Last time I checked my bankroll,
It was gettin' thin
Sometimes it seems like the bottom
Is the only place I've been
I chased a rainbow down a one-way street... dead end
And all my friends turned out to be insurance salesmen.
- by John Prine ("Illegal Smile")

My name is James Beane. Network marketers are often compared to insurance salesmen. When I first got into network marketing or mlm, I could see why.

In the insurance industry, a new recruit attends training and is instructed to make a list of at least 100 names of friends and family. And then you start the hunt, phoning or meeting people however you can.

So much talking - so many deadends.

But not anymore. I'm now on a straight track to reaching my own rainbow, achieving my dreams for my family.

Here's what happened:

My Body Said "Enough"!

2007 didn't start out as an easy year.

For the past 16-18 months, I'd been working delivering walk-off mats, laundry, uniforms, and table linens. Picture it... half an hour drive to work from home, 14 hours or more on the job, doing more driving (about 150 miles per day) and then my half hour trip back home. I was constantly running from business to business - no lunches, no breaks, five days a week.

Between the fatigue, the rigorous lifting, bending, running and long hours, my body was telling me to quit. But I kept ignoring the message. Finally, my body didn't wait any longer. It quit before I did.

What was I going to do? For my whole life, I've worked in physical or skilled labor jobs. But now I needed to find something else, not only to occupy my time but to prepare for the future. I needed to find a new way to make money.

Being the father of 5, living in a remote agricultural area, unable to continue working in physical labor employment, I wanted a business that wouldn't rely on the local economy! Supporting my family suddenly became a new challenge.

MLM Here I Come

I turned to network marketing. It seemed like a good fit since I could do it from home.

However, my income challenge didn't go away. My mlm company advised me to recruit eight of my closest friends and family, without making enemies of them. After I had run through my list of friends and family, I was encouraged to keep a notebook writing down the names of anyone in my past that I could think of, any service station attendant, grocery clerk, delivery person, etc. Basically, I was to talk to anyone who came within arm's reach or closer, even if it meant chasing people down the street.

After alienating anyone who recognized me by sight, I was stuck. I needed new leads.

The biggest drawback of living in the country and trying to run a network marketing business is the lack of people to present to. In my case, we live 6 miles out of a town of 850 people. We're in the fifth largest county in California, yet it's one of the least populated at 48,000 inhabitants. That's about 7 people per square mile. Los Angeles, by comparison, has 8,200 people per square mile!

Time to Go Virtual

Russell Conwell in his book, "Acres of Diamonds," suggests that we often go far away from home looking for riches. And so I took it to heart, and began to look in my own backyard for a way to create a living.

That's when I turned to the Internet. Network marketing and the Internet seemed like an obvious choice for a home business.

That was until I saw what was happening. My networking company provides cookie-cutter generic websites. Since it's a replicated website, the search engines regard it to be the equivalent of spam. That means, the only way I'll ever get traffic to the website is buying traffic. Not only that, but like other generic websites, mine typically left people wondering "What is it?", and never quite revealed what's being sold.

As I began to look into buying leads, I found an inexpensive source. (I also learned how I could buy leads costing $20 each - way outside my budget!) The leads we called were old, and tired of the endless phone calls. They hadn't realized the consequences of filling out that simple online form.

When I called the leads, folks were typically less than pleased or excited. After all, these people had requested somebody contact them about a home business, right? Wrong! I got cussed at, berated, lied to, and accused of all kinds of illegal activity, but all I was doing was calling self-described legitimately purchased leads.

I was stuck again.

The Best Lead Generator

When I found SBI on the Net, their message really struck a chord with me:

The lifeblood of a growing Network marketing business is new leads.
So here's how we define success...

Four or five (or more) new, warm leads per day, every day,
generated by you, and you only (not 1,000 others).

And they'll call you because you have done it the right
and proper way. They will listen to you because you are
the expert and they have called you.

That said it all! Nearly any other business, including the insurance industry, has customers and clients calling them. Shouldn't it be the same way with any direct sales or network marketing company?

With SBI!'s help, I began building a successful tea tree oil website.

I followed the Action Guide. I am active in the Site Build It Forums, where I read about network marketing, monetizing, tips and techniques, etc. I am helped all along the way.

My site as of Nov 2007 has nearly 100 pages, 250 to 300 visitors daily, and this month over 40 unique leads. Yesterday alone, I had 2 retail sales and 5 leads. I will soon be selling my own e-book as another means of monetization. And I can always test AdSense as another way to make money.

I treat network marketing like a "real" business. You cannot thrive on a system that requires enrolling only eight customers, all of whom are family and friends.

I also fully agree with SBI!'s business model that consumers should call your company seeking the products, not the other way around. Buying leads or stealing other networking down-lines is a dead end! Like an adulterous relationship, if they are willing to leave another organization for yours, they will most likely leave your organization when "something better" comes along.

My Preparation Pays Off!

I can still recall the first customer from my website who called and asked to be enrolled. She was the easiest yet most difficult enrollment I've ever had.

Easy because there was no need to convince the prospect that the products and the company itself were what she wanted for her home. The entire presentation, explanation, and Pre-Selling was accomplished entirely on the website.

Difficult because I had to make an effort to understand her thinking and needs long before I even met her (and other visitors to my site).

Right from the start, I built pages that educated folks about tea tree oil. I built pages that overcame:

• the perception that there must be something questionable about products that you can't buy through the website directly or in the local stores
  
  
• the perception that the products were more expensive or too expensive compared to the competition
  
  
• the perception that the seller and the seller's motives represented any kind of risk to the prospect (this in fact worked so well that the prospect gave me all the information necessary to completely fill out their enrollment forms)
  
  
• and finally, I built a page that created a perceived risk in buying supermarket brands versus my products.

My preparation work paid off with that first customer. She began searching for tea tree oil information through the Internet and came across www.teatreewonders.com. Because of the content, she then spent quite a bit of time on the website and e-mailed a question to me.

In a response, I was able to add a few details about why we love the products, why we offer them, and what makes tea tree oil so awesome. I invited her to contact me. She then called me the next day, asked a few questions and indicated she'd like to be a customer. She enrolled right then!

A Real Home Business

As I watch my traffic, leads, retail sales and enrollments increase, I am convinced that there is no better way to build a network marketing lead generation source that brings in the kind of quality leads you would pay a fortune for anywhere else.

Now, I am a home schooling father of five, building a real business from home. SBI! gives me a global reach from my little town.

Like so many others, I can truly say I love SBI!.

Jim Beane
http://www.teatreewonders.com