I come from a sales background. I started out doing outside sales for Verizon, T-Mobile, and Nextel and not too long after I was going door to door arcross the country selling satellite tv. When I would train newly hired sales reps I also went through a list of the industry sales people cuss-words.

What am I talking about? In any industry of sales there are always a series of words and phrases that trigger potential buyers into saying no or becoming defensive. These words tend to be the most common phrases that your customers are accustomed to hearing from your fellow sales reps.

The most effective salesman are able to get past the baricades that potential customers put up instinctively when they think they are being sold. This is the single most important skill perhaps even with the skill of closing. Telling your customer about features and benefits isn’t difficult if you can put them in a situation where they are truly listening to you.

Consider if you will what some of the cuss words might be in your industry. Telemarketers have a distinctive different set of cuss words than do kiosk in the mall sales people.

Please feel free to share your favorite industry sales cuss words below.

In the arena of internet marketing and online networking the experts teach us to search in social media for the type of people you want to do business with. This is good advice but most people interpret it incorrectly. The automatic assumption is that people building a mlm business should seek out people on Facebook and Twitter who are talking about, or already participating in Network Marketing. This is usually done by searching for keywords such as MLM, home based business, opportunity, etc. THIS IS A POOR STRATEGY!

If you follow this line of logic you are most likely to find yourself chasing the other chasers. You might build good friendships with these like minded people, but the chances of doing business with them is greatly limited.

When you are taught to network with people in social media, that you would like to do business with, you need to be looking for the people who will be naturally attracted to you. People with whom you can create a fast friendship and establish common ground. In short, search for people who share your passions. If you are particularly into scuba diving, chess, or fashion then you need to find the people who share that passion.

ACTION: Re-Read my post on Utilizing your Passions in Attraction Marketing and then create a list of keywords that you can use to identify people who share those passions on Twitter and Facebook.

Jacob S Paulsen

Goals are a big part of any business. Over time we have been taught a lot about setting effective goals including the power of written goals. What a lot of people don’t understand is the importance of an action plan. Without a step by step plan to reach your goal you have nothing more than a wish.

Action Plans generally have 3 parts. Each action plan should reflect your goals, the steps you must take to accomplish them, and what will be required of other third parties to make it happen. Third parties may include a business partner, your spouse, or even your creator. In your MLM business this most often includes your upline leadership or company executives.

Your action plan should be written down and signed by all the parties involved. Display it in a place where you will see it regularily and if possible a location where you are in a position to take the most action such as your desk or office.

I have built a simple MLM action plan that you can download here.

Jacob S Paulsen

You are probably familiar with Stephen Covey’s best seller “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.“ The principles taught in that book are powerful and true.

Today I am going to use his basic outline of habits to teach you how to be an effective recruiter in your MLM business. These simple principle based steps can take you from the bottom ranks of your company to the very top if you will study and apply them in sequential order.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective (MLM) Network Marketers

Habit 1Be Proactive: Principles of Personal Vision

1. The first step in creating a residual income is pro-activity.
2. Taking action steps to make an initial list of potential recruits and calling them to set up appointments.
3. Taking personal initiative to make sure that each member of your team is plugged into the emails, trainings, and meetings.
4. Inviting team members to local & regional events, and setting up these events if not already available to you.
5. Training each of your reps individually, or making sure they are trained.
6. Scheduling time together with each direct enrollment to hold them accountable to their goals.

Habit 2Begin with the End in Mind: Principles of Personal Leadership

1. Deciding early on what your objectives are. What do you truly wish to accomplish in your business, and what do you want your team to accomplish?
2. Creating a synergistic mission statement that reflects your goals and objectives and those of your team as a whole.
3. Beginning each event, activity, or meeting knowing what you want to get out of it, and what you wish for your team members and guests to get out of it.
4. Foreseeing possible problems with retention, discouragement, etc.
5. Taking the proper steps to prepare to be an effective teacher, leader and trainer.

