Follow Up - A personal Experience.

[adamrezz]

To follow up or not to follow up? This has been a question I have seen debated a few times in these forums. Some say "Do it often" or "Do it once then wait for them to reciprocate." Some say "Don't bother, if they want to succeed they will get involved themselves."

Well, like everyone else I now have an opinion to share. But before telling you what I THINK, let me give you a bit of history and then explain what happened over the last few weeks.

The purpose of all of this is both to motivate those who feel "left in the dark" when it comes to getting training and getting started as well as to tie this in with my opinion about the merits of following up with your team.

I joined SFI 273 days ago today. I jumped in with both feet, became EA, joined EyeEarn, started reading and then fired off some questions at my sponsor. Of course, as many of you have experienced for yourself, I got no answer. After going up the line, I got one reply from several levels up which referred me right back to the training I had questions about. I was discouraged to say the least. Nobody from my upline would contact me, I never got any team emails and some of the training was a bit confusing to someone with little to no marketing experience.

So I gave up, but kept EA in case I wanted to "come back" later. Every few weeks I would get motivated to learn something new and dig in for a little while. A few months later I had a few ads on sites targeting work at home parents as well as a few "paid to read/paid link" sites and referrals starting coming in. Eventually I moved on to Pay Per Click and built some webpages for sales letters. The latter was just in the last two months or so.

The biggest thing to remember is that during all of this, I kept stopping for weeks at a time. Upline is useless in the learning curve and answers via the Dboard often take time to get. This can be very frustrating and discouraging...I know. Now we move forward (nearly 300 referrals later) to just a few weeks ago.

Now money was spent and my team was dead in the water. So all that was left to do was master the "Helping Others" part. As I said before, the benefit of following up with referrals was a debated topic both regarding whether it should be done and if so, with what frequency. I had already done some follow-up but never with any real sincerity or consistancy, but it was time to try it for myself and see what happened. So here is the thought process that ultimately came to frutation in my mind.

1) Screw the debates and just start TRYING things. If there was agreement about the topic, perhaps I would follow suit and apply the tried and true, but there was not, so the only option was to try for myself. Really try.

2) Just be helpful in general. Not just to your downline, but adopt a willingness to help other affiliates whether you actually SEE any benefit or not. I always thought I was a helpful person, but when it came to SFI I was kind of hogging my time to do things and help people I thought would benefit me most.

3) Do my best to show my team (and others) that I was willing to give more of myself to them than to myself. That includes time, effort and even money. Why? I would refer you back to "If you are successful then I will benefit from your success." - a popular follow-up line. In ANY network, the OTHER GUY MUST BENEFIT FIRST. A store must make sacrifices for the customer FIRST (Provide a building to shop in, employees to help them, etc.) Any business must make sacrifices to it's employees (Provide a paycheck, supply a break room, provide uniforms (if applicable) etc.) The point is that the guy making the money never, ever comes first in the relationship, but he does have a responsiblity to make the first effort.

So where is the point I said I would get to? I'm getting to it. :)

So, with those things in mind, I began looking for every excuse possible to "talk to" my team. It started with reminders about SFI features that I personally found useful and included the fact that I - as their "leader" - use this feature myself. Communications quickly moved on to offering contests with Gift Certificate rewards for just about every activity that had to do with building their SFI business. These were presented in the form of contests and challenges. I never expected some of these challenges to be met, but I was perfectly willing to reward and support them for the effort. Another personal, favorite "excuse" to contact my team is questions I see asked here on the DBoard. If two or three people ask the same question then it offers you the perfect opportunity to reasearch the answer yourself, answer it for those who asked the question here at the DBoards and then send out a letter to your team. I usually open such letters with "A common question among new affiliates is, "How Do I XXXXXXXX?"

I now have more excuses to contact the team than I will ever need and over the last few weeks have sent out several letters each week. Guess what happened.

I started getting questions and emails from affiliates. Some of whom have been members for a long time. They didn't contact me right away, but started trickling in one or two at a time. I now usually have the pleasure of communicating with individual affiliates on an almost daily basis. I had no idea that some of them were so hungry for interaction. Furthermore, the number of daily logins has gone from 2 or 3 every day or two to as many as a dozen per day. All because I went from "yell if you need me" to "Hey, I'm still here and will be everyday!"

