The 97 Percent Solution
Online Business For The Masses
-
Jun4No Comments
With the amount of effort being put into getting our new initiative off the ground, it's no wonder that most people never do this sort of thing. The good news is that because of these efforts, 97 Percenters won't need to make such efforts in future – we are building a solution that the ordinary man or woman will be able to tap into and benfit from very easily,
Busy yet exciting times indeed…
-
Jun3No Comments
It became clear over time that people didn't want yet more information, yet more advice and yet more ways to buy marketing tools. What they really wanted went deeper than that; they want a plan to plug into, and friendly guidance to step through the plan.
The people want it, so the people now have it.
-
Jun23 CommentsWarning: you really do need to grab a cuppa before tackling this one
Hi,So how are you today? From the feedback I have been getting, I suspect you're actually feeling pretty positive, with some of those old dreams re-awakened? I'm going to ask you now to use some of that renewed energy and put it to good use by reading this email from top to bottom. You see, although I have only just started typing this, I KNOW this is going to be one of the longest and most important emails I have ever written. So grab yourself a cup of your favourite brew, print this off, let the words lap over you gently, and just as you're feeling nice and relaxed they'll probably give you a rude kick when you least expect it!Before I go any further, please be assured that this is the last thing you will receive from me before we get into the real nuts and bolts. On that note, if you're getting this message through any channel other than the 97percent.org mailing list then you need to register your interest over there right now. This message needs to be received by those open to it, and not wasted on old lists full of dead mail addresses.On THAT note, some people are having issues where they aren't getting the anti-spam confirmation mail – quite often Hotmail addresses. I would therefore recommend double-checking your junk mail filters, checking your junk mail folder in case messages are landing in there, and registering with either your regular mail address, or grabbing one from GMail.OK… so have you got that cuppa? Good, then I'll begin…What I'm going to do here is basically lay bare the the essential truths about building a home business; from the core framework right through to the reasons why I believe most people are "failing" and how the "industry leaders" are able to take advantage of this (in my opinion – you may or may not share that belief!)Rest assured that you won't be asked to pay for this information, which is essentially a compressed version of everything that I have learned and observed over a number of years. Entire courses are offered by others, often for hundreds or thousands of dollars, and guess what? They tell the same basic story, wrapped up in various ways.I should also apologise now for the lack of "proper" structure to this mail – it's not a marketing letter that I've spent days crafting. I tend to write from the heart, and simply allow the myriad of ideas to get out of my head and onto virtual paper (or real paper if you printed this).The ONLY "secret" in network marketing, or any other business for that matter, is that there are NO secrets.This key piece of information is found in every ebook, every course, and every seminar that money can buy. Sometimes it's a little more obvious than others, sometimes it's thinly veiled and, believe it or not, sometimes we simply allow ourselves to ignore this particular elephant in the room.It is perhaps a whole lot more palatable if we can believe in fairy stories, if we can believe that somewhere out there we will find a system, a magic trick, that will unlock the whole thing and deliver instant success on a plate, for free. That is an illusion that /some/ individuals are happy to promote, pulling you in deeper, and only revealing the reality when you're ready to buy the real solutions from them.There is but one formula that can deliver success within the context of an online business, whether that business be affiliate marketing, blog monetisation, or network marketing. The formula is (drum roll please)…Your Offer + Eyeballs + Monetisation = SuccessAt this stage let's start to put a bit of focus into the mix – I have examined and considered all kinds of possibilities that /could/ work for the masses including affiliate marketing, sports betting (I have a friend who makes a full time living from this), real estate and so on. At the end of the day, nothing works for a large group as well as network marketing. A good MLM company will generally have all the products, services and systems for managing/paying members – so that's easier for everyone concerned, and doesn't require someone to work full time just to do "admin" stuff.So, from this point on I'm going to be talking SPECIFICALLY about network marketing / MLM – bear in mind that a lot of the information can be applied equally well to all those other things too.
