The Agreement Seekers Blog

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...