. (Nothing new, right?)

Over the course of my time in MLM, I’ve learned to block out negative feedback and for the most part, keep myself from being around people who are critical about a business I take very seriously.

Except there’s something you need to know about Eric. He’s probably one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever known. He was my roommate and fraternity brother at MIT. He and I got along really well during my time there and I looked up to Eric for many reasons — he’s a NO B.S. type of guy, very knowledgeable about just about anything, a computer/electronics whiz, he helped me immensely during my growth as an individual in college and the dude knows how to have fun.

The only thing that ever bothered me about Eric was that when he believes he is right and you are in a debate with him, the only acceptable outcome for him was to make you believe he is right and destroy any trace of self-confidence you had…. even if he was actually wrong the entire time.

He was a master at doing exactly that and he’s actually made people cry after an argument with him. He’s definitely intense!

Similar was his goal that night in my house as he proceeded to tear apart the MLM industry and how he believed the money is actually made.

The arguments were nothing new. All you need to do is do a few Google searches on subjects related to MLM and company names and the conspiracy theories are available for anyone to read.

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Fun “Fact”: Did you know that the Republican party is in cahoots with the Amway corporation to takeover the world? Interesting.
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But there was one thing that Eric stated, which did have a lot truth to it. It’s something that’s hard to deny, because well….. it’s true… sort of.

What is it?

He said “the real money in MLM is made through tools — books, seminars, tapes, etc.”

This is a hangup which many people get stuck on when criticizing the industry, but the truth of the matter is that selling tools and training is NOT something that is exclusive to this industry.

In fact, the idea of training someone to become a professional in a certain discipline is not rare at all. On the most fundamental level, anyone who payed $160,000 for an MIT education was sold information and training, without any guarantee that they would make that money back or enjoy their career.

If I had actually paid for it, I would feel kinda jipped. (Thank God for financial aid.)

But let’s assume that a college education doesn’t count as an information marketing business.

There are plenty of situations in a multitude of other industries where professionals will pay un-accredited companies for education in sales training, marketing, personal development, business systems, etc.

My Chiropractor is a Walking Talking Sales Letter

One of the coolest things about my chiropractor, Dr. G, has nothing to do with his ability to heal. He’s one of the most talented sales people I’ve ever met in my life. In fact, the only reason why I walked into his office was because my officemate was one of his patients and had mentioned his powerful ability to persuade people to become his patient.

Being that I was in MLM and doing sales, I was curious about his sales process. Long story short, he sold me big time on the benefits of chiropractic care and I’ve been a loyal patient since.

Over the course of the past couple of years, I came to discover that Dr. G has invested thousands of dollars in books, CDs, and seminars on how to improve his practice, keep his revenue up and personal development.

I once asked him if he had developed the sales process himself and he replied, “Fernando, do you honestly think I’m smart enough to come up with this stuff myself? Nope. I learned this process from Dr. David Singer and other trainers.”

For those of you who don’t know, Dr. David Singer is a former chiropractor who now makes millions teaching chiropractors how to market and promote their practices via books, CDs, DVDs and seminars.

If this is the case, would it be right of me to say that the real money in chiropractic is in selling tools, tapes, seminars, etc.? Not really, because Dr. Singer is no longer a chiropractor.

He is a marketing consultant.

Dr. G is the chiropractor and he’s very happy with what he’s learned from Dr. Singer. I’ve even suggested to Dr. G that as he gets older, he should go into consulting since he is so knowledgeable about the industry. But he’s perfectly content at his practice making a 6-figure income as a chiropractor, while paying Dr. Singer to keep him up to date about the latest marketing and sales methods.

Recently, Raymond became a patient for Dr. G. The first comment from Raymond after having his first consultation with Dr. G was “Dude, Dr. G is a walking talking sales letter!”

LOL. Indeed.

What the Critics are Missing

Now bringing this back to the MLM world. The mistake that most critics of the industry make is that they fail to distinguish the MLM business from the training business.

The fact of the matter is that someone like Mike Dillard as CEO of Magnetic Sponsoring is a marketing consultant for MLM.

When it comes to his network marketing business, he is a distributor and upline to thousands, while Magnetic Sponsoring has a potential market of millions.

The training business and his distributorship are two separate things.

Now the beauty of it all and something that is unique to MLM, is that once you are recognized as a world-class trainer and marketing consultant, it becomes very easy to sponsor new people into your business, because you are trusted by so many network marketers.

Your leadership and skills are proven and people will naturally want your mentorship. It’s your reward for having invested in yourself and implemented what you learned.

It would be silly for Mike to limit his training to only people in his downline. By making his Magnetic Sponsoring system available to the industry as a whole, his market share as a trainer goes from a few thousand in his downline with one company to potentially millions of network marketers across many companies.

