To Hit $1 Billion in Sales Get 2 of These 3 Things Right

OK so you are not sitting around talking about hitting $1 billion in sales right now.

But every start up, and that includes you, needs SOME sales to survive as a business. And they teach you one thing to grow your business:

Do whatever it takes to bring in more customers (and recruits in NM).

That sounds good, doesn't it?

But in reality, who hasn't spent thousands of dollars online and off, year after year, bringing in Lookey-Loos? Then, in the midst of all that hunting for prospects, we suddenly realize we've lost the three customers we did have.

Here's some good news. It might save you most of the money you're now spending on building that illusive customer or recruiter base.

According to Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos (I'm trying to get you the video without strings attached) you need two of three things to get to the $1 billion sales mark. (Do less of those two things if you want smaller sales.) Here they are:

1. Top-of-the-line product (very good is not even close)
2. Fab customer service (they need to feel a happy surprise every time they deal with you - an "Oh wow!" escapes their lips involuntarily)
3. Best prices
   

Which two of these three do you think you have, or could create, in your business?

P.S. Notice something about this list. It does NOT include any of the usual stuff most small business owners spend all their money on:

• Getting a big list
• Big traffic
• Search engine placement
• Twitter
• Any social media
• PPC
• CPA
• Upselling tricks (Mr. Hsieh specifically mentioned they AVOID that because they know long term is doesn't earn trust (!)
• Email sales tricks
• Google tricks
• Learning niches
• Meetings and conventions
  
• You name it - whatever you have spent money on

Mr. Hsieh said their business is 75% repeat customers. $1 billion in sales this year and 75% are repeat customers. What would you be earning if you still had 75% of your customers (and recruits)?

Time to change strategy?

Top Start Ups

Top NM Start-Ups: Week 37.

Don't see your company? Check the Top 50 here.

The current Top 50 Network Marketing Companies represents the most highly trafficked companies online, as rated each day and updated each week by Alexa. The Top 50 are also 5 years old or more.

Next Top Start-ups update: Mid October, 2009, probably.

Top Start-Ups list.

Network Marketing companies with 1) the highest internet traffic as ranked by Alexa, AND 2) that are LESS than five years old as of the date of the update. That data is also obtained from Alexa for each company. We are adding more companies to this list.

Alexa, while not perfect by any means, is the most widely used tracking service for website rankings since 1996. Alexa ranks millions of websites.

Rank 1 is the highest; Rank 10 million the lowest.

NOTE: When you click on a company, you will usually get some live humans who are independent reps for that company. Those folks are all members of Network Marketing Central (NMC) or the iGaggle Network. For a company that has no NMC member yet, you will go directly to that company page.

1. Agel 54,248 (+1)
2. Xooma Worldwide 56,215 (-1)
3. Wealth Masters International 63,330
4. Vemma, Liquid Vitamins & Minerals 64,627 (+1)
5. Max International 70,066 (-1)
6. My Power Mall 87,457
7. Talk Fusion 88,678
8. One Group 119,996
9. MXI Corp 129,396
10. Freedom Rocks 220,137
11. Ignite 227,885
12. Acai Plus 312,123
13. Citizenre 487,638
14. IGONET 1,377,846
15. Ad Calls 1,397,438
16. Fruta Vida International 1,757,184
17. Zenza Life Scliences 2,141,958 (+1)
18. Cleure 2,347,175 (-1)
19. Plexus Pink International 2,425,175 (+1)
20. BioNovix 2,517,350 (-1)
21. The Balance Company 4,361,872
22. Amigo Health 4,733,810 (+1)
23. LifeFoods, LLC 4,890,256 (-1)
24. GBG 7,267,883
25. Guardian International Travel 8,388,607

It's now the Top 25 Start ups. Comment below if we missed you, and include the company website URL. We'll check it right out and add it if appropriate. We try to be perfect, but if not, please give us the fix you think we should make.

Top 50 Network Marketing Companies Week 69

Just updated today by Alexa.

Don't see your company? Check the Top Start Ups here.
The Top 50 Network Marketing Companies are ranked by Internet popularity – number of visitors to the company websites averaged over 3 months.

For the Top Start-Ups (companies less than 5 years old and with highest Alexa rank), go here.

The numbers are compiled by Alexa.com, the most widely used tracking service for website rankings since 1996. Alexa ranks millions of websites. Rank 1 is the highest; Rank 10 million the lowest. Alexa updates weekly. This week, Google.com is No. 1.

In the list of the Top 50 network marketing companies below, the Alexa rank appears to the right of each company. If a company has gone up or down in rank from the previous week, the change appears as a + or -. No change, no mark.

Next update: Probably mid October, 2009.

NOTE: This list includes companies that are top ranked, AND are 5 years old or more. Some companies have disappeared from this list, and are now on the Top Start-Ups list here because they're less than 5 years old. If we missed one, Comment below, we'll check into it.

NOTE 2: In most cases, when you click on one of these Top 50 companies, you will be taken to a page of an Independent Rep for that company. All such Reps are members of Network Marketing Central (NMC), a community of network marketers who believe in working together, and who subscribe to the "No promises. No Problems" mantra of NMC.

