We live in a world of fast-paces, ever changing technology. Before you realize it, what you thought was the latest technology or cool feature is outdated with something even better. In some cases it is certainly overwhelming to try staying on top of it all, and I say that from experieince.

There are things you can do NOW that make technology less important to your success. It’s called…building relationships. Believe it or not, you can make such an impact on your business by having connections and building relationships with like-minded people.

When I started out there was more uncertainty in my mind because…I didn’t know ‘John’ from ‘Sally’. Along with those relationships builds trust. In my case, I thought it was safe to trust the people I came in contact with along the way. Truth: Trust your instincts and follow your heart. There are amazing people in this world and in the business/marketing community, you just have to find them. I’ve made friends with some incredible people – some of which I met years ago and still work with, it’s awesome.

When you launch a product, what is the easiest way to get it spreading like a wildfire? JV Partners. But you can’t have quality JV Partners without first building relationships with people.

As you’re trying to build your network marketing business, who are the types of people in your organization that are the most helpful? They are those with who you’ve built that relationship.

And…it’s far easier now than it was years ago.

Use Facebook. Use Twitter. Connect on blogs. Use Forums.  …and so on.

If you build those relationships now, you’ll change your odds of success, positively. Look at successful network marketers and you’ll see they have built a large number of quality, long-lasting relationships.

And yes, this can work in traditional business too. Don’t worry, you’re covered!

Sorry for the poor quality. My camera is supposed to be HD, but obviously that’s not working properly!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yesterday, May 28th, I heard about Google Wave. When I first saw the name (unaware of what it was) my initial reaction was “Another Google service – they’re doing everything!”. Let’s get one thing clear, I think Google has an amazing creative team and ingenious ideas but it’s a bit scary to see them getting into so many services – they’re like Miscrosoft, except more clever and better at being evil (I mean that in a nice way, I think).

Anyway, back on subject.

As my recent post shows, Twitter and Facebook have been gaining some serious momentum. They’re both steadily growing now, stomping on Myspace quickly. The unique communication method that Twitter is about is captivating. Millions now use Twitter and it will continue to grow. Facebook has made some serious changes/improvements over the past couple years that has helped skyrocket its popularity, hence being a bigger catch than Myspace. On top of that, Google has a slew of services that are excellent such as Gmail, document sharing and of course Youtube.

The recent silent display of Google Wave looks quite impressive and eye-catching. It combines the most popular service and social networks with the power of Google’s sharing (documents, youtube, etc..) to one place.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Could this damage Facebook, Twitter, AIM, Yahoo IM, Myspace, and others? I would not be surprised if they are all starting to shake in their pants. This is a POWERFUL communication tool which brings nearly ALL of the tools to one place…

Personally I’m pumped about it, despite not using Google services too much, yet at the same time I’m a little scared. Google seems to have absorbed the idea of having their foot in practically everything. Is that a good thing? If you ask me, I definitely say “I think they’re very creative but they need to relax!”.

What are your thoughts?

It isn’t surprising news to say that Facebook has been growing rapidly over the last several months. When they first started out with just a college audience the growth potential was in the millions of users – thousands of colleges and all you needed was a college email address to register on the site (basically). Today it has grown into a mega social network as it is open to the public allowing young teens and up to join.

Before we had Facebook, Myspace was the the only major social network that existed (in it’s field). There were many small competitors but nobody could touch Myspace at the time. Now, it’s a different ball game all together.

Looking at the below chart we see three dominate players; Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. All three are in the top websites in the world and compete with one another. Though, despite the success of Myspace, things are changing. They are losing the battle. Twitter and Facebook are rising while Myspace is slowly declining over the past year.

You can see that Twitter is just starting to gain a curve like Facebook but only over the past couple months. This is expected since it has only recently gained serious attention. Major news networks, newspapers, celebrities and even politicians are using Twitter to connect with their audiences.

Tonight Alejandro Reyes, creator of SuccessFool TV, presented a topic that was quite truthful…no pun intended. If I’m not mistaken he first started off talking about faking RSS feeds. Unknown to me bloggers have been found to mislead their readers by manually changing the code in their blog which displays the number of RSS feed subscribers. You may be asking why that matters and the reason is because it’s a dishonest approach to getting more subscribers.

There seems to be some phenomenon that people believe website/blog visitors are ignorant or stupid. Manipulating the number of people that appear to be following your blog posts so that you look “Cool” and popular is disgusting. In this Internet marketing industry we’ve had trouble with new people in the industry getting ripped off. The notion that making yourself more popular is unethical and should not be condoned. Do you think it’s OK because you haven’t got caught? Here’s some news for you, it’s really not hard to figure out if you’re “cheating” the numbers. Have you ever been on a website, “viewed the source” of the page and checked out the code? That’s all it really takes to expose those faking their popularity and “coolness” as Alejandro put it.

