One of the things that great network marketing companies do is to offer incentives and contests for its distributors to participate in. The interesting thing about contests in Avant is that the pay plan is so lucrative that — to win a contest — you put so much money in your pocket that you could easily buy whatever the grand prize is!

But, in this case, the prize was even more interesting: rather than another big-screen TV, a trip to the Caribbean or an Apple iPad…….Avant decided to create a prize that actually touches people’s lives: an all-expense paid trip to New Orleans to join Avant founder, Brent Payne and the Avant leadership team for four days doing humanitarian work in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans.

Did you know that there are still people in New Orleans who haven’t recovered from Hurricane Katrina? It’s true. And while some people have chosen to say things like, “Well, those people don’t want to help themselves” and do nothing…..Avant is choosing to be part of the solution by actually spending time with these people, teaching them some basic concepts about personal development, planting gardens, and stocking a community food pantry.

So, on July 22nd, I got a phone call from Brent Payne congratulating me for being the winner of the contest.  During the last week of the contest, I was averaging nearly one new Elevate sale per week ($1k profit each).

Do you want to know the dirty little secret? It was the easiest stretch of business I’ve ever conducted. It was relaxing. It was simple. No rushing around. Just simple, relaxed movements. Here are some thoughts that come to mind for why I believe it was so simple for me to win:

#1 Begin With The End In Mind

When I heard that Avant was doing humanitarian work in New Orleans, I sent a note to Brent asking him about the dates so we could go ahead and start arranging for someone to keep our kids while Jessica and I went to New Orleans.  That’s important.  I’d already decided to be there. When I learned about the contest, I thought, “Even better.  I’m still going but Brent’s going to pay for my airline flights.” And, here’s the thing:  that isn’t intended to sound like bravado or to be arrogant; it was simply a stated intention:  I’m going to New Orleans and I might as well be the one to get to go for free.

#2  Be Authentic

This isn’t a tip for winning contests; this is a tip for winning LIFE.  I remember when I first got started in this industry, I was always worried about how I was coming across to my prospects.  The phone would ring and I’d rush around closing the doors, worried that the dog was going to bark or that I wouldn’t appear professional.

Screw that.  That’s for the birds.  When I decided a few years ago to start just living my life and stop worrying about all that nonsense, here’s what I did:  I started doing all my business from my cellphone.  Even today, if you call me asking about Avant, you’re just as likely to catch me floating around my pool, driving in the car with the family or waiting for a table at our favorite restaurant.  You might hear Easton in the background laughing like a maniac because he crashed into Mom while they were playing Mario Kart on the Nintendo Wii.  Or you might hear Will and Pate splashing in the pool.  Or, if you’re like Leo (a fellow I spoke with earlier this week), you might hear me signing for packages from the UPS man and wondering who sent me a big box of Omaha Steaks!

My point is this:  people are tired of marketers who try to be something they’re not.  Be authentic.  Whatever that means to you.  For me, it means living my life in a way that I don’t have to change who I’m being just because the phone rings.  And because there seems to be so few authentic people around, I promise your prospects will notice when they look at you and see you just being yourself.

#3  Keep The Main Thing The Main Thing

Let me give you a quick image:  picture a construction site where a beautiful cathedral is being built.  The scene has lots of construction workers but something strange is happening…

Most of the construction workers are sitting over to the side admiring their new hammer….or showing someone their new saw…..they’re filming videos of themselves trying to explain to other people how to drive a nail….and you’ve even got some of the workers saying, “I just don’t seem to be getting good results with this saw.  Maybe I need to buy that new course for $3,000 on ‘How To Use A Saw Like A Pro’.

But as you continue looking around the construction site, you see something else:  a much smaller group of people are — gasp! — actually working on the cathedral! They’re driving nails.  They’re sawing wood.  They’re laying bricks.

They are, by God, getting the job done.  And they don’t waste their time sitting around worrying about whether or not they’re using a hammer that’s as fancy as someone else’s.

