by Lon Lindsey

Have you ever wished you could be more assertive with regards to sharing products or a business opportunity with others? Do you get chills when someone says "let's take a look at your warm market?"

There is an answer to this dilemma and it's called "Remote Marketing". Before I go into remote marketing, I want to first address why some people don't see themselves as person to person presenters.

What we tend to say over and over is . . . "I'm just not a sales person" or "I've already gone to my warm market previously and they won't listen to me again" or "I just can't make myself approach people who may not have an interest in what I have.

Whether this is a personality trait or a lack of confidence in ones self or a lack of confidence in the product and company one representing, it really doesn't matter because the feeling is real . . . "I just can't initially approach people about something that I don't know if they have an interest in it or not."

I've even run across experienced networkers who still have that same feeling and even though they have made previous contact with people, they are reluctant to approach them personally with a new opportunity. What I have found is that many people who tend to be shy about approaching others are also very effective when people come to them first. In other words, have someone ask me about my products or my business and I'll show you excitement and lots of knowledge about what I have.

THE ANSWER CAN BE REMOTE MARKETING

I've got good news for you! If you are like what I described above, you will be excited to know that there is an answer for you via remote marketing.

Remote marketing is the art of building a business income without face to face selling. It's the ability to get the end consumer/prospect to come to you because THEY want what you have or at least they are interested in what YOU have. Actually, remote marketing is more than that. It's the ability to build a business from your home without your having to stock and inventory products. It's the opportunity to have monthly income checks come to you due to your having customers from a distance . . .all over the world.

First of all, think of DIRECT MARKETING as a 450 billion dollar industry. Direct marketing is making sales to end consumers or, in a networker's case, providing business opportunities and products to people. There are many strategies that are used for direct marketing, be it store front marketing, catalog sales, telemarketing, online shopping, QVC, door to door selling, sales letters, etc. Now think of network marketing which is between a 5 billion and 10 billion dollar industry. Network marketing comprises only a small part of the direct marketing industry. Remember, MLM or network marketing is just a specialized way of getting products to the consumer so network marketing is really a specialized approach to direct marketing.

Direct marketing has to do with sales. That is how money changes hands. There is no getting around it. In network marketing, we use the term "sharing" . . we don't want to talk about selling so we talk about sharing. The truth is, we are selling and some people don't feel comfortable selling to people who don't "come to their store."

SO . . YOUR CHALLENGE IS . . .

So . . .your challenge is to get people to COME TO YOUR STORE by creating a remote marketing approach for your business. The challenge becomes . . . how can I get people to come to me first so I can sell/share what I have? Let's look at ways of doing this.

SETTING UP YOUR OWN MESSAGE CENTER

I would start out by setting up my own message center . . . a series of recorded messages that will serve as a screening mechanism for what you want to accomplish. You have a couple options here: (A) get an answering machine that has several voice boxes on it in which you can record a different message in each box, (B) rent voice mailboxes in which you can record your message and retrieve messages from others. This is the foundation of your remote marketing approach, because once you have this set up, there are several ways to get people to come to you through your message center.

The question that then comes up is do you make your message center available via a toll free number or a regular number. There are two schools of thought on that. Some people want to make it as easy as possible to get people to call to listen to the message so they will tell you to use a toll free number approach. Others will tell you that making those who have an interest pay for the call serves as a screening mechanism and eliminates the tire kickers without your having to pay for it. One solution to this is to use a combination of the two approaches. Provide a very short message at a 800 number and then give them another number to call in that message. My own personal feeling is to make it easy for people to call by providing an 800 number and then letting people screen themselves out based on the message with those who are interested leaving their name, address and phone number so that additional information can be provided either by calling the person back or sending them written material or a combination of both.

Something you must remember in using a message center approach is don't try to make the sale . . the close . . with the message. The message has only two purposes . . . (1) to screen out those who are not interested, (2) to generate names, addresses and phone numbers of those who are interested in obtaining more information about what you have.

What to do with your leads after you generate them is another topic in itself, but often times that depends on a number of factors such as location, your own personality, the complexity of the business opportunity, etc. The main thing with this approach is we have people coming to YOUR store rather than your knocking on their door.

FEEDING INTO YOUR MESSAGE CENTER APPROACH

With your message center up and running, you are now ready to utilize numerous strategies to generate leads. There is but one purpose and one purpose only with these strategies, and that is to get people to call your message center. These strategies would include utilizing classified ads in a variety of publications, display ads in papers and magazines, leaving business cards around, posting signs on community bulletin boards, mailing out postcards, mailing out letters, faxing out letters, advertising on the Internet, notifying your acquaintances on the Internet via email, posting in acceptable newsgroups or discussion groups, etc.

By starting with the development of your message center, you work your way outward by then utilizing numerous approaches to get people to call your message center . . thus you have people coming to you rather than your going to them.

REMOTE MARKETING WITHOUT A MESSAGE CENTER

Another way to do remote marketing is by mail-order. Mail-order marketing is a huge industry in itself, but it is for the experts. Mail-order marketing requires much business savy and lots of money. Professional mail-order marketers continually test and modify their approach. With a mail-order approach, sales are done by mail contact rather than by person to person contact. Effective mail-order marketing is when you can send out a mailing to someone who will go from reading the contents to purchasing something based on what they just read . . . and even then profits are not realized unless there is additional backend products that can be sold over and over again or a business that can be duplicated by using the same process. Trying to sell/share a business opportunity via mail-order is tough unless the business is so simple that it can be looked at, understood, and easy to sign up all in one mailing. If not, the mailing becomes a lead generator approach rather than straight mail-order. That's okay though, as long as you know what you are doing. Perhaps you simply want to use mail-order as a lead generating approach . . .having people send back through the mail to you, a request for more information.

THE MOST COST EFFECTIVE SYSTEM

Remote marketing can be cost effective if done correctly, but the most cost effective approach is a people to people approach. It's a referral marketing approach . . .going to people you know and then going to people those people know. Utilizing the Internet could be a cost effective approach also, but the Internet involves more than just putting up a web page and waiting for people to come to it. Even though this article is about remote marketing, I felt it necessary to mention that person to person selling/sharing is the most cost effective, however it is quite okay for people to use remote marketing as their chosen approach for building a business as long as they are willing to pay for doing it that way. Let's face it, remote marketing opens up a whole new world to the shy . . . a world that years ago was limited to the fancy talkers and meeting presenters.