OK, back on track… if network marketing is so great, how come so many people (and I personally know hundreds that match this profile) are not finding the success that they have been promised? It all comes back to the notion that only 3% will succeed, and the fact that most NM businesses are set up in a way that reinforces this "fact". Yes there are teams around, yes there is a lot of talk of working with your downline / upline to help each other, but the reality is that an awful lot of NM opportunities require you to undergo massive transformation and become a 3 percenter. People are, generally speaking, left to their own devices.Is this because nobody really makes the effort to help others? No, I don't think so. However the harsh reality is that if you're being asked to go through training programs, build lists, show the plan, and all that jazz then you are left with very little time to spend with your associates. This is the point where most traditional NM operators will point to weekly meetings, seminars and conference calls as a way to "connect" and socialise. The fact is, most people end up HATING those things – yes you can get "pumped" and "amped" while at a so-called Ra-Ra seminar, but the moment you get home reality kicks in, the kids want feeding, you realise that you need to to take the car for a service or whatever.So how do we move from this to a solution that allows the rest of us to build something solid? The answer is, quite literally, simplicity itself.You see, us humans are very good at taking incredibly simple things and building complex layers around them. We are super-efficient at generating fears, worries and concerns, and we are fantastically good at creating schemes, programs and plans that require months to learn, and a degree in rocket science to understand.Network Marketing is one of, if not THE simplest business model in the entire known universe, and probably in all the parallel universes that might exist as well.You basically sign up to a business (hopefully for free), you buy products/services from that company (for personal use, or to resell if you happen to be a shop owner or something) and you then have other people repeat exactly what you just did.Another little tangent here – as you know by now, Mathematics is one of my "things" and in particular I love some of the more abstract aspects of Pure Mathematics. One of my great joys (yes I AM that sad) is something called "fractals", and in particular some of the images that are generated from the world of fractals. What you may not realise is that some of the most complex and beautiful images that you will see are created by constantly re-applying some of the simplest equations you will ever find.My point here is that you don't have to start with a massively complex formula; simplicity and simple approaches, repeated again and again and again, will produce incredibly rich, powerful and beautiful end results if you just let them.
One of the keys to NM is therefore repetition (or replication as they often call it) and THIS is probably THE area where people come unstuck. You see, I'm pretty sure that the majority of people can get their heads around the first two steps of the core NM formula (sign up and purchase product) however they always seem to stumble at the third step, the one that goes "repeat after me".THIS is exactly why we get the complex systems, the training courses, the chasing of fairy stories and so on. People have convinced themselves that they can't get that whole replication thing going, and largely that is because they work themselves into a frenzy over the need to "convert" others or that they will be ridiculed for even mentioning MLM.My friend, it is time for us ALL to take a step back, to get "back to basics" and to realise a few essential truths. No-one on this planet is going to be converted to the cause – the only people who will ever join any NM business are those who have already been converted. People who are actively looking for a solution, and people who have grasped the need to create for themselves additional revenue and varying degrees of freedom.I'll put that another way – unless they are already warm to the idea, there's no way your best friend from high school will ever join you in a network marketing business, and the more you try to gently persuade them, the more damage you will do to the friendship.This is EXACTLY why we have seen an explosion in the area of "attraction marketing" and why countless "industry leaders" are selling ebooks and systems that will "do all your marketing for you". From THEIR perspective this is great business – regardless of which NM opportunity you are working, they can grab a few bucks from you, and you even then go on to market their system for them. OK, so YOU don't make a massive fortune from it, but THEY have got an endless stream of people putting dollars into one central place – their bank account.I don't knock these people for doing this, it's good business. Heck, I even wrote my own online system in a similar vein at one stage. The trouble is, most people aren't software developers, so most people will grow to