It gets better. One morning I checked my inbox and there was an email filled with credit card information. With it was a note explaining that the affiliate was having difficulty getting an IAHBE standing order set up and requesting my help. After a few extremely difficult to understand (due to communication barriers) communications back and forth, I had all the information I needed to help them out and SFI support kindly took care of the order processing for me. That guy is now in my own co-op and eagerly asking both myself and his sponsor for ad copy and help getting started with his own promotion efforts.

A few days after I initially received the email I mentioned above, I received ANOTHER email with SFI log-in info and personal bank account information with a similiar request as the previous affiliate. That has yet to be completed, but here is the point I was ultimately coming to. And no - This isn't a lesson on "How to farm financial information from your affiliates."

People want help and they desperately want to be involved. So desperate in fact that as soon as trust was established, they were willing to throw extremely sensitive information my way just to accept the help I was offering. So, it is my experience that people want to become involved - almost desperately. And they want to follow someone on their journey getting there, but they will only follow you if they trust you. And of course, building trust DOES require communication. Regular communication. I.e. Follow-Up.

It is my opinion and just my opinion that if someone really doesn't want to hear from you they will opt-out. If they have ANY desire whatsoever to build a business, but they still find your emails annoying, they will merely delete them. Most of your affiliates want to hear from you though. Not once or twice, but often because they want assurance that if they need you on any given day...You will be there.

Don't abandon an entire team of people just because your afraid that one or two might be annoyed. SFI is an optional business. Nobody is forced to do anything they are not comfortable with, but they are far more likely to follow the follow through with this business if there is someone out in front leading. To me this means: Walk out front, get seen and let them hear your voice over the crowd. In other words - Lead, and it's nearly impossible to lead quietly.

You can take the above however you will. I just thought I would share my own experiences because I believe experiences speak louder than debates. This is what happened. This is what I now do. And this is what seems to be working better than anything else I have tried when it comes to motivating my team. I might add that if you did not get the support you felt you should have received then you are the only one who can break the cycle. You can complain about the lack of a sponsor or you can do the extra work, learn it yourself and save your team from experiencing the same letdown you experienced. That's it for my thoughts on the subject. Learn from it, roll your eyes at it or outright ignore it, but it's there for what it's worth.

-Adam
a2a arezz

PS Need a more personal learning resource? Try A2A. Locating team leaders who speak my language fluently and asking questions has proved very valuable to me. That's what it is there for. Use it to your advantage. A "sponsor" could be a simple A2A letter away.

[drawe]

OK,
I follow up, have a special web site just for my affiliate team, keep them informed as much as possible and? NO Response. What does it really take to get a person involved when you provide all you can and nothing back? I've done videos for the website sent out emails to the down line talking about the site and applauding the ones (now all are gone after the EE program moved to TC) that succeed and letting the rest of the team know.

Quite honestly, I'm really running out of steam. It's very difficult to keep up as EA from standing order cheering the team, paying money for advertising and on and on. NO RESPONSES. That means NO INCOME. So HELP! It just doesn't work to keep paying in XX and only getting back .5X .

So what do you think here, Adamrezz?

Dave

[adamrezz]

Originally Posted by drawe

OK,
I follow up, have a special web site just for my affiliate team, keep them informed as much as possible and? NO Response. What does it really take to get a person involved when you provide all you can and nothing back? I've done videos for the website sent out emails to the down line talking about the site and applauding the ones (now all are gone after the EE program moved to TC) that succeed and letting the rest of the team know.

Quite honestly, I'm really running out of steam. It's very difficult to keep up as EA from standing order cheering the team, paying money for advertising and on and on. NO RESPONSES. That means NO INCOME. So HELP! It just doesn't work to keep paying in XX and only getting back .5X .

So what do you think here, Adamrezz?

