What should I be doing besides the daily actions on my "To Do List" to build a thriving SFI business?

Once you complete your daily tasks and maintain your Executive Affiliate status each month you can spend your time building a dynamic business and be on your way to success. This can be done in two ways: - 

Duplication 

Build a team of active affiliates through duplication. Advertise on free or paid sites as regularly as ysou can. Use your blog or website to promote SFI. Then teach your team members to do just as you do. Be supportive and maintain open communication. You can create a forum where your SFI team members can find and help one another...and you could help them all. You could even make a private forum for your SFI Team Members only. 

Duplication is the key to success in SFI therefore, you will want to ensure that you use your gateways wisely to draw traffic and have a flow of individuals who would sign up. Ensure that to write articles as fresh content will be invaluable. Make your articles interesting and be consistent in your delivery. 

Sales 

Improve your sales performance by purchasing as many items as possible at your TripleClicks store. Items that you use on a regular basis can be purchased via a standing order. Be aggressive in promoting products to your friends and as they become Personally Referred members build your monthly residual income by encouraging repeat purchases and highlighting interesting discounts. 

Share new products with them. Post interesting items on your blog or website to create interest. Always look for opportunities to generate sales. When you encourage others to buy you can create income for years to come. 

How do you turn affiliates' EMPLOYEE mentality...to a BUSINESS OWNER mentality?

As a Team Leader, I have set a goal to sponsor certain number of new affiliates every month. I have no idea about the background of my newly sign ups. I believe that the majority of them came into network marketing with an “employee mentality”. Understanding the “employee mentality” will give you an advantage on how to build a close relationship with them and turn them around to a “business owner mentality”. 

Identifying the employee mentality: 

- An individual who has been employee all his/her life will expect to be guided, trained, and told what to do and to be followed upon. 

- He/she looks for incentives from his/her sponsor/upline so he/she can get motivated to get things done. No incentive, nothing will be done. 

- If he/she has no contact from his/her sponsor/upline, he/she will most likely give up and quit. 

Identifying the business owner mentality: 

SFI has put into place a structure to educate new SFI affiliates. Beginning from SFI BASICS, Launchpad, Marketing, Power Tools and so on a new affiliate can avail of these invaluable resources for starting and growing his/her SFI business. In network marketing like SFI: 

- You are the boss, you set up your plans and goals for your SFI business and you direct yourself to implement your business strategy. 

- You are your own motivator 

- You are your own incentive system 
Knowing these two types of mentality in network marketing beforehand will help you tremendously in dealing with your affiliates, especially your new ones. 

Here’s how to turn your affiliates with an ‘employee mentality’ to a ‘business owner mentality’: 

- Emphasize to them in the firsthand that as SFI business owner, they should never depend on someone else’s leadership style, involvement, rank or connection to you. 

- They should take full responsibility for their training, motivating and promoting themselves. They should realize that when they rely on their own, any help from sponsor/upline is a bonus in growing their SFI business. As a result, they won’t be let down by those who sponsored them and then take off. 

- Communicate to them clearly as business owners; they are not dependent on what others can do for them, but what they can do for themselves. 

- Finally, encourage them to stand up strong and create their own vision. Don’t wait for someone to tell them what to do. 

Also, you can do the following;

Firstly, when advertising this opportunity, don’t refer to it as a job offer, but as a business opportunity. Prospects must know upfront that they are not applying for a job with a salary and set working hours and a boss, but for a an opportunity to own and manage their own business where they are their own boss and work wherever and whenever they want. You have that freedom, but also the responsibility. 

Secondly, when someone enroll, you as their sponsor, must send them a welcome message, where you explain how the business works and follow that up with more messages, emails, stream posts, newsletters, etc. where you teach them further how this business works. This business work by sponsoring PSA’s and duplication, that meaning teaching your PSA’s to do what you do. But bottom line is that this is a marketing business where you have to sell the business and the products at TripleClicks and teach your PSA’s to do the same. 

Thirdly, be an example. Do all the tasks expected of you as the owner of this business, get as much as possible VP and badges and teach your down-line to do the same. 

Affiliate Center, Getting Started & How to Succeed

Now for you to make money from SFI you have to spend some time and effort on it. As you may have realized, there is no such thing as "something for nothing" or vise-versa.

You have to learn the program, and start setting up your profile and goals, that is a must when you do online business. And just as you would do with an offline physical business, do visit your store/affiliate center daily. With SFI, collect the free versapoints reach Executive Affiliate (minimum of 1500) every month. As soon as you reach Executive Affiliate rank SFI will automatically assign CSAs in your downline, all you need to do to keep them is to maintain a minimum of 1500 versapoints every month. Now to Increase your earning potential, duplicate what you've been doing with more Affiliates, using your gateway link ( https://www.sfimg.com/MyAccount/GatewayList  ).

