Buy From Your Own Store !
“I joined to sell, not to buy!"
Being perfectly honest, many of us probably experienced some irritation when we first joined SFI and received a number of e-mails encouraging us to buy something. Most of us joined SFI because we were seeking a way to make extra income in our spare time from the comfort of our own homes. Many may have been attracted by the international component to SFI’s marketing system as well. Most of us recognized that this was a marketing group and that to make money we would have to become involved in marketing...
I joined to sell, not to buy!"
Being perfectly honest, many of us probably experienced some irritation when we first joined SFI and received a number of emails encouraging us to buy something. Most of us joined SFI because we were seeking a way to make extra income in our spare time from the comfort of our own homes. Many may have been attracted by the international component to SFI’s marketing system as well. Most of us recognized that this was a marketing group and that to make money we would have to become involved in marketing. That meant, for most of us, that we needed to learn to promote products and services effectively on the Internet. But, then, much of the first correspondence we began to receive was telling us what to buy, rather than how to sell. Many of us thought, “if you are selling to me, then this is just a marketing scheme to get me to buy so someone else can make money.” Some reacted by thinking, “I didn’t come here because I was looking to buy stuff and make other people money. I came here because I want to make money!”
I suspect that many new recruits short-sightedly back out of SFI almost immediately due to that type of reaction. Network Marketing in general has been given somewhat of a bad name due to unscrupulous organizations that do force new recruits to buy overpriced products. When these organizations are examined, it turns out that all of the product sales are to new recruits and no one is really marketing the products to the general public. Their products often turn out to be so overpriced that the general public would not buy them. It is only the promise of riches from being a representative of the organization that motivates anyone to pay that price for the products. Laws have been passed in many jurisdictions requiring multi-level sales organization to have a certain percentage of sales to the general public (i.e. to people who have not been recruited as representatives in their organization) to remain legal.
These laws hope to drive out the unscrupulous organizations who have so overpriced their products that no one will buy them unless forced to do so to become qualified in the organization.
New prospects in SFI who have had bad experiences with these types of organizations (or who have heard about such bad experiences from others) are naturally skeptical when they first become involved in SFI. While this is understandable, it is unfortunate.
Network Marketing as originally conceived was a creative and beautiful idea. Word of mouth recommendations are the best endorsements for products and services. When someone needs to find out which product or service will best satisfy a particular need, they turn first to family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances for advice. That advice is usually welcomed and trusted...and acted upon. The concept of network marketing is to harness these existing and powerful networks to promote worthy products and services, allowing the individuals who have used and recommend the products and services to share in that portion of the profits that would otherwise be paid to large media for advertising. It’s a win-win situation (for everyone except the large media who sell advertising).
For this concept to work, it requires the individuals who are going to recommend the products and services to first use the products or services themselves...so that their recommendations will be based on their own experience and will be honest. Thus, the logical first step in the process for a new recruit is to find the products and services available from the organization of interest to them, buy them, use them, and determine whether they can honestly recommend them to others. It is difficult to endorse and recommend something that you have never tried yourself.
There is nothing inherently dishonest or wrong with the network marketing concept. It is just that, unfortunately like so many other things in life, something good has often been made into something bad by dishonest people. This has happened so often that networking marketing has acquired somewhat of a bad name in general and people are naturally suspicious of network marketing organizations.
The key difference between the dishonest organizations and the legitimate ones is easy to spot, however. It is NOT whether you are approached first to buy products. That is a natural part of network marketing—before you can effectively sell something, you should first buy and try it yourself. (If a Ford dealer drove a GM as his or her personal car, he or she would not be an effective salesperson for Ford! If a restaurant manager ate all his or her meals at another restaurant, that would not bode well for the quality of food at their own restaurant!) Rather, it is the nature, quality and pricing of the products and services themselves that divides the good organizations from the bad ones. If the products and services offered by an organization are worthless or, while perhaps not being completely worthless, are otherwise so overpriced that no one from the general public would buy them; then you should be skeptical of the organization. On the other hand, if the organization offers good products and services, reasonably priced, you should be comfortable with the organization.