rely more and more on a handful of such systems, and the "elite" that controls those systems.That's why I backed away from that route personally – I came to realise that it simply added more of the same old same old to the situation, and still didn't really change the game for anyone (except perhaps me). At the end of the day, we are still left with the raw, often painful, truth that the fairy stories are not true, the MLM Santa does not exist, and the only way to make money is to be an active customer in a business, and build your network.The online world offers enormous potential to NM operators; Google Ads, social marketing, even offline advertising to get people looking at your business. Again though, this is where the enthusiastic individual is at a great disadvantage to the big players. Imagine if you will that you've found that you can squeeze together a small monthly budget to do some online promotion – let's call it 50 bucks. You throw it at a Google ads campaign, you get some clicks, and are horrified to discover that the funds dry up very quickly – you didn't even get around to tweaking your adverts yet, let alone get good prospects looking at your page!Now consider how your measly 50 bucks compares to the budgets of "big guns" – do you think they spend twice as much? 5 times as much? 10 times what you can afford? I'm willing to bet it goes beyond even 10 times, because they've got all those dollars coming in from selling courses, books and systems and you can be sure that plenty of that goes on marketing. Yes they started from scratch, but think about it, they are 3 percenters!OK, I'm done for now. Congratulations if you made it through to this point. It was exhausting for me getting these ideas out of my head, so I'm sure it will be even more exhausting for you to absorb what became a large chunk of information.As promised, in the next day or so I am going to hand over a simple and complete blueprint to those who have taken the time to register at 97Percent.org.If you're hoping for a magic bullet then stop right now – but if you're looking for a way that we can start to get real about this stuff, a way to maximise our efforts, and a way in which we can work smarter then stick around!I sincerely wish you all the very best; those I have grown to know personally are certainly deserving of all kinds of success, and that's exactly what we're going to set out to achieve!Best wishes
Gaz -
Jun2No Comments
The original email (and let me take this opportunity to thank all those CTWT members that still have the desire despite everything):
Dear Friend,G'Day to all those who remember me from the "Changing The World Word 2Gether" team, and to those I sadly never had a chance to get to know…If you DO remember me then you will probably recall that I'm not a huge fan of the online business world, and the way it tends to operate currently. That was the key reason I got so excited about CTWT originally, and why I have been unable to let the spirit of that effort fade away.I just wanted to do you all the courtesy of "warning" you that I will very shortly be sending out an email that I'm pretty sure will awaken the spark in you all once more.Keep an eye on your inbox in the next day or so, and I'll explain a little more. If you've still got that hunger inside you, I promise you WILL want to "hear" my message.All the best
Gazp.s. There is no "p.s." – so that's the first rule of online marketing "broken"
-
Jun1No Comments
Today (June 1st 2010) marks a significant moment in online business – today is the official "day 1" for the new direction being taken by 97Percent.org. To help mark this occasion, the following was sent as an email to many a tired and worn-down network marketer – I post it here for posterity, and as a permanent reminder (for future purposes) of where it all started:
From: Gary Wilmot (info@97Percent.org)
Date: 1st Jun 2010
Dear Friend,
Well, it seems my email yesterday woke a few people up, and it's been brilliant re-connecting with people. Of course the main question on everyone's lips is "what the heck are you on about?", and I promise that I'll make it all clear soon enough.
Firstly though it's probably a good idea if I put my cards on the table, after all if we're going to continue on this path together then you certainly deserve to know who I am and what I am about…
My background is very much in maths and computing, and I've been a software developer for about 20 years now; I started young, honest! I first encountered MLM / Network Marketing in the late 80s when a work colleague introduced me to the Amway opportunity, however the old style "show the plan" method left me cold, and I eventually walked away. What I didn't realise then was that a seed had been planted that would have an impact on me many years later.
So, fast forward to 2007/2008… I had done the typical thing, got married, had a kid, divorced, re-married (and subsequently had another kid last year) and followed a typical emplyee career path. The crazy thing was that the more I worked, and the higher my salary, the less time and money I seemed to have to do the things I really wanted to do.
