Keeping Your Integrity In Network Marketing

Internet Marketing is a huge business these days.  With the wealth of social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google + and LinkedIn giving us access to thousands of people, it’s so simple for us to get our message out there.  And then of course there are the blog sites such as WordPress.  This is a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it’s so easy anyone can do it.  On the other hand, it’s so easy anyone can do it.  Even without knowing the best way to go about it.

When a person decides to go into business with you, whether as a customer or as a business builder, it isn’t just your business that attracts their attention. No matter how good your business is, what’s the first thing your prospective customer is going to see?

You.

You are their first port of call.  You are the person behind the company, the person they are going to talk to.  You aren’t just promoting your business.  You’re promoting yourself.  And as they listen to your sales pitch they are going to be thinking one thing.

Can I trust you?

Trust is the most important element, the glue that holds your business together.  It’s one of those things that can be so hard to gain.  But, so easily lost.  As you tell them what you have to offer, you need to be up front and honest.  Because if you lie to them, if you make it sound so easy when it’s not, they are not going to stay with you once they learn the truth.  So you have to prove to that person you are worthy of their trust.  To do that, you have to be trustworthy.  Internet marketing isn’t just about making money.  Obviously, that’s the biggest reason we do it.  But, it can’t be our only focus.  If you’re looking for customers you have to provide a good level of service.  It’s not just about making a sale.  Especially if you want them to come back for more.  If you are looking to bring someone into your business to partner with you, then you have to make it all about that person.  You need to put their needs first if they are going to stay with you for the long term.

Remember, trust is hard to gain but so easily lost.

We’ve been active on Facebook a lot the last couple of weeks.  We joined a lot of work from home groups.  We’ve seen good practices.  And we’ve seen bad practices.  Some people actually pretend they’re looking for a business to work with and ask you to friend them and send them a message with more information.  When you do, they pretty much ignore you.  But behind your back they’re trolling through your friend list, messaging your friends, trying to prospect them.  I made a post on Facebook about this.  A couple of people tried to make out it wasn’t such a bad tactic.  But we’re not convinced.  Most of us use Facebook to keep in touch with our family and friends.  Most of our family and friends have no interest in networking.  So we don’t feel they should be subjected to messages from people prospecting them. I don’t know, maybe we’re just naive.  We’re in a great business with the intention of helping people both with their finances and with their health.  Yes, we also want to make money.  But not at any cost.  Not at the cost of our integrity.  We want to be able to look prospective business partners in the eye and let them see that yes, they can trust us.  Maybe we won’t make as many contacts this way.  Maybe we won’t make as much money as some of the more bullish networkers.  But we’ll get there.  And we’ll have the satisfaction of knowing we did it the right way and we haven’t hurt anybody.

So what do you think?  Is integrity so important?  Or do you feel anything is justified when it comes to making a buck?