A sibling of his previous Magnetic Sponsoring book defining the fundamentals of online attraction marketing, Mike Dillard’s Building on a Budget uncovers several of the secrets behind the low to no-cost online marketing methods described in the course text.

Mike Dillard’s “Building on a Budget” Course Overview:

Consisting of six concise, easy to read and follow chapters, the last five chapters in “Building on a Budget” comprise the actual meat of the content.

Through those chapters, Mike Dillard goes beyond the simple “what to do” explanation found in many similar books by providing the basic “how-to” steps that helps propel your online marketing efforts forward.  These key chapters overview online marketing via:

1. Use of CraigsList with specifics on:
   1. Setting up your advertisement
   2. Writing the ad (a few copy-writing hints thrown in as well)
   3. A method to enhance traffic generation
2. Getting Free Traffic from Videos by:
   1. Getting set-up for videos
   2. Defining your target audience
   3. Send the proper message of attraction
   4. Including a call to action
3. Using Press Releases Optimize Search Engine Results by establishing:
   1. The proper title for the release
   2. Formulate a compelling summary
   3. Prepare an informative yet enticing body to the release article
   4. End with a call to action
4. Using Blogs as a Traffic Magnet describes:
   1. What is a blog and why you MUST have one
   2. Selecting the right topic
   3. Choosing the right blogging platform
   4. Launching your blog
   5. Posting content to your blog
   6. Driving traffic to the blog
5. Incorporating Funded Proposals to Convert Traffic to Leads and Sales
   1. Details of a funded proposal system
   2. Specific overview of MagneticSponsoringOnline.com

Beyond “Building on a Budget”: Magnetic Sponsoring Online System

One of the other “perks” included helping enhance the information provided in Mike Dillard’s “Building on a Budget”, Magnetic Sponsoring or any associated Mike Dillard course is the insight, training and tracking you can access via the Magnetic Sponsoring Online system website.

Even though Magnetic Sponsoring Online is available as an affiliate program, the training information and funded proposal system meshes perfectly with any of the products further enhancing the “usability factor” for the information found in Building on a Budget or the other courses.

The following screen-capture image of the Magnetic Sponsoring Online Back Office website shows the different resources available to any registered user:

Each of the tabs listed at the top of the site facilitates access the detailed training resources and features designed to optimize both your education and use of the Magnetic Sponsoring Online as a complete funded proposal system.

In my opinion, Mike Dillard’s “Building on a Budget” course book provides more than the $25.00 (e-book version) cost in education alone. Beyond the educational benefit, it is essentially required for anyone interested in using the Magnetic Sponsoring funded proposal system to generate leads opening the door to build future business relationships.

Watch your status updates, tweets and RSS readers for future review and guided tour posts about other Magnetic Sponsoring-related courses as well as the back office environment.

BusinessDictionary.com defines network marketing as “Direct selling method in which independent-agents serve as distributors of goods and services, and are encouraged to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting and training other independent agents.”  Agents are more commonly referred to as distributors in many network marketing-based companies.

Now, is it dead or alive?

Bottom line: it is very much alive but if it is alive – is that a good or bad thing?

Now that question is definitely complicated and requires a little thought and scrutiny.

To some, especially former, unsuccessful network marketers who are “born again” and practicing Internet attraction and relationship marketing; the answer is a resounding – probably a little of both.

Why?

Simply because the traditional prospecting and lead generation methods they were taught by the “old school” network marketers (warm market prospecting, cold calling, 3 foot rule, etc.) did not work; at least not for them. Many believed the stigma of the “failed” old school prospecting methods equate with and therefore characterizes network marketing.

Recently, however, many of those people found the Internet and news ways to develop leads and therefore potential customers or recruits.  Though this seemed to solve the dilemma of the old school methods (at least on the lead generation side), it often left many of the new or re-born Internet network marketers short on person to person contact skills.  This is especially true when trying to apply the attraction and relationship marketing model and not simply the “close the sale” approach.

In reality, both the traditional and Internet-based prospecting methods should be blended with attraction and relationship marketing in mind and then included as a part of a network marketer’s toolkit.

Since this is a “sales model”, the prospecting/lead generation aspect necessitates marketing to the potential customer until the sale is closed but in this case employing the relationship building component.  At this stage, good to excellent communication skills are required to elevate the potential customer to a regular, repeat customer – the end game for anyone in sales.

The ability to effectively communicate is a major factor that separates struggling network marketers from those that excel and build successful organizations.

Many struggling network marketers take to the Internet with aspirations of using attraction and relationship marketing to draw leads to court and build relationships in hopes of finding new distributors. Even so, they need to realize that effective personal communication is a must. These skills might best be learned by watching and listening to the successful old school network marketing professionals.

Just remember, it is usually best to work at building the relationship and then introduce the customer to the solution to their problem after a level of mutual trust is established on both sides of the cash register!