This is not the title of the topic that I am going to write here. It was raining for the past days in the late afternoon. Yesterday was the heaviest downpour as far as I’m concerned. Since I wasn’t involved in any training or appointment, together with my youngest son and daughter, we decided to go bowling.

It was a fruitful day for me as I managed to complete some errants before we ‘get down to business’. At about 4.30 pm, we reached SAFRA Yishun Bowl – it was raining. However, there was no available lanes. We were told that we have to wait for ‘quite sometimes’, for the lanes. We were a bit disappointed but refused to let this dampened our day which has been going smoothly as planned. We discussed and decided to ‘entertain’ ourselves at a games alley at North Point Shopping Centre.

We then decided to go to the library. As usual, I will proceed to my favorite section. I managed to find two books on Networking in general; namely Brilliant Networking and Networking for Career Success. Yes, its the title of the book that decorated my blog title for today.

Networking for Career Success was authored by Diane Darling who is the principal consultant for Effective Networking, Inc.

I’ve completed reading the book and found it good and effective. She put all the details in a simple formats divided into 24 lessons in a 48 pages book. It was easily understand and all recommendations or action plans she stated in the book, are executable. Diane Darling simply defined Networking as the art of building and sustaining mutually beneficial relationships where there is a worthwhile reason for all parties to participate. Networking happens everywhere; at home, at work, in our community, with everyone.

Effective networking is about getting what you need or want while helping others get what they want or need. This book provides you with the right skills for making mutually beneficial connections, knowing how to cultivate those connections for the benefit of everyone involved, and creating a classic and valuable win-win situation. So read the book if you want to know more.

For those who want to know all about Networking especially those who wish to be involved in network marketing industry, I highly recommend this book. You can also visit her website at www.effectivenetworking.com.

Talk soon,

Jailani

PS. Goal setting is important, goal doing is more important.

There are basically two methods of distributing physical consumer products.  When the buyers go to the shop to make a purchase, this is Retailing. However, when the products are presented to the customer without the customers going to the shop, this is Direct Sales Marketing.

Direct sales distribution to the customer is differentiated by how the customer is being acquired. When a person acquires the customer, this is known as Direct Selling. Direct Marketing is when the customer is acquired through a media such as TV, Internet or mail order. A customer acquired by Direct Selling may then be sold to directly from the main company where the customer purchases online or through telephone ordering.

Direct Selling is divided into two sections; Single Level Marketing [SLM] and Multi-Level Marketing [MLM]. In both forms of marketing, the customer is ‘sold to’ by a person who is a ‘direct sellers’. Depending on the company rules and regulations, these direct sellers will sometimes be known with terms such as consultant, representative, associate, executive, partner, agent. A general term in MLM is Retailer – the person will basically employ the skill of retailing to sell to the customers where the income opportunity shall be purely based on commission earned through customer sales.

The difference between the two methods is based on how the sales force or prospect is recruited, trained and supported. In MLM, it is often referred to the ‘Leadership Programme’. This programme determines the growth of an organisation.

SLM is the traditional form of Direct Sales where the Leadership Programme is managed and controlled by the Direct Sales company. The direct sellers are known as “Directors” or “Managers” who are given some form of basic salary and are tasked to manage or handle certain regions, areas or sections.

In MLM, the responsibility to promote the products or expanding the sales development of the sales network is being offered to Network Marketers in the form of a Business Opportunity. The Network Marketer promoting the products earn a commission on the purchases made by other Networkers “hired” by them and everyone under the organization. The fact that the expansion opportunity is larger, Network Marketers are able to significantly earn larger incomes than in SLM. This is the reason as to why MLM is now the dominant form of Direct Sales in the world.

As such, a Network Marketing company generally offers two opportunities to a would-be business owner or the direct seller; a Retail income opportunity [Retailer] and a Network business opportunity [Networker].

Nowadays, you heard of many other marketing terms use such as referral marketing, group marketing, etc. These terms are used to the fact that the company actually want to distance themselves from the bad publicity of Network Marketing. However, whatever terms they used, if a company uses a commission based programme to earn from multiple levels of business owners, then the programme is still a Network Marketing business.

As far as many network marketing leaders are concerned, Network Marketing is the best term.

Talk soon,

Jailani

PS. There is a new free application being released a day ago for those who love to Tweet. See why this application is being downloaded like hotcakes. Download now before it’s too late and is free!