I joined GDI in Feb 2006 because I needed some domain names for some Internet businesses I wanted to promote.  Just like the GDI promotional material says, all the good .com's and .net's were gone, but I was about to find exactly what I wanted in a .ws from GDi.  It wasn't until Nov 2006 that I even thought about promoting GDI myself, but I did, and have been receiving monthly commission checks for several years now.

Don

I joined my first network marketing/mlm venture in 1996 after having done mail order and direct marketing since the early 90's.  Since then, I have gone online, joined other ventures, been very successful with some, moderately successful with others, and wish I had never bothered with the rest...except for what they ALL taught me.  One of the lessons I learned from many of these programs is NOT to expect help from my upline.

It is sad, but true, that many people who sign up for GDI are hoping, even expecting, to get help from their upline.  After all, a great deal of the advertising you see for GDI and similar opportunities talks about training, resources, and guidance, and often help from those who have joined before you is stated or implied.

The problem is that most of a person's upline is made up of people who either did not get or did not seek this help themselves.  Therefore, they are as ignorant as the newbie now seeking assistance.  Most who succeed in these sorts of programs are those who seek out resources and train themselves.  Also, those who stick with it and don't give up.  You will make mistakes, but if you keep making mistakes, you will learn.  Then you can be an upline member who can help his or her downline to success.

By the way, this forum is an excellent source for guidance from those who have been there, done that. 

I have a downline member who has several interested contacts in Germany and Austria, but there are no tools, other than the one German page, that I know of.  Anybody got anything they're using?  Does anybody know when/if a German version of the movie will be out?

Thanks

Don

As I look at posts on this forum and at the websites in use by my downline, I am struck by one obvious fact.  Many people are simply pushing the business opportuniity, trying to get others to sign up for GDI in hopes that THOSE people will, in turn, push the business opportunity to others.

What so many people forget in their quest to "grow their downline" is that they actually have a real, genuine product to sell.  Many of the people they recruit who simply want to make money will fall by the wayside, but the people who actually have use for the GDI domain name they buy will not only probably stay as customers for a while, creating residual income, but, as satisfied customers themselves, will be in an excellent position to possibly make YOU more money later!

After all, what is the best, and cheapest, form of advertising?

Word of mouth, of course.  Better yet, word of mouth from a satisfied customer. 

And, who often makes the best distributor for a product?  Why, the satisfied customer who realizes that he or she has no problem telling others about how great the product is, how it served his or her business, and how it also presents the opportunity to make a couple of bucks as well.

With this all in mind, I just sent my downline the following email:

SUBJECT:  What do these people have to do with GDI?

Walter, Christina, Anneta, Mike, Pete, Carlton.

Seems like a random list of names to you.  However, to me they are potential GDI clients NOT found on the Internet!

I stopped in a local bakery in a small town the other day.  On the counter were stacks and displays of business cards belonging to local people.  None had an email address or website on it, yet it seemed to me that the businesses (insurance, para-legal, art gallery, motorcycle repair, pool service, car sales) could really use their own website, and, after all, these people were actively trying to promote their businesses.

There were a couple of email addresses on the cards, but they were Yahoo and SBCGlobal...generic. 

Most of these people don't feel they can afford to get a website, yet we know different.  We know that it is simple, and relatively cheap, to get your own domain name and email address that reflects your business, AND build the website yourself, without having to pay a website designer, and then host that website for $10 a month.

I bet Anneta would like to have lampasasartgallery.ws or originalpaintings.ws.  Maybe Mike would like to trade his email address at hotmail.com for mike@mikescycles.ws or something similar.  You know, I think I'll give them a call, send them a letter, or send them a DVD. 

What do you think?

Could you make a few more sales of your product if you think outside the Internet?

Have a great day.

Don Baldwin

P.S.  If you think this idea has merit, why not pass this to YOUR downline.

Still running along in the dark quite often,making mistakes and learning from them, now I see where the term 'build' a website comes from. I'm having a great time putting banners on my site, now I need to focus also on written text.I fancied the main theme as music but still not sure.I'm looking for any help I can get and info on how to improve, also what in your view am I doing wrong, i'm quite thick skinned so please be brutally honest.
http://www.ianhenderson.ws
Have a nice day
Ian Henderson

Hello Ian,

Like Rod said, add some info to it...make it personal  Speak some words.  Your own words.  Don't rely heavily on banners and the text links themselves. Tell the people what your product can do for them, how valuable it will be, what your experience has been...etc.

Best of luck.

Don

Real life stories:

I got into network marketing through Ed and Phil, two friends of mine.  Ed had signed up with one company, and Phil with another.  At three years into each program, each of them was seeing small, very small, monthly income.  Somewhere around the three year mark, each began to see a steady increase in their downlines at all levels.

This is sometimes called the "tipover point", by the way.

By the end of the fourth year, each of these people, Ed and Phil, were receiving monthly checks (I saw them) of over $100,000. 

Let me see, $100,000 x 12 = $1,200,000.00 per year.

Kinda makes them millionaires, right?  I know it's not officially a million in assets or cash, but most was in residual income, and that's close enough for me.

I tried both their programs and made a few bucks and dropped out.  I signed back up for one a few years later, made a few bucks, and dropped out.

In 2000, I signed up for a direct sales company with a product I really believed in, after taking a look at Phil and Ed's successes again.  I also read every book and article I could find on success in network marketing and sales.

This time I knew what to do.  Although I was not building a downline and the commissions were relatively small, in four years, I reached a personal annual income of just over $100,000.00 from this one program alone.