Habit 3  Put First Things First: Principles of Personal Management

1. Understanding the four quadrants of effective production and knowing how to apply that to your personal & team’s activity. Focusing on Revenue Producing Activities!
2. Creating habits of time management and effective planning.
3. Reserving time for all your roles in life, so as not to neglect something.
4. Setting time aside each week for Recruiting, Retaining, and Training.

Habit 4Think Win/Win: Principles of Interpersonal Leadership

1. Commit yourself to Win/Win or no deal. Agree to enroll people who you need in your business and who need your business.
2. Look for the recruit’s win in your business opportunity. Specifically what will this mean in their life?
3. Continue to show team members the win in each part of the MLM experience.
4. Help create the win by getting the new recruits plugged into the proper system of activities.
5. Lead by example. Help each new member of your team grow by being a part of their personal production.

Habit 5Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood

1. Seek to understand the situation of each contact. Find out what they want out of the experience and what has brought them far enough to listen to you.
2. Practice active listening skills. Truly listen to your recruits and your team members to best understand their desires.
3. Continue building a relationship with your team to develop trust and credibility through listening to and understanding them.
4. Only when the rep trusts you and believe you understand them, and have their best interests in mind will they follow you.

Habit 6  Synergize Principles of Creative Communication

1. Create environments of synergy in recruiting, retaining, and training arenas.
2. Practice habits 4 & 5 in making synergistic moments happen.
3. Synergize with each rep individually and with the team as a whole.
4. Seek out potential synergistic activities, such as creating the team mission statement, local events, etc.
5. Understand the unique abilities that each of your leaders have and think of how best to utilize them.
6. Seek out the very best training in the industry and in your company from the top leaders.

Habit 7  Sharpen the Saw: Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal

1. Set aside Monthly, Weekly, and Daily planning and evaluation sessions.
2. Renew your commitments and covenants in all aspects of life through sincere evaluation.
3. Evaluate the best and less effective practices that you have been using in recruiting, retaining, and training your office.
4. Review this and other handouts and notes that will increase your effectiveness in recruiting, retaining, and training your office.

Jacob S Paulsen

DOWNLOAD THE 7 HABITS OF HIGHLY EFFECTIVE NETWORK MARKETERS

UPDATE: This Ebook is no longer available via the below method/form. To learn more about how you can receive this book, visit www.mlmfaststart.com

If you haven’t already received your copy of my ebook “Fast Start: MLM Lessons Without Any Name Calling” just fill out your name and email below and I will send you the link! If you like the content come back and retweet and digg this post.

Thanks in advance,

Jacob S. Paulsen

This E-Book contains valuable lessons about analyzing the industry and preparing for success. Learn about the most common mistakes that people make when getting started and how to gain momentum in the first few weeks.

The first weekend of June I had a unique opportunity to do some executive protection work (bodyguard) for some well known people visiting Salt Lake City for a convention. Many of you may not know that while I’m an internet marketer and a network marketer, by trade I’m a security professional.

The company convention was that of a relatively new MLM named Zrii. The CEO and owner is Bill Farley, owner of the White Sox and he and his family’s safety were my primary concern throughout the three day convention but we also had a guest visit from both Deepak Chopra and Anthony Robbins for whom we were also responsible.

While I of course don’t mean to promote Zrii in this post I do want to share some insights that I learned from these great speakers and people both on stage and backstage.

Deepak Chopra. Deepak when you see this article in your google alerts email on your blackberry you will remember that I’m the guy that followed you around in Salt Lake that weekend. The content that Deepak delivered was great and I admit that even though its my job to not pay attention to him but instead the crowd, I struggled.

I think the general theme of his speech was understanding the “soul” of the man and how it is connected to the mind and body. Very intriguing and and I must say very original. There was no question to his credibility and while he wasn’t exactly full of energy I still felt like the audience was very connected and aware. It made me want to buy some of his books!

What was he like backstage? Deepak was very in the zone before he went on stage. He wasn’t annoying or stuck up but just focused. Despite him wanting to be truly alone he accepted every visitor who came back to make his acquaintance. That having been said he was generally quiet and reserved.

