Today is the last day of the month and the last chance to increase volume for October. Everything is extremely quiet this weekend so I don’t expect the last minute order or the last minute new associate. We got all of our catalog/business info requests out yesterday. So I expect this to be a quiet Sunday serving trick-or-treaters and watching NFL games. I think my wife wants to do a little painting today also.

I am participating in The Summit Group’s advertising co-op in November so I will see how that goes. I am also continuing to advertise on business.com.

We are moving much slower with this business than we did our Metabolife business. At our peak we were signing up 30 new distributors per month and had over 350 total within about 2 years. It was truly the business on steroids. Here we expect maybe 2 or 3 new associates per month on average so maybe we’re looking at 35 – 40 associates total after a couple of years. Not too exciting, but it still gives us a good return on investment after about 5 years. I know that’s a broken record at this point…

I would like to ramp up our advertising budget as we start making more money, which will make our activity and growth more pronounced. We’ll see how it goes.

Today is Saturday and I have now caught up on my personal bills and on my business paperwork. I am not sure if I am going to do consulting work today or not. I am going to do some training for my daughter a little later today, she needs to work off some expenses so I’m giving her things to do for the Watkins business. We have some catalogs that need to be labeled and some information requests mailed. I know it’ll be a struggle getting her to figure out all the ins and outs of sending information requests because we have some that want business info, some that are catalog and samples only, and some for Canada. The Canada information requests are catalogs and samples but must be Canadian catalogs. We get just a few, maybe 10, per week total so it’s not a whole lot of work. I also send out monthly catalogs to a few customers.

Tomorrow is the last day of the calendar month, and the last day of the volume month. It looks like we are going to wind up with over 500 points but no associates sponsored under us. Our volume is made up of business supplies, product giveaways, and orders from ourselves and our family members. We sell to our family and close friends at cost, although we will make a bit back because of our volume… probably $30 or so this month. Not a whole lot but it’s something. Our volume puts us at the Bronze Consultant level for the first time in a long time, as we typically are more like 200 – 300 points towards the end of the year.

I don’t know how much of this I’ve said but I’ll say it anyway: We have been advertising in various places since September. I’ve tried Bing, Facebook, and Google, but I’ve now settled on advertising mainly on Business.com. We also bought a few Summit Group co-op shares for November so we’ll see how they work out. I’m guessing better than what we’ve been doing but I am happy with the response in October. We did have two people that committed to joining us as Watkins Associates and we have quite a few prospects who may decide to join in the future. The two have not officially joined yet, I know that one is setting up their office and will join once things get settled. The other is unemployed and wants to get a job first so it may be a while. I offered to help as much as I could but he still wants to wait.

My business right now is profitable for the year and I’m trying to roll out profit into my payroll but cash is tight, so I’ve been bonusing myself and reinvesting it into corporate stock. My consulting practice is doing very well but I don’t want to show too much profit yet. That’s why I also feel comfortable at this point investing in advertising for the Watkins business. I believe it will pay off in the future, as my calculated return on investment should be 50% to 150% (somewhere in there) after 5 years. It really could be anywhere but this is my guess based on figures I have heard from more successful Watkins Associates. So this should beat putting money in a savings account or investing in the stock market. I figure it’s my investment for my retirement. I do have a 401k that’s doing pretty good but I’m not contributing at this point.

Ok, off to do a shower and drink a cup of coffee, maybe not in that order. I’m going to watch the Iowa vs Michigan State game later today, not sure after that. I probably should put in a few hours for my client. Yes, I tend to work all the time.

I thought that maybe a journal about starting our Watkins business would be useful and fun to read, so I am starting today. I am going to give you the real details, not sugar-coated information about starting a Watkins business. Hopefully you will see the positive changes as they happen for us and decide that you want to be in on this. Or see the misery that we go through and decide you want nothing to do with it.

As of November 1, 2010, we have been Watkins Dealers/Representatives/Associates for 18 years. For October, we are qualifying as a Bronze Consultant by having $500 worth of personal sales. You see, for the past 18 years, we have sold the products to our family, friends, and the occasional customer who found us through the white pages. We had initially sponsored 3 people in 1993, and one more along the way, but we really didn’t treat this as a serious business. Today we have a group of zero and it looks like we are closing October with no group at all. However, we have had two different people who have committed to joining our group.

Although we have been Watkins Associates for 18 years without a break (and we love the products and couldn’t give them up), we had started with another company in 1997. With them we were in the top 5% of the company, sold about $10,000 worth of product per week, and made nearly $20,000 per month in commissions at it’s peak. The company was Metabolife (yes, I am naming names), which went retail in 2000 and eventually went bankrupt. I believe the brand is now owned by another company. Metabolife put such a bad taste in my mouth that I wanted nothing to do with network marketing or even starting a business for many years after. Instead, I went back to college, got my BS in 2005, then my MBA in 2009. I decided by 2008 that I wanted to start another business, so we started Satterlee Marketing, Inc.

I think that originally we wanted to do something different from network marketing, i.e. multi-level marketing, and I have been writing for a while. More than a year in fact. I publish several blogs and I write for Ezine Articles. Then I set up a WordPress blog site and have been giving away free blogs in return for some advertising. Then I really got into consulting, which was even more important once I lost my job last June. So the majority of my income is from Satterlee Marketing, Inc, and the majority of it’s income comes from IT consulting. But I really want residual income and to build a big business, so that ended up bringing me back to Watkins.