Thus, it's not the fact that you are asked to buy upon entry into the organization that should cause concern for you. Rather you should look at the products and services available. If those products and services are useful and reasonably priced, then you should be comfortable that you can make some money promoting them. And, you should certainly pick out the ones that serve your needs and give them a try yourself. That’s the best way to get started promoting them!
SFI, as you will recall from Lesson 6 (Internet Income, Vol. 1, Chapter 5), is a mixture of network marketing concepts with Internet marketing concepts. You might think that personal experience with a product or service is not important on the Internet. What has proven the most effective marketing technique on the Internet, however, is basically the same as what works in person – the sharing of personal experience with a product or service. Thus, even though the emphasis in SFI is on Internet marketing, the concept of trying and personally recommending the products and services still applies. Refer back to Lesson 26, In-Context Link Placement, to refresh yourself on why and how this works. Thus, regardless of whether your focus is on offline or online marketing, personal experience with the products is a must.
There are other reasons to buy from your own store. When you buy products and services from your organization, you are helping your upline to succeed. Most team leaders take notice that you are participating and their motivation to help you succeed also increases. By purchasing the products and services for yourself, you are demonstrating that you are a team player, willing to jump in and give the venture a good honest try. Your team leaders will see you as someone worthy of assistance—worth the effort to guide and train.
By buying through your Affiliate Store and using the NiceOffers.com Coupons for your own purchasing, you are promoting your team and the SFI organization as a whole. The stronger the organization becomes, the stronger your opportunity as an affiliate of the organization becomes.
Let’s look first at the Affiliate Store and then we will discuss NiceOffers in the next section. In your SFI Affiliate Store, you will find a multitude of high quality, reasonably priced products and services. This is good news for you in two ways. First, it is useful to you in your own buying needs. Second, it is useful to you as a marketer of these products and services.
Let me take just a couple of examples to demonstrate the point.
In your Affiliate Store, you will find a variety of all natural, environmentally friendly cleaning products. The prices for these products may at first look high to you. But...look again. Notice that these products are concentrated. That is, when you buy a quart, you do not just have a quart. When you dilute it to the appropriate concentration, you have a very large quantity of cleaning product. When you compare the price per volume of the diluted mixture with cleaning products available on the store shelves, you will find the prices comparable.
Plus, the cleaning products you find at the brick-and-mortar stores are most often not environmentally friendly. Environmentally friendly cleaning products are important for two reasons. It is to your personal benefit to use all natural, environmentally friendly cleaning products because it will help to rid your home of harmful chemicals. Many diseases and disorders today are believed to be due to our constant exposure to harsh or toxic chemicals that are found in many of the products that we use. Many manufacturers unfortunately tend to think first about providing a product that will be effective and easy to use and only secondarily about the long term safety of the product. They are more interested in improving the effectiveness of their television ads than in truly improving the safety and effectiveness of their products. In fact, the all natural cleaning products available in your SFI Affiliate Store are more effective that other cleaning products and, at the same time, much safer. By utilizing our large direct marketing organization rather than television ads to get the word out, the manufacturers of our products can focus their energies on truly creating safe and effective products.
In additional to thinking about ourselves and our families, it is past time for all of us to begin seriously thinking about the health of this beautiful world we have been given. Most legitimate scientist are now gravely concerned about the health of our environment. If all of us do not begin to act soon, it may be too late. Thus, by buying and using the all natural, environmentally friendly cleaning products available in your SFI Affiliate Store, you are not only helping yourself and your family, but you are helping to preserve the delicate environment that the entire world depends upon.
As an added bonus, remember that a portion of all SFI revenues go to charities that promote preserving our environment. We are helpless about so many things that gravely affect the future our children and grandchildren will experience. This is one thing that we can do something about! Each individual has to do their part. You can do your part by insisting upon only environmentally friendly products – and you can find them in your own SFI Affiliate Store.