Heck, if you look closely, some of them may not even be holding the hammer right.  Some of them might not even HAVE a hammer:  they’re driving nails with the side of a pair of pliers!  They’re so focused on actually doing the thing that they can’t be sidetracked to sit around and spend their talking about the work.  They’re too busy actually DOING THE WORK.

The network marketing industry looks like that to me.

I see a lot of people who say they’re professional network marketers but they’re really just sitting around talking about the business.  Or worrying about their business.  Or spending time designing blogs, making friends on Facebook and making videos of themselves.

And there’s nothing wrong with any of those things…….unless the person is doing that stuff instead of making money and actually driving nails in their own business!

Don’t misunderstand me.  I have a blog (obviously).  I make videos.  I use Facebook.

But ALL of those things are secondary to actually driving the nails every day.  My primary focus is always, “Who are the 4-5 people that I’m introduce to AVANT today?”  “Who did I talk to earlier who’s probably ready to get started on my team?”

THIS is the actual work of network marketing.  Not all that other stuff.

It’s all about keeping the main thing the main thing.

Make sense?  Great!

So, I’ve pulled my workboots out of the closet and we’re packing our bags to go to New Orleans next week to get our hands dirty.  We’ll do a ton of masterminding while we’re there and it’s always good to hang out with Avant’s founder, Brent Payne.  If you’re in the New Orleans area, call me on 334-655-8194 if you’d like to get together and talk about Avant, meet the founder and find out more about what we’re doing!

Lastly, do me a favor.  If you like this post, comment on it below and retweet it or share it with others!

To your IMMEDIATE success!

Tony Rush
+1 334-655-8194 mobile

http://www.best7minutes.com

http://www.weareavant.com/main

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I hate to break it to you — no, that’s not true — I actually love being the one to break it to you.

The rules change and — as usual — most people aren’t paying attention. In fact, the rules changed quite a while back and most people still don’t know it. The ones who DO know it are not only having a BLAST in business but they’re making tons of money.

Here’s the skinny:

Your customer doesn’t care about all the features of your product.
The prospect doesn’t care that your MLM company is paying an extra 4% on the 3rd level.
If you’re talking to your prospect about the how many hotels will take your discount card, you’ve made a wrong turn and don’t even know it.
And, for those of you still in the stone ages, the prospect sure as hell doesn’t care about ORAC scores or how many mucopolysaccharides are in a serving of your miracle fruit juice.

People buy on emotion….and they justify their purchase on fact. Period. End of story.

In other words, WHILE the prospect is making a decision, they’re depending more on the emotional cues that they get from you, your company and your presentation….not just the data. Only AFTER they’ve made their decision will they quote some fact or other about why they made the decision they made.

That’s right: oftentimes the prospect herself doesn’t know why she made the decision she made. Only AFTER the decision is made will most people manufacture a list of reasons that would bear any resemblance to “critical thinking”.

Emotion is the ignitor. It’s the thing that sets our hearts turning. Why? Author Dan Pink knows why:

Good news and bad news: more people today, than ever before, demand EXCELLENCE. Not just excellence for the sake of it, but a committed, driven company looking to improve on what they can and get rid of what they do not.

And there are companies like that out there. And there are other companies out there who serve more as a warning to us all.

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Quick video for you today:  “How To Get UNSTUCK In Your Business”.

If you have a broad and general complaint that you’re “not making money” or you’re “not enrolling enough people”, this simple diagram will demonstrate how to pinpoint EXACTLY what you need to do in order to get more enrollments.  Enjoy! — TR

NOTE:  the video is in HD so it won’t fit here.  Click here to watch it in all its HD glory.

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“Lead generation is easy.”

How does that statement make you feel? Do you agree? Do you disagree? Why or why not? Does it feel like it should be true but you just haven’t experienced it? Would you like to believe it but just can’t bring yourself to say it out loud?

Or are you nodding your head up and down right now and saying, “Absolutely, Tony! Lead generation is easy”?

