Multi-level Marketing

Multi-level marketing is a business model where salespersons like sales consultants, distributors, and even franchise owners and independent owners work in harmony to increase the sales of the product, on commission basis. This is more like a franchise arrangement where the sales of the product depend on the combined effort of each franchise and regional manager. There are multiple levels of people receiving commission. Usually there are seven or more levels. Multilevel marketing is basically a combination of franchise and direct marketing.

This concept started in 1980s when most of the companies started handling the stocking and distribution issues and started compensating all the individuals involved. This increased the interest of each member in promoting sales due to the chance of earning bonuses and since then the Multilevel Marketing companies have taken the responsibility of taking orders, shipping goods, and paying revenue. Things became easier with the transition to Internet. Product promotion, advertising and sales were made online and hence, the whole process began to be known as online MLM.

There are various MLM compensations plans. According to the uni-level or stairway breakaway plans there are two types of distributors involved managers and non-managers. According to the matrix plans, the width of each level in a distributor's group is regulated. In binary plans, the limit of each level's width has two legs. Commission was paid when both the legs reached a specific target. In elevator scheme, the distributors pay splits after a certain number of units have been paid.   

The commissions are paid in two ways, the first says that the commission is paid only if the product is sold and the second one involves paying commission even if the customer just signed-up, it doesn't require the customer to buy anything. Because of the second method illegitimate MLM or illegal pyramid started to arise. The intermediate members used to make proxy customer sign-ups to receive commission and they used to tempt the participant to buy more products than they can be sold. But as most of these businesses present themselves as legal, precautions must be taken. It is better to approach businesses that follow the first method of commission, where it's compulsory to make a sale and not just recruiting a customer. Here money isn't paid for customer sign-up at all. MLM marketing is being practiced all over the United States and in hundreds of other countries.   

In 1979, Amway Corporation was accused of price fixing. They exaggerated sales claims, while their distributors sold the products at a minimum price. After that, FTC warned all multi-level companies whose commission was based on recruiting and not sales. In 2006, all the business sellers including MLM organizations were asked to provide customers with thorough information, according to the Business Opportunity Rule introduced by the Federal Trade Commission, so as to save them from deception. Before that many motivating programs were started which hid the truth. Such programs were known as cult programs.   

Laws have been made stronger. As a measure, pyramid scheme is banned in most of the countries. All the newly hired salespeople have to bare the cost of initial training and material. They even have to buy a big amount of inventory. To test the legality of MLM marketing, the 70% rule is being implemented. The members are stopped from over-loading so as to increase their commission. Only when seventy percent of the inventory is sold, order can be made for new material. 

 

 

Marketing Strategies

Marketing strategy helps organizations to focus their attention to complete resource utilization to increase sales and win over their competitors. Every company applies some kind of marketing strategies to maintain existing customers, attract potential customers and also to maintain and enhance their reputation in the market.

When designing a marketing plan, first a marketing strategy is taken into consideration. The marketing plan consists of steps to be taken so as to attain success in the implementation of the marketing strategy chosen. Big projects involve selection of different strategies at different levels. Usually a strategy consists of well-sketched tactics. They are meant to meet the needs and finally reach marketing objectives. Each of the strategies has pre-calculated results because when a particular strategy is chosen at a particular level, its outcome becomes the goal of that particular level. If there is an absence of a well thought strategy in a marketing plan means it is supposedly lacking a good foundation. A reasonable marketing strategy should not only facilitate marketing goals, but also the action sequence of a campaign.

At regular time intervals the firm should analyze the marketing decision. This is done with the help of strategic models and the 3C's model is considered for this purpose. To calculate the company's strategic position, Ansoff matrix is used. The 3C's model determines the factors, which leads to the success of a marketing campaign. There are three key parties involved in this model the corporation, the customer and the competitors. The involvement of all the three key parties leads to positive results and this involvement is known as the 3C's or strategic triangle.

The role of the corporation is to increase the strength of the company in the success critical areas, when compared to that of the competitor. The customer and his interest form the basis of any strategy. The competitor also plays a vital part. The competitor-based strategies are based on the functioning of business competitors like design and engineering, sales and servicing, and purchasing.

When making a marketing plan depending on some particular strategies known as mix strategies are used. 4P's model is used to calculate whether the plan is sticking to the strategies or not. The four Ps stand for product, price, place and promotion. Products are goods produced by the company on a huge scale for the purpose of selling them and earning profit. Price is the money paid for a product by the customer. The price is based on many factors like competition, market share, customer perception and product identity. Place where the product is sold can be either physical store or store on the Internet. It is also known as distribution channel. To make the customer knowledgeable about a product, the marketer does promotion. It involves advertising, public relation and point of sale. 