So I did two things – I started my own part-time business, doing the thing I know best (software and web development), and I was also plunged into the murky world of online marketing. That's when I discovered that literally thousands of people are spending heaps of time and money trying to find genuine success online. I also observed that the people making money were, generally speaking, the handful of gurus (you can tell a guru, they always start with the line "I am not a guru") who were selling systems, tools, education programs and training courses.
You see, they rely on something that has become something of a mantra; "97% of network marketers will fail". Sometimes they quote 95%, sometimes 99% – the key idea here is that the majority of us will NOT find success in this business. The reason they rely on this, in my humble opinion, is they NEED us to keep buying new tools, they NEED us to keep joining new systems and programs. THAT is how THEY make a lot of their money.
When I first stumbled on the CTWT team I was already convinced that there had to be a way that this online business stuff could work for everyone, and not just a select few. My logical brain and love of numbers made it clear to me that network marketing is actually an incredibly viable model.
So I started thinking… I've explored all kinds of mathematical tricks, looked at hundreds of payment plans, examined the typical tools such as traffic/ad exchanges and I slowly came to realise that there is only ONE model that works. Unfortunately this model does not work in the favour of the majority of individuals – that's why only 3% succeed; they are the exceptional cases, often people who would sell their grandmother and work 22 hours a day to achieve their goals.
And so it was that I eventually turned my back on this stuff, choosing instead to focus on my web development business. The trouble is, a giant bee was buzzing in my bonnet and I couldn't ignore it, no matter how hard I tried. I guess it's true to say that I've got a bit of an obsessive nature, or at the very least stubborn. I knew the buzzing wouldn't go away, so I started to think about all this yet again.
Now I don't want this to sound like yet another lengthy "pre-launch", like the countless pre-launches we've seen from so many "gurus", however I still need to dot a few i's and cross a few t's. When everything is in place, and it is very very close to being so, I make you these promises that "CTWT Reloaded" will be:
- ridiculously simple
- unbelievably easy
- built on solid principles
- operated professionally
What is more, it will NOT require you to do the usual things – so there will be no training courses to buy, no ebooks to buy, no regular training calls (unless you really want to of course!)
So what WILL this require? Well, it will be open to ANYONE, but people will need to come into this with eyes wide open. People will need to come with their feet on the ground, their head in the clouds, and an understanding that you CANNOT create something out of nothing, that there is NO silver bullet and NO magic pill.
With a large dose of professionalism in our approach, a new sense of realism, and the enthusiasm that I KNOW we are all capable of, the new CTWT will finally allow us 97 percenters to take control of our destinies.
I'm going to sign off here, but rest assured that you WILL be hearing more from me very soon – for now head over to the revamped www.97Percent.org and register your interest.
All information relating to this will be revealed to those who register on 97Percent.org - the blogs and pages there will promote and support the efforts and we will rally our troops around the 97Percent Facebook and Twitter communities.
So head over to www.97Percent.org right now, register your interest, and I promise you won't be disappointed in the coming days. We're going to take this to a whole new level of professionalism, and deliver genuine opportunity to the masses instead of the elite.
I'm excited, I hope you're excited too, and I very much look forward to the day we look back in wonder at what we achieve together.
All the very best wishes for your/our futureGaz
p.s. If you want to know more about me then check out www.garywilmot.net/about and www.avallach.com.
I do ask though that if you connect with me on a personal level (e.g. on Facebook) then do so in the spirit of friendship – flooding my FB profile with spam will always result in de-friending -
Jun1No Comments
You may notice a few things changing on this site – don't worry, we're just gearing up for a major change in direction. Instead of providing advice and information, and making recommendations of tools etc. 97Percent is about to become the focal point of THE simplest business plan that there is.
We're going to lead from the front, and show you all once and for all that 97 Percent Do NOT Have to Fail.
Watch this space!
Connect Socially