I had been playing around with coming back to Watkins since probably the end of last year but I got serious in September 2010 when I started investing our business profits back into advertising for our Watkins business. And we did have a few fits and starts before I got my formula just right. I tried to sell Watkins, putting the products first, and the results were not what I wanted. I tried selling the business opportunity through the Watkins eAssociate site but was unhappy with that too. I have been pretty happy with the results since I began leading with the opportunity and sending prospects to my eAssociate site, but I changed the home page to be friendlier to opportunity seekers by sending them to my Summit Group info site.

…to be continued…

I was thinking about it in the past day, and here are the things you need in order to be successful in a Watkins business with The Summit Group:

1. You have to be trainable – There are a handful of things you need to learn.  The training is available online to all associates within The Summit Group.
    
2. You have to be willing to talk to people – You really can only sell or sponsor if you can talk on the telephone.  And don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about cold calling.  I’m talking about just having a conversation with interested people.
    

For anything else, you really can customize the business to fit your personality.  Honestly, if you can follow simple instructions, you can do this business.

Many associates use The Summit Group’s advertising co-op, so you don’t need to be an advertising whiz to invest in business advertising.  And working with the leads from the co-op is as simple as following instructions in emails.

If you want to promote your free web site from The Summit Group, there are many places you can advertise for free.  So you can work with your computer on the internet to bring leads to your website, then The Summit Group’s emails will tell you what to do.

Direct sales with Watkins is as simple as showing catalogs to people you know.  You can also sponsor personally by using The Summit Group’s materials with interested people.  Usually we will give away the materials, but you can ask for them to be returned and prospects will usually return them.

There are many other things you can do.  We actually purchase some of our own adverting, purchase shares in the co-op, and work to get free leads.  We also do direct sales by mail and on the internet.  But how you do your business is really up to you.

Request FREE business information here (click)

Business people, especially MBA’s like myself, love to discuss the numbers.  So they ask “What kind of ROI can I expect for my investment in this business?”  Generally in a risky business, you like to see numbers like 20 – 30% return on investment, because during down times you are likely to see a negative return even in the best of businesses.  So what kind of return on investment will you see for a Watkins business?  My answer: it depends.

I have heard it said that an associate who can sponsor one associate per month for three to five years will earn $1,333.00 per month on average.  So is this possible?  It depends… can you sponsor one person per month?  Even if the answer is yes, it really depends on the associates you bring into the business.  One may be a super business person, another may just buy for themselves.  You never know exactly what you’re going to get.  But let’s assume that you can sponsor one person per month somehow and if you do, you’ll earn $1,333.00 per month after 5 years.  So the return on investment would be the following formula:

(1,333.00 * 12)/(c * 12 * 5) = ri

c is your total cost to sponsor an associate.  So if c is $500, your return on investment will be 53.3%.  For c, you would include all of your time, materials, postage, and advertising to sponsor a new associate.  You might want to include telephone expenses and other fixed office expenses also…

Now c may fluctuate and can be improved, and you’ll always want to try to improve your costs.  Remember that the $1,333.00 is also not a given and could vary wildly.  But from this exercise you can see that the return on investment for a Watkins business should be pretty good.  Much better than many other businesses you could choose.

Request FREE business information here (click)

I am going to tell you flat out that there is risk in any business venture.  You are investing your time and money to build something that may or may not succeed.  That is a given.  However, Watkins has very little risk in the following areas:

The $39.95 Starter Kit – There is a 30 day money-back guarantee on the starter kit from Watkins Incorporated.  Personally, if you want a refund and can’t get it from them, I will refund your money if you were personally sponsored by me.

Watkins Products – All Watkins Products carry an unconditional 100% money-back guarantee.  If you want a refund, we will help you get your money back.  You should not have to carry inventory but if you find yourself stuck with a few items, you’ll get your money back.

Business Supplies – I would be happy to buy back your unused Watkins or The Summit Group materials at retail price if you have no use for them.  (Associates within our team only)

What We Cannot Help With – If you have business expenses such as telephone, advertising, office supplies, internet services, and so forth, we cannot refund your money for these expenses.  However, our Uncle Sam will allow you to use them as legitimate business expenses and save you a few dollars on your taxes.  Please check with your accountant for further details.

Nobody can offer you a completely risk-free business opportunity but Watkins is as close as they come.  You should also see a very good 3 to 5 year return on investment.  No, this is not get rich quick, but it is a good solid long-term business that you can be proud of.

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More Detail About Watkins Clear Vanilla

Save 25% on all Watkins Products by becoming an Associate. You don’t have to operate a Watkins business to get this discount! Only $39.95 to join. Request FREE business information here (click).

Watkins Products are backed with a 100% unconditional money-back guarantee. Call Brian at 1-224-276-6035 if you have any problem at all.

Excite your taste buds with our expertly blended natural barbecue sauce and bring a little spice to your table! Watkins Original Barbecue Sauce skillfully blends tangy sweet flavors with sassy spices to bring you a mouth watering sauce that is the perfect accompaniment to any dish.  The perfect way to spice up your backyard barbecue!Delicious unique blend: Sweet, spicy and bold