Not to mentioned having impacted the lives of people like myself and Raymond, who are NOT part of his downline.

The Real Money in MLM is the Tools?

Now, would you still say that the “real money” in MLM is in the tools?

Not quite. At least I don’t think so.

The truth of the matter is when you are selling training to network marketers, whether it is to your downline or to other network marketers, you are a sales and marketing consultant.

That business is not MLM at all. It’s consulting. And you need experience and strong skill sets to be successful at it. (There are many who have tried and failed at this also. )

When you are promoting your opportunity or it’s products, you are a network marketing distributor. When you are personally mentoring your downline on what they should be doing, that is part of being a MLM distributor. When you hold meetings or conference calls for your downline, you are operating your distributorship.

When personally mentoring my downline, I’m never paid a dime for my efforts. My reward would come from them moving product, growing their downline and creating volume, thus increasing my sales volume and profits.

I mean the choice for anyone considering joining my team is pretty compelling — become a paying client or get personally mentored as a team member?

Hmmm…. tough one.

When I provide consulting via a workshop, course or audio, I’m a sales and marketing consultant. The proof of that is we’ve been able to apply the same marketing and sales techniques for small business owners and other online businesses, in industries having nothing to do with MLM.

Is there more potential providing training to the MLM industry or business world as a whole? Well, the answer to that is pretty obvious isn’t it?

Of course there is!

In building an network marketing business, your income is limited by the company compensation plan and your own personal efforts as an upline.

As the CEO of the Attraction Marketing Formula, I can add value to people outside my downline and grow a business, which in turn comes back to help my downline recruit, because they can say that they use AMF and Magnetic Sponsoring as the foundation for their training.

Since one of the biggest problems in recruitment is creating that relationship and trust with your prospect, when someone is already familiar with your training system and is satisfied with it, having them join your downline becomes a very easy sell.

In fact, it’s not selling — it’s attraction! It’s what the Attraction Marketing Formula course is all about… replacing the hype with REAL skill sets in marketing, lead generation, SEO, etc.

The Price I Had To Pay…

So going back to my friend Eric… well, the truth is that he wasn’t the only one in my circle of influence, who tried to “save me”. I remembered having many heated exchanges with co-workers and other people.

(Engineers are a tough and stubborn breed if you haven’t noticed.)

It’s never pleasant when you have to distance yourself from friends, to give your mind an opportunity to conduct business with clarity.

Like Mike Dillard once wrote, “[Succesful people] know that a person’s mindset is fluid. It’s always changing with the ideas and interactions it comes into contact with on a daily basis.“

When I would expose myself to the criticism, the only thing that would come as a result of it was a dip in my performance, procrastination and stress.

The price I was willing to pay for my freedom was the distance I purposely created between some of my friends and I. And with no disrespect to any of my friends, it was absolutely necessary.

I have no regrets. I have my freedom.

My girlfriend is just starting out a business and wants to market it online.

And guess who’s the lucky guy that gets to help her with the marketing front? That’s right, you guessed it, ME!

When we first started out, all she could think about was making a “pretty website“. She wanted to learn HTML and all that “flash” jazz so she could make an impressive website. This is very typical of those just starting out their online marketing venture. After some coaxing and my explaining how much time and effort it would take for her to really learn the skills necessary to make a razzle-dazzle website, she agreed to take a canned template and run with that.

Of course… after we put together the template for her she immediately transitioned her attention to the logo design. She spent a few days tweaking the logo and trying to get it to be “perfect“.

Again, I had to do some coaxing before she finally stopped tweaking her logo.

And then there’s that darned font selection and how “boring” the Verdana font looks.

It seemed like everywhere we turned there was a distraction of some sort that captured her attention.

Now, you may be asking yourself, what’s so bad about creating a nice looking website?

Nothing.

What’s so bad about creating a kick-arse logo?

Nothing.

What’s wrong with wanting to pick a pretty font?

Nothing really…

That is, nothing except you are focusing your effort on the wrong things!

It’s like your house is burning down and you are focusing on fixing your A/C… Having a functional A/C is nice and dandy, but only AFTER you put out the fire.

All Too Familiar

This is the same problem that I had when I first got started and I am sure many of you can relate. I would convince myself that what I was focusing was critical and important; however, when I became honest with myself, those things, while useful, really weren’t even remotely close on the priority list.

Truth be told, I chose to do them because they were more “fun” than the other things. Or perhaps they were “easier” and flashier. The bottom line is, I found excuses to NOT do the things that had the highest priority (and of the greatest importance).

I ask you this, are you doing the same thing? Are you avoiding doing things that could have a drastic impact on your business in favor of things that have little impact?

If so, you need to familiarize yourself with the MLM Pareto principle , which states that 80% of your results will come from 20% of your efforts and 20% of your results will come from 80% of your effort. What this means is that there are some things you can do that will produce drastic results and there are loads of little things (that take a lot of time) that may produce little results in comparison.