Dave

Hi Dave,

Well, I'm not going to lie, I don't really have a plain and simple solution to offer you. I am myself just beginning to enjoy some results. But I will outline a few of the changes I have made over the last few months. Perhaps that might at least offer some idea of the direction that led me out of dead water into something with at least a bit of current to it.

1) I used to try targeting countries and locations with people that I could communicate with well. For me this was the US, Canada and other English speaking countries. It became evident that with paid advertising it was too expensive to limit myself in such a way. So, I expanded to areas where I knew full well that communication was going to be difficult.

South Asian countries became one of my main targets because I was able to pull in new referrals for as little as 1 - 10 cents a piece on some of the best days. Since these referrals had to get through a sales letter (writtin in my style of english) as well as through an SFI gateway, I figured they would be filtered enough both in intrest for a home business and the ability to understand english (or at least have translation plug-ins effecient enough to convey the point.)

I won't lie. This added a LOT of work. It meant that when I got an email that I simply couldn't understand I would have get online, search for the primary langauages of these countries and find online translation programs. I would then email them with both English and translated text and asked which they were able to understand better. I also provided a link to that same translation medium. This improved my means of communicating with a group of people that were cost efficient to bring into the team.

2) I descreased my advertising budget significantly. I enjoyed seeing myself on the leaderboard, but that wasn't as important to me as the duplication part. So, I dropped my entire budget down to a MAX of $2.00 per day. In this way I still get a steady flow of new referrals and am able to afford this process for the next full year if necessary. I even sold off some old collectable cards I had just to ensure that I would be able to maintain my efforts. The only real point of this move was to "pace myself" so to speak.

3) I stopped "pushing" EA in general updates and only started referrencing it when I could do so in a positive light. Such as the announcment of a team challenge where any member who made it to EA by XXDate would be included in my co-op at my expense and receive XXDollars in Gift Certificates for trying it out. I also should point out that I offer these benefits deeper than my first level. It will create a headache trying to keep track of it all, but for now it's worth it to me. Oh, I also mention EA in reference to successes. For instance, tomorrow I'll be sending out an "update" offering praise to those that took part in this months EA challenge (it was only one in march, but it's still the truth) exposing the entire team to the number of new referrals my co-op generated for this new EA. I see less immediate benefit this way but it's encouraging to begin getting requests on how they can get active themselves.

4) This is going to sound cheesy, but it's the truth. During my "work day" I first take care of EVERYTHING that will benefit other people before I touch on things that will offer me direct benefit. Here is my average, DAILY routine.

A) Check my email and respond to affiliates.
B) Check the dicussion boards to see if there are questions I am capable of finding the answers to.
C) Send an encouraging, personal email to a few affiliates who have logged in recently regardless of their personal activity. And a few that haven't been on in quite some time.
D) Look for SOMETHING to send to the team or actually send it. Could be anything from an update on the date and deadlines of team or SFI activities to pointing out a link to an SFI resource that I have already pointed out a dozen times.
E) Look for questions to answer on the Dboards and email again.
F) Check my PPC ads and tweak if necessary
G) Look for people to help yet again.
H) If there is time left in the day, I will work a bit on improving a sales letter or working on my websites.

Maybe this last section has nothing to do with anything, but it's a change I made and I'm seeing a change in my team. Who knows, perhaps they are seeing me here at the Dboard and it's adding confidence...I certainly offer the link to the Dboard frequently enough in my emails.

I actually couldn't tell you which one thing is causing my team to show signs of life, but they beginning to yawn, stretch and wake up a bit. So I can only assume at this point it has something to do with putting them before everything else. I can tell you this though. My "Team Training" site generates less activity than contacting members directly and almost daily. In fact, I will likely put very little additional effort into that site unless I have extra time on my hands or my team simply becomes to large to handle effectivly (At which time I will give it a complete overhaul so as to be a resource directed more at helping my leaders as opposed to training new affiliates. I beginning to think that's best done with a personal touch.)

Sorry I can't help you more. You are of course welcome to A2A me. I have no "secret tricks" to hide. You are more than welcome to use my sales pages if you like. I don't have a lot to offer, but what I do have is yours for the using. I would encourage you to share your successful things here as well. If less people "hid their secrets" we could compose a much better strategy that would benefit absolutely everyone. All this built from the best parts of everyones best efforts.