Another example, with which I am very familiar (as my company provides the service), is the VeryVIP Web Hosting service available in your SFI Affiliate Store. The VeryVIP Hosting service provides features such as RSS feeds and sophisticated promotion and tracking features that are not available from any other service. And, the VeryVIP Hosting costs less than less-than-comparable services offered by Yahoo and others. Even though you may have your hosting set up elsewhere and be comfortable with it, as an SFI Affiliate, shouldn’t you consider using the hosting service available through SFI? Even if it requires a little effort to change services, shouldn’t you be a team player? By utilizing products and services in your SFI Affiliate Store, you are strengthening the entire organization and thus strengthening your own opportunity to succeed as an SFI Affiliate.
Success comes from action. Go now to your SFI Affiliate Store and find the products and services that fit your needs and buy them, try them, and then promote them!
Recall from our discussion above that the difference between the legitimate and illegitimate marketing organizations is in the choice of products. SFI is an organization that, with the launching of NiceOffers.com, let’s you choose the products!
If, for whatever strange reason, you do not like any of the products in the SFI Affiliate Store, then instead of giving up on SFI, you can go find the products of your choice from wherever you like! You can then integrate those products or services into the SFI opportunity through the NiceOffers program. Approach the merchants who offer the products and services that you believe provide the quality and savings you desire and have them set up a NiceOffers coupon. Then, by using the coupon yourself, you are “buying from your own store”.
Look at the beauty of this logic for a moment. The key principle in culling the legitimate marketing organizations from the illegitimate organizations is the choice of products and services provided. Bad organizations force you to buy bad, overpriced products in the hopes of becoming wealthy by in-turn selling these bad, overpriced products to others who, in-turn, hope to become wealthy by selling these bad overpriced products...you get the point. On the other hand, good organizations provide you with high quality, reasonably priced products to market. Absolutely great organizations let you choose the products and services you want to promote from all the products and services in the entire world! It seems that SFI stands alone as a marketing organization that lets its affiliates have complete choice over the products and services to be promoted. SFI Affiliates can choose from all of the products and services in the entire world!
Skepticism is healthy. I am skeptical about most things in life myself. I am disappointed by governments, businesses and other organizations on a daily basis. It seems that everyone today is trying to take advantage of the honest, sincere, hard-working individual to promote their own selfish needs. Simple honesty seems to be direly lacking at all levels of government and big business today and it seems to get worse with every passing day. When someone suggests that I buy something – be it an idea, an agenda, or a product or service; I look immediately to see who will benefit from it and whether it will be fair to me. I take everything with a grain of salt. I hope you do the same as well.
Equally important, when I see fair opportunities I know that I must be able to recognize them and act upon them. When I see a needed product or service that is of high quality and reasonably priced, I know that I should take advantage of the opportunity – not because anyone tells me to, but because I know that it is right for me. I like choice and I like organizations that give me choice. Most importantly, given choice and a fair opportunity, I know that it is time to dig in and act! I hope you feel the same as well.
The natural first step upon becoming involved in a marketing organization is to buy and try the products yourself. Unscrupulous organizations have blemished network marketing by requiring their representatives to purchase poor quality, overpriced products in order to qualify in the opportunity. The key difference between these illegitimate organizations and the legitimate ones is the quality and price of the available products. Your SFI Affiliate Store offers many high quality, reasonably priced products including, among many others, the all natural, environmentally friendly cleaning products and the VeryVIP Hosting. Further, an organization that lets you choose your own products and services, from all the products and services in the world, is one that you certainly do not have to be skeptical about. Without skepticism, there is no impediment to action.
You cannot have success without action. You should be skeptical. You should examine. You should look out for yourself. You should always questions motives. But, when the opportunity is fair, you should recognize that it is time to act. When the opportunity is fair, there is no one else to blame for your own inaction. At some point you have to find the right thing for yourself and commit to it. You have to act on it. In a marketing organization, your first action, logically, is to purchase and try the products and services. With NiceOffers, there is the added first step of finding the products or services with which you are most comfortable. Then, after setting the merchant up in the NiceOffers coupon program; buying, trying, and promoting the products and services of your choice.
In a legitimate, fair opportunity, you need to buy and try and then promote. Go right now to the SFI Affiliate Store and buy and try some products and services. After that, find products and services in your local area or elsewhere that you can promote with the NiceOffers coupon program. Contact the merchants and get them set up on the NiceOffers coupon program. Then print out the coupons and use them yourself. Take action!