The secret is to always do the things that get you the “best bang for the buck” before you do the others.

What are YOU Doing?

This concept can be applied to your MLM business in just every aspect. When prospecting, are you spending too much time on the tire-kickers and looky-loos? You know who I am talking about, the ones that have 5 gazillion pessimistic questions and negative remarks for you - and you find yourself spending hours on end defending yourself and your business.

Or are you spending time with the movers and shakers who are interested in just “getting it done“.

Are you spending all your time reinventing the wheel because the canned software available just isn’t “good enough” or are you making do with what’s available now and moving on to something more meaningful like creating powerful content?

Stop missing the forest for the trees.

At every step of the way in building your business, always check your priority list and ask yourself if you what you are doing warrants your immediate attention and would produce the most drastic positive result for your business than the other action items on your list.

If so, great, carry on. If not, perhaps you should refocus.

With this in mind, my girlfriend and I were able to focus our efforts. In a matter of a few days, we had a few capture pages up (for split testing), 150 ad groups in AdWords each with 2 or 3 ads for split testing.

And now, I am having her contract out the logo and website design while focusing on reading and creating content for her business. This sure beats banging our heads against the wall figuring out just how much we suck at logo and website design…

To Affinity and Beyond,

Raymond Fong

When Everyone Else Is Focused on Opportunity Leads, Learn How To Sneak In Under the Radar and Generate Rabid Customer Leads

Egotist, n.:
A person of low taste, more interested in himself than me.
– Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil’s Dictionary”

About a year and a half ago, Raymond and I sat in front of our Martial Arts Master (a Yellow Belt and White Belt, respectively) in his office and offered to build a funded proposal for his martial arts school for FREE.

Why?

Because we wanted to test what we had learned from Mike Dillard with a “REAL Business” and see if these techniques would work.

So after a few conversations, Master Lee agreed to this experiment and so began our internet marketing consulting careers.

The result of it I think you are already familiar with — Master Lee’s recruitment sky rocketed, he became a media mogul on YouTube (search for “Hwa Rang Do”) and the “experiment” has evolved into a business partnership with one of the world’s top martial artists.

Something important we learned out of the funded proposal “experiment” for Hwa Rang Do, was how to actually market products and services, instead of just a business opportunity like we are taught in the MLM world.

Who is Susan and Why Does She Want to Talk to Me?

I didn’t quite realize how valuable this experience for us had been until a woman named Susan sent me an email yesterday and asked to speak to me.

You see, Susan purchased tickets for our MLM Traffic Formula LIVE in Austin, TX next month.

She had some questions about the focus of the system she wants to create next month at the event, and she wanted to do some prep work before the event. She politely requested to have a brief conversation with me, because she was serious about making the most out of that weekend.

So I agreed to speak with her and scheduled a time to talk.

Trouble Recruiting for an Old MLM…

She called and told me that she wanted to create a product-based lead system for her Herbalife Business. She said she had trouble recruiting people into Herbalife, because it’s such a well recognized brand and people immediately make assumptions before she has an opportunity to present her business opportunity properly.

Therefore, she very wisely has chosen to lead with her products.

The reason this is a good idea is because most people generally want to believe that they know something about what you are talking about.

If they have any previous experience or knowledge of what you are presenting to them (no matter how inaccurate), they immediately draw from those experiences and make decisions based on that, NOT what you presented to them, (i.e. their listening is off.)

So leading with your opportunity when you are involved in older companies like Amway, Herbalife, USANA, NuSkin, etc is usually not the best approach.

Leading with Your Products

Aside from stability, the big benefit that these big MLM companies offer is that they are constantly producing new products for their distributors to sell.

So while the opportunity brand may be old and stale, you can still lead with a novel new breakthrough product.

In speaking to Susan, I suggested that she focus on one great product, with a nice profit margin and which can produce immediate effects for her customers. She immediately knew what product that would be.

I then advised her to come up with the top benefits of this product — what pain does it relieve? what problem does it solve? what immediate results can people expect? What kind of person would need this product?

She would then use this information to craft her capture page at the workshop.

Writing Newsletters that Sell Product

Next I asked her if she was knowledgable about health and wellness and if she would feel comfortable writing about it? She said yes, she was.

So I suggested she write a few newsletters providing free and valuable information on health and wellness.

But what I suggested she write her first few newsletters on was on how to solve or provide the benefits of her lead product, without them needing to buy the product.

“Huh?”

This might seem a bit counterintuitive, but that is exactly what I told her to do.

I explained that her email newsletters and lead system need to stand alone as valuable content and information. If you do this you’ll accomplish three things:

When you deliver on your promises and blow people away with the value you have provided them, you become their new best friend and they will be more open than ever to any product recommendations you will make.