Best Regards,
Adam
a2a arezz

[louray]

Can you explain how any one can sell tripleclicks? At the store it is for sale in the What's New At TripleClicks for 10,000.00 or make an offer. Thanks' in advance. Your friend in SFI louray

[Ray Richardson]

Originally Posted by louray

Can you explain how any one can sell tripleclicks? At the store it is for sale in the What's New At TripleClicks for 10,000.00 or make an offer. Thanks' in advance. Your friend in SFI louray

Very easy, someone bought the domain name Tripleclicks.ca, a Canadian domain name, and is trying to sell it for a huge profit.

Ray

[cabrosious]

Hello All, This is way out of my comfort zone but I guess I have waited long enough to post a response to "Adamrezz", better known to me as "son". Adam is also my sponsor so I am on the receiving end of the training that he is doing. He encouraged me to develope a routine with my SFI business and it does work. My daily routine isn't nearly as extensive as Adams (I still have to work 40 hours away from home) but I make time for at least a few things every day. Today alone I had 2 PSA's ask questions, some are simple some take some time but they are at least asking questions. One of the first things I do every day is to see who logged in that day and it has dramatically increased in the last month. At first they logged in when they signed up and didn't come back, now at least 10 of them are logging in at least every other day, but the point is they are wiggling their toes. Hopefully one day they will get up and run.
Hope this gives you some encouragement.
Thanks for letting me share.
Carole (Adams Mom)

[tab426]

Originally Posted by cabrosious

Hello All, This is way out of my comfort zone but I guess I have waited long enough to post a response to "Adamrezz", better known to me as "son". Adam is also my sponsor so I am on the receiving end of the training that he is doing. He encouraged me to develope a routine with my SFI business and it does work. My daily routine isn't nearly as extensive as Adams (I still have to work 40 hours away from home) but I make time for at least a few things every day. Today alone I had 2 PSA's ask questions, some are simple some take some time but they are at least asking questions. One of the first things I do every day is to see who logged in that day and it has dramatically increased in the last month. At first they logged in when they signed up and didn't come back, now at least 10 of them are logging in at least every other day, but the point is they are wiggling their toes. Hopefully one day they will get up and run.
Hope this gives you some encouragement.
Thanks for letting me share.
Carole (Adams Mom)

Nice job Mom!

If you develop your business anywhere near as well as you've developed your son, you will have an EXTREMELY successful business... no doubt.

[knabo]

Hello,

I was just wondering how you email your downline? Do you you use the genealogy page or do you maintain a separate list of addresses.

[lgkan]

Originally Posted by louray

Can you explain how any one can sell tripleclicks? At the store it is for sale in the What's New At TripleClicks for 10,000.00 or make an offer. Thanks' in advance. Your friend in SFI louray

Every Ad that I posted for the last 2 months.

{{Deal Of The Day}} With my referal link leading to the main page of the triple clicks store.

Simple, to the point. No redirecting, nothing fancy.

Its helpful that the Triple Clicks site updates automatically with The Deal Of The Day.

[lgkan]

I work about 60 hours a week as a professional driver, so finding the time for SFI has been an on going effort.

I get up at 12:30 am every day (5 days a week)
Have a shower, get into my work clothes, grab a hot coffee.
My office is in the garage, since my house is so dang small, less than 600 sq ft.

I sit down at my computer, check my email. While the messages are downloading (about 200 every 12 hrs) I check my web stats.
I look to see if anyone has visited my blog with the new postings I've put up.

I check to see if any new signups came in, or if anyone has sent me an email from SFI.
I get so frustrated when I don't see any. I'm looking for someone on my team to at least say HI once in a while. Or even share their experiences good or bad.

If there are any emails from affiliates, I reply immediately.
My head is totally clear first thing in the morning.

Once I'm done, I check my ad stats.

By the time I'm done, its time to go to my Day/Nite job.

About 2 pm. I usually make it home from my day job.
I repeat the above again.