Here are some links about getting started, with SFI, visit the links below and you'll be guided accordingly;

https://www.sfimg.com/start

https://www.sfimg.com/LaunchPad/

 https://www.sfimg.com/MyAccount/MyReports/VPLedger

https://www.sfimg.com/Home?section=ToDo

http://startresidualincome.blogspot.com/2013/10/collecting-daily-versa-points.html

Here's a video on how to collect your daily free versa points; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIMqd9L3GU8

Your Affiliate Center is your online business center, visiting it every day is like tending to your business pretty much like you would in a physical business. You want to know how your business is doing or if you are on  track to reaching your goals.


And finally, taking the next paragraph into action will bring you success.

Patience, persistence, and a positive focus; I believe that these three qualities are an integral part of success in SFI. SFI, like any business, takes time and hard work in order to reap the benefits. Success is the result of staying positively focused on what can advance your business and following through with appropriate actions to advance your business. It is important to recognize that growth and subsequent success in SFI occurs for those individuals who are willing to invest both time and money into their business. It is important to persevere and to utilize set backs to learn and to propel your business forward. 

Simply put, you have to show up to work everyday and put in the time and effort to succeed. Your business can't and won't grow if you are not taking positive action on a regular basis. 

How do I get new, anxious-to-earn-NOW affiliates to understand that it takes time to develop a successful business?

First, be thankful that they are communicating with you. So many of our new affiliates never reach out to you to let you know what they are thinking, so you can't help them. 

You have to explain to them that this business is the real deal, it's not an overnight get rich sheme. Depending on how much time and investment they have for their new business will be a big factor in how quickly they are able to grow and earn. Have them read their LaunchPad lessons and recognize all the different ways to obtain a profit. Help them to understand that duplication will be the most important way to build a residual income, but they can also market the various items in TripleClicks to provide instantanious income. If they have high marketing skills, then they should focus hard on this income source while at the same time obtaining new affiliates. 

Advertise products and advertise to gain new affiliates. If they can afford to join co-op or win PSA's in auction or even purchasing PSA's to go. They can build their business relatively fast if they have the proper skills and/or money. If they don't then it's important to know that "Rome wasn't build overnight". 

They are in the right place, it's free, and it will happen. They have to give it time and work hard at it. Tell them you are here to help them in any way you can. Ask them to trust you, stick with it, do their part and they won't regret it. Wether it comes sooner or later, profits will come. 

Or here's another answer;

Help them to get their Fast Tracker Badge, plus attendant VPs, and earn those total 1500 for the first month. Then explain to them the need to slow down, only do dailies for balance of month, save some of the easy VPs for next month. This is first part of your action plan for NOW affiliates. 

Now is the hard part. It is important to make these new, anxious eager beavers understand the necessity - requirement - to go through all the learning steps (Basics, LaunchPad, "Training" tab, etc.) from SFI so they will learn how the system works. 

They need to learn about sponsoring, mentoring, advertising - all the skills they will need to lead a team. Help teach them about the awesome compensation they can earn, and to understand that it takes time to acquire active affiliates, help them learn what your new affiliate has learned. 

Show them testimonials about the quality of SFI program, and point out the start dates of many of our most successful TLs. TLs who are STILL here, creating successful teams, making residual income. 

All these things will help make your antsy new affiliates realize there is too much to learn and do to build their business for it to happen in the next month or two!! A good example to give them, actually, would be WalMart -- I remember when there were only a few stores around Arkansas, now it is a WorldWide business. That is the kind of business we, and our downlines, can create!! But we won't do it overnight, either.

And another answer;

To answer your question, I would direct my new affiliates to read and review the LaunchPad lessons, especially Day 6 - Central to your Success, and Day 11 - Overnight Success - NOT! 

Some new affiliates upon joining usually do and finish all the 30 lessons in one go, thereby earning themselves a 200 VP bonus and Fast Track Badge. Then they do the other tasks to earn points, and in the process have forgotten all the 30 lessons as they begin to struggle to understand what SFI is and how it works.

In addition, I would also draw attention to the importance of learning, reading and reviewing the SFI Basics, especially the 4 things one needs to do to succeed in SFI. I would emphasise the importance of duplication as the key to building a strong, profitable and successful SFI business, along with the promotion of TripleClicks programs and products for generating sales. 

As well, encourage them to read/review the SFI Rules of Success, for guidance and direction. Only when new affiliates are diligently reading/reviewing and putting into practice SFI Basics, the LaunchPad lessons and the SFI Rules of Success would they fully comprehend that developing a successful SFI business requires time, hard work, commitment. 

With care and understanding of your new affiliates' concern, you will give them hope, belief in their own ability, and reassurance that by learning and consistently applying what they have learned as soon as they possibly can, earning will follow. 

Does free advertising work for sponsoring affiliates?

1. Free advertising depends on what your advertising. To be truly effective in your FREE advertising campaigns you have to understand the resource, and its target market. Many people fail in the case of free advertising, because they do not take the time to understand how to target their market. Team member ads require different advertising resources, than Health products, and so on. You also have to understand the medium whether its social networks, blog posting, email marketing, and how to reach the right people. Your ad, will start targeting the right people, if you do the research first. Need signups, go where there are people looking for work. Need customers, go where there are groups of people that deal with the same issues..health, collecting, business tools... and so on. Understand how your customer or prospect will come to you, and work from there. Your first campaign, is always the toughest. The rest get easier, if you pay attention to what happened to the first. 