1. Avon 2,844
2. Quixtar 12,888 (+1)
3. Usana 13,011 (-1)
4. Melaleuca 13,138
5. Mary Kay 14,154
6. Market America 20,124
7. Nu Skin Enterprises 22,399
8. Pre-paid Legal 22,428
9. Mona Vie 24,640
10. A C N 26,161
11. Ytb Travel 26,296
12. Isagenix 28,889
13. Tupperware 30,065
14. Herbalife 31,287
15. Shaklee 31,620
16. Take Shape for Life/Medifast 35,709
17. Trivita 38,383
18. Forever Living 42,268
19. Amway 43,680
20. Arbonne International 45,420
21. FreeLife International 46,312
22. Young Living 50,521
23. Liberty League 52,327 (+1)
24. VM Direct 52,780 (-1)
25. Pampered Chef 55,250
26. Xango 61,413
27. AmeriPlan 63,226
28. Creative Memories 68,461 (+1)
29. Lifewave 69,466 (-1)
30. Send Out Cards 70,265 (+1)
31. Primerica 71,336 (-1)
32. 4Life Research, LLC 74,161
33. Tahitian Noni 79,216 (+1)
34. Tastefully Simple 79,425 (+1)
35. Longaberger 79,921 (-2)
36. Immunotec 83,353 (+2)
37. United First Financial 85,234
38. Nikken 86,507 (+1)
39. Nature's Sunshine 89,941 (+1)
40. Success University 93,040 (-4)
41. helloWorld 96,811
42. Watkins 99,408 (+1)
43. Scent-Sations (Mia Bella Candles) 100,978 (-1)
44. Vitamark International 109,978
45. Healthy Pet Net 115,247
46. Ecoquest International 126,009
47. Unicity 130,291 (+1)
48. Leaders Club 133,643 (-1)
49. Mannatech 142,731
50. Waiora 158,864 (-50)

Alexa rankings of our Network Marketing group are most impressive. Our Top 50 Network Marketing Companies are in the top 10% of Alexa’s first million sites.

Most of our Top 50 are also ranked 100,000 or better (remember lower numbers are better - it's closer to #1.)

Alexa says that "Generally, Traffic Rankings of 100,000+ should be regarded as not reliable because the amount of data we receive is not statistically significant.

Conversely, the more traffic a site receives (the closer it gets to the number 1 position), the more reliable its Traffic Ranking becomes." (emphasis added) Source: Alexa.com So we're in the highest ranked group!

You can check your company ranking by going to alexa.com, and entering your company’s website address. If your company doesn’t appear in this list and you think it should, let us know by posting a friendly Comment, below.

Remember, in addition to the Alexa ranking, a company must also be 5 years old or more to be included here.

Learn about Alexa.com here. For a discussion of its limitations, see "I did a scary thing..."

NOTE: This list does not include affiliate programs. No enroller sites (although some slip in), no landing pages or distributor websites. No shopping discount programs if they are not really network marketing. We correct and update errors as we find them.

His $75,000 ad spend got him 3 customers

Someone asked Tony Shieh, CEO of Zappos (online shoe retailer set to do $1 billion in sales this year, from 0 sales 9 years ago) how he could afford to pay for his customers' shipping - both when they buy and return shoes and accessories.

He smiled and said he stopped spending money on other things that did nothing for getting customers or keeping them coming back.

For example, he said, Zappos had spent about $75,000 one time to buy an ad billboard behind the plate in a baseball stadium. People saw it during the game. They could only track 3 customers to that expenditure.

With that same $75,000, how many customers can he make extra happy by paying for their shipping? (At $7/order, that's 10,714 happy customers!!).

Ouch.

What do you spend your business money on? A convention? How about a leads program? Or a traffic generation program? It gets into the thousands quickly, doesn't it?

How has money spent like that helped you keep 75% of your customers coming back?

What would you be earning if 75% of your customers and recruits were still buying?

The good news: it's never too late to learn to start keeping who you have. It's a different focus than getting new ones, and likely way more profitable and fun.

0 to $1 billion: The New Think Big

Who hasn't heard of thinking big? Big numbers of customers. A giant organization of hundreds and even thousands of networkers earning you income. Big lists. Big traffic. Big mansion on the hill. Big bank account.

Are you still chasing that concept of big?

A different way to think big was recently described by a humble guy whose company went from 0 sales in 1999 to to being on track to do $1 billion in sales this year (2009). Guess what they sell? Shoes. Online. (!)

His advice: if you want to be a billion dollar company, make sure you have a big enough vision. But the vision should not be monetary...(What?!)

"Think of a vision you'd be excited about even if it made no money at all. It's not chasing the money. You want people to chase the vision, the money will come." Tony Hsieh, CEO Zappos

So here's what they did. Instead of just being a company that sells shoes online they decided to be a company with remarkable and memorable customer service.

One way to test that is to measure the percent of repeat customers. They believed that customers who feel wowed by their experience with them - from shipping to the product to sales rep, come back.

And they learned, over the last 9 years, how to wow their customers.

75% of their orders today come from repeat customers (!)

Through achieving their customer service vision, they've reached $1 billion in sales in 9 years. (Where were we 9 years ago?)

What if you kept 75% of your customers and recruits? How many new ones would you need to keep looking for? That's just part of their customer service vision.

A very different way of thinking big.