Archives for: February 2009
Is Network Marketing Immune From Recession?
Network marketers like to tell people that their business is immune from recession. But is this really true?
Longaberger announced yesterday that it was laying off another 300 workers due to soft sales they attribute to the current economic conditions. This brings their employee count down below 1500 employees from their peak of 8000 just a few years ago. Company executives will also be taking pay cuts to help the company weather the storm.
The reality is that Longaberger’s product, like many network marketing company products, is not an essential for customers. In a time where everyone seems to be cutting expenses, luxury items and those products easily replaced with cheaper version are the first to go.
What can a network marketer do to deal with this?
In a post today titled, “PR And Today's Social Marketing Media Frenzy,” Glenn Burks points out that customer service has become a lost art. With Wal-Marts and chain stores driving out traditional local stores, business has gotten more impersonal.
Oh sure there is the trained friendliness when you walk into a Bath and Bodyworks but that’s no substitute for a shopkeeper that actually knows you. Bath and Bodyworks is rumored to be headquartered in my hometown of New Albany OH – the quintessential mid-west upscale small town. The back of every bottle says so! Only problem is that that the address used does not have an actual building! There isn’t even a Bath and Bodyworks store in New Albany!
Today’s customer is craving real interaction and genuine customer service – not a façade built on the input of marketing research and focus groups. We all want the real thing. And network marketing can deliver that better today than any other business. Too bad most networking companies don’t mention it – much less train their people in exemplary customer service.
Don’t let them take your business away...
I’ve been getting more spam lately.
Not the kind we have all come to expect – the large-scale offshore crap our spam filters catch – but the kind that smells of desperate marketers acting on bad advice.
This kind of spam often comes direct from the marketer email account rather than a service. Often they mail a poorly written letter to past contacts or people they find online in forums or on social networks as if they were long lost buddies. Often they do it making the most amateur mistake of all: adding all their contacts to the TO: field.
In a blog post last week, Glenn Burks noted that with a bit of sarcasm: "In this day and age with all the trojans and viruses out there just to do a blanket broadcast to everyone in your address book, real smart and really professional looking."
Another variation of this is the marketer who joins a new social network only to have the network send invitations to everyone on their list – even if they are not legitimate contacts. In one example I received repeated invitations from a user going by ‘blindguy55’ to join various social networks. After a bit of research I discover that the reason I’m on this guys email list is because he was terminated from a Leaders Club service for sending tens of thousands of unsolicited emails – against our usage terms.
Why in the year 2009, would anyone still be resorting to sending spam?
Don't fall for the latest traffic scam
In the next 8 minutes I’m going to save you no less than $100 by exposing the latest lame marketing trick that will soon be a favorite of renegades and hucksters across the Internet.
The newest in black-hat marketing/traffic generation is a software service called TweetTornado (thanks to ThreatChaos for bringing it to our attention).
Here’s how it works...