So the newsletter format I advised her to use for all her emails is as follows:

Some MLM companies may prohibit you from having sales copy or links on any website or email promoting a product (especially a nutritional product), so in that case, you may want to skip #2 and make product recommendations part of your personal health consultation.

The important thing to remember here is that your goal is to become an authority/expert first! Avoid the temptation to pitch your product right off the bat.

Ideally, what you want to do is create a business relationship with them even before they’ve purchased any of your MLM products. This could be some kind of info product or affiliate promotion.

If someone is willing to give you money for advice, then they will definitely be willing to give you money for a product you recommend, which can potentially solve their problems.

I expect big things out of Susan and I want the same for you.

Ferny & Ray

(Thanks to Barry Dunlop and Dean Hunt for help with this list.)

I wanted to lift the veil and tell you exactly who’s at the top of the internet marketing world. Ray and I recently returned from the Underground Online Seminar IV held this year in Downtown Los Angeles.

The who’s who of internet marketing was there and along with knowing how to make money, they also know how to party! (Click for Footage from Mini-Kiss Concert)

And as a result of meeting all these “gurus”, I decided to take their names down and create a list based on my experience, the value they’ve added to my marketing career and the $$$ they bring in for their respective businesses:

Here it is:

1. Carlos and Lupe Garcia
2. Tom Bell
3. Jim Lillig
4. Eben Pagan
5. John Reese
6. Yanik Silver
7. Joe Polish
8. Brock Felt
9. Buck Rizvi
10. Frank Kern
11. Mike Dillard
12. Mike Filsaime
13. Jim Edwards
14. Jonathan Mizel
15. Dan Kennedy (honorary)

Please feel free to give feedback on this list, if you think there is someone out there who is deserving.

Otherwise, it’s my blog and I’ll name who I want to.

-Ferny

The Truth About Why Lead Generation Systems
are No Longer Working in Today’s Saturated Market…

“Many of these theories have been killed off only when some decisive experiment
exposed their incorrectness… Thus the yeoman work in any science… is done by
the experimentalist, who must keep the theoreticians honest.”
- Michio Kaku, Theoretical Physicist

Hopefully, I won’t anger too many of you, but I think the writing is on the wall and this needs to be said.

Over the past couple of years, ‘automated MLM systems’ have taken the MLM industry by storm. Initially, what made a ‘funded proposal’ so attractive was that it offered us a much easier and better alternative to the “traditional prospecting” methods.

Finally! No more “3 foot rule”, cold calling, buying leads, home meetings, hotel meetings, and everything else that our uplines said was part of their “system”.

We were watching guys like Mike Dillard, Daegan Smith, Ty Coughlin, Jay Kubassek, among others, growing massive downlines almost overnight, without needing to talk to a single person.

In fact, Daegan Smith even gave himself the title of “The King of Never Calling a Single Lead”.

Ah, those were the good ol’ days…

Since then, the online MLM market has become saturated with systems promising things like:

• “No selling”

• “The system does the work for you”

• “We close sales for you”

• “No phone skills, needed”

• “No prospecting”

• “Build your downline on autopilot”

I have to admit, I was sold on ‘attraction marketing’ for these same reasons. I was tired of coaching and wasting my time with people who had no business, being in business for themselves.  I needed to figure out a way to filter through the “losers” and “tire-kickers” to get to the real leaders who were going to build this thing.

Then Magnetic Sponsoring walked into my life and forever transformed my business and life. Raymond and I went on to create the ‘Attraction Marketing Formula’ based on the teachings from Magnetic Sponsoring, but geared towards Google Marketing and some of the “techie” stuff.

But then we started noticing something…

The MLM Pendulum is Swinging Back the Other Way

Recently, I had some pretty eye-opening conversations with fellow networkers involved with some of the most popular “turn-key” systems out there.  (You’d recognize these systems immediately if I mentioned them by name.)  And I have to admit, it was ‘deja-vu’ as I was listening to them.

It was as if I had gone back in time 3 years, before Magnetic Sponsoring was released, and I was listening to the struggles, trials and tribulations of your “Uncle Bob’s MLM”.

“I’m not making any money…”
“No one is joining my team…”
“I’ve lost all my savings…”
“I’m not getting any upline support…”

These conversations confirmed the suspicions I’ve had floating around my head for a long time…

Traditional Methods are Making a Comeback

Now, before you get upset and start sending me hate mail, allow me to explain exactly what is happening.

First of all, NO you DON’T have to go back to cold-calling or prospecting at Starbucks and frisking people for a “dream”. We already know that’s not going to work.

But there’s a subtle trend I’ve been watching happen over the past year.

The systems who were promising “turn-key” businesses, with “no selling” started having live training calls on…

PROSPECTING OVER THE PHONE?

