The Agreement Seekers Blog

It is really easy to say or claim anything.  This goes back to the idea of actions speaking louder than words.  If this is the case, then how do you know 1) that what you evaluate, and; 2) then choose to become involved with - has merit and conforms to "all that is good"? The idea of "moral health" speaks to this.  It is a representation of a line in the sand.  It is a proclamation that doing something right - matters.  This includes when we are in the business of helping people make money, that we understand and take seriously that peoples' lives matter.  It encompasses the fundamental decency of not leading anyone down a path that leads to nowhere in the pursuit of a quick buck. It holds true to the idea that we are attempting to build something that has permanence and in doing so will provide security to families - and in many cases have implications regarding altering the legacy of families for generations to come. However, when we state that what...

I just want to make a quick point about being authentic.  In the past, I have written about leadership, integrity, honesty, character...  and their role in establishing and maintaining a successful home business. I was a communication major in college.  In one of the classes I took, we made a deep dive into what "attitude" is.  At the end of the day, it is basically how you are wired (predisposed) to react to things.  Attitude comes from how you think based on the accumulated experiences of your life.  Then, when you react to something (anything) you express yourself verbally and non-verbally with your "attitude" toward.. whatever. I have also written about the importance of relationships... and the real asset you build is not a bank account, but the friendships and loyalties you build that support that income.  Our business is all about people helping people and a creating culture and community where people feel included, appreciate...

Our Two Steps combine specific programs chosen for their financial dynamics as well as their practical capacity for fitting together in an overall strategy.  What follows is an overview of what these programs are and the justification for how and why they fit together. It should be noted at the outset that the only component of this plan that is meant to "last" for the long-term in the third and final step.  This will become clear.  The programs (vehicles) we use are all online platforms with digitally-delivered products.  Each has a back office for tracking and accounting.  As a part of your education, you will learn about how different compensation structures work.   Step One :  A Referral Line Compensation Structure A one-up is also known as a powerline model where you "pass-up" a sale to your sponsor. The investment levels for these programs are as low as $25, but normally (to create leverage) you want to start at $250, $500 o...

I have previously written about the idea of being money mercenary.  Essentially, my thought process is that making money is an end in itself - divorced from a product or service.  As such, the ability to make money, whether it be a program, process or platform is the "value" conveyed by the marketer and this is the proposition considered by the consumer. "At the edge of propriety" challenges and articulates this notion of making money as an-end-in-itself  - as legitimate perspective.  The reason 'at the edge' is chosen to describe our reality is that what we do is unconventional.  Or, said differently, is not in the mainstream of how people typically view commerce... e.g. money exchanged for some "thing". "Something of value" is typically something you can hold in your hand, or derive some benefit from a service provider.  In my transactional worldview, the product behind the transaction is secondary to the transaction itself - with t...

Here are 10 things worth pondering and understanding: Your business is finding people who embrace the idea of partnering with you to make money.   Your business is not the business you "represent".  The businesses you represent is the tool you use to make money. If you love and are zealous about the business you represent, your passion will be a sales asset, however... The true asset in your business is the strength of the relationships you build with people and everyone's' level of commitment.  This is grounded in their monetary success. Long-term success in our industry is a function of the social group.  Inclusion and support of a community of people who share the same goals and values are foundational to success - and many companies/businesses provide this kind of culture.  This is as it should be. As such, fidelity to a core business is also foundational to success. However, once established, a portfolio approach to expanding earning opportunities w...

Anyone who has been around internet marketing for any length of time has heard the saying, "The money is in your list".  For some businesses this is true - especially affiliate offers or an Amazon or Shopify store.  Or, for information and private label products.  There are more... Many of these list advocates (you guessed it) market their list-building funnels with an attached affiliate opportunity to push their funnel.  This convenient and ultimately symbiotic function is great for low cost and "free plus shipping" deals, however, they are not necessarily what is needed to build an organization that is built upon a community, support, and interdependence - with a higher ticket, lower volume numbers. Large lists work for what they are intended to do - and many people make a ton of money with this strategy.  However, many would have you believe that the "be-all-and-end-all" in internet marketing is building a large list.  This is simply not true. Our...

The title of this piece is from  The Hurricane , a movie about the boxer Reuben Carter who spent a couple of decades in prison for crimes he did not commit.  Peoples' circumstances are their prison and have the same limiting effect.  Our evangelism about changing peoples' lives speaks to this notion of transcendence through shining a light on an alternative. Most people readily admit they need or want more money.  This is somewhat universal.  At the same time, they are "stuck" in the patterns of their lives.  The lack of awareness of viable alternatives is a prison for some. This being said, we fully recognize that what we do is not for everyone.  The "prison effect" is just one factor. Our mission is to educate people and raise their level of awareness to an alternative.  We then guide them through an information acquisition process and serve as a consultant in their decision-making process. The end-game in our business is to provide a ve...

