Interview with Linda Locke from MLMWoman.com

Linda Locke is the editor/publisher of MLMWoman.com, a web site that is dedicated to helping women in network marketing and direct sales achieve success and financial independence.  MLMWoman.com offers a free monthly newsletter, discussion board and other resources to help women super-charge their business and a Facebook page that offers daily tips and resources: http://www.facebook.com/mlmwomannews

Question Janet: What do you think the 3 biggest challenges are that direct sellers face specifically in their business; in terms of for example, lead generation, prospecting, recruiting, and online marketing?

Answer – Linda: Marketing, lead prospecting, and recruiting are some of the biggest challenges I see direct sellers facing in their business.  Online, the best thing I like to recommend for lead prospecting is to use attraction marketing.  For example, you can write articles and then post them online or on your blog and after people read them, they might contact you and that starts a conversation. I also like to do attraction marketing through Facebook, Twitter and blogs, and also by face-to-face networking.  That’s all part of lead prospecting.  It’s also important that you can set up a system to capture those leads (such as a lead capture page) so you can follow up with them later.   I’ve always found that lead prospecting works much better when people are attracted (pulled) to contact you, because they are interested in what you are doing, rather than trying to push them with cold calling and more traditional sales techniques. Recruiting is difficult for many direct sellers and if you are new to the business my suggestion is that you first concentrate on building a foundation with customer sales. Once you have a foundation and are successful, you can then recruit from your customer base and attract others to join your team.

Question – Janet: What marketing tips can you share for newer direct sellers?

Answer – Linda: I have noticed over the years, for both new people and some who have been around for a while, that marketing is one of their biggest challenges.  For many people this is their first real business, and they have never done anything like this before, so they don’t know where to start.  But since there are so many ways to market right now, they have a lot of different options to choose from to promote their direct sales business.  If you are an extrovert, one of the best ways, if you are going to market yourself locally, is to get involved in a business networking group, join a chamber of commerce, and get out there and start meeting people.  Get involved so that they know who you are and start building relationships and you will attract business to yourself that way.  The other way is online marketing, which is perfect for introverts.  But you really need to differentiate yourself online because there are so many other people selling things online and you need to make yourself stand out in some way.  There are several ways to do this.  You could create a blog where you write about your business and share tips and other helpful information.  You could create a Facebook Page for your business and share helpful links and tips there.  You could also get involved with Twitter or start creating videos and share them on YouTube and Facebook.  Whatever method attracts you, try that out first and then build from there.

Question – Janet: How do you see social media as a way to impact a direct seller’s business?

Answer – Linda:  I think it has a tremendous impact.  For anyone who is in business, likes to network and meet people, it is a wonderful opportunity and it just has gotten better over time.  I really like Facebook because that is where most of the people are today and there is a tremendous amount of them – there are millions and millions of people on Facebook.  Because it is a free tool, it is accessible to everyone and it doesn’t require you to have a lot of money to use it. They also keep adding things that make it even more useful.  I really like to use my Facebook Pages for business, because it allows me to keep my personal account private and separate from my business activities.  One of the interesting things about Facebook is that the user demographic shows that more Baby Boomers are using it.  That is a really good market to target, for both men and women.  What I suggest to people wanting to get into social media is to first get a Twitter account to get their feet wet, and then join Facebook and create a Facebook Page for their business. I also think that having a blog or website is imperative if you want to be successful. You can use the company website of course; but then everybody else has the same one, so that’s an issue.  You really need to differentiate yourself from everyone else.  Blogs are a great way to do that. And you can use Blogger or WordPress.com for free to get started.  If you are a good writer then you can use it to the maximum.  If you are not a writer, you can maybe make it a team effort and buddy up with some other women in your downline and share the effort of posting and putting information on the blog.  Search engines love blogs and if you make posts on a regular basis you will move right up the search results.  Another social media site is Linkedin, which lets you set up a discussion group and answer people’s questions.  I don’t use this as much as the other social media sites, but many people like it because it’s more serious than Facebook or Twitter and it attracts more business professionals.

Question – Janet: How do you think the direct selling industry can help the Baby Boomer generation?

Answer – Linda: I believe that Baby Boomers are going to have a tremendous impact as you’ve mentioned.  A lot of the Boomers who were laid off or struggling to find jobs or looking for a way to supplement their retirement income are taking a second look at direct sales.  Many Boomers are getting to the point where they can retire early, but they don’t want to just sit around and do nothing. They want to use their skills and earn some income doing it.   They like direct sales because it is flexible and something they can do on the side.  It fits well with their lifestyles since they can do it anywhere even while traveling if they want.  If they are in need of supplemental income, it gives them an opportunity to start a business at a low cost and tap into their existing networks which they have built over the years.  Some direct selling companies offer health insurance too. This offers a tremendous incentive for Baby Boomers if they are in that gap where they have retired or can’t find another job and can’t qualify for Medicare until they are 65.  

Question – Janet: Why did you choose to specifically dedicate your resource, MLMwoman.com, to direct sellers?  

Answer – Linda: When I first started I noticed that about 85% of all direct sellers were women.  I also found that most of the publications were more focused on men and how they did business.  I realized there was niche here and no one was addressing it, so I decided to fill the gap with the MLMWoman newsletter.  How it all came about, a long time ago when I was on AOL, they had a lot of different forums on MLM, direct selling, and topics like that. I started networking with lots of women in the forums and it was fun and I met lots of people who were building a business like I was.  So I decided to start a free newsletter and offered to print their articles in it.  Their response was enthusiastic, which made me feel really great and convinced me that this was an untapped niche market.  As time went on, I decided to offer subscriptions to a printed newsletter and then I moved it online when the Internet became more popular so I could reach a bigger audience. I wanted to create a community place for women in direct sales to visit, get help, and share and submit articles.

Question – Janet: How do your site visitors find you?

Answer – Linda: We use several different ways to attract visitors.  We’ve had the website online for quite some time, since around 1995, and we have a lot of backlinks from other people.  We also get a lot of traffic from the different search engines.  We are very highly ranked in Google and other top search engines because we’ve been around for such a long time and have lots of pages linking to us.  More recently, I have been using social media to drive traffic. I have a Facebook page, MLMwomanews and a Twitter account and several blogs that drive traffic to my site.  I also get links from reprinted articles that I’ve written, which I’ve posted on different article sites throughout the web and that others use on their own sites.

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