Huh?

What are guys like Todd Falcone, Joe LoBalsamo, and Mark Wieser doing on these live training calls for “automated systems”?

These guys are old school.  These guys make like 40 dials per day to grow their businesses.  What do we need them for?

This is the Internet Age, baby! Prospecting calls are like soooo 1980’s…

…or are they?

The Ultimate MLM Advantage

The bad news is that if you are expecting to build your business from your computer without talking to anyone, you’re screwed.

The good news is that if you are willing to pick up the phone and talk to people, it will give you the ultimate competitive advantage in today’s saturated “mlm systems” market.

The reason these “old school” trainers are watching a rise in their businesses, is because at the end of the day, people want to talk to people.  If they are going to join a business with a $2000 entry point or buy a high-end information product for $500, they want to know there’s a real person behind the system and someone there to help them.

*********Ad: Learn How To Sponsor and Prospect Online*********
My buddy Joe LoBalsamo has agreed to do a FREE live training call on how to use ‘traditional’ phone skills with a ‘funded proposal’ for maximu profits and results. Learn more: http://attractionmarketingformula.com/prospecting
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That’s the whole reason why Web 2.0 is so huge now.  People want to interact with other people, especially when it involves taking out their wallet.

The fact of the matter is, if you are interacting with your customers or prospects via chat, email, forums or by phone, you have a much, much, much higher chance of getting them to buy or join your business.

It’s that simple.

But there are also some very crucial things you should be doing to ensure your success in a web 2.0 world.

Traditional Prospecting 2.0

First, you want to create as many opportunities for your prospects to contact you for support.  Here are a few simple things you can do:

• Put your phone number on all your capture pages, emails and sales pages.
  To protect your privacy, I recommend you use a Business Voicemail service, where calls are forwarded to you via an 800 number and only after the caller has identified themself.  (If you want to learn more about this, call me at 866-834-3625 so you can see it in action and I can give you the purchase details.)

• Use a real email address when delivering your autoresponder messages.

• Provide AIM, Google chat or Skype details, so people can send you messages.

• Have an “Ask Us” form on your website, which allows people to submit questions via your website.

• Have a guestbook form on your website, where prospects can say “I was here”.  Have them provide an email address when they sign.  This gives you an opportunity to start a conversation by emailing them.

• Send personal emails to as many of your leads as you can, every day.  People know the difference between automated emails and real emails. Take 20 minutes a day to start a dialogue with new subscribers.

• Here’s the scary one – have your prospects provide their phone numbers when they opt in and CALL YOUR PROSPECTS!

Now that last one is probably not making your feel warm and fuzzy, but it’s actually the most important one.  This is where the training from guys like Todd Falcone, Joe LoBalsamo and Mark Wieser come in.

The great thing about using your own ‘funded proposal’ is that the prospects on your list requested information from you first.  Your calls will be primarily consultative in nature.  You are not calling them to pitch your business, but just to help with what they requested information on.

However, it is inevitable that people will eventually ask about your business with questions like:

“What company are you with?”
“How much money are you making?”
“How do you market?”

Your answers to these questions will be the difference between having ZERO success and growing a huge and profitable business.  That’s why investing in courses like Blackbelt Recruiting will make a huge impact in your business, but also on you personally and how people view you through your everyday interactions.

The Inner Game of MLM

Finally, as you start to develop your phone skills, and prospecting skills, you’ll start noticing that you’ll start attracting leaders to you.  All forms of your communication (email, copywriting and speaking) will start exuding this ‘mystical’ magnetism and people will be naturally drawn to you.

And the real kicker is that you’ll start attracting leads to you in the OFFLINE world, as a result of your new magnetic personality!

As you start seeing the cost of PPC and advertising rise, your ability to acquire a lead using more “traditional” means, will be very easy and FREE.  It’s the most ironic thing I’ve experienced since I took my business online.

So the truth about all these “automated turn-key” systems, is that they are not what they initially claim to be.  The system can be a very powerful tool, but it’s not your entire business – unless you happen to own the system.

At the end of the day, the advantage that you can have over another rep using the same “automated system” will be YOU, INC.

They already know what the system can do for them.  Now they are going to want to know what YOU can do for them — that’s the difference maker.

To help you get through this process, my buddy Joe is an expert on internet prospecting and figuring out, which people on your list are most likely to join your business. He’ll be doing a FREE LIVE training call, exclusively for AMF subscribers on Monday, March 17th.

Go here to register for FREE:
http://attractionmarketingformula.com/prospecting

To Your Success,

Ferny Ceballos

What ‘Building on a Budget’, 2.5 Margaritas, Mike Dillard and an
Aston-Martin Drive Through Downtown Austin Have in Common…

“What does that button do? “
- Ferny, While Riding in Mike’s “Spy Car”

Whoa, dude!