It is with a degree of pride that we accentuate our differences from many other marketing groups. Our"targets", that is to say, who we choose we want to work with are reasonably specific. This is conscious and intentional.  Our business stability is much stronger if people "join" who are well-grounded in what makes us different.  This blog articulates many of these. However, although we talk about incorporating change into lifestyles, mindset, business models, compensation structures and the like, there are three guiding priorities that build one atop the next (or) are attached in consecutive layers.  The first and most foundational is: A Philosophy of Life and Doing Business - Our goal is to help people and in so doing, help ourselves.  We do this by being as honest and transparent as is humanly possible. We do not sugarcoat the realities but at the same time posture that what we do benefits individuals, families and ultimately society.  As such, on t...

I have been reading (cherry picking) through Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations to try to understand economic theory as it relates to what we do.  The following paragraph is copy and pasted: . In a famous passage, Smith remarks that a human being needs the "help of his brethren, so that "it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is to their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them". Our goal (and our success) are dependent upon attracting people to what we do.  This is in the context of a social group where healthy tension exists (in reciprocity) between helping others for one's own benefit.  This is a core construct and this is how all economies function.  The dynamic between self-gain through advancing the goals of others in a group cycle over and over and over again. The "marketing angle" or the message here nee...

At the end of the day, everything we are about circles back to the premise of long-term financial security. There are a lot of different lenses we can look through to bring this into focus.  Ultimately, we "promote" economic self-interest in the context of a social group.  The "group" supports and makes possible the entire framework that incentivizes individual participation. Today there are many internet-enabled ways to make money and most of these are talked about somewhere on this blog.  Among them is what I describe as the "helping people" model.  What this directly infers is attracting people to a community with common values and goals.  The process of educating - and getting people to adopt our values and participate in the attainment of our stated goals. The point here is that first and foremost we are educators who have a story to tell.  Our story explains a viable and realistic path to financial security.  As a people business, our ro...

I was in my car this morning listening to talk radio on my way to the grocery store.  Ric Edelman, a nationally syndicated financial advisor was talking about restructuring Social Security and the impact this will have on how he recommends structuring portfolios.  The point he was making was that Social Security is a common baseline for everyone (in retirement) that he builds upon in projecting future needs.  Surprisingly, the average monthly check is only around $1700. In the context of generating monthly income - if your investment portfolio of resources are not significant - what strategies are there if you have not "saved" or planned for additional sources of income that will grow (and/or) at the minimum, sustain your lifestyle?  What we do is one answer. - one viable alternative. All investment strategies are tied to the amount of risk you are willing to take.  Obviously, the greater the risk, the greater the reward. Younger people are advised to b...

Our Business Plan has three fundamental elements.  They are not equally important. Here's why. 1)  The first (and most important to understand) is the ability to adapt to change.  Integrating something new into your life requires investing your time in different ways.  Most people (attesting to the failure rate in home businesses) do not successfully navigate from point A to point B. 2)  The second is understanding what a "learning community" means.   People and relationships are the foundation of our business.  We need to engender and pass along what we know and help others develop proficiency and competence as marketers. 3)  Third, is the tools we use and the business we promote.  The reality is that there are many, many directions this could take.  There are many, many:  a) tools suites, and; b) compensation models.  We utilize a selected few and at the very top of our marketing funnel we use Working Poor No More" as a d...

In the total universe of money-making opportunities, why would anyone choose us? This is a fair question that warrants a thoughtful answer.  The core of the answer revolves around the values we embrace as an organization - but at the same time, the challenge is to not provide the same... yeah, yeah, yeah thoughts that everyone espouses. The single most distinguishing feature of our difference is how we deal with the failure rate in the home-based business industry.  Our premise is that the failure rate is due to peoples' inability to adapt to and integrate change into their lifestyle.  Said differently, people do not "find" the time to constructively engage in the activities that will build a business and crawl out of the entrenched patterns of their lives. Therefore, this core value is "embracing change"... and the degree of change will predict the amount of success.  It is the mature and responsible understanding that nothing happens without applied effo...