If your answer is anything other than the last one, you’re probably making your task much harder than it has to be. Because the statement that “lead generation is easy” isn’t a matter of perspective….not a matter of expertise…not a matter of experience. It’s simply a matter of understanding what a lead IS and how simple and easy it is to get people to say “Yes” to getting more information about your business.

But, where did this idea come from that marketing was hard? Or that lead generation was hard?

The biggest culprit for spreading this message is very obvious:

A. 99% of the people who will lead you to believe that marketing and lead generation is difficult are people who are making their living by selling you a solution. Think about it. They can’t sell you a solution until they convince you there’s a problem. So all their ad copy and language is spent affirming how difficult it is to get leads

B. The second culprit are people who have experienced lead generation as hard themselves….so they need to be “right” about their experience. They’d like to solve the problem if they could….but not if it’s going to mean they have to give up their story…their struggle….and their “rightness” about how difficult the game is.

There you go. Those two categories take care of the vast majority of people who preach “lead generation is hard”.

But here’s the basic point:

People who tell you that something is hard are generally those people who have experienced it as hard. It’s best not to take those people as your advisors.

After all, if you wanted to learn how to sail a boat, and you have a choice of two successful sailors to learn from……do you really want to spend your time with the guy who constantly talks about how hard it is?

Give me the successful guy who says, “You’re not going to believe how easy this is. Check this out….”

I’ll work with him all day long and I’ll learn for myself how easy things can be when you decide for it to be that way.

Lead generation is easy. Don’t ever let anyone tell you any different.

Tony Rush

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Hey guys.

If you’re marketing a product, service or opportunity online, you may have already heard some news about how the FTC is changing the rules. It’s true — they are. And it’s a good idea for you to be familiar with the changes.

(By the way, I am not a lawyer and this should not be considered legal advice. Be responsible for your own business, look at the data and know for yourself what you should do.

With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s the scoop:

In the past, it was completely permissible to show testimonials of your product, service or opportunity and share with the general public what kind of results someone got as a result of using the product or being involved with the opportunity, provided that you offered some sort of disclaimer that you weren’t “guaranteeing” that everyone would have the same result.

In other words, as long as you smacked a line at the bottom of the website saying something like “Results may vary from individual to individual”, you were in the clear.

That was yesterday. That’s history. Today, the rules are totally different.

Here’s what one FTC lawyer had to say:

“…The most significant change to the revised guides is the deletion of the “safe harbor” that has long allowed advertisers to use testimonials who reported specific successful experiences with an advertised product or service as long as the advertiser included a disclaimer such as “Results not typical.” Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect.”

Let’s put that into plain English.

Let’s say you’re in network marketing and you have someone new in your business. Let’s call her Fanny. Fanny starts following the system EXACTLY as it’s taught…works the business with integrity and consistency and — lo and behold! — she winds up creating a $20,000 per month income in her first 6 months.

Then let’s say that Fanny writes you a testimonial that says, “I got started in XYZ International six months ago and now I’m making $20,000 per month.” And she’s got the check stubs to prove it.

So far, so good, right?

Well, up until the FTC changed the rules, you could just put a disclaimer on that page that says something like “Results may vary and are based on the time, energy and commitment you invest in your business” type of disclaimer you’ve seen 100s of times.

But here’s the key phrase that the FTC has added to the mix: “required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect”.

What that means is that — if you’ve got someone in your company making $20k per month and you want to display that testimonial on your website, you would ALSO have to disclose the amount of money that the average person earns in your company.

Stop. Wait a second.

You and I both know what the “average” person earns in any business. Zero or close to it. Why? Because “average” people are never successful. That’s why they’re called “average”.

They don’t follow the system.
They don’t do the work.
They don’t attend the events.
They don’t go to the training calls.
And they quit before you can say the phrase “you’re responsible for your own results”.

What does the average person in YOUR company earn? $100 a year? More? Less? Whatever it is, you can be damn sure it’s nowhere close to Fanny’s results. Because Fanny is someone who’s choosing to be very UNaverage in her life.

