This describes MLM Leads, MLM lead generation and the real costs of MLM lead funded proposals. Read 10 reasons why you’re funding the Funded Proposals.
Most every day I see Google search results telling me that I should never again purchase mlm leads or mlm lead lists for my business. Instead, I should do my own MLM Lead Generation and create a “never-ending stream of leads for FREE MLM Leads”.
Come on… was I born yesterday?
Do people really think you can do this?
I guess so. They’re hundreds of people purchasing Google advertising trying to get you to purchase their info product which reportedly tells you how.
Look folks, I’ve seen and read enough of these “FREE MLM Leads” info products.. I’ve seen and read enough of the negative advertising like “Only Suckers Buy Leads”… YouTube is filled with thousands of these videos.
From my perspective the true “suckers” are those that really THINK that they CAN build their primary business using funded proposals and are trying to recoup their money by selling the same product to others.
It just doesn’t happen.
I personally know many of the self-proclaimed “gurus” and I can tell you that NONE OF THEM BUILT THEIR PRIMARY BUSINESS USING FUNDED PROPOSALS.
Did you get that?
None.
I could produce a list of these guru’s for you… but I digress.
EDITOR’S NOTE: In this article I am describing a “funded proposal” as an information product that is created by the author and marketed by an affiliate. When an info product sale is made, the author and the affiliate both share in the income generated by the sale. The affiliate creates a lead for his/her business opportunity when a sale is made. The sale of the info product creates a lead for both the affiliate and the info product author.
Here are the top 10 reasons why MLM Lead Generation Funded Proposals will cost you money and slow your business:
1) You’re Attracting People With No Warm Markets.
Ask any top producer and they’ll tell you that they created their fortune working the warm market. But when they run out of warm market, they find new warm markets in cold market leads or mlm lead lists.
However Funded Proposals are written to target the MLM distributor. These people have already burned thru their warm market. They’re just like you; they don’t have anyone left to prospect. So by bringing them into your business, you have no new warm markets to prospect. You’re back where you started – needing new warm markets to talk to.
Success leaves clues. Warm markets create big checks. If you’re afraid to talk to people, you should probably hang onto your day job.
2) It Takes a Lot of Time
As a funded proposal affiliate, you’re responsible for your own advertisement to generate your own leads. There’s nothing wrong with advertising yourself so long as you’re a good ad copy writer and have the time and money to run test ads. You’ll have to invest a considerable amount of time and money in testing before you find an ad that converts.
How much time will that take? How much MONEY will that take?
Keep in mind that the funded proposal author probably kept a few secrets from you that would give them the edge or you and your ads.
When you purchase an MLM Leads list from www.MLMLeads.com, you’re leveraging off of our advertising experience and knowledge-base. We’ve done the homework. We know what ads work and what type of ad copy and calls to action make people respond.
In short, we can create leads more efficiently at less cost and less time than you would be able to create on your own using funded proposals.
3) Expensive Ad Costs with Pay Per Click Competition
I’ve seen dozens of affiliates promoting the same funded proposal at Google. They’re bidding against each other for the same keywords. Google loves this. These advertisers drive advertising costs up and that money flows straight into Google’s bank account.
When you purchase leads at www.MLMLeads.com, you’re buying a responsive lead that is only sold twice, that’s all. And if you follow the 80/20 principle where 80 percent of the leads are worked by 20% of distributors, you’ll learn that there’s plenty of life available on these leads even when sold twice.
Moreover, we create marketing relationships with top producing websites and networks. In essence we have no competition when we place our ads. That keeps our costs down and the savings are passed onto you.
4) High Costs of New Distributor Sign-Ups
Earlier I talked about how advertisers drive the Pay Per Click costs up at Google. It’s incredible how much they’re paying for “clicks” just to sell an info product.
Click here to a new window right now and view Google searches for the term “MLM Leads”. There you’ll find our website listed at the top of the search engine organic listings. Above our listing and to the right you’ll find page after page of Pay Per Click advertisers marketing their funded proposals. As of this writing, these advertisers are spending between $1.04 to $6.44 PER CLICK. On average, those advertisers are getting 29 to 37 CLICKS PER DAY. On average they’re SPENDING $30 to $250 PER DAY.
Let me repeat that last stat.
They’re spending $30 to $250 in hopes of making a funded proposal sale. They’re spending $30 to $250 a day in hopes of generating A LEAD.
Let’s continue the math here…
Let’s say their funded proposal landing page is working really well and is converting 3% of the web traffic into sales. And let’s assume that the average click to get the traffic costs $3.50/click to the website (conservative estimate based on the range above)… that means:
100 web visitors X $3.50/visitor = $350 spent
3% conversion X 100 Visitors = 3 sales made
Cost per Sale = $350 / 3 = $116/sale or $116 per lead
Now let’s assume that as an affiliate selling a $37 info product, you make 1/2 of the sale or $18.50. That means for 3 sales, your GROSS INCOME was 3 X $18.50 = $55.50.