I think I would have seen a more lively side of him if he hadn’t had a cold. He wasn’t able to stay on site very long and on the way back t

o the hotel from the venue he spent most of the time reviewing his google alerts on his blackberry. When he finished he asked me about Salt Lake. He either was sincerely interested in Salt Lake, felt awkward in the silence, or just wanted to chat with me a little. Either way we had a nice little chat on the way back to the hotel and I felt his transparency in his character. I liked him.

Anthony Robbins. Anthony Robbins does somehow seem to live a life of the constant passion for which he is so well know for on stage. He doesn’t travel alone and on this trip had his own stage assistant, sound manager, and “handler.” I also understand that he is rarely away from his wife but this was one of those rare occasions.

On stage he did a great job of delivering what I suspect he normally would consider his 3 day signature seminar in about 4 hours. Once again I wasn’t supposed to be paying close attention but a couple of the key things I will remember were his phrase, “motion creates emotion,” which effectively means that we can control how we feel by our own body posture and movement. He demonstrated this by inviting the entire crowd to do several 90 second role plays.

What was he like backstage? Best put, he was friendly. He just seemed to like people and everyone around felt that. He agreed without question to take a picture with me and the other security guys and that was super cool.

In talking to a member of his staff I also learned that his travel schedule is extreme. He is constantly going from one place to another and due to his tendency to stay on stage until he feels he is done he is often cutting it really close to the wire. To be quite frank I don’t know how he keeps it up. It seems exhausting.

Oh and also just a quick note that I met Thurl Bailey at the convention and he is AWESOME!!!

As the internet becomes flooded with entrepreneurs and home based business owners I have a few words of caution that I would like to express. A lot of the training content on my site is an explanation of what to do; but this post is to inform you as to what not to do.

1. The change from employee to entrepreneur was designed to be a transition and not a leap of faith. In our current economic crisis a lot of people who are losing their jobs are turning to network marketing to replace their income. BAD IDEA. Despite the many rags to riches stories you may have heard I can virtually promise failure if you attempt this. Secure a steady income before starting your part-time business! Become an entreprenuer to supplement your existing income and if it goes well… then continue the transition.

2. Marketing is not sales. You are a home based business owner of some sort and have a product/service/opportunity to share with people. Marketing as a professional includes doing some research, discovering your target market, setting a budget & schedule, building a network (making a list), and establishing a relationship of credibility with your network. There is a place for sales but only after marketing is done. Sales without marketing is called SPAM. Done online spam will ruin your credibility, d spamming those you meet will ruin your friendships.

3. Don’t waste all your time. Your greatest investment of time when starting out will be in education. If you think adding hundreds of friends on facebook is going to build your MLM you are clearly uneducated. Find the experts and learn from them.

Jacob S Paulsen

I get a lot of phone calls from online friends who need assistance in setting up their websites and their social media profiles to begin working in internet marketing and social networking. Every once in awhile I think to myself that I should write a 2 page guide to “Online Domination Setup” which I could just email to these people who call me.

Today is that day. If you already have a website with 1000 plus visitors per week and more than 3000 twitter followers I would suggest you stop reading now and seek higher level training. For those of you who are still beginners here is what you need to know in less than two pages. To prove it I have provided a downloadable PDF file at the end of this post.

Online Marketing Umbrella Concepts:

First, you basically separate all of your online work and websites into these 3 categories:

1. Social Media – This is where you meet people and create relationships with them… NOTHING MORE.
2. Personal Website – This is where people you meet who want to learn more about you will come to do so. Your personal site needs to be in the form of a blog and it needs to contain informational, inspirational, and entertaining content. If best find a specific niche where with you can help your readers. The “niche” of this website is “Becoming More, Inspiration & Resources for Entrepreneurs.”
3. Sales Pages. This is where you will sell your products and opportunities to those who visited your personal site and wanted to know what you do for a living and to those who searched you out in search engines, etc.