2. Free advertising does work, but where paid advertising costs you money, free advertising costs you time. Whether you choose classified ads, article marketing, or some other free marketing technique, you need to be prepared to spend several hours each week on this task. It will require more patience than paid advertising, but for those that have little cash to invest, this option will still allow you to build your business without breaking the bank.

3. Yes it does! I have been using all FREE advertising (with a share of my sponsors team co op) and I get about 50/50 with it. It does take more work with doing the searches for sites to advertise on, and setting up a trash email acct (a must for the amount of email generated). I place 3-5 ads minimum per day and let the ads run until they are not producing anymore. In 3 months I have 61 affiliates this way. I have a couple that are actually working their businesses. This does not include the Team Co op I have run a few times. So my answer is YES! It works! 

Yes, Free advertising does work in attracting new affiliates to SFI. Having said that... the "Free affiliates" retention rate may be a little lower than "paid affiliate" retention rate due to a higher number of "easy money" hunters looking for free money.

Do I need to have a website or my own blog to be successful with SFI?

Short and simple... no, you don't. But while they are not necessary, they can certainly help. 

Both types of sites have their advantages and disadvantages. 

Static Website 
Pros: relatively easy to setup and maintain 
Cons: harder to get listed in the search engines 
Primary uses: many use what is known as a static squeeze page. A squeeze page is designed to entice your site visitors into providing you with their contact details, thereby adding them to your mailing list. This list, most times, is loaded into your autoresponder account so that your list members receive timely, regular emails. You also have the option of mailing your list directly. Another use for static sites is to create a series of minisites, each one geared to a different aspect of SFI or focusing on a specific product on TripleClicks. 

Blog Site 
Pros: easy to get listed in the search engines, so long as you are providing unique, valuable content 
Cons: time consuming, unless you hire a freelance blog writer; then your main disadvantage is the added cost 

Primary uses: blogs are a great way to open up discussions on topics that are not only of interest to you, but also that you have knowledge to share; by providing useful content that is unique, then your blog can get picked up by the various search engines and you have the potential to build a relatively large base of followers who are interested in the content you are providing; once you have them engaged and have earned their trust, then they are naturally curious to know more about you and what you do 

How is communication best utilized to create robust duplication?

In SFI "duplication" is the action of generating a certain number of PSAs in your downline and teaching them to do the same. 
For example: acquire 5 active PSAs, who you then teach to acquire 5 each of their 
own active PSAs and so on ( up to 12 levels in SFI). 
Each must build their own team to succeed in generating a long 
term residual income. 

The idea is they will follow your lead with your support. 

-Your actions and progress in SFI carries the greatest influence on your downline. 
-You must be willing to teach duplicating methods, advertising, sales and so on 
in your daily/weekly communication with your team is very important. 
-Focus can be enhanced by using a reward system for sign up goals. 
-Consistent recognition of their progress is a moral builder. 
-You may try a freelance reward system based on progress for your 
individual achievers. 
-Use contests to keep them motivated and on target. 
-Encourage goal setting. 

Your ability to monitor your team and follow up with relevant information and 
tools to assist them in their business is key to everyone's success. 

Keep your Leadership Page up to date with tools and articles. 
 

To get your downline to focus on duplication, as a Team Leader you must have established a good relationship with them. Building a close relationship will take time. This can be in the form of group support message, promotion/incentive and recognition. Constant communication with your downline is very vital to build this kind of close relationship. If you have shown to them that you are there for them in their journey with SFI, then they will most likely listen to your tips and advice. 

By displaying your badges like, as a top enroller, S-Builder Co-op, Power Rank, etc. on your Leadership page, you are leading a good example to them. 

You can explain to them that they will be able to achieve the highest Team Leader, a PTL as they continue to step up their sponsoring consistently, keeping in mind the guidelines in “Be an Awesome Sponsor”. Let them know that by giving back to invest some of your SFI earnings in the form of promotions and incentives (Gift Certificate or TCredits) in helping them, you are performing duplication.

 The point to stress is that every business needs workers to take care of everyday tasks. So, also their business at SFI needs workers to do the daily tasks at hand and on a daily basis. 

Stress the fact that without their own downline, they will be like a small boat struggling in a high storm, being tossed about. 

You could also suggest to them to opt in to S-Builder, have a Standing Order and in general keep doing the daily tasks every day. I would suggest to them that they go over all the training that Gery has provided in SFI and not to just read it but to learn it. 

Going over the Launchpad would also help a great deal. 

They could start with family and friends, who are easier to chat to about SFI, and from there they can gain the confidence to speak to neighbors and work colleagues. 

Get them to send out E-Cards, post fliers, or send emails to only people that they know. There are many places where one can advertise for free as well.