So now let’s summarize:
Average Cost Per Click = $3.50 (as of February 2, 2009)
Average Page Conversion to Sale = 3%
Average Cost Per Sale = $116/sale or $116 per lead
Average Income Per Sale = $18.50
Average Net Income Per Sale = -$97.50
That means you LOST $97.50 per funded proposal lead.
Or you could say that your cost per lead was $97.50. Yes, your COST PER LEAD was $97.50. You DID NOT MAKE ANY MONEY producing the lead.
So ask yourself… How long can you afford to spend $97 a lead before you go broke?
And that was only one lead.
How many leads do you need on average before you sign up a distributor?
30? 50?
If you need 30 leads, you’ll spend $2,900. If you need 50 leads, you’ll spend $4,875 for your funded proposal leads. That means that you’ll spend…
Funded Proposal Costs: $2,900 to $5,000 per new distributor!!
Now let’s compare that to a purchase of 100 Real-Time Short Form leads.
Mike Boggs has worked these leads and reported:
* 55% connect rate with prospects after 4 dials thru the list
* 61% interest of those contacted
* 10.5% signup rate of those interested
That means that on average Mike would have signed 3 new distributors for every 100 Real-Time Short Forms Leads. Total lead cost was $97. That means a cost of $32 per distributor signup.
So here’s the bottom line:
Using funded proposals, your cost per distributor signup can be between $3,000 to $5,000.
Using Real-Time Short Form Leads, your cost per distributor signup can be $32 on average.
Which of the two makes the most sense to you?
(I know there’s some reader out there reading this saying that my numbers are not real. Do yourself a favor before commenting… do your research or better yet, spend your money to prove me wrong.)
5) Expensive Leads, Low Conversion
I’ve seen hard working distributors fail working leads. I won’t deny it. I see it happen all the time. It wouldn’t matter if it was a $1 lead or a $5,000 lead. Most people fail working leads because they have not been properly trained on how to work the leads.
When a person markets a funded proposal, they’re not trained on how to work the lead properly. Instead, they’re hoping the prospect will close themselves into business so they don’t have to talk to anyone. Trouble is… that rarely happens. The distributor spends more and more money hoping it will happen. This continues until the distributor is broke and out of business.
At www.MLMLeads.com we train our clients on how to work leads successfully. We’ve taken distributors that failed time and time again… then trained them properly so that they now are able to work leads successfully. Many of these clients are top producers today as a result.
6) Leads on Demand
One of the biggest challenges you’ll find in generating your own leads is that the lead flow is unpredictable. Usually there is a wave of prospects when the ad first hits, then it tails off. Since the lead flow is unpredictable, it is hard to schedule your prospecting time. This is especially true for the part-time distributor who only has a couple of hours in the evening to work.
Whereas when you purchase a list from us at www.MLMLeads.com, we tell you when and how to expect your leads. Because you know when to expect them, you can fit the prospecting time into your already busy lifestyle.
7) You’re Not the Expert
Unless you’ve written and are marketing your own funded proposal, you’re selling an info product written by someone else. That means that the prospect making the info product purchase sees the author as the expert, not you. That puts you at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to credibility and building your business.
However when you prospect a MLM Lead List, you’re the only person the prospect knows. And when you interview the prospect, you’re the expert in the interview.
8 ) Whose List Are You Building?
Since you’re the funded proposal affiliate, you’re spending your advertising dollars driving traffic to your affiliate website provided to you by the author. There the prospect can optin and request information from the site or make a purchase. When the prospect opts in, you’re building the author’s list, not yours.
When a sale is made, you have generated a “lead” for both you and the author. The author is free to market to your lead just as you are.
At www.MLMLeads.com we also employ lead sharing since we sell the lead twice. The two sales are to individuals promoting 2 different business opportunities. The biggest difference you’ll see between us and funded proposals is the cost per shared lead. Our cost per lead is much lower than that of a funded proposal.
9) Can You Go Full-Time?
If you’re aspiring to go full-time in your network marketing business and you’re looking at funded proposals as your source of leads for your business, ask yourself:
How many leads do I need on a daily basis over a period of time to go full-time in my primary business?
Can I afford the time and money it will take to generate those leads using funded proposals.
If you’ve done the financials on funded proposal lead generation, I think you already know the answer.
10) Funded Proposals are Not Duplicatable
Throughout this article I’ve described several reasons why mlm lead generation funded proposals are not cost effective. And since they are not cost effective, they are not duplicatable.
A couple of years ago I visited with an author of one prominent funded proposal. I told him that the information he provided in his info product would certainly be of value to a new person joining our industry. However I also mentioned that I did not think that his methods were duplicatable in growing an organization. His response was quite surprising in that he agreed with my assessment. He went onto say that “training is my passion. People want to know how to do their own advertising so I’m merely giving them the education in my info product”.