This time I check my subscription lists to see if anyone read any of my emails.
I have several ways of checking that. Ad trackers embedded in my emails.

Or I use my webstats to see if anyone visited the links in the email.

Yes I use redirects, sometimes its quicker than building a page.

Now I go thru probably 400 emails I get every day, I have a lot of subscriptions to a lot of different resources. That takes me about an hour just to skim thru them.

If I find something one of my team members could possibly use to improve their results, I try to post it to my blog.

Everything on my blog works. SFI is not the only multiple stream income I'm working on.

My next task is to check my ad stats again, reword them, resubmit.
After that, I do some keyword research if I have time left before dinner.

Once I've had dinner, there is no time left for me. I'm pretty much ready for bed. Then its another new day.

This takes dedication. No matter how busy you are, you will find time.
Persistance is key.
Dedication breeds an educated person.
No matter how unsuccessful your efforts might be, you will eventually learn from your mistakes. I haven't learned it all, but I'm getting there.

It may seem that your team is growing slow, but one day, it just starts to snowball.
I'm almost there.

[lgkan]

I use a variety of methods to communicate with team members.

Yes I do use the geneology tool.
But to be sure I also send individual messages, as well as maintain a private mailing list outside of SFI just for personal team members.

The reason I run a separate mailing list, it helps me weed out the ones that are truly active.
The ones that have subscribed to my private mailing list for personal team members show me they really are willing to work with me. It also clears my mind of the worry that team members are not getting my emails. Its been a major frustration on my end not to see any activity based on my emails.

Individual messages are sent when someone actually requests information.

The other method which I hope team members are using.. or I am urging my team to use is A2A and the discussion board.

Every once in a while I find a useful thread that may help the team, and send it out using the geneology system.

[adamrezz]

Originally Posted by knabo

Hello,

I was just wondering how you email your downline? Do you you use the genealogy page or do you maintain a separate list of addresses.

Hello Knabo,

Igkan already shared his methods, but here are mine.

I do not manage a seperate mailing list for two reasons. Both are specific to my personality so I am in no way implying that a seperate list is a bad idea.

1) If I set up a list, I tend to neglect getting personal. By keeping bulk tools out of my reach I am forced to reply and communicate in a more personal manner. Outside of a welcome message, no two emails I send from my personal accounts are the same. This takes more time and maybe won't be possible someday, but then again I don't promote for myself very much so my first line grows somewhat slowly. Instead, every single member I get is distributed to the team via a co-op, with me getting an even share.

From time to time I'll sort my genealogy by date joined, skim their profiles again (if they provided one) and send out a quick "how's it going" to my PSAs based on how long it's been since I last contacted them. I don't spend much time sending personal letters to second level and beyond anymore, but I do reply to any letters I get and I include my contact info in all genealogy mailings to the entire team.

2) I'm much more disorganized than you might expect (major weakness) so I don't trust myself to keep my list clean with respect to affiliates that opt-out of SFI. So I just stick to my strengths for now. Since I use the email links from the genealogy report to do my personal mailings, I'm not at risk of mailing someone who opted out.

Now about using the genealogy mailing tool. Yes. In fact a HUGE yes. Usually about three times a week. Some filled with links (that likely only whitelisted people will get) and some with purely, spam safe, text info that are more likely to get through filters to remind those who didn't whitelist that I'm still here.

This might not be the best approach out here, but it works for me here in the "small time". I have plenty of improvements to make, but since this works for the time being, I'll keep doing it. If and when this method becomes impractical, I'll revisit my tactics and look for a more effecient system. In the meantime I'll stick to keeping it personal and working on areas that are weak enough to need obvious improvment.

Adam
a2a Arezz

[lgkan]

As previously mentioned, I had to do something different. So I created a personal email list, and invited my team members to sign up. This did 2 things. It showed me which ones were willing to listen to what I' had to offer. It also divided my team into 2 sections. Those who were listening, and those who may have been listening but were chicken to take action.


By doing this it gave me the confidence that I was not wasting my efforts. or being railroaded by a system which was probably built to make me think, or appear to be building a team.

