Marketing Tip: Success Relies Upon The Relationships You Create

by Marty Bradfield

Business Skills Articles

Published on this site: November 27th, 2010 - See more articles from this month

There is one factor above all others that will determine your ability to be successful on the Internet... That's one factor is your ability to create, develop, and maintain good relationships with other people...

Not A People Person?

Don't worry if you are not a people person... There are a wide variety of moneymaking opportunities available to the person who seeks to make money online...

If you are not a people person, you can get by with selling products and driving traffic to your website through a variety of resources, primarily paid traffic and organic search rankings...

It should go without saying that if you are not a people person, you probably should avoid offering services to other people... And if you do not know it already, it should be said that if you are not a people person, then you should probably avoid getting involved in MLM or network marketing...

To Be Fair...

My wife reliably tells me that one of these days, I am going to get myself in trouble, because I do have a tendency to tell people exactly the way things are...

Personally, I believe that it is much more fair to tell someone the truth, rather than to tell them what they want to hear... I believe that if I try to temper the truth, to make it more palatable to the person hearing it, then I risk doing them more harm than good...

If you are not a people person, then you should strive to avoid any type of online business that could potentially require you to communicate with other people...

You Can Overcome All Challenges... If You Set Your Mind To It...

To be honest, I did not start adulthood as a people person... But, I had heard when I was a younger man that the people in this world who make the most money are typically involved in some type of sales...

I made the commitment to myself as a 20-something that I would overcome my shyness and general aversion to meeting new people...

I am still somewhat shy and a room full of people that I do not know... However, I have overcome my general fear of meeting new people... It took me nearly 10 years of on-the-job, person-to-person contact on a daily basis to help me overcome the worst of my shyness...

I have discovered that I truly enjoy standing in front of a room full of strangers, who have come to hear why have to say... My wife tells me that she believes it is my ego needing to feel appreciated...

I tell her when she says that, tongue-in-cheek, that if she would appreciate me more at home, I would not have to get my satisfaction from strangers...

Before the Internet, I had gained a certain level of comfort speaking to strangers... When you are doing face-to-face sales in a retail environment, you have to overcome your fears of rejection and talking to strangers...

After nearly a decade of retail sales, I've made my mark on the Internet... When I started my first online service, I shared my phone number on my website... As a result, people would actually call me on the phone to ask specific questions, prior to purchase...

Through experience and repetition, I was able to attain a confidence equal to my competence...

10 years ago, I would have been hard-pressed to do any event, seminar, tele-seminar, webinar, recording, or interview for anyone who asked me to do so... Yet, I have done all of the above in the last five years...

Five years ago, I did my first tele-seminar in the online marketplace... I had a lot of fun, and I had so much to share that we exceeded the allotted time period for the presentation...

The Money Is In The Relationship

With experience, you will find confidence in what you say to others...

The most important first step to finding success in an online service business or the MLM and network marketing industries is to be willing to talk to strangers and to actively work to build a relationship with them...

If you are unwilling to create, develop and maintain good relationships with other people, you will never get the opportunity to develop a successful service or network marketing business...

First comes the willingness to talk to other people, to develop those relationships, and then with experience, your words will resonate confidence -- the confidence that allows other people to believe in you...

Eventually, you will discover as I have done that when other people have confidence in you, your customer base will grow and your income will grow along with it...

Measuring The Depth Of The Relationship

You may be surprised to hear someone tell you this, but the magic of the relationship reaches well beyond the actual business transactions... People, with whom you do business, want to know you as a person and as an individual... They want to know who you are and why they should like you...

When you remember personal conversations in the future, your customer notices that you cared enough about them to remember what they told you... When your customers or fellow marketers realize that you care about them as a person, as an individual, your relationship with them is strengthened...

Think about this...

Chances are that you go to the same barber shop month after month after month... Chances are that you shop the same grocery store every single month... Chances are that your children have been going to the same school for a number of years...

So, what can you tell me about your barber? What can you tell me about the people who work at your favorite grocery store? What can you tell me about the personal lives of the people who teach your children and care for them while they are Way from home?

Interestingly, you probably drew a blank as I asked you each of the previous three questions...

Now, tell me about the personal life of your mother, your sister, your brother, your best friend...

That is a much easier question to answer, isn't it?

What is the difference?

The difference is that you have an honest-to-goodness relationship with your mother, sister, brother and your best friend...

Unless you are a truly exceptional person, you probably don't have an actual relationship with the person who cuts your hair... You might know his or her name, and you might know whether he or she is married and has children, but it is doubtful that you know what he or she does for fun, what their goals and aspirations are, or what their general outlook on life may be...

Where your mother, sister, brother, and your best friend are
concerned, you have a real relationship with them...

But, when you're talking about the people you know in your daily life, most are truly nothing more than an acquaintance...

The Relationship Exists Beyond The Business At Hand

It is when you allow your customers and your fellow marketers a glimpse into your personal life that you begin to develop that relationship that will bring you together and keep you together over months, years and decades...

In a service business, the relationship you develop with your clients will enable you to stand above your competitors in a way that your competitors will never match... When all other things are equal, customers do not care who provides the service, so long as the service gets done... However, when all other things are equal AND the customer has a real relationship with the service provider, there will never be a reason to shop around... Even for a better price...

In the network marketing industry, relationships are just as important... When all other things are equal, it will not matter who an individual marketer works with... However, when there is a relationship involved, people will go out of their way to protect the relationship that has helped bring them success...

Life happens, and sometimes people will disappear for a time, but old friends will never be forgotten... One day, the other person will think of you and the relationship that you had with them, and they will call you or e-mail you out of the blue to rekindle the relationship that once made them strong...

Your friends, online and off-line, will always be your friends...

The relationships that you create, develop, and maintain will continue to serve you well through thick and thin and generally forever...

So I ask you this again... What is the difference between an acquaintance and a friend?

A friend is someone whom you enjoy talking to, even if it has nothing to do with business...

Marty Bradfield teaches the Basics of online marketing and Cutting Edge Techniques used by online marketers, to develop lead generation systems for new businesses. He recommends the 80-page report that outlines 35 Proven Traffic Generation Techniques used by professional marketers to build their online businesses:
http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/multiple-traffic-streams.html