Here are my two disclaimers before I kick straight into this – firstly, whatever company you choose to partner with, you simply must find a company with a duplicable system in place. This is a business of duplication and if the company doesn’t have a system for you to be able to do that, it’s a bit like buying into a franchise like McDonalds and leaving it up to you to come up with recipes. Secondly, choose whatever feels right for you. If you work off your instinct (and I recommend that you listen to it because it’s usually right), then go with what feels right. If you smell a rat, then one probably exists. Okay, so let’s jump in:
- Make sure that whoever you sign up with doesn’t pay for you to get started and doesn’t give you any sort of training materials, marketing or promotional items for free. That stuff costs money and anyone who does that just screams desperation. This is a business and you are an independent representative of the company. Be an adult and take responsibility for your own business by investing in it. It’s impossible to duplicate the guy who is paying for everyone to get started and will render you broke in no time if you go down that path.
- At the investigation stage, make sure the information you are looking at is not costing the person dearly sending it to you. Remember to watch this closely as whatever they are doing, they are going to be expecting you to do the same. Years ago I was with a company that used to send out mail order materials or CDs that cost prospects $36. It was pure madness! You had to process refunds constantly, pay money to send information out with postage costs, wait for the people to receive the information (which sometimes went missing), then wait for them to go through the information before following them up. It was just pure lunacy: incredibly time inefficient not to mention expensive. The bigger thing to watch, however, is if the materials are being snail mailed for free or how fancy the website is. These are all costs you will have to wear, so make sure it is affordable. The real beauty of our business lies in being able to get started on a shoestring budget and yet have the potential for unlimited income. It needs to be affordable for the average person.
- When carrying out your due diligence, ensure that your sponsor/enroller/upline (whatever you like to call them) isn’t going to build your organization for you. Remember, once again, that whatever they are doing, they are going to be expecting you to duplicate them. Ensure this is a strong training system in place teaching you how to build your own group. After all, there are only 24 hours in a day and people can only recruit other people’s teams for so long before they run out of hours to do so. This is a business of relationships, so spend the time building that.
- Investigate and research the products. It’s always a good idea to see if their products have competitors in shops. Years ago I was with a company with fantastic products that I loved, however one day I just happened to take some bottles into my local health food store and was horrified to find similar blends on the shelf for a fraction of the price! I felt completely ripped off. I strongly believe in paying a little more to get quality products and services, but no-one will pay more for the same.
- On learning about a company’s system for processing leads, be sure that it’s mainly online. Especially websites that are mobile friendly as a very high percentage of people these days are browsing via a mobile device. If the company mainly does business through bringing people to weekly coffee shop and hotel meetings, you probably aren’t going to experience a great deal of success. No-one has time for that anymore and we are living in the 21st century the last time I checked. The system has to be time efficient given how many people these days are so time poor. Make it easy for people.
- Are the products consumable or obscure? Recently I was approached by a rep trying to get me to buy their phyto-something or another that kills pain. But I’m not in pain! It’s pretty obscure and has a very narrow market. Ideally your product line needs to be highly consumable (so that customers need to re-order each month and preferably on Autoship), only available through Distributors and something that every single person needs or can use. Products whereby people need to re-order once a year is not going to bring ongoing residual income over the longer term.
- Is the company contactable? Look at where their office is located. If you live in Australia and the Head Office is located in Norway, it is going to be problematic calling them to place an order given the time difference. Customers just won’t do that. That aside, make sure the company has a phone number (preferably a toll free number) and it doesn’t go through to a voicemail all the time or you have to e-mail them for a response. There needs to be ease of ordering for customers (ideally online) and the company has to be easy to contact.
- Does your sponsor/enroller/upline answer their phone? Do they reply to e-mails? I know this can be difficult if you have already made the decision to get started, however if you are able, get a phone number and call them up before you get started. Make sure they either answer it, there is a professional voicemail message if they don’t and they get back to you in a timely fashion. There’s nothing worse than getting started and the person who is meant to be training you has lost interest.
- Has the company only just started? There’s a lot to be said for getting in on the ground floor, however it is business sense that you partner with a company that has been trading for more than 5 years at the very least. I’ve seen people jump into companies that are just starting out, build huge teams, then all of a sudden the company goes broke and takes all of the products and distributor income with them. It’s fairly easy to do searches if the company is honest and transparent.
- Last but not least, please stay away from companies that are being investigated by federal authorities. It’s going to take away any credibility you have and everyone will want to distance themselves from you – irrespective of what the company has or hasn’t done. There’s no such thing as bad publicity being good. In most cases, if the company hasn’t done anything wrong, it blows over. However, having said that people have memories, some will forgive and some won’t. Use your own discretion. There are some companies out there that people won’t touch because of matters that occurred more than 10 years ago.
Well that’s it. As always, do your research and due diligence, love the products first before getting started with the business and like the people you are going to be working with. At the end of the day, if you apply these 10 tips and use your own good personal judgement, you will be 80% of the way to finding the perfect business opportunity for you and hopefully you will commit to them for the long term.
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