Wait, there’s more.

The FTC lawyer went on to say:

“The FTC also said that it believes that it is “likely” that testimonials that present the specific experiences of a product user (e.g., the number of pounds or inches lost) will be viewed as claiming that those experiences are typical of what consumers will generally experience.”

Did you get that? Read it again: “testimonials…will be viewed as claiming that those experiences are typical…”

What that means is that — if you put a testimonial on your site of someone who makes $20k in a month….then the FTC says you’re claiming that the typical consumer should expect to earn $20k/month. Substitute any number in that sentence with any other number and it will also be true.

And this is true for non-financial testimonials, too.

Do you sell a weight loss product and say that someone lost 20 pounds? Then the FTC says that you’re claiming that everyone will lose 20 pounds.
Do you have a testimonial on your site from someone who used a miracle fruit juice and their cancer was cured? Then the FTC says that anyone with cancer should expect to be cured using your product. (The FDA will get involved in that one, too.)

In short, if you use testimonials with specific results AT ALL….then you’re affected by this change in the rules If you want to continue to use those types of testimonials, you can’t just say “individual results may vary”. You have to say “Individual results may vary. The average person experiences ______.”

It’s my understanding, though, that not all testimonials will be affected so seriously. If someone is just expressing how happy they are that they use a product…they like the way it tastes….they’ve joined a business they’re excited about…..they’re a satisfied customer, those are probably okay.

It’s only when you’re offering a testimonial where someone is talking about a specific result of some kind.

So, what should you do with all this?

You should COMPLY, by God!

Seriously…I’ve been tracking this conversation for a long time and it’s amazing how many people are investing their energy into trying to figure out how to “get around” the FTC…or how to outsmart the FTC….or how to shortcut the system so they can still offer wild testimonials and not be affected by the changes.

Let me give you a word of advice: your energy is far better invested into some other income-producing activity. The best thing you can do on this issue is to simply play by the rules. Because, if you ignore it and get a phone call or letter from the FTC…I promise you will comply or lose.

Here’s the good news…

I’ve not used testimonials in my marketing in YEARS. And it hasn’t kept me from making a ton of money in my business.

Why?

Because, while testimonials are a great form of “social proof”….testimonials are not the only thing that matters when someone is looking at an offer. In fact, it’s arguable that they’re not even in the top three reasons why people choose to raise their hand and ask for more information….or just outright buy right in the moment.

People are more attracted to your product, service or opportunity because of WHO YOU ARE BEING in your marketing than in how many testimonials you can pile up.

I know one thing for sure: the people who get started with me in my business don’t get started because I show them a bunch of people who are making multiple six-figure incomes in their first 6-12 months. They’re getting started with me because:

A. They want what I’m selling
B. They can see themselves easily duplicating what I do to earn a great income
C. They can clearly see a path from where they ARE to where they WANT TO BE.

It’s not rocket science. Testimonials are great. But they’re not the “be-all, end-all” of marketing.

So, my advice: don’t use testimonials with specific results. Feel free to use all the testimonials you want about how happy people are with the decisions they’ve made.

Tony Rush

P.S. One other thing: in times of change like these, plenty of people will not comply and will be out of the game. Another bunch of people will have talked themselves into the belief that “they can’t make money if they can’t use testimonials” and they’ll just quit altogether. Either way, there will be fewer people out there marketing or marketing correctly.

People who take the approach I’ve described in the latter part of this article will be in a GREAT position to rack up some serious cash in the coming months. Be one of them. There’s never been a better time to earn the kind of income you deserve!

“In times of change, the LEARNERS will inherit the earth….while the LEARNED will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” — Eric Hoffer

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One of the most fascinating things I’ve experienced in my career in marketing is that people will often try to “solve their problem with problems”.