Have you ever been in the paid to click income building type of business, you would know why I'm a bit paranoid to this.

Bot signups, or bots manufactured to make you think your doing something when your not.

I analyze everthing I do. I read between the lines so to speak. So in this respect, I broke the wall with some affiliates.

I do not rely on just one system. If You have no control, or you feel you have gotten into something that does not appear correct, then do your own method of testing.

Its your money and time.

I still use the gene system. I also send out personal messages individually rather than the mass. I'm really bad at not sticking to the same method every time. But if team members are not anwsering you, this can create havock in your business.

Think about this. If your running a restaurant, how does the cook know what the customer wants. If there is no waiter, no host, no window for the cook to talk to the customer. Its all about resources and communication. When the communication isn't happening, nothing else will.

Thanks arrez for continuing this conversation. I'm sure everyone is interested in this one.
Kudos

[adamrezz]

In the spirit of continueing to share positive experiences I have some more to add. I mentioned before that I send out several updates per week to my team via the contact manager. Over the weekend I put together a simple, but more personal mailing that was delivered today and has encouraged several affiiates to contact me within a few hours of delivery.

Granted I referenced this thread, but the point is that the personal twist seems to have generated more trust. So much so that some referred to me as their new friend! You will find less "business" reference than normal and I was very spareing on the links. This was in hopes of getting through a few more spam filters. This was exciting for me, but I am posting the entire letter here so that you can use it's format if you wish. Just add some of your own personal experiences and see how it works for you. Don't hesitate to use the appropriate parts word for word. That's why I'm posting it.

Adam
a2a Arezz

Hello Everyone,

If you have been a member of SFI for more than a week or two then you probably already know who I am.

My name is Adam and I am either your SFI sponsor or I am in your upline. Either way, I'm someone on this team who wants to help you become successful.

Today I don't have any updates for you. I just want to spend a little time getting to know each other better so that you can better understand how SFI fits into my life.

I have only been a member of SFI for about a year and now I have the pleasure of working with a team with hundreds of people while dozens more join us each week. It is a great feeling and one that you can experience for yourelf very soon.

Want the truth? My first three months with SFI were terrible. I didn't understand how to start for free and I wasted a ton of money on stupid things. I also didn't have an active sponsor to help me learn so I had to figure everything out myself. I was really disappointed. That's right, I'm telling you that my first experience with SFI was a bad one. But it did get better.

I finally figured something out. If I was going to build wealth here then I needed to quit complaining and start learning. I didn't have a sponsor so I started reading all the training in my member's area. When I needed help, I went to the SFI Dicussion Boards and started asking questions. Now look at me!

I am leading a huge team and helping other people become successful too! It's fantastic and all it took was a little bit of effort. If you watch the leaderboards then you may have seen me and other members of our team on it. That could easily be you.

Did you read the last SFI update? One of my articles on the Dicussion Boards was featured in a newletter to millions of SFI affiliates! That's right. In less than a year I have gone from someone who was asking questions on those boards to someone who is trying to help other people experience success. I'm not bragging, I'm trying to show you that it is much easier to build your business than you might think it is.

It doesn't have to be as difficult for you. Why? Because you have a whole team of people who are willing to help you. Is your sponsor answering your questions? If they are not then please write to me. I would be happy to help you do what I am doing.

Is there something you want to know about me? Just ask. Do you want to know exactly what I am doing to build my business? Just ask. I have no secrets to keep from you. Your success is my success and I desperately want to help prove that SFI can change your life. All it takes is some time and effort.

You have a choice to make. The same choice that I had to make. You can join SFI, look around and then leave. Or you can join SFI, get involved, use their tools and training and become successful. It's that simple. It won't happen overnight and it isn't always easy, but it is simple - if you work, you will succeed.

Would you like to read the dicussion board article I mentioned above? It's all about how helping other people can be beneficial to you. You can read it here:
http://www.sfidboard.com/showthread.php?t=69253

While your there, take a little time to read some of the posts from other people. You will discover that we are all a team and that we help each other succeed.

SFI has already proven that it can help you reach your goals, but it is up to you to take advantage of it. Let me know how I can help.