Second, You will need to create a HUGE following in social media in order to really make a difference. This will require…

1. Sincerity. You will have to really care about the people you meet and have their best interests at heart
2. Marketing Ethics. Don’t SPAM people. (IE: marketing without permission or relationship)
3. Time. This will not happen over night. Do a little everyday over a long period of time and results will come.

TO DOs of Getting Started…

1. Get Your Own Website Started:
   1. Get a hosting account at either Godaddy or hostmonster. If you choose Godaddy get the deluxe hosting or higher. Buy the domain www.yourname.com as this will be the most important real estate you own in the virtual world. This one hosting account will allow you to host dozens of different websites down the road and it is necessary to get one eventually… why not now.
   2. Install WordPress onto the main directory of your website. This can be done painlessly with either Godaddy or Hostmonster. There are tons of tutorial videos on Youtube and I also have some on the “Tutorials” page of my site. Watch these same tutorials to help you set up your WordPress site with the best themes, plugins, etc.
   3. Decide what your online niche is going to be. Are you the Mountain Biking Kenyan who owns his own home business? Sorry, that’s already taken…
   4. Create content for your site and remember content should generally be either informative/educational, personal, or entertaining.
   5. Find a way to monetize your site by putting relevant ads onto your page from a affiliate group such as Linkshare or CommissionJunction If you already have your own products/opportunity to market put ads up for it or perhaps its own page.
2. Create a strong presence in Social Media. Focus on YouTube.com, Facebook, and Twitter but also any other network that is specific to your own niche or market. Example: if you live in Brazil you are likely to also focus on Orkut.comwhich is the most popular Brazilian social media site. Here are some tips:
   1. Create profiles that are both personal and professional in nature. You don’t want people to think you are a robot, but you don’t want them to think you are an amateur either.
   2. Don’t go on an adding friend frenzy. Search out and connect with the type of people that share your interests or make up your target market
   3. Don’t spread yourself to thin. If you are going to have a presence then have a real active presence.
   4. Don’t be a hypocrite. Don’t ask anyone to spend time looking at or commenting on your content unless you are willing and actively doing the same for them.
   5. Search out the best tools that allow you to syndicate content and increase your followers without spending tons of money. In my experience the paid tools are barely any better than the free ones and usually come with a sales pitch of their own.
3. Continue Your Education… by subscribing to blogs and sites to people who can help you grow. The easiest way to do this is by using an RSS reader like Google Reader. Go to http://reader.google.com and you will figure out without too much effort how to get started subscribing to other people’s sites. You will also find that most sites (like mine) have a subscribe option somewhere on the page. (top right). Your google reader will let you know every time someone who’s site you follow writes a new article/post and you will be able to keep up to date with the latest content without having to visit everyone’s site everyday.

Online Marketing Resources:

• PixelPipe.com Picture Syndication
• Ping.fm Status Update, Micro-Blogging Syndication
• TubeMogul.com Video Syndication
• TweetLater.com Schedule Tweets and Auto-Follow/Auto-UnFollow + Auto DMs
• Reader.google.com Best RSS reader for subscribing to other people’s blogs.
• Feedburner.com Program owned by Google that will help you give people to option of subscribing to your site via email.

Online Marketing Explanations:

• WordPress: WordPress is the BEST program to use to host your website, blog, or both. This is true for three basic reasons.
  • The way it interacts with the Search Engines is PERFECT!!!
  • The versatility of how it will perform or look is second to none
  • The ability for non geeky folk to be able to use it and not screw anything up is amazing
• Youtube, Facebook, & Twitter are the most important simply because they are the most popular. I would encourage you to find other social networks specific to your hobbies, passions, and specific product/opportunity.
• In setting up your sales pages as explained above you will use your same hosting account. Just buy a new domain, host it in a sub-directory (folder) and install WordPress.

Favorite WordPress Plugins: (See my tutorial videos on the “Tutorials” page for descriptions and instructions.

• All In One SEO
• Google XML Sitemap
• Google Analytics for WordPress
• Cforms
• Social Media Page

Download this Page in PDF Form.