Fair enough. The information is of value but not duplicatable in the sense primary business organizations cannot be built based on the sale of the info product.
Moreover I don’t know of any funded proposal author that has EVER built their primary business using a funded proposal. If I’m mistaken, show me one.
Many of the “guru’s” out there touting funded proposals have built their businesses with MLM leads. The fact that they’re not disclosing that to you creates a bit of a credibility issue.
BTW, I just received a postcard over the weekend from Carbon Copy Pro. This system/opportunity in particular is heavy on the “magnetic sponsoring” but interestingly enough, they’re sending me a postcard. Again, credibility issue. Instead of me being “attracted” to the opportunity, it appears that I’m on someone’s lead list and they’re prospecting me using a post card.
Are these “attraction marketers” practicing what they preach and sell?
It doesn’t appear so.
Listen if you want to spend your time and money marketing funded proposals, that’s all well and fine. But let’s be candid about it. The funded proposal leads are NOT FREE. You have to spend your time and money to generate them. Moreover, they represent a poor Return on Investment when compared to prospecting MLM Lead List of www.MLMLeads.com.
In summary, this article described MLM Leads, MLM lead generation and the real costs of MLM lead funded proposals. You have just read the 10 reasons why you’re funding the Funded Proposals.
KEYWORDS: mlm lead generation, mlm leads, mlm lead funded proposals, free mlm leads, mlm lead lists, network marketing, mlm
WEBSITE: http://www.mlmleads.com
Enrique,
That was one of the best critiques of funded proposals I have ever read…. kudos!
Bob
I have passed along your article on “Funded Proposals” to those I care about in “the industry.” This is important stuff… as you say,
“In short, mlmleads.com can create leads more efficiently at less cost and less time than you would be able to create on your own using funded proposals.” Wayne P. Miller
Hey Enrique,
I have been preaching a similar story about Funded Proposal systems for a long time – you just said it in the perfect way. I will be sharing this with a lot of people.
Thanks for taking the time to do this and adding the numbers!
Blake Warrington
Well Enrique, I gotta hand it to you. You’re 100% right.
Most, if not all, of these so-called “gurus” never built a network marketing organization. A few of them made $1500 to $2000 a month and decided it was too hard and they would rather sell tools.
Fine.
But they don’t need to try and discredit techniques that have stood the test of time…and…SHAME on them for selling their tools based on a lie that says they used those same tools to build a huge organization.
Enrique, do this: Ask them to show you their biggest and best downline printout they ever built.
End of discussion.
Jim
The main core of funded proposal is to make money through retailing, and build a list of targeted prospects.
Then in the back end, market anything including your business to those prospects.
So basically you’re making money no matter if no one joins you, I think that’s really important to new marketers since they usually don’t have much money to buy leads.
what about buy leads and plug them into a funded proposal system…
I think I understand the premise of funded proposals. But again, the numbers don’t lie. The amount of time and money you spend to generate your leads by selling an info product will never provide you a real Return on Investment… of course if your time is worth $0.00/hour then yes you might actually create positive cash flow.
Let me put it another way, you will never out produce a lead generation company. You can’t compete against our scales of economy.
Becky Parks bought 100 Realtime leads last month for $97. She brought in 8 people at 240 BV each. That generated $60 x 8 = $480.
That’s a ROI.
I challenge any funded proposal to compete against that when you account for both your advertising dollars and time spent generating leads.
Enrique I found your article spot on! Two things jumped out:
1- Most people don’t realize that when they “join” or take on a funded proposal that they are NOT Branding themselves, rather they are branding the guy who wrote the info product.
2- That even that “Guru” is resorting to more traditional types of marketing, like that Post Card you received in the mail…. and postage is not cheap these days!
And, finally, purchasing a good lead list gives you an advantage in Building a Relationship with that lead. Tis the ability to build that relationship that brings lasting success!
RS Mallory
Compassionate Marketing
This is a GREAT analysis of funded proposals.
Dave
I was wondering what is Mike Dillard’s primary company? Seems like he makes way more money selling information than in his company.
I recall that he sold his magnetic sponsoring site and now has a social network site where he sells his coaching programs. I don’t recall the name of the bizop that he’s in but the system they use is called carbon copy pro. So whatever business opportunity that is used by that system is what he’s in.
So if I am understanding this correctly, Mike advises people to sell Carbon Copy Pro as a front end or funded proposal to get new people into their primary MLM?
I also would like to get your thoughts on having a “primary MLM” and being involved in many other MLMS under the guise of multiple streams of income.
I completely agree, Enrique. I have blasted funded proposals on my blog as well. (See: http://www.mlmmaniac.com/2008/08/ann-sieg-warning)
I tried a funded proposal myself, because it initially made sense. After about 18 months, my downline was nearly destroyed. I have a lot of MLM experience, and was open to new ideas, especially in the internet age of network marketing.
Funded proposals will destroy your business. I’m amazed that Dale Calvert is now promoting them. He lost my vote.