Home Business Leadership: Growing Your Root Structure

What does it mean to grow your root structure? In my opinion it is the hardest part of being new to business of any kind. I would like to share my thoughts on how this plays into a network marketing business, a brick and mortar franchise, or to an internet based business. I own a business in each of these three areas so much of the information will come from my own experience.
First, how can I grow a root structure in a network marketing business? First, understand that 95% of people never make more than 10 dollars a month in a network marketing business. To be successful you must be one of the top 5 percent. So what do these people do? They follow someone who is being successful and duplicate what they are doing. Some examples would be Mike Dillard with Magnetic Sponsoring. His idea is to build the root structure of affiliate money to tide you over until your primary opportunity can begin paying for itself. Another example would be to tell every person you see about the opportunity, have parties and share the business, even take people out to supper to share the business. This is the way network marketing has been done since the beginning of time. Now many people are using the internet to market their businesses. Many use web 2.0 sites to advertise and find new leads. I really like using a combination of Mike Dillard’s Magnetic Sponsoring and web 2.0 to attract leads. What you will find after 1 or 2 years is that you have built an adequate affiliate money stream as well as a solid root structure for your primary business. The hardest part about this process is taking the 1 to 2 years to develop both income streams to acceptable levels. Most of us got excited and joined even before we had a plan or a purpose for the business. Network marketing can be profitable, but it takes much longer than advertised on the DVD or in the meeting.

Second, how can you grow a root structure in a brick and mortar franchise? Franchises have many benefits because they have a tried and true product or system. Many other people have been successful using this system and so can you. Most first time business owners think that the money will just come rolling into the bank. The truth is 75% of new businesses fail in the first year and 95% of businesses fail in the first 5 years. Again you have to be in the top 5 percent to be successful. A franchise can improve those odds. I always thought there was some magic bullet of advertising that would produce unbelievable returns almost immediately for my business. Truth is I could not have handled those returns even if I could have gotten them. Your business will grow in proportion to your hard work and good decisions. All marketing can produce some work for your business, your job is to find which ones produce the best and use those. One other thing a root structure will do for your business is give you some reserve for the lean times. If you think the lean times won’t come you are only fooling yourself. Reduce your debt as much as possible and keep a cash reserve for those tough times.

Third, what does a root structure look like in an online business? I have an online store that sells beef jerky and other gourmet food gifts. Here is where you can have a very low amount of overhead, but one can have great difficulty making sales on the internet. Here again slow and steady wins the race. Expect nothing for the first 5 or 6 months of your business. You will have some sales but do not bank on the revenue, you will be disappointed. Focus on search engine optimization and get your site ranked as high as possible on organic searches.

1. Make sure your text is written with a keyword density of 3 to5%.

2. Make sure your Meta titles, descriptions, and keywords are what you are optimizing.

3. Begin to build back links to popular sites. Be careful, many people say they can help you do this but can because you to get banned by the search engines for spamming.

4. The best way is to write articles and submit them to article submission sites.

5. Search engines also love new content. Blog as often as you possibly can.

6. Be patient, check your rise in the ranks using a site like alexa or semrush.

7. Remember most sites convert visitors to sales at about a 1% rate. 100 visitors = 1 sale.

8. Study pay per click very carefully before proceeding. There is a stupid tax for those who do not know what they are doing.

These strategies will help you get your site well up the rankings on organic searches. As always, the hardest work will be getting your site from page 3 to 2 and then from page 2 to 1. Keep climbing and remember this is like a sand pile, if you stop climbing, you will slide back down the mountain.

Now you are ready to start your quest up the ladder of success. These tools will help you take your network marketing, brick and mortar franchise, or your online business to the next level. Go slow; build your root structure so your base will support what you build for years to come.