Free. Have you noticed it almost never is?
Free usually comes with a cost. Want free TV? Hidden cost: spend your precious time having to watch ads you don’t care about. Or buy Tivo or other gizmo to avoid them.
Want to win a free iPod? Fill out a long survey (spend 15 minutes or more) and enter it in a raffle. Maybe win, likely not.
Want to join a free social networks like MySpace or Facebook to meet people? Get ready for a deluge of “be my friend” requests from people you don’t even know. Many of whom will want to hit you and “your friends” up – for their business. Careful which friends you put there, since they can now be accessed by the recruiters.
The new social networks craze is very useful if you meet people whom you genuinely want to meet – to further your thinking, laugh, or reminisce about having gone to the same high-school or college together.
For networkers however, what I hear over and over is that signing up for one of the free social sites is an invitation to immediately get 20-50 “be my friend” requests from total strangers, most of whom are looking to recruit you into their deal.
Is it mostly fake “friends” trying really hard to sell to each other? And living out the low rent image?
Free friends, yes. But worth it?
Hi Kim
I’ve read your posts about Myspace and how you will get blasted with New Friend Requests and wanted to say this has not been my experience. I’ve had myspace page since last November and only have pet friends. It depends on what you say you are looking for on the site. If you say you’re there for networking, yes you will get every networker pushing their business. I put I was there for friends and only got fellow pet lovers. As the people got to know me they asked about my products and one new friend has really become a friend outside of Myspace. I attend Pet functions with her and she is joining me in my new business adventure. With about 50 friends I have 2 regular customers and one lady wanting to market the products, and I get referals. I think that’s decent odds for something I did for free and put little time into. I used Myspace to find other pet lovers and as a way to learn about the pet related functions in my area. I’m not trying to network directly on Myspace but more like gather information so I can go to these pet functions for networking, make sense? I didn’t have the idea to use it just for networking, I put my passion and let my love of animals show so other animal lovers saw me as a real person before my business.
It all depends on what you put out there for others to see and what you expect to get in return. If your only purpose is to network for your business you will only get others networking for their business.
Talk about free sites, I had a horror with Direct Matches a few months ago. I was on the site one week and really got blasted with emails, invites to look at businesses, products etc. The bad thing was about 90% of these people were pushing the same program. Because of that experience I stay clear of the Networking Sites and go with one I can actually find real friends sharing the same passions.
Myspace might not be a good fit for lots of people for many reasons but being blasted by other network marketers doesn’t have to be the reason.
Have a wonderful day
Robin
I like Robin’s marketing style. I think this is exactly what Kim teaches and what real people are looking for in the world of networking.
My experience with My Space has been exactly as Kim described. I like your tip, though, Robin! I am going there now to update my profile and change it to friends only. I LIKE what I sell! If I decide otherwise, I will go and seek out something else. I get so tired of other networkers claiming I will make more $$ selling their thing. #1, how do they know what I’m making now and #2, if their thing does not excite me, I won’t sell it at all and will make nothing!
Anyway, have a great day folks. Kim, I’m off to read more from your “100 Customers in 100 Days” book. I plan to tell all my business builders to take advantage of the $49 special. Well worth it, IMO!
Michele
http://www.GoodHealthMadeSimple.com
Hi Kim,
some NM are so jaded they pretend to meet socially and then it happens! Like when I met with this lady and while chatting over coffee she pulled out her cell and another lady showed up giving me the goods on her NM company…..
Kim, I am enjoying and learning from your post. Thanks for all the great work you do!
Diana
http://www.sendoutcards.com/dianademers
Kim,
My experience is much more in line with Robin’s, probably because I, too, marked myself looking for friends.
After 2 months on MySpace, I have 42 friends, and though I did not know all of them beforehand, I like them all now. 🙂 And, don’t forget – you don’t HAVE to accept all these pushy types as friends. You can “say no first!”
I believe if you follow the principles you teach on MySpace, as well as anywhere and everywhere else, your experience will be much more positive than most.
Suzanne
I think it depends on your objectives of joining each group. If you are just there to make friends and you have plenty of extra time to do that, then it is great.
However, if you are there to build a business I think that the time it takes to make friends with that many people to get only one or two interested people is a lot of time that could be better spent with qualified prospects.
I speak from experience, as I have had distributors that have spent endless days and months in online networking groups chatting the hours away and accomplishing very little actual business. Meanwhile, I’m signing up customers and distributors like crazy in a small fraction of the time.
I also belong to a few online groups myself and I found that everyone is after you to get you into their deal and they don’t want to hear about yours. Even worse, they pretend to want to know all about your deal and you waste a lot of your time showing it to them only to find out later they aren’t interested at all. I started just telling them to go to my website, check it out and get back to me when they were ready to become a customer or distributor. Guess how many did that?
On a brighter note, NMC is the first online group I have joined that doesn’t have that element. Yes, every once in a while a newbie comes along thinking they have struck networking gold with this community (and you can always tell who they are instantly by the old school talk) and it doesn’t take long for them to find out that this is the new way to network and do business and their old school networking is not acceptable here.
So thanks to Kim for creating a safe place where like-minded networkers can network and support each other in their businesses, whether that includes sharing business ideas or buying great products and services from each other without having to get in their deal. The Law of Attraction is at work here so let’s keep attracting awesome people to our place at NMC.
Follow Your Passion,
Michelle Sanchez
Network Marketing Success Coach
http://itworksbodymakeover.networkmarketingcentral.com
http://nonigirl.networkmarketingcentral.com
http://dreamtrips.networkmarketingcentral.com
http://michelle.networkmarketingcentral.com
Niche works for our lives as well as our marketing.
I have a myspace page (to keep up with my kids – both grown) and only allow my friends to access my page. I have NMC to stay in touch with other like minded network marketing people who are not trying to recruit me.
I’m sick to death of so many spaming people trying to “sell” me on what they have and assuming they believe they know what I want/need. ARGG!
I’ve learned from Kim to be very focused on who I “call out” from the crowd for my product or business. Thanks again Kim for all you do for us.