That lead to Alejandro discussing the “Fake it ’til you make it” strategy which I brought up to him during his video cast tonight. You see, there are “fakers” and there are those who act the part – a big difference! Donald Trump probably didn’t lie, cheat, make-up stories, or just tell people want they wanted to hear when he was starting his business. Did he act like he was a professional? Probably. Was he making the right steps to appear to have lots of experience? Most likely. Did he learn, read and study other business professionals to understand what to do? Chances are, yes!

When you’re starting out a business the last thing to do is lie, be dishonest, cheat, and make-up stories. It is one thing to sell yourself but it’s another thing to tell people what they want to hear so they’ll listen to you. Imagine if you lied to get 1000 subscribers to your newsletter and then all of a sudden 500 of them figured out you made up a story about your success. What do you think would happen? I’d bet money that news would spread faster than a flash flood…and on the Internet it would be nearly impossible to reverse.

Case in point, be careful what tactics you take to appear as a “big wig” in this industry, especially on the Internet. When you tell people things that aren’t true which is purely to gain their trust and belief, you’re making a big mistake. Nobody likes a liar, at least anyone with decency.

What baffles me is the lack of guilt. If I were to fake something for popularity sake (and especially get caught) I’d feel extremely guilt, broken, torn, and I know it would hurt my integrity…even if nobody explicitly said it. Is it just me or is this truly a sign of lack of respect?

Several minutes ago I finished listening and watching a recorded webinar between two networkers. One of the messages has really stuck as it’s probably quite accurate regarding how people use networking in their business and even their lives. Unfortunately by human nature we’re greedy – we put ourselves first.

Networking on the internet has become a career for many people. Additionally, even more people dream in becoming financially successful through network marketing. There’s a fundamental issue staring those people right in the face and the majority of them probably don’t even realize.

While I was listening to the webinar, one of the marketers said that you need to be willing to invest in someone else. How many times have you heard that? Personally I thought the saying was “You need to be willing to invest in yourself”…not “…invest in someone else”!! This CAN’T be right…

To my surprise this concept is way more powerful than I would have ever thought. Chances are I wouldn’t have thought like that anyway but it makes a lot of sense. In theory you’re not just investing in someone else but also yourself, at the same time. Now, we’re not talking about money necessarily so don’t freak out too much on me.

One of the great powers of networking is the blossom and even viral effect it can create for you. To do so you can start by asking people how you can help them. I know, it sounds pretty basic…and it is. Providing people with a value that they need is THE item of importance. Again, providing someone else with something they feel is valuable can drastically improve your networking success. Yes, it’s a very simply concept but makes perfect sense.

Let’s take an example of the above and put it into context.

You know John who is an internet marketer. John already makes $40,000 a year in his online business. Great! Just because he makes more money than you do (and in this example we’ll pretend it’s true) doesn’t mean anything. You contact John and simply ask if their is anything you can do to help him. Of course, that is done with a slight introduction of yourself. John gets back to you and says he needs help designing a better website and you reply back saying you can help him get a great new design for his site.

At this point John has already welcomed you to help as well as told you what he needs. Now you can do one of two things; give him that value he’s looking for or not, it’s that simple.

You then contact a couple web designers after taking a look at their samples and connect John with one of the designers. You’ve now provided John with value, not trying to sell him something without knowing him. Do you think John is going to stay connected with you? Chances are he will as you did something FOR him at no cost on his end.

This type of networking can get even better. Imagine applying similar principles to marketers who are more successful than John. Don’t think it could happen? Think again.

As a networker you want to connect with people by earning their trust and providing value to them. This can be done several ways but the above is a powerful idea that I’ve just learned about. Put other people’s needs ahead of yours like the example explains. It’s easy to say “What do I get out of it?” and if you think about the example, you’ll understand how quickly you can connect with very successful people for almost nothing.

Most marketers are aware that social networks have tremendous value in growing their business, at least most businesses. More social networks scatter the internet like a severe plague – there are several dozen social networks you could join right now. However, doing so might be a bit counter-productive.

The two most popular social networks and social media sites are Myspace (existed first) and Facebook (newer to the market). Both networks have huge followings with millions of users but the user interface for each is quite different.

Now, Facebook allows you to create “Fan pages” which are perfect for companies who want to broaden their internet traffic and presence. Corporate companies are beginning to take advantage of this which is a good move to keep up with internet trends. Additionally these pages can be indexed by Google and allow you to post website links, articles, videos, etc. – it’s like having your own web page, kind of.