So, what did I learn from Phil and Ed?

Neither was an extraordinary person.  Neither was creative enough to come up with their own materials, so they just used what their companies provided...mainly brochures.  Neither took out ads or did much in the way of training their downlines other than telling them to do what they did.

What did they do?

They handed a brochure to everyone they met, even if they did not have a chance to make a presentation...for three years, and that's what they told their downlines to do.

Okay, I did not have a chance to build a downline with the product I was selling, so my income was proportionately smaller, but I succeeded online the same way they succeeded in person.  I built webpages, made entries in forums, linked my webpages, wrote articles, placed ads...almost every day for three years.  As I say, I was gradually making more and more money, but in the fourth year, I made my tip-over point, and have not looked back.

I saw an opportunity in GDI to do much the same thing, but this time with a downline. 

Check with me in four years.

Don

I took a look at your website at http://www.delrio-holdings.ws .  Very good.  Lots of info, well laid out, attractive.  META tags were good too. 

Speaking of META tags, a good FREE tool for coming up with them can be found at http://www.goodkeywords.com/

Don

Good start, but I'm with the comment above.  Add some text.  Both people and search engines like words, i.e. content.

Don

Giving something away free is always an attention getter.  Getting a name and email address at least is important.  There are free ebooks you can give away.  Some of these are brandable...you can put a link to your website in them.  You can give away free advertising.  I provide all my downline members with the link to a free advertising program that includes GDI recruiting and followup.

Best of luck.

Don

Good advice, Edward.

The comment on "Perseverance" is well taken.  It took me almost 5 years of working with a company I believed in before I began making serious money online (enough to impact my spending habits ).  Within a year after that, my income rose to the proverbial six figures and I quit work and went to the internet full time.

Just to tell a quick story, if I may:

I had two friends, Ed and Phil, who each signed up with a different network marketing company.  At about three years, they began making monthly checks to brag about, and in their fourth year, they each reached a MONTHLY income of over $100,000.  I saw the checks, and I saw the home that Phil paid cash for.  Ed had been trying for years to make something work but just jumped from one thing to another.  When he signed up for the last program, he decided to stay with it until it fell apart or made him some money.

Their "sales" technique?  They handed out a brochure to anyone they met.

End of story.

Have a great day!

Don

Hello Shawn:

Looks like a nice clean site.

Best of luck.

Don

I got into GDI because I was looking for a domain name to showcase a business page.  I believe the domain name is important to the search engine optimization process as it is the first thing a human or seach engine sees that relates to your business. 

Once I bought one GDI domain, I thought of a couple of more I needed.  If I need a few, there are other people who do as well.  Having an internet business opportunity handed me as a free gift along with the product I purchased seemed a good thing to me.  If I have this need, others will as well.  If I see the opportunity, others will as well.

It's a big internet world out there, and there are a lot of people with either the need to get the domain name they want, the need to grasp the freedom ring via the GDI opportunity, and some who need both.

Paula, Rob, and P De Thierrry,

Thanks for the encouraging comments.

Paula, to you particular thanks because I had completely missed that Page 1, Page 2 thing!  Duh!  Thanks for pointing it out.

Rob, like many others, I often send my new downline members to your site to get the overview and guidance.  Great stuff.  Thanks from me, and a lot of other people, I bet.

Best to all,

Don

I've been doing network marketing since 1996 and have been online since 2000.  I quit my job a long time ago and started working for myself, and i have learned a few things about the "best" advertising:

1.  The key point is to get the message out.  It doesn't matter whether it is adwords, a business card handed to a convenience store clerk, or a flyer on a laundry room bulletin board.  Yes, some may have a better return than others in terms of time and money, but everytime you give out your message, you have increased your chances for success.

2.  Time is on your side.  Hand out enough flyers, drop enough business cards, even place enough free classifieds online, and sooner or later somebody will sign up. 

Let me start by saying that I am NOT a millionaire, although I DO make between $120,000 and $150,000 per year with online businesses.  I am not lazy, but I have so much fun doing things that I don't spend nearly the time and effort I should on "work".  I grew my businesses by accident.  I was trying to learn website design, built some free websites, and put affiliate banners and links on the pages just so I could learn how to create links and place images.  One day a check came in, and it took me a week to find out where it had come from.  I had one dinky homemade junky looking website with a link on it that someone had apparently clicked on.  Not knowing what else to do, I built more dinky homemade junky looking websites, and more checks came in.  It didn't happen overnight, but some of those free websites STILL send me traffic and customers after having been up for 5 years or more.

Everyone in network marketing has stories of people who found and old business card in their desk drawer or found an old brochure and were at the right point in their lives to buy the product or buy into the program.

TRUE STORY:  My friends Ed and Phil DID become millionaires in network marketing.  Two different programs, Ameriplan, which I am still with, and Excel, which I bombed royally with.  Neither of them could ever be accused of being a good salesman.  They both were simple people who, after a  few months, could have claimed that they were taken advantage of, and then quit and told everyone that network marketing was a scam.

However, they both had faith (or were afraid to look like fools) so they put a brochure or business card in the hand of everyone they met.  After three years, they saw significant income, and between years four and five they began receiving monthly checks in excess of $100,000.00.

Don't assume that any ONE advertising technique is the way to go, and don't ever turn your nose up at a potential customer or business partner, and don't ever give up.  This is a good product with a great future.  Give it a chance, but realize, if you are not in a program for the long haul, you have just decreased your chances for success.