Zero to Five in 60 Seconds

By Steve Ostermiller
November 20, 2003

Sometimes we accelerate so quickly through our day-to-day operations that we miss some important pit stops along the way. The finish line is all we can see. And for good reason—it's a tortoise and hare race, and nobody wants to be left behind, especially when it comes to online technology.

But stop for a moment and ask yourself this: Is my company even headed in the right direction, regardless of how fast we’re going? Does our online technology help or hinder our business model? It's easy to lose focus. Either you have people building the project that don’t understand your business, or you encounter mental blocks in the process that keep you from comparing apples to apples, between the way your business works and the technology that’s already available. In any case, matching logical business processes with online technology can be tricky.

The Five Elements

To help you be the first one to the checkered flag, and without any blown gaskets or flat tires, following are the Five Elements of successful online network marketing and direct selling.

What you’ll see below are the business principles of a direct marketing business that have shaped the technology found in ARRAY Express™. And it really seems to be working for our clients, some of which include Tupperware, New Vision, and Melaleuca. A successful direct marketing company focuses on the Five Elements to grow their business. You might say these are the five “gears” that help you accelerate to that finish line of success and profit. If you’ll center your technology solutions around these five elements, and not try to deviate or be too creative, you’ll be right out in front.

Prospecting: This is first gear. You can’t grow your business without new recruits. List all the ways your sales force generates leads offline. How can you duplicate and build upon that online? How many online tools do you offer that accomplish this objective? And here’s the bigger question: Have you integrated all of these pieces to work together in a single, centralized location? Are they easy enough to use to encourage even the “un-techie” sales force members to get online? Let us show you how we help you prospect online and you just might find answers to these questions.

Communication: Shift to second gear, and take it up to 30 mph. Relationships and networking drive your business, both online and offline. The Internet has saved companies thousands in mailing and printing costs. Online email, a no-brainer, is great. But what does it do that Outlook won't do? Maybe nothing… but then again, Outlook® can’t provide pre-formatted “enhanced” emails that are custom-tailored to your products and opportunity. Nor does it know how to automatically generate a downline email list and provide One-Click Downlining™ with the click of a button. Outlook® makes HTML formatting more difficult than it needs to be (and let’s face it, much more difficult to use than an average sales force member can handle). Oh, and do you have people setting up discussion forums in diverse places across the Web that you’re not aware of? Why not give them one at ‘home’ that all sales force members can see and use? Our communication tools will amaze your distributors.

Marketing: Third gear, going strong. Does your brand awareness stop where the Internet starts? How do you build brand awareness online and help your sales force market your products and opportunity on the Web? Have you “web-ized” your biz opp presentation to make it as virtually personalized as possible for long-distance online presentations? Are your auto responders in the right place? Are they effective? With email marketing such a hot ticket now, do you provide the content your sales force needs to do email marketing? (By the way, they’re going to do it regardless of whether or not you help them. Might as well give them some good fuel for it. Here’s some fuel for thought.)

Selling: Fourth gear and plenty of RPM. So, you’ve recruited people. Now what? How do you leverage product sales with the Web? Sell online, of course. But don’t stop there. Sell online the right way. We’ve shared the concept in a previous article that good homepages must “suck”… like a vacuum does. Using “pull” technology, draw your customers in to make the purchase, and don’t waste your efforts trying to “push” them around on your website. And don’t forget to give credit where credit is due. Reward your sales force for the sales they generate online. Don’t minimize the importance of online sales by minimizing the online rewards. That will just waste your time and the resources you’ll put towards setting up an online system. The Web is here to stay. Grasp it as a full piece of your business. Our selling tools might just spin your gears a little faster.

Control: Put it in fifth, we’re almost there. Independent business owners are just that—independent. But independence isn’t a license for chaos. There are certain things you still need to control. After all, it was you who gave them this opportunity. So saying “no” is okay. In fact, people expect it. The squeaky wheel gets the grease, but only when things aren’t running smoothly. Limit the options you give them as you see fit. If you don’t want them to edit certain pieces of their lead generation site, then don’t let them. They’ll make it work. And we make it work for you.

Crossing the Finish Line

You made it. And by now you’ve understood an important concept: Creating and adopting technology based on business principles, and not based on features (the back office, the ordering feature, the lead generation site, etc.), allows you to implement a more comprehensive and satisfactory solution the first time. Zero to five in 60 seconds may not sound so fast these days, but when it comes to implementing online technology, it’s lightning speed.

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Read more about the Five Elements at ARRAYexpress.net/5elements