This morning I enjoyed an engaging conversation with fellow internet marketer Andrew James, who among other things is preparing for a 1000 mile bike ride. He knows that I’m preparing for a 1/2 marathon (weak in comparison). Our conversation led me to draw some conclusions about these passions that we enjoy.

Everyone I look up to is passionate. We don’t usually share the same passions but the point is that we have them. Passions I am arguing draw people toward you, and expand greatly your personal network. It doesn’t matter if you are passionate about cooking, running, fashion, harry potter, or firearms the point is that you are not alone in these passions. There are HUGE communities of people out there who share your likes and dislikes.

If your likes and dislike are just that…. simple likes than you are unlikely to form new friendships or seek out others who share your likes. If however you have strong likes that become passions you are likely to find others and inspire them to be passionate also. This is the first key: Your own Passions will drive you to find other like-passionate people.

The second key: Being passionate makes you unique and attractive. If you are truly to become “attractive” as we use the term in marketing then you must become unique and appealing. Being passionate is the first key to being unique. I would challenge you to find someone else in this world that shares all of my passions. (If such a person exists please contact me). Being passionate will make you unique and this in turn makes you more attractive than the average Joe.

Now assuming that you understand the importance of being passionate about something; or even better several things let me outline some tips on how to live your life of passion, personal development, and marketing!

1. Search our passions that are healthy and doable. Do not decide you are passionate about big game hunting if you live in Miami, FL. Make sure your passions will be healthy to your lifestyle and that of your family.
2. After deciding on a passion, identify communities both local and online that share your passion. Network with them. Learn the jargon, attend events, and create friendships.
3. Set BIG goals within your passion. If you like to read novels, set a goal to read a new novel every week for 3 months. If you like to cook, set a goal to arrange a charity dinner for homeless people. Do something BIG that lies within your passion.
4. Announce your goals to EVERYONE around you. This will make you more accountable to your goal and it will continue to attract more people to you; both those who do and don’t share your passion. Recruit others to work toward the same goal with you.
5. Now, brainstorm to discover way to monetize your passion. I’m not suggesting that you give up your current job/business to cook/read/run full time. I’m suggesting that there may be ways to utilize your passion and your goals to further build your business or create perhaps a side income.

If you can do this your life will be enhanced and your bank account will thank you. This process is in line with developing a better you, growing your business, and most important creating a close-knit family unity.

As a last note allow me to tell you about some of my passions that perhaps you, my readers might share.

I love running, spelunking, geocaching, American history (specifically anything related to our founding fathers & the revolutionary war), firearms and 2nd amendment rights, dogs, listening to audiobooks, cell phones (specifically the android platform), and of course my AWESOME family!

What are you passionate about?

Since releasing my new ebook, “Fast Start, MLM Lessons Without Any Name Calling” people have been going CRAZY to get their hands on it. I’m now making it available for free. Why would I do this? Two simple reasons.

1. I’m looking to expand my influence online and would like to do this by exposing more people to my website and twitter profile
2. I truly believe that if everyone had this ebook our industry would not suffer such a poor reputation.

What do you have to do to get the E-book for free?

Step 1: retweet this EXACT message on Twitter. Simply copy and paste the text below and post it to your Twitter account. If you don‘t have a Twitter account, you‘ll need to get one for free here: http://www.twitter.com

RT @jacobspaulsen is giving away FREE copies of his MLM Lessons ebook, go here to learn how to get a free copy: http://www.budurl.com/jspmlm

Step 2: Follow me on Twitter. You can follow me by visiting the link below and clicking on the “follow”

button below my picture: http://www.twitter.com/jacobspaulsen

That‘s it! As soon as you complete both of these steps, we will automatically send you your free “Fast Start, MLM Lessons Without Any Name Calling” eBook via a Twitter direct message, so please check your “direct messages” inbox on Twitter for the download link, after you‘ve followed the 2 easy steps above.

Need better instructions? Watch this video