There are different types of marketing strategies based on some criteria.  Challenger, Leader and Follower are types of market dominance strategies. Market dominance strategies are used to dominate the market. Cost leadership, Market segmentation and Product differentiation are types of porter generic strategies. Porter generic strategies are built on strategic strength or competing abilities and strategic scope or market penetration. Close followers, late follower and Pioneers are types of innovation strategies. Innovation strategies are meant to trigger the rate of product development and model innovation. It helps the firm to incorporate latest technologies. Intensification, Diversification, Vertical integration and Horizontal integration are types of growth strategies. Growth strategies facilitate the growth of the organization. Marketing warfare strategies are conjunction of marketing strategies and military strategies.

A marketing strategy or a mix of them is chosen only after thorough market research. A marketer should always be ready to face any kind of situations like if the strategy is changed in the middle, he should be able to perform another market research so as to choose the proper strategy, within a short period of time. This can be done easily if you have experience. 

Recognizing Target Market

Achieving good sales is the ultimate target of any firm. Many criteria, such as competitive pricing, near perfect product, reaching out to correct audience and motivational advertising, are responsible for this and should be dealt with in marketing.

First things first, all the efforts will go futile if the correct audience is not recognized. It is the major factor in getting abundant sales, because the right customers aren't targeted, they won't buy the product. The right customers are known as targeted customers or niche market, those who will be happy to buy products that fulfill their needs and is also less pricey.

Small businesses shouldn't fear competition with large companies as they produce products considering a bigger spectrum, which sometimes won't be customer specific as the products are more generalized and they don't much care about the competition they might get from others. This gives an opportunity to the smaller firms to produce products, which can cater to the need of a section of people whose needs aren't met specifically by the large companies.

Although it seems like a silly question, but firstly, a firm should understand who are the people they want to target. The success lies behind understanding this, which requires thorough research and analysis. Various factors must be considered. The age group is the first factor, whether the product will be useful to babies or children or teenagers or youngsters or middle aged or old. Sometimes there is a possibility that the product will cater to the needs of all age groups. Next thing to consider is gender. Marital status, occupation, ethnic background, health status, income status, education, hobbies, etc., are some of the factors that should also be pondered upon.

After decided upon the customer group to be targeted, the benefits that can be provided by the product to this group should be jotted down. A thorough examination of the service or product should be done for this purpose. If there is sufficient time, a survey can be conducted on the current customers and pose them with questions like what they liked in the products they are using, anything discomfort they are facing, do they want anything to be changed to make the product better, etc.

After making a list of all the benefits, thought should be applied to which of these benefits will actually help the targeted audience. Make a short list of the benefits that will be advantageous and send it to the marketing department. It can surely help in their marketing plan and can boost up sales.

Internet has made reaching out to the targeted customers can be very easy. Search engines can be utilized to the maximum extent for this purpose. The thing to be exactly searched can be typed as a keyword or search phrase in the search engines and the results brought on the first three pages will be of great value. But lots of time and investment is involved in this process, as different keywords will fetch different search results. So efforts should be made to finally get what is desired.

Next best thing is reaching out by newsletters and ezines. Many ezines are related to marketing, finance, shopping, Internet, etc. A number of ezines websites can be found in an ezines directory, which even contains the contact information, advertising price, etc. The list of ezines website sites should be cut down to which are relating to the target market and ad should be placed in the ones selected which should include all the product advantages if the ad allows that many words.

Recognizing the target market is crucial to any successful advertising and sales campaign. Once it is recognized, they can be reached through different channels like websites, newspapers, magazines, etc. This makes the customer think that he is being directly addressed to. And since the whole approach will interest them, the amount of traffic received in return will be simply overwhelming and the whole effort will be worth it.    
 
 

Marketing Strategies

Marketing strategy helps organizations to focus their attention to complete resource utilization to increase sales and win over their competitors. Every company applies some kind of marketing strategies to maintain existing customers, attract potential customers and also to maintain and enhance their reputation in the market.

When designing a marketing plan, first a marketing strategy is taken into consideration. The marketing plan consists of steps to be taken so as to attain success in the implementation of the marketing strategy chosen. Big projects involve selection of different strategies at different levels. Usually a strategy consists of well-sketched tactics. They are meant to meet the needs and finally reach marketing objectives. Each of the strategies has pre-calculated results because when a particular strategy is chosen at a particular level, its outcome becomes the goal of that particular level. If there is an absence of a well thought strategy in a marketing plan means it is supposedly lacking a good foundation. A reasonable marketing strategy should not only facilitate marketing goals, but also the action sequence of a campaign.

