subject: An Analysis of The L Team and if it can Help the On-Line Entrepreneur [print this page] An Analysis of The L Team and if it can Help the On-Line Entrepreneur
Multi-level or network marketing has always approached building your business by people working together. The advent of the Internet has expanded this concept to new levels, with both good and bad consequences. Now, the experienced marketer can look at a team business plan and generally tell if it has merit or not. The problems occur when inexperienced people enter the world of Internet marketing and get sucked into bad programs which take their money and give little back. Our purpose here is to analyze a new organization called The L Team and determine for those new to business building if it has merit or not.
What Are Teams?
We should begin our discussion with a definition of what teams are and why they have become necessary in the current business environment. There are two type of basic teams found on the Internet:
Collective promotion and recruiting teams
Downline Builder Systems
The first type is a conventional team build site, where all members promote collectively for whoever is at the top of the rotator to receive referrals in the main program chosen by the team. This is especially helpful for those new to Internet marketing, who have not yet developed their own list of contacts. It takes a while to learn the ropes and a good team will shorten the time it may take you to make enough to at least cover your costs.
Conventional team build sites contain two general ways to advance up the rotator line so that you can receive members in your downline and start earning. The first is by signup position, in which people are assigned members in their organization in order of when they signed up for the team. The second is determined by how active you are in the team. This is determined normally by earning points for a variety of activities such as advertising your team URL, participating in forums, and using social media. You may also receive members in your downline from spillover, depending on where your sponsor is in the primary program matrix.
The second type doesn't actually look like a team at all. Under a downline builder system, each person finds their own referrals, and those referrals follow them into each of the paid programs. These programs often consist of free and paid member, with the paid members receiving referrals through the team co-op advertising. This type of team approach is often best suited to those people who already have a following. It gives them a portal where they can advertise one URL and have the same person sign up in multiple programs under them.
In the past, I've always believed it was more important to work along and building your own reputation (your brand) instead of relying on other people, many of whom want to sit back and let others do the work for them. I have begun to think differently in the last couple of years for a variety of reasons, which include:
The explosion of the Internet has brought thousands of people online trying to find ways to make extra money. Most of these people have little or no experience in the business world and a good, active team will give them the support and education they need to get started properly.
The explosion of the Internet has also brought hundreds of thieves and crooks trying to take advantage of these new people. People who try to go it on their own often lose hundreds of dollars before they learn what's good or bad. A good team will have leaders who have already evaluated programs and only promote solid ones.
A good team allows you to get to know lots of new people who will become useful contacts throughout your career and you'll probably make a few good friends along the way.
Even though it is vital to continue to build your own brand, working with an experienced group of people will drastically shorten the time it takes to become known and trusted in the business community.
Evaluating Teams
When evaluating whether to join a particular team, it is just as important to do your research as it would be to check out an individual business opportunity. There are three areas that provide a pretty good overall assessment of the team. These include:
The owner of the team and their background
The programs that the team promotes
The dynamic or static history of the team
In the case of The L Team, the owner's name is John Bell. He is in his late twenties, and lives in Eugene, Oregon. He was a manager at Wal-Mart for 6 years, starting as a seasonal associate while in school, then stayed when they invited him a full time position. He quickly worked his way up the ranks, but after seeing the way the company operated as a Manager, he wasn't pleased. So, after finishing school with a Multimedia Design degree (with additional studies in the fields of Computer Programming, Networking, Sociology, Psychology, Theology, and Fine Art), he started his own Web Design & Development business in January of 2008.
He also began branching out into doing event promotion to help a lot of his clients who are the artist types do shows, volunteering his time to try and help them succeed. This led to co-founding a non-profit organization with a team of 3 other business owners called Rockin Realtors. They put on events around town to help raise funding for local charities, usually gearing themselves towards local food banks as they are hard hit during this recession, but they also like to help other non-profit organizations as well. (The two members who's initial conception of the idea belonged to were Realtors, hence the name.) John believes that this is a great break for him, because the third partner does all the web work and he gets to help organize the events, rally volunteers and donors, and design the fliers. They all this 100% Voluntary and none of them get paid a dime, in fact they all pay out of pocket to run these events, they are for a very good cause and work out very well.
Through his web development business, he started meeting more and more people in the niche of affiliate marketing. After meeting some really amazing people, he started to really see the value in this industry. John says that like a lot of other outsiders, he saw it as sort of a slimy type of industry, but realized through time that it really didn't have to be that way. After leaving his job at Wal-Mart in December of 2009, he began to teach himself more and more advanced programming, releasing his Affiliate Marketing Toolbox the summer of 2010, and launched The L Team that fall.