Sounds like a paradox and it is. Here’s what I mean:

I’m in a business where I’m contacted daily by people who legitimately want to create more freedom and money in their lives. They want to quit their job, work from home and create a new lifestyle for themselves.

And yet, when given the opportunity to have exactly what they say they want, many will reply, “I’d really love to do this and I know it would work for me. But I just don’t have the money.”

Or someone who works 60+ hours a week and wants more time with their family….and when they look at a business that can set them free from the workforce forever….many will say, “I’d love to do this but I don’t have the time.”

They’re trying to solve problems with problems.

It’s a paradox. It doesn’t work.

The reason why they say they CANNOT do something is usually the reason why they MUST do something.

Until they figure that out, we can probably call those people in six months and they’ll still be struggling financially. Or working 10 hour days and missing their kids’ ball games.

These aren’t unintelligent people. Not usually. They’re not stupid. But, they’ve fallen into the trap of mediocrity: they choose to believe that life is happening “to” them and they’ve forgotten that they are actually creating their lives with their thoughts and decisions.

Nothing changes until the person changes. And no problem can be solved with the same quality of thinking that created it.

How about you? What decision or action are you putting off today because you think that you have something holding you back?

What can you do today to remove that obstacle for good and get on with your life?

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All this talk about “stimulus packages” and “bailouts”… A billion dollars… A hundred billion dollars…Eight hundred billion dollars…One TRILLION dollars…

These numbers are so big, they’re meaningless. One way to put it into perspective is to actually SEE the amount of money we’re talking about. Let’s take it slow.

We’ll start with a $100 dollar bill. Currently the largest U.S. denomination in general circulation. Most everyone has seen them; slightly fewer have owned them. Guaranteed to make friends wherever they go.

Now, a PACKET of one hundred of these $100 bills is only about a 1/2″ thick. But it’s $10,000. You can squeeze into a pants pocket and it’s enough to have a shamefully good time for about a week. Here’s $10,000:

Believe it or not, this next little pile is a whopping $1,000,000. Doesn’t look like much, does it? Well, a million dollars is actually just 100 packets like the one above. You could fit it into a grocery bag and walk around with it.

Now, if you thought the million dollars looked unimpressive….$100 Million dollars is a little more respectable. It will fit neatly on a standard pallet:

Now…a BILLION dollars is quite a lot of money. It’s basically 1,000 Million. So, if you had ten of those pallets, you’d have one billion dollars:

Now, let’s look at a TRILLION dollars. That’s a number we’ve been hearing a lot about lately.

What is a trillion dollars? It’s basically one million million. It’s 1,000 billion. It’s a one followed by twelve zeros. You ready for this? It’s pretty surprising. Check it out, ladies and gentlemen: I give you $1 Trillion:

Did you notice that the pallets in that picture are DOUBLE-stacked? And how tiny the man looks over on the left? Next time you hear someone throwing around the word “trillion” like it’s pocket change, think about this picture. Especially if it’s the government talking about how much money they want to spend.

Before you pass this along to your friends, let me offer you a personal thought… Do you remember that picture of the $1,000,000? The 100 packets of $10,000 that you could fit inside a grocery bag?

You can earn that within the next TWO years. Seriously. And it’s not nearly as difficult as what you would imagine.

Heck, here’s a really BAD example that would still work: did you know that if you had a single product that paid you $1,000 that you would only need 1,000 customers to earn that million dollars? Only one-thousand customers! That’s nothing! Think about how many millions of people are buying and selling stuff online every day. A great many of them are spending thousands of dollars.

In fact, I have a friend named Frank who recently sold over 2,000 copies of a little product he put together…..and he sold them for $2,000 each. He didn’t get to keep all the money but he kept over half of it! And he did it in less than a week. That’s a $2,000,000 income.

And to be honest, that’s not even the simplest way to earn a seven-figure income. It would be far easier to sell FEWER products and then offer those satisfied customers the opportunity to buy more products. Or more expensive products. You could make the same money with a fraction of the work!