At regular time intervals the firm should analyze the marketing decision. This is done with the help of strategic models and the 3C's model is considered for this purpose. To calculate the company's strategic position, Ansoff matrix is used. The 3C's model determines the factors, which leads to the success of a marketing campaign. There are three key parties involved in this model the corporation, the customer and the competitors. The involvement of all the three key parties leads to positive results and this involvement is known as the 3C's or strategic triangle.

The role of the corporation is to increase the strength of the company in the success critical areas, when compared to that of the competitor. The customer and his interest form the basis of any strategy. The competitor also plays a vital part. The competitor-based strategies are based on the functioning of business competitors like design and engineering, sales and servicing, and purchasing.

When making a marketing plan depending on some particular strategies known as mix strategies are used. 4P's model is used to calculate whether the plan is sticking to the strategies or not. The four Ps stand for product, price, place and promotion. Products are goods produced by the company on a huge scale for the purpose of selling them and earning profit. Price is the money paid for a product by the customer. The price is based on many factors like competition, market share, customer perception and product identity. Place where the product is sold can be either physical store or store on the Internet. It is also known as distribution channel. To make the customer knowledgeable about a product, the marketer does promotion. It involves advertising, public relation and point of sale. 

There are different types of marketing strategies based on some criteria.  Challenger, Leader and Follower are types of market dominance strategies. Market dominance strategies are used to dominate the market. Cost leadership, Market segmentation and Product differentiation are types of porter generic strategies. Porter generic strategies are built on strategic strength or competing abilities and strategic scope or market penetration. Close followers, late follower and Pioneers are types of innovation strategies. Innovation strategies are meant to trigger the rate of product development and model innovation. It helps the firm to incorporate latest technologies. Intensification, Diversification, Vertical integration and Horizontal integration are types of growth strategies. Growth strategies facilitate the growth of the organization. Marketing warfare strategies are conjunction of marketing strategies and military strategies.

A marketing strategy or a mix of them is chosen only after thorough market research. A marketer should always be ready to face any kind of situations like if the strategy is changed in the middle, he should be able to perform another market research so as to choose the proper strategy, within a short period of time. This can be done easily if you have experience. 

How to keep your cash flow

One of the biggest challenges not only the poorest, wishing that flows a certain amount of money, but also the richest, they desire that cash keeps flowing healthily, is how to keep the cash flowing. With quirky ways that money moves these days described by market analysts bullish or bearish, maintaining cash flow determines the health and wealth of the majority of individuals. Here’s a quick rundown of how to keep the cash flowing and prevents it from flowing out.

1. know the In and outs Your Money-you may not know, but do not know where your money is going can be harmful habit bigger than you can ever do to your bank account. You should learn to keep track of the movements of your money, if your last dime goes to the parking attendant or hair stylist. The point is that knowledge of the movement of your money keeps the level of risk of losing money and misuse or abuse it to healthy levels.

2. know the time when the money comes in faster and slower-I personally think that, true to nature, money follows the seasons. In other words, for no particular reason, is somehow subject to seasons of life. There are times when for no particular reason also, continue washing because if you have a huge tank and money just doesn’t fill up. Comes a time, that despite it all just marketing efforts you have made, paper invoices flow is slow. And you have tried everything but to no avail. It’s time to stop for a while and probably only learn to honor the time and season.

Crucial right now is to decide when to leave money paid or when to tighten their belts. When you know the seasons of your business, in other words, know when he saves and when to splurge.

3. know the people who are working with-most of the time, people can influence the flow of money more than any factor. In any business, the right people get the right things to come including money. Cash flow is very influenced by the people who work for you. So, if you know people well, you know exactly who also keep or let go or give a raise or not. Business is about people who bring money into your chest.

These considerations may not be absolute, but definitely worth to pay attention to certain realities that could pave the way to get ahead in life. Some business acumen includes having a mind that works faster than the rest and a mind that don’t settle for anything less. So, take a few moments to think of them, and who knows, it might be just what you need to open a bit of some truths about how to keep the cash flowing.

Can Obama revive the American economy?

Be elected in a period of crisis, U.S. President Barack Obama faces the daunting challenge of revitalizing the u.s. economy. To date, it has been observed that the United States is still stuck in recession. Now let’s analyze whether Obama can restore the glory of the past.

To decide that if Obama can do it, it’s certainly reasonable that we look to his administrative team before like this there would provide in-depth information about how we will proceed to save the economy.

Today, the administrative team Obama has the same people as Clinton. Among them was Robert Rubin, the former head of Citigroup, who resigned when the company was collapsing received US $ 45 billion in bailout money. Before he was the Vice-Chairman of Citigroup, which violated the Glass-Steagall Act, previously was the Secretary of the Treasury.