So what can I say? I just happen to be strolling through Austin, TX and decided to give Mr. Dillard a call so I can stop by and say “hello” since I just happen to be in the neighborhood.

(Real Story: I flew to Dallas for a seminar, but I arrived 3 days early, so I rented a car and drove down to Austin to watch Mike press the Big Red Launch Button for ‘Building on a Budget‘.)

So I phoned and asked Mike if it was ok if I stopped by. AND before he had a chance to answer, I rang the door bell. (Asking is simply a formality in today’s age.)

Ferny Wonka in the Magnetic Sponsoring Factory

Just like I expected, Mike Dillard opened the doors wearing a big black top hat and welcomed me into the magical world of the Magnetic Sponsoring factory. I met the queen of the factory, Steph (Mike’s girlfriend).

Aside from the elves who ran around turning the cranks to keep the Magnetic Sponsoring Community running, the Sofas stuffed with 100 dollar bills and the waterfalls of Xango juice, the place looked pretty normal.

Mike had been watching the numbers come in for ‘Building on a Budget’ with an inquisitive look on his face.

Apparently, one of the M.S. elves had tripped while turning the crank and caused the system to have a failure on Internet Explorer. Needless to say, Mr. Dillard was none too pleased.

The problem was resolved, elves reprimanded, and then the tour of the factory continued.

What I saw I cannot possibly describe, but let’s just say that I was exposed to the secrets as to how everything you see on Magnetic Sponsoring comes to life.

Mike literally snaps his fingers and the elves mobilize to make things happen.

(Real Story: Mike calls the MS programmers on his iPhone and barks orders.)

Mike and Ferny Go For a Ride

So after a hectic morning, Mr. Dillard took off his top hat and put on his sun glasses. He led me to the back of the factory and we walked through the secret door to the MS underground cave and saw this…

Mike (w/out the top hat), Ferny and the Aston-Martin (worth more than my house)

I gotta say, you can’t get any closer to riding in the Space Shuttle than riding in this thing with Mike behind the wheel.

I made the unfortunate mistake of pointing at a button with an image of a car with skiggly lines under the wheels and asked, “What does that button do?”.

He said, “Let me show you…”

Whaaam! In under 1 second he managed to ramp to 3 G’s, the Aston-Martin starting skidding and I turned pale white, (I’m naturally a dark beige).

2.5 Margaritas and “Queso” at Polvos

So after our adveture through Downtown Austin and being seemingly invisible to police radar, we arrived at a ‘hole in the wall’ joint called, ‘Polvos’ that looked like the walls were going to cave in… It’s an clear sign of some good eatin’.

There I had some of the best margaritas I’ve ever had, (paid for by Justin and Tim Erway’s share of Magnetic Sponsoring, LLC).

After some masterminding, my 2.5 margaritas and the best ‘queso’ this side of the rio grande, we hopped back into the ’spy car’ and headed back to the MS factory to make sure things were running smoothly.

From ‘Building on a Budget’ to MLM Millionaire

Back at the “factory”, I asked Mike a little bit about his life before MS and if you aren’t familiar with his story, it’s pretty pathetic (no offense, Mike).

Mike was literally living off the dollar menu of Taco Bell, had no furniture in his small apartment and pawned his DVD’s to survive. Every cent he earned went towards “building” his MLM business.

I use the term ‘building’ loosely, because he did a lot of the same stupid things most MLM’ers continue to do today, (i.e. buy generic leads, sizzle cards, 3 foot rule, prospect at cafes, cold calling, etc.)

Are you doing any of these?

He told me about having been mentored by Joe Schroeder, Robert Blackman and learning the way they did business and then applying their teachings to the internet.

The Most Important Thing to Spend Your Money On

Mike discovered that the most important thing to spend your money on in any business, was not leads, flyers and other prospecting “tools”. The most important thing was investing in yourself to develop the skills to do business online.

So essentially, the new “Building on a Budget” course is Mike’s way of giving YOU what he had learned from Joe and Robert, but updated for the Web 2.0 world. On top of that, Mike knows better than anyone what it is like to be in dire straits and needing to find success.

It’s amazing to know that story, then experience the millionaire lifestyle Mike has created for himself after having lifted himself out from the MLM gutter. And this isn’t anything that is unavailable to anyone.

The only difference is the time, effort and education Mike is providing in his course.

My visit with Mike ended with a few more margaritas and enjoying a great view of Lake Travis:

Lake Travis from 100’s of feet above (simulated blur to account for margaritas)

Feelin’ Good in Austin

I thanked Mike and his beautiful girlfriend, Steph, for their hospitality, tour of the MS factory and continued my Texas tour towards San Antonio to spend time with my girlfriend, (she was in Texas for the March 4th primaries).