There is a whole world of words, semantics, and definitions that we very consciously attempt to use as differentiators in defining who we are as a marketing organization.  In referring to people we work with as clients, it is really a  mindset "trick" in understanding that you are (for all intents) employed by them. Anyone you bring into your organization,, we encourage you to think of as clients, in the sense that they support your income - like in any business. Referring to them as recruits, downline or enrollees all miss the mark.  Until you fully appreciate that you need to be of service through teaching, helping and coaching your "clients" and treating them in the context of the lifetime value they represent, you can not consider yourself to have evolved to the professional level of an at-home business owner. Lifetime value.  Ponder this.  Enter into relationships instead of "signing people up" and seeing what happens.  Mentor.  Teach....

I approach this title with a certain amount of glee and aspiration.  Our goal with this site is to motivate and instigate change.  The admonition in the title is a call to action that will have life-altering implications.  However, we always need to temper the hyperbole with reality. At the time of this writing in early January of 2017, we are typically called to make resolutions in a spirit of renewal  We take a collective deep breath, and in a state of calm repose, make our best attempts to set goals for the year to come.  With earnest intent, we set out conceptually to define how want things to be - in defining our future(s). Ultimately, you make decisions.  Your life is the accumulation of the choices you have made. From the extent of your education to relationships and who you spend your time with, how much television you watch, your level of involvement with self-medicating, whether you have your future mapped out in writing... there are and there...

At risk of sounding too simplistic, our business philosophy is to make a positive difference in peoples' lives.  The reality is that money lubricates life.  When income exceeds expenses, money literally eliminates the stress of daily living and liberates people from financial demons.  This allows people to be their best-selves - happy and comparatively free - at least on a financial dimension. As such, and in a much broader context, our culture (our ethos) positively impacts society.   This is much larger than a "business opportunity". Inherent in this is collectively, as a community, we elevate the quality-of-life for large groups of people who we support through education and through teaching to take purposeful, well-defined action(s). We make a positive difference by paying attention to relationships and to the best of our ability, doing all we can to ensure others' success.  This is inherently a process that happens over time - and with time, we build st...

First, let me preface: Without giving away too much about what makes our marketing group unique, it is safe to say that we seek to establish stable, long-term relationships. This is done within the context of a community. We rely on and support each other in building businesses that create financial stability. The kind of stability that evolves into higher and higher levels of prosperity.  Individual by individual, this defines what we do as we grow participation in our groups. This being said, how we initially approach and market to the groups we target has everything to do with the initial contact(s) we make.  We do this through asking for permission (if they are receptive to?) receiving further information about what we offer.   In this context, the chapters that Seth Godin shares a great primer to get your head around how we build large, stable organizations.  We are not mass marketers in the traditional sense, but very specifically and intentionally are th...

Is there a right way and a wrong way to approach a home business?  Around the Holidays, between Thanksgiving and New Years (every year) there are always multiple promotions from different "follow me and my system" marketers.  Typically, they host webinars and then have a campaign to follow-up (forever) until you unsubscribe. There are a lot of clues left by this process.  The problem is that for the vast majority of people, the skills sets required to execute this kind of "marketing funnel" to a targeted national or worldwide audience are well beyond their time and talent.  So, even though there are many examples of state-of-the-art processes, building one yourself is an extremely tall order. Some advocate "the only way" is through paid advertising and they will show you how to make it happen.  Others sell the process itself and include landing page builders integrated with free offers and auto-responder campaigns.  Many or most of these have ...

There is a point of confusion that most digital marketers to not adequately address. This entire blog talks about culture and community, and here's why. Businesses (can) come and go.  Unless you literally "own" the company - you are promoting someone else's opportunity.  You are not in control of your business.  What you do control, however, are the relationships, the "group think" and the alliances and common purpose you build with people. This is your asset - and it is all relationship-based.  Some call it your "list".  And... the industry adage is "the money is in your list".  Actually, some marketers advocate collecting names and having a lot of names to make different offers to - over time.  As such, they say that this large list is the asset.  I agree with this to a point, but am also inclined to disagree. There is also the industry mantra of "know, like and trust".  The admonition is that people need to know, like...

You can click on any of following sites to get a sense of how we approach market segmentation and drill down on specific groups, or geographic areas.  You will note they are all "neutral" in terms of contact information and does not disclose nor link to the business that drives our incomes. Also, you will note that each site is built on a FREE Google Sites host.  They are simple, one page sites that encourage people to get back to the person who led them to the information.  As you advance in your skill sets, you can develop your own. In any event, here's the list: 401Konundrum  - Targeted to people who are about to retire, but have done a less than adequate job at saving and planning for it. Business Owners  - Targeted to individually owned, small retail shops, food establishments, child care centers, contractors, etc. Independent Grad - Targeted to college students, including fraternities and sororities as well as student organizations.  The...