I'll send you an update about our April team challenges just as soon as I get them posted on our website. There will also be some other important information in that update so watch your email inbox for it in the next day or two.

Your welcome to contact me with any questions you have. I'm here to help. Don't forget your sponsor. They want to help you too.

Until next time,
Adam
thetwoadams@peoplepc.com



*note* This was not in the letter, but the reference to "leaderboards" was referring to the daily new referrals. We were two of us were making it on several occasions before we leveled the budget and included another EA in the rotation. I was not referring to the presidents club or trying to make any false claims.

[adamrezz]

At the risk of beating a dead horse. (Boy I hope the expression is recognized by the majority of the cultures on this board. ) I would like to post another follow-up.

Recently, I received the email at the bottom of this post from an affiliate. I actually get several per week in this context, but this one was easy to understand since it wasn't as mangled by translation as most. So I thought I would post it here as a testament to the benefits of follow-up. I would also like to note that for the past week, I have been a bit neglectful of my regular "updates" and consequently affiliate log-ins dropped to about one half of normal. Just more evidence that your team probably wants to hear from you and more importantly....derives motivation from you.

Here is the letter (posted with their permission):

Dear Mr. Adam Resseguie,

I take this opportunity to thank you for sponsoring me into the SFI network. I have received all your daily mails. I have been visiting SFI site regularly and I am following the instructions in Launch pad Training. I have in fact completed studying the launch pad and have advanced. Yesterday I visited a couple of free classified advertisement sites and placed advertisements for Eye Earn. I am slowly but surely getting the hang of the business. I will revert to you once I have reached a stage where I can independently start all actions from start to finish.

I have included your skype id in my account, you may also include my account in your account. My id is (I removed this.)

When I first visited SFI I was not very confident I would be able to do the work, as I started with launch pad training, my confidence grew and your daily mails have been a source of inspiration for me not to let you down. I once again thank you for all your help. I now look forward to speaking with you one of these days.

with warm regards
sadanand

[Wyteria Jacobo]

Adam,

Thanks so much for sharing your story. I identified with a lot of what you said. When I first started in SFI, I was really excited and ready to be successful so I signed up for EA almost immediately and have maintained it since.

However, I wasn't consistent with my promotion efforts. Like you, I received little support from my upline. Actually, I don't remember getting even a welcome email. That was ok though because I spent time in the training sections although I didn't come here very often.

A few weeks ago, I decided to be more proactive and start treating SFI like the business it is. I started making plans for recruiting more affiliates, rewarding those affiliates that are active and promoting Triple Clicks. I set up a blog and am working on articles to market and ezine ads.

Reading this thread today lets me know that I'm on the right track.

Thank you Adam and to everyone that contributed to this thread. I am inspired and encouraged to help my team make it to the top.

[blandyspanelo]

Dear Adam,

Your posts are very encouraging. I am only almost a month at SFI, but I am already experiencing your "history". Anyway, I agree with you on may countrs, especially about "attitude", "communication", and "relationship". The technical aspect of the business can be learned later, but building relationship is crucial in business. You are right about building trust that would lead to a relationship that will last a lifetime - in business. Most of your suggestions make sense, really. I am doing that at this stage of my being an affiliate of SFI. That is why, I am taking it slow because I cannot afford to follow the footsteps of those who have been burned by their "impatience". I put myself in both shoes - the affiliate wanting to be recognized by the upline and the upline taking action to build relationships among her team members. The former, I have decided to let go and just work on my own via the many media SFI offers, such as the DBoard, a2a, Twitter, sponsoring tools, etc. The latter, I am working out through a daily routine of follow-ups, greetings, personal messages. It is too early to see results, I know, but I believe that "a stone can be softened by the constant dripping of water." The unresponsive affiliates are the stones and I am the dripping water. Anyway.... you really have been a source of inspiration, so to speak. I am not alone after all in the difficulties commonly experienced by the newbiees or neophytes in online network marketing. You have a good heart! Continue your mission of helping us cope our perceived difficulties in this business. THANK YOU!

blandyspanelo