subject: Is Bellamora worth the trouble? [print this page] Is Bellamora worth the trouble? Is Bellamora worth the trouble?
The next big thing! Bellamora! The video footage of the burn victim and the wrinkles dissappearing was aweinspiring! It really was, I'm not kidding! I can't wait until a rep takes this miracle cream to a senior center and a childrens burn unit (I know I just gave you an amazing idea right :-)... Hallelujah, I'm going to take my entire team and jump from AMA Nation selling electricity and energy efficient products and services to a new 'product launch' of a Skin Cream! Wow, why do you think network marketing has such a bad name?
Most people aren't business minded. We hated homework as a kid and HATE homework as an adult. Since you're reading this article be prepared to do a little homework. It doesn't surprise me when I see people cringe at the idea of network marketing. I heard about Bellamora about 3 weeks ago from a good friend and fellow network marketer in my downline. Yes, it's is true that if you get in early and bring your team with you, you may see high initial returns. But what about long term returns? Network Marketing has two purposes. From the Founder's point of view word of mouth advertising is the most powerful form of advertising that exists on the planet. If one friend tells another friend to go see a movie, buy a product or go 'Google' a subject word spreads faster than a fire. It is also the most inexpensive way to create a buzz about a product or service and paying someone to spread the word about a product or service is a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising on radio, billboards, television, banner ads, pay per click, magazines, display advertising or any other form of advertising.
On the flip side of that, the business of network marketing for the person spreading the word is a low cost business opportunity in a box. The average person can 'join' a network marketing company and receive product training, personal development training and general entrepreneurial training for a fraction of a traditional education and a fraction of the cost of a traditional business. The 'network marketer' would then go out and speak with friends/family about this phenomenal new product or service and by the way, do you mind buying this fantastic new product/service from me instead of wherever you are currently purchasing it? Or would you please start to purchase this fantastic new product/service. Then, the network marketer asks this person to continually buy this product on a monthly basis and you know what, if you can become my business partner and we can both buy this product on a monthly basis and get others to do the same we could create residual income, time freedom and financial freedom!
What I just described is the last 124 years (Avon would be the oldest direct sales/network marketing company founded in 1886) of this business model and times have most definitely changed! We can now look back on 124 years of successful and unsuccessful network marketers from Avon to Amway to Pre-paid Legal to Excel communications we now have an idea of what works and what doesn't work. We can now discuss things like Retention and Attrition. If you don't know what either means let's explore the definitions in detail. I have a Bachelor of Science in Business and minor in Finance, I've also been self employed in the traditional business world for 17 years. So what I'm about to share with you may or may not be news to you. Bellamora is a new network marketing opportunity offering up a wonderful new skin product. Let me ask you a question? Why would I buy one skin product over another? For one, price does matter in today's economy. If I could find a comparable quality skin cream in a department store or pharmacy wouldn't I buy it there? What about a comparable cream that Neutrogena makes or Olay or MAC or Avon or Artistry (Amway)? Plus, in order for me to succeed in my new Bellamora business I have to buy my wonderful skin cream every single month and find others that want to also buy Bellamora skin cream every single month. First of all, I personally don't buy skin cream monthly. My sister on the other hand is the type to buy a skin cream on a regular basis but if money is tight, what do you think would get paid first; your utility bill or your new Bellamora skin cream that's better than every other skin cream on the planet?
This brings me to my next point. In order to have a successful network marketing business you have to retain your customers and in order to have a successful organization of network marketers all running around buying Bellamora skin cream that will pay you residual income for years to come you also have to have a low attrition rate! This attrition/ Churn rate has to do with two things. 1. Customer base and 2. Employees or in the case of a network marketing company, representatives. Let me give you a detailed explanation from a business point of view. Churn rate, when applied to a customer base, refers to the proportion of contractual customers or subscribers who leave a supplier during a given time period. In most network marketing companies a customer is on 'autoship' to continuously receive and order the products. In the case of Bellamora, we're talking about a monthly repeat order of skin cream. The Churn/Attrition rate is a possible indicator of customer dissatisfaction, cheaper and/or better offers from the competition, more successful sales and/or marketing by the competition, or reasons having to do with the customer life cycle or simply that the customer decides not to buy a product due to the necessity of that product.