I then headed back up to Dallas for a seminar with Keith Baxter and other affiliate marketers.

It’s important to remember that Mike, (even with the Top Hat), is as human as you and I are. The only difference is that he was focused and willing to do what others weren’t willing to do.

Like myself, you can learn through ‘Building on a Budget‘ and stand on his shoulders to strive for the success.

It’s the best investment you could make, because the alternative is living off the dollar menu from Taco Bell and being dead broke for 6 years, like Mike was.

You’d be silly not to take advantage of it.

So Here’s Exactly What To Do

All you need to do is register at http://attractionmarketingformula.com/budget, and follow instructions to purchase ‘Building on a Budget‘.

You’d be silly not to pick up a copy of “Building on a Budget“. For less than thirty bucks, it’s a bargain.

If you do, you’ll be well on your way to living the lifestyle I got a taste of, this past weekend.

Thank you, Mike for your hospitality!

It’s time to get to work.

To Your Success,

Ferny Ceballos

Okay, so in the previous post, “The Secret Society of Traffic Conversion“, I covered fundamental #1 to making friends with the internet marketing giants and getting them on your side.

Now let’s move on to the next four fundamentals you should adhere to in order to make the best of your marketing seminars.

Lesson #2: Establish yourself as someone of expertise by asking interesting and insightful questions (i.e. don’t be stupid).

Ask intelligent questions or even making helpful (note the operative word being “helpful”) suggestions and not being afraid to be in the spotlight. This is one of the best ways for you to set yourself apart from others in the audience and make people think “oohhh, that person has something of value and I should find out what it is” and want to come talk to you.

In a sense think about others who are less knowledgeable than you are in that particular area – by asking an intelligent question not only are you demonstrating an understanding of the topic but you are also doing them a favor by asking the question they were too afraid to ask themselves.

Lesson #3: Gurus are nice (for the most part) and are more than happy to help you if they deem you are worthy and are genuine.

Let me explain.

At the seminar, I did the unthinkable and the unreasonable. Not only did I initiate contact with the gurus and probed for more details, I also created the possibility of getting them to come online and do interviews with us!

While many of us think that gurus are the “untouchables” and that they couldn’t care less about who’s in the audience since they already make $x bazillions dollars – I‘ve found this to be absolutely false. What you have to realize is that each of these gurus are just like you and me. They all had to start SOMEWHERE.

And odds are, where they started isn’t very far off from where you are at now.

And more importantly, odds are that someone in their lives gave them a helping hand to get them where they are now.

As long as you are authentic and sincere (and friendly), they’d more than happy to chat with you and address your questions and provide advice (within reason of course). This leads to #4…

Lesson #4: Offer something of value to the gurus – how can you help THEM??

You can imagine how some people would take advantage of #3 and just hassle the heck out of the gurus for “favors”. What these newbies are forgetting is one of the cardinal rules of marketing/business/life. The “What’s In It For Me” (W.I.I.F.M.) principle.

Those folks who are pestering the heck out of gurus, chomping at the bits, are basically trying to get something for nothing. Never mind that these gurus just gave their best X minutes on a stage presenting the very knowledge being sought after. Never mind that these noobs didn’t even bother doing some research beforehand (not to mention that they didn’t even bother purchasing the guru’s product)…

You see, we all should learn to stop feeling so entitled. Don’t think “oh, the guru’s already making millions of dollars, he/she SHOULD help me now…”

Balooney. The gurus don’t owe you jack.

Want to know how to get their attention? Offer something of value to them. Ask them how you can help THEM for a change. Give them access to your list for example; promote them on your humble site/list; anything… SOMETHING. At the very least acknowledge that it is only out of their kindness that they are helping you.

Take Fernando and myself for example. It is only through adding value back to Mike Dillard and Tim Erway and doing our best to offer whatever help we can did they take note of us. It was only after we studied their system religiously and sucked in all their teachings did we start separating ourselves from the crowd.

So ask yourself this when you are speaking to gurus – what are YOU doing for THEM?

Lesson #5: Take pictures with the gurus and send it to them so they’ll remember you.

Okay… this is almost cheating but it works. Like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Be bold and be different… ask a guru for a picture after chatting with them for a bit. Tell them you’ll send them the picture when you get home and do it! After all, who doesn’t like seeing a picture of themselves in their inbox?

Not only will they get a lovely picture of their own face in their inbox, they’ll also get a picture of you and this will help them remember you… This makes it easier getting in touch with them for any other endeavors (see #3 and #4).

Lastly, let your list know! “Hey, look at me! I was at *blankity blank* and met *blankity blank*.” This shows you are active in the field and are constantly learning new things from other gurus.

One last note… do give the guru credit by letting people know who he/she is and linking to his/her site.