The breach of the Glass-Steagall Act existed because Citigroup was now a financial supermarket that could sell both savings and investments that previously could not because of the law. With blessings from Clinton and his administrative team during that time, Citigroup was formed and now could earn much more money. All these are meant to be exposed to increased economic volatility.

Volatility has increased here because Citigroup would sell more risky securities to the public as there was no distinction between savings and investment banks. With this, the public has taken more risk by buying derivatives highly destructive.

This is seen especially in the case of collateralized debt obligations (CDOS) that the public has gotten a lot of. During that time, a boom appeared on the surface with a bubble to be finally stopped growing.

The growing demand for CDOS at that time forced many bankers to grant more loans to lower-rated people. These subprime loans had to be given to providing more CDO for sale. All these went as it was assumed that housing prices would rise.

As a side note, CDOS were sold when the mortgages were packaged into mortgage-backed securities. This meant that the loans were acquired from lenders such as banks and organized into groups and then the bonds were issued on these groups. Investors earned money from interests that give these bonds.

In addition to Robert Rubin, Lawrence Summers (Director of the White House National Economic Council) was also on the team. As many know, was a protégé of Robert Rubin. In addition, he is the mentor of Timothy Geithner (former head of the Federal Reserve of New York and the current Secretary of the Treasury). So, with all these same men that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act still in power, it is difficult for the economy to be revived since they place the root of its decline in the first place.

Also, as many of you may have noticed, politicians to date have used bailouts to save the economy, whenever there is a crisis. The money for the bail-outs are usually provided by the Federal Reserve that it is actually a license to print money. It is not a bank or Government, but a bank owned sign richer today is the world. Money for bail-outs are provided when the Federal Reserve buy bonds issued by the U.s. Treasury and prints the requested amount later.

Here, whenever the Federal Reserve loans money, they will get more interest and with more debt, are enriched with compounding interest. So, the politicians take the economy because they were elected to protect the rich created this system, does not solve the problem.

To date, we see history repeating continuously with bailouts used constantly. In 1990, bailouts have been used for saving and mortgage crisis, but it worked?

The recent crisis in 2008, when Bush authorized the bailout of u.s. $ 700 billion, then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (formerly of Goldman Sachs) immediately gave billions of TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) for large banks.

The money flowed from the taxpayers to the banks and corporations that have caused the biggest disaster. To add to their irresponsibility, refusing even to explain the use of bailout funds when questioned. Lending also fell despite the fact that the bailouts are expected to increase lending. All these bail-outs have been made to protect the rich and feed the Federal Reserve, with the rich getting richer while the poor are poorer.

Ten ways to survive the depression and profit making

1. Just trying to make money where you know you can really do. Do not try to make money in new directions, unless you can ‘ waterproof ‘ very inexpensively and can afford to spend the time and money you have invested.

2. have a good long look at your expense. Where can of course cut? What can you do without?

3. try to pay all your bills immediately. In this way you gain a peace of mind because it is always possible to delay paying if necessary. You may need a cushion to fall back on which you don’t if you’re already paying the Bills at the last minute.

4. keep track of your expenses and try to spend less. For example, when going shopping and normally spend $ 20, get $ 15 only. This will force you to cut. If you are in business, keep track of each days expenditure compared to daily takings. Never spend more than you take. Compete on costs with you weeks smaller and larger collections of weeks.

5. Watch, watch, watch all the time to reduce the prices of items you must buy. Check the quality of first; It’s amazing the savings that can be made.

6. If you have the time, but little money, not spending that time brooding or depressed. Read books that will elevate. Learn more about topics that could help you make more money and plan your way to more money. Keep active. You won’t get anywhere if you don’t.

7. If you don’t have time, it’s still important to keep the morale high. Record some chapters or lifting quotations from books and play while you work. Keep a notebook handy and jot down any ideas that will improve your situation you have. Try to find 15 minutes to half an hour each day planning your work and make a plan for the future. This is vital as it will save you more than the half-hour passed.

8. before the loan to raise capital, look around your House and find unwanted things that are obviously things you could do with out. Sell these. You could raise several hundred dollars so if you are lucky.

9. don’t go for fast money. Only a small minority ever reach it. In order to cut costs a bit each week and increase your income a bit each week.

10. If you really need to borrow, always remember that it must pay back more interest. There is nothing wrong with the loan if it is carefully planned. Consider the initial expenditure, the costs and the time it will take before you have paid advertising. NEVER borrow unless thoroughly tested as you can possibly before and even then, plan things take longer than you thought as well as being a lot harder than you thought.

‘ Slow but sure is a must. The good thing is that if you can survive in a vacuum, you’ll be sure to find easier after it.