One of the best benefits to using Facebook is that your “Fan page” or even profile can become viral. I was talking to someone from a company who created a Fan page, started off with about 35 “Fans” (people) who were all employees at the company, and their popularity grew to over 600 “Fans” within a few months…yet they don’t actually know 95% of those fans. Additionally, it has increased their website traffic which you probably know is always a plus.

Did I mention Facebook is free to the user?

• Make it a part of your daily marketing efforts.
• Take advantage of the networking tools.
• Create a profile as a marketer
• Connect with other marketers be being their “friend”
• Have fun and be creative!

It seems like every week or so another opportunity is launched with a hungry (money-hungry to be exact) crowd storming to be the first few in line. The potential of having hundreds and even thousands of people spilling below you with no effort while you rake in cash is of course a nice concept but this spillover happens to very few people. You’d think with millions of people surfing the web and hundreds of thousands of people looking for a way to make more money along with their current income (or even a replacement income) it would be easy to achieve a close to full matrix.

Why do people in this industry continue to lose focus? Can’t you spend the time a work a business for at least 6 months before you move on to something else?

It IS possible to make good money without an MLM. Generally people want value and many companies quickly lack that characteristic that helps make an opportunity stable and/or grow. Additionally, you can actually make a lot of money with your own product/service or someone else’s.

The ‘Marketing Club’ we are building is not an MLM where thousands of people will be waiting at the door so they get spillover to make money for doing nothing. A structure that is filled with hot air and tire kickers will eventually (most likely quickly) fail/collapse. Instead, our club is an environment built by real marketers for those who want to learn, network, and earn real money without the tire-kickers waiting for the spillover.

Also I want to add that we’re teaming up with an internet marketer who HAS made millions and doesn’t just say so, he proves he’s done just that. You CAN be a part of our team and I’d personally welcome those who are ready to sit down and make things happen.

Lastly, our club membership is NOT expensive – I personally promise that the price will be extremely reasonable. There are certain criteria that we want all club members to meet but will not be mandatory.

OH – I need your help!! I’d like to get your input on what you would like the marketing club to include, teach, and whatever you want. Use my Contact Form and send me a quick message with your requests! 

More to come in the very near future….

Thanks for hanging in there.

In development is a private membership club that will be LIMITED to how many members allowed, at least for the first phase. We’re putting in place a strategy to helping each member make money and we believe this is an excellent way to be part of a private group dedicated to working together.

There are existing membership sites in which anyone can join – tire kickers, unmotivated, lazy, successful, and newbie marketers. Our strategy is to help build a plan and schedule for those that are lost, to bring together those people who are going to put forth effort in their business, to create a friendly club of like-minded entrepreneurs, and to develop relationships between one another and the individual goals. Don’t worry, making money is part of the strategy.

Again, this will be an invite-only group and one way you can be invited is by being a subscriber to my newsletter. You can relax about SPAM – I don’t email my list every other day with a new opportunity. In fact, I’ve NEVER emailed my list with an opportunity offer as of today.

Leave a comment on what you think about the club. I know it’s very vague right now but more will be revealed as we draw closer to launch.

Many people who have had experience in an MLM or business where sponsoring is normal will agree that they’ve been lied to or heard deceptive information from their sponsor and/or upline. This is a common issue due to lack of skill and failure.

As the internet marketing and home-businesses continue to grow, more people learn that what they are initially told by the potential sponsor isn’t exactly accurate. The industry has received a bad rap for quite a while thanks to scammers, liars, and deceptive practices by dishonest people. It’s a shame people are so money-hungry that they’ll tell you what you want to hear to make five dollars.

In most cases upline and your sponsor will try to help you but be careful that they don’t take advantage of you and that you carefully watch your wallet. Before you know it, the cost of the business may be way more than you originally believed. It’s easy to trust in the hype (which happens all the time) so be aware it’s usually not as easy as it sounds.

Do you know why people are hungry for you to join their business? It’s simple, they aren’t successful and need you to help them grow THEIR business.

Let’s take John and Tom for example. John is a blue collar Chef at a small local restaurant. He started a business with a travel company and has created a mediocre website with a picture of himself with a t-shirt, messy hair, and bad quality picture. Tom works for himself with a travel company he joined. His website has a good quality picture, wearing a suit, smiling, and offers his contact information directly.

…who would you more likely listen to? Probably Tom, right?

Impression make a huge difference. You are more likely to listen to someone who shows they are successful than someone who simply says they have a business but doesn’t even appear to be successful. Of course this isn’t always the case. Unfortunately people fall victim to believing John because of the little knowledge they have about having a business and making money. As well, people like John don’t even know how to train their downline because they themselves don’t know what to do.

Do your research on your upline. Google search engine is a great place to start. Try typing in the sponsor’s name such as “John Doe” with quotes. Searching like that will look for the exact string; John Doe.

Good luck and be careful what you believe – it’s easy to lie.