And there you have it folks. Next time you get a chance to go to a top caliber seminar… DO IT! You never know what sort of information, ideas, and contacts you can get out of it (odds are, you’ll get TONS)!

Special thanks go out again to Brock and Buck – thanks for creating such an awesome environment and inviting me to the event.

Last week, I had the opportunity to attend a 3-day traffic generation hosted by Brock Felt and Buck Rizvi in Orlando, Florida dubbed “The Secret Society of Traffic Conversion”.

Man, what a trip!

Brock Felt and Yours Truly at “The Secret Society of Traffic Conversion”

There was a ton of good marketing information and strategies. Even though I already knew much of the information presented, from years of study, implementation, and instruction for our customers, I still had a mind blowing time.

There are always golden nuggets of information around every corner, no matter how much you know.

My philosophy is this, as long as you can walk away with at least ONE solid idea, strategy, know-how, piece of information, etc. it was worth it. In my case, I came away from the seminar loaded with tons of ideas so it was definitely worth it. (Attraction Marketing Formula is about to get a major revamp, be on the lookout )

The standout speakers at the convention were hands-down Carlos and Lupe Garcia. The information they presented was astounding. If you don’t know who Carlos and Lupe are, they went from high school dropouts to making millions of dollars online while driving literally 5.8 BILLION visitors to their site over the span of a few months…

Yes, that wasn’t a typo, that was a ‘B’ you saw before ‘illion’.

Another speaker I was very excited to learn from was Michael Cage – the “King of Teleseminar”. He presented some powerful information and tactics using teleseminars to create interest in and generate revenue for your business.

His presentation was so compelling, I even shelled out $2K for one of his programs and I can’t wait to dig into it.

Don’t worry, for those of you who are customers of the Attraction Marketing Formula, I’ll be breaking down some of the strategies I learned in our exclusive “customers only” bonus tele-clinics and webinars. Heck, Michael and several other gurus were even kind enough to make themselves available for exclusive interviews, which we’ll happily invite our customers to listen in!

There was a loot of other speakers as well, which I gathered a ton of lessons and information from.

Our hosts, Brock and Buck gave each speaker ample time to speak, (3-4 hours), so the speakers really tore it up!

The thing that really stuck out for me at this event was the atmosphere. Brock and Buck made sure that while the event was loaded with top-notch presenters, it was also a very friendly environment where it was easy to network with others. I got to rub shoulders and chit-chat with top marketing gurus and other marketers in the crowd and ask lots of questions.

Buck Rizvi and Yours Truly at The Secret Society of Traffic Conversion

While I learned some of those “golden nuggets” of marketing information, the true piece of information I want to share with really has nothing to do with those marketing tips. It has to do with how you network and create powerful alliances and contacts. I came up with 5 tips to help you. Let me share with you the first one:

Lesson #1: You can create powerful contacts.

You are in a place where you are surrounded by dozens if not hundreds or thousands of other marketers. You are also in the presence of a handful or dozens of marketing gurus who found a way to get them to where you’d like to be… You are surrounded by potential leads, prospects, customers, JV partners, affiliates, and like-minded individuals.

What do you do? Do you a) hide in your seat and hope nobody sees you or b) do you bust out your people and marketing skills and create some contacts?

I opted for option b and so should you.

A lot of these seminars are setup such that you get several mini-breaks and a few long breaks. These provide excellent chances for you to mingle with others in the audience. You should adopt an “abundance” mindset and see each of them not as competitors but as potential partners.

Go talk to others. Find out what they are doing. Find out how you can help them and how they, in return, may be able to help you. Leverage the quality of people that seminars attract. You’d be surprised by how many contacts you can create this way and how fruitful this can be for you and your business.

So next time you plan on going to a seminar be sure to first hone your people skills and be positive and energetic. People will be attracted to you like no others.

And it helps when you apply principle #2 which I will share with you next time. So stay tuned until next time when I share with you 4 more powerful networking tips!

To Affinity and Beyond,

Raymond Fong

I got this question today and I think it will help a few of you:

“After banging my head against a wall for the past two years doing it the way my upline has told me, how can things possibly work this way?”

Hi ,

I got your question and I felt your pain so I wanted to address it.

It’s not your fault or your upline’s fault.  It’s just the way it is.

The internet has transformed this industry faster than most MLM
leaders can keep up with.

They built their businesses one way and it worked.  That way
is no longer viable, but it’s also very hard for any MLM leader
to admit that their way is no longer a good way and give up
their position of leadership and try things a different way.

It’s threating for an MLM leader to admit that they have to
start from square one and learn a different way.

It’s time for you to become a leader all of your own and learn
what works today, not follow someone else who has a method
which worked yesterday.

Leadership is about paving a new way for your team, not following
someone because you are afraid of leading.  Have faith in
knowing that what you decide to do will work.

All the Best,

Ferny Ceballos