The second area you need to take a look at involves the programs that are promoted. It's no different than evaluating a program independently outside of a team. Does the company have a solid product? Who are the owners of the company? How long has it been in business? Do the owners run any other programs and what are their track records? What are other people who belong (or have belonged) to this program have to say? These are the type of questions that the owners of a good team will have already asked. If you also do your due diligence on the main program, it will tell you a lot about whether this is a good team to join. The programs that The L Team currently promote are not perfect (no program is), but they have good owners, solid products, and pay on time.
Third, the history of The L Team is pretty dynamic. Most teams seem to build to a certain point and then stall out. This is usually due to a flaw in the initial design of the team or that the owner(s) of the team are unable to react to the changing marketplace fast enough to compensate for problems or take advantage of opportunities. In this area, John has shown that he has the uncanny ability to do both. The end result is an atmosphere that keeps people involved and thus, the team continues to grow rapidly.
A Better Mousetrap
While practically every team on the Internet says, "Join me. Join me. We have the best team in the world!" The truth is that most of them will not be in existence a year from now. The other problem that persists is that most are just an almost duplicate copy of another team or program. You have probably seen it. A team/program comes out and is really popular. A couple of weeks later, the same thing pops up under another name. They haven't really done anything original. They are just "getting on the bandwagon."
So the question presents itself; "Why isn't The L Team just another copy?" The answer to that question goes back to John Bell and his approach to creating it. Let's examine the basic concepts:
He first spent months joining teams/programs and analyzing what worked and what did not. Then, instead of an open "pre-launch" (most of which close before getting to launch), he collected a team of beta testers to test, break, and advise him to see if the concepts he had developed were valid. Only then was the team opened up for all to join.
Once of the greatest problems teams have is with member retention. The first to join, first to get a downline method always grinds to a halt, because there is no incentive to work since the people who work hard get the same benefit as those who don't work. That is the same as the basic concepts of socialism, which has always failed every time it has been tried.
The teams that have tried to build by having people sign up and then join in mass to fill up the next layer also grind to a halt. They focus on one matrix and the resulting spillover to fill layers. They go from one layer of 729 to trying to fill a layer of 2, 187. It only gets harder from there, because it takes so long to recruit that number of people that more people start quitting than are joining.
What John has done with The L Team is to create something he calls the "Layers Method", which rewards those who work harder and moves the structure faster by using smaller, consistent groups. By using a signup rotator, the system works on each person's matrix individually, generating as many as 25 direct referrals which easily cover your costs. Your matrix will continue to grow as the referrals under you reach the top of the rotator and get their referrals. The key here is that you will never have to wait for thousands of people to join before you start earning your downline, as no layer will ever need to be larger than 200 people. Since the layers are kept small, they move fast, and that helps keep the team from stagnation.
The other great problem that teams face is keeping members active. The L Team does this through its point system. Points are earned through personally recruiting members, splash page views, profile views, blog posts, article posts, and social media shares. To prevent freeloaders, there is a strict rule that each member is required to average 1,000 points a month to remain active. This is really a reasonable number, which can be acquired by sponsoring one person or earning a thousand splash page views.
The points system also determines how fast you move up the rotator for your turn at receiving your downline faster in the primary program, rather than waiting for spillover. The very basis of the free market system states that the harder you work, the greater should be your reward and this system puts that into action. This also incentivizes the membership to stay active.
And finally, there is the matter of having a good support system. To address this, The L Team has a lively forum, a prominent contact link on every page, and a unique Public Account System. This account is funded by members, so that in times of hardship or times of need, you can request access to these funds to help you pay your product fees. Just keep in mind that when your turn comes to succeed, they ask that you return the money so that others can be helped.
While the above points address many of the problems found in team programs today, there is another aspect of the plan that ensures most of the members will share is its success. When the tenth layer is filled, the second main program is introduced. The layers will be reversed and those who became members during Layer Ten will have the chance to sign up for the second primary program first. With over 2,000 members at that point, this could be a significant opportunity.
Summary
It is often hard to trust much of the advertising you see or understand all of the explanations that programs display on their sites. I have attempted in this analysis is to point out the problems that can be found in many team approaches and how The L Team has attempted to solve them. And while there is not room here to detail every aspect of the program, you will find that The L Team is a very adaptive team that takes pride in their ability to constantly adapt, change, and evolve to the changing marketplace.
Membership is free if you wish to take a look around. The address is: http://www.thelteam.com/1021/
