Borrowing from your credit card to invest in your online business or home-based business: good idea or bad move?

This is a great question that was posted on Work From Home Board by Debby Stewart. I wanted to share my response here.

From Personal experience, I say don't do it.

In my first business 6 years ago (an MLM) I invested over $1500 in products that were difficult to move and I spent about $1000 a month in buying leads. It was a lesson learned.

Long story short. If I were starting all over again with very little money, I would start with free advertising like free classifieds, blogging, article writing, squidoo etc. and then I would roll the profits back into my business until I could start doing some paid advertising like pay per click.

The only thing worth investing in would be personal development products that would help to teach me the skills that I need or perhaps a proven system to help me be successful. For example 2 years ago I invested in Mike Dillard's Magnetic Sponsoring. Because I wanted to learn how to "attract Prospects" rather than buy leads. It was a great investment.

Make sense? So I would only invest in personal development and do free marketing until I gained the skills to be successful.

I hope this helps.

~Wendy

What do you think? Borrowing from your credit card a good investment or bad move?

Still Buying Leads? What if prospects actually called you?

I did exactly what my up line told me to do. I invested in buying leads. I was told that if I wanted to be successful, I should call these leads and use the proven script that was given to me. I found that this was easier said than done. Often I would be hung up on or the person would say that they are no longer interested.


I found myself getting frustrated. I was following my steps exactly as I was trained and I just wasn’t getting results. Worse, I was going broke by continuing to buy leads. I thought it was something I was doing wrong, or maybe I just got a bad batch of leads.


But the truth is, my up-line didn’t know the secret and was therefore passing on bad information to me. She didn’t know that selling is about building relationships with people and being attractive so that people would come to me. This is called attraction marketing.


So I stopped trying to “get” people to join my business. Now I simply give away my knowledge and friendship without a hidden agenda. Now people are joining me.


Attraction marketing is a totally different approach to networking.

What if instead of doing cold calls people actually called you?

If I could go back in the past to my early days and tell myself not to purchase leads for a business I would have prevented a lot of frustration. But I think everything happens for a reason and I learned a lot through what wasn't working for me. It lead me to search for what would work.

My search brought me to Mike Dillard's Magnetic Sponsoring Course.

With the old school method of buying leads, I was not getting the results I wanted. First of all I was spending lots of money but more importantly I felt like a complete failure because it just wasn't working. I was getting hung up on and had people yell at me. Boy did I feel like a nuisance.

I thought it would be so great if the right people actually came to me, like magic. And in a lot of ways that is what is happening to me now.

I no longer am spending money buying opportunity leads. Instead I am building relationships with people and offering real value. I give of myself freely and, just like magic people are coming to me and wanting to join me. It really is pretty neat. What a relief to no longer have to deal with the rejection that comes with old school methods.

Apply attraction marketing to your marketing strategy and you will have prospects coming to you almost effortlessly.

Feel Free to contact me if there is any way I can help you get started with attraction marketing.

Network Marketer? You need a funded Proposal.

If you are a network marketer then you know that it takes time to grow your business and that it takes time to generate good quality prospects for your business. It also takes time to build a business. This is NOT get rich quik. It takes time and effort. Most people don't start to see real residual income for 2-3 years. The problem is lots of people quit before they start to see results.

One of the biggest frustrations that people have in growing a business is in finding good quality leads. And in a effort to get people to join their business they are actually scaring people away by using old school methods and high pressure sales tactics that don't work.

What works is attraction marketing. The best leads are the ones who come to you. Wouldn't it be great if you could attract prospects to you who are looking to join a business. Better yet what if you got paid even if they didn't join you in your business? This is why I use a funded proposal. A funded proposal is when you offer an inexpensive information product in order to gain the persons contact information. What you end up with is a list of people who are looking for what you have to offer. You can create your own system or you can use one that is already created like Magnetic Sponsoring. This is the one that I use. It is only 10:30am and I have already earned an extra $20. The benefit of using a funded proposal is you get paid even if the person never signs up for your business. It is a win win for everyone. I get to help people and give them good quality information to help them with their business plus I am being paid for my time and effort.

Choosing the Right Proven Duplicatable System

I knew I needed a proven duplicatable system in order to grow my MLM business. I looked at a few and even joined a few. And discovered that the best system needs to have these 3 things.

#1 You need to have a website that anyone can use to generate prospects. Most people do not have the skills to create their own website. Nor will they know how to set up an auto-responder system. The great thing about using a system is that it is done for you and you can get started right away.

#2 You need to have an excellent support system and team of people eager to help you. A lot of people don't have up-line support. Or they may have an up-line who doesn't have a clue what they are doing. Be sure to pick a system that has a wonderful group of people ready to help you.

#3 You should not have to pay a monthly website fee to use the site.
Some systems charge you 19.95 or more a month to use their site. Choose a system that lets you use their site for free. Better yet, choose a system that pays you to prospect. That's what I did. With Magnetic Sponsoring, I am earning money even if people don't join me in my primary business.