The churn rate can be minimized by creating barriers which discourage customers to change suppliers (contractual binding periods, use of proprietary technology, unique business models, etc.), or through retention activities such as loyalty programs. It is possible to overstate the churn rate, as when a consumer drops the service but then restarts it within the same year. Thus, a clear distinction needs to be made between 'gross churn', the total number of absolute disconnections, and 'net churn', the overall loss of subscribers or members. The difference between the two measures is the number of new subscribers or members that have joined during the same period. Suppliers may find that if they offer a loss-leader "introductory special", it can lead to a higher churn rate and subscriber abuse, as some subscribers will sign on, let the service lapse, and then sign on again to take continuous advantage of current specials. In the case of Bellamora, the product looks like the next miracle cream! There's even a money back guarantee. If I was in the business of skin cream I would take the burn cream straight to every hospital in the country! Right now, during the launch you can try the miracle cream for free and it is currently free to become a representative. I would say, after this 'special offer' is completed we can safely assume many of the people who jumped on board for free will not 'opt in' to continue purchasing this product in the future. So, from my point of view, I'm not interested in joining Bellamora, getting a bunch of people to also join for free simply to watch 90% or more of those people drop off! Should I remind you about DNA? Let me give you a recent history lesson. My upline sponsor in AMA Nation's name is Rick Firth; Rick Firth was able to put 68,000 people into DNA in 11 weeks! Why, because it was free to join! But when it came time for people to opt-in or pay many people didn't! In fact, to this day Rick says he made no money from that ordeal at all and worked his buns off!
Now let's discuss employee turnover/Representative turnover. In some business contexts, churn rate could also refer to high employee turnover within a company. For instance, most fast food restaurants have a routinely high churn rate among employees. For larger companies, such as Fortune 500 companies, the attrition rate tends to be much lower compared to a Fast Food franchise. The company size and industry also play a key role in attrition rate. An "acceptable" attrition rate for a given company is relative to its industry. It would not likely be useful to compare the attrition of Fast Food employees with a Fortune 500 company in a corporate setting. Regardless of industry or company size, attrition rate tends to be highest among the lowest paying jobs, and lowest for the highest paying jobs. So, if you have a team of reps selling skin cream and the average person can't get their neighbor to switch from Clinique or Arbonne to your new Bellamora skin cream it would be safe to say you will have hundreds of people not making any money. Therefore they will discontinue their product order and discontinue trying to make money with a skin care product; which creates a very low retention rate from your customer base. History has shown us that all of the network marketing models out there that sell lotions, weight loss products, vitamins makeup and others tend to have a very high attrition/churn rate.
Thismeans the ra ra hype of financial freedom will be short lived and only come to a few. There's always the 80/20 rule! Most people will never go out there and have a big enough WHY and self discipline to stick to a goal which is needed when it comes to building ANY business. Most network marketing companies sell you a dream of residual income, which has also been called 'beach money'. The idea is, if you build a huge Bellamora team, you can eventually disappear and your organization will keep building right? Well let me ask you this, after reading this article and learning a little about business how high of an attrition rate will you have of retail customers and/or reps? So people detest the word 'network marketing' because in most cases like this one, the business plan is set up for you to fail. The only people making money are the owners of the company who get several thousand of you to buy their products a few times and the reps that have built other companies in the past who move droves of people from one hot thing to the next making money not on the actual product but on the representative investment fees that it takes for them to start that business. This is where much of the money is usually made. So, if you're a leader and you're really looking for the financial freedom promise, the time freedom promise, pick something that has a high rate of retention and a lower attrition rate! That way you don't find yourself constantly recruiting and constantly finding new customers and/or reps to sell your products to.
In my business, although it is a network marketing company, our real residuals isn't based on a customer changing their buying habits. In fact we are showing customers how to save on their electricity bill by choosing another supplier. Who do you know that will stop paying their electricity bill? We are also showing consumers how to take advantage of government rebates and incentives to save even more money on energy efficient products and services such as solar panels and energy efficiency audits by Pro Energy. So as a leader, I have a group of reps that 1. Are able to make greater amounts of money on these sales which create a very low attrition rate. We also have happy customers paying less on their energy needs that are on a fixed rate contract for 1-3 years in most cases which also has a lower attrition and higher retention than many other traditional network marketing companies. In 2010, Network Marketing should be synonymous with low cost home based business opportunity. Not synonymous with recruiting and selling products that people can buy off any shelf which means you're now having to argue over the fact that your ingredients are better than your competitors ingredients.
As an entrepreneur I invite you to ask me questions about this article and/or whether or not you've chosen a company that has a low attrition/churn rate and high attrition rate. Contact Tene Williams by email at jointene@gmail.com and you can also get more information about generating leads and other important business building tools on the Achievers Only! Network at http://achieversonly.info