In fact, here’s a formula for creating a 7-figure income in 2 years:

1. Plug into a market-tested system that is already creating millionaires. There’s no need to re-invent the wheel….it’s far smarter to just do what’s already proven to work. This is the SINGLE concept that I used to earn $15,000 in my first month in a home business…and reached $40,000 per month in my first year. If I can do it anyone can. You just need to have a system that has already proven to create millionaires.

2. You have to be committed or you might as well not even get started. If you’re the kind of person who jumps from deal to deal and business to business every few weeks…STOP IT. You’ll never get rich jumping around. The biggest part of becoming wealthy is adopting a success mindset. We have products and masterminding that will assist you in installing this mindset in record time.

3. You will become like the people you spend your time with. Our mastermind team is chock-full of people just like me who didn’t graduate from college….don’t have a marketing degree….but who have earned over $1,000,000 by working from home with no employees, no product inventory and no hassles.

4. And, finally, you have to be marketing a product that offers HUGE value in the marketplace…and that will pay you what you deserve when someone chooses to buy it. Forget nickel-and-dime commissions. Forget earning 6% on someone’s long-distance bill. Or $10 on selling someone a nutritional product. The REAL key to success in this industry is to market something that has such value for the prospect that they will want to own it the moment they find out about it. They can go from complete IGNORANCE of the product to wanting to own it in less than 30 minutes of knowing about it. Something that people WANT but that is totally different from what everyone else is selling.

When you’ve got a product like that, people will line up and BEG to buy it from you. And you can pocket some huge profits while changing someone’s life in the process.

If you’d like to find out more about a business that can give you a multiple six-figure income in your first 6-12 months, visit me online at http://www.tonyrush.com and I’ll be glad to show you EXACTLY what I did to create wealth from home. (No MLM, no products to stock, no chasing friends and family).

Talk to you soon!

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1. The purpose of an autoresponder message is to get them to click a link. Not to get them to read a letter.

2. The purpose of your primary website is to sort the suspects from the prospects and invite the prospects to fill out a form requesting information. It is not to explain your business to them, or tell them about the wonders of the product.

3. When calling a prospect for the first time, the purpose of the conversation is to find out if they are someone you want to work with and — if so — to give them the next step. The phone call is not for giving them a presentation. Nor to explain your business.

4. Leverage is not just about pay plans….it’s about time management. Never do a presentation for one person when you can just easily do it for 6 people. One-on-one presentations are probably the biggest waste of time in the industry. (Note: I didn’t say they didn’t work….I said they were a waste of time.)

5. Even better, put all your prospects on a conference call hosted by someone else and you can let someone else work your business for you while you’re enjoying your life. If I had to choose only one tool for my business, it would be a powerful conference call.

6. There’s never any reason for a business presentation call to last more than 30 minutes. And, if the call doesn’t include live testimonials and a Q&A session for prospects, there’s no need for it to be longer than 20 minutes. If it takes longer than that, your presentation is too complicated or you just like to hear yourself talk.

7. There’s no need for an associate training call to last more than 45 minutes and that includes live Q&A. If your company is having multiple hour-long training calls every week, they need to simplify their system.

8. If you’re not going to collect a decision after the presentation, there was no point in going through the whole process. After they get any questions answered, ask them something simple like, “What do you want to do from here?” or “Do you see a future for yourself with this company?” There’s no heavy psychology. It’s just authentic communication.

9. Trying to convince prospects to join or buy is for amateurs. Don’t do it. Ever.

10. Spend time with people who are getting the results you want. Don’t waste your time “talking shop” with people who
aren’t successful. Attitudes (and mindsets) are contagious. Catch something worth having.

To your success!
Tony Rush

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I get asked alot, “Tony, if you had to pick ONE thing that would allow me to create accelerated, positive results in my life…what would it be. ”

I confess it’s hard to pick just one principle. But, if I had to…this would be it. And it’s probably not something you’ve heard before. I hope you enjoy hearing about it. Feel free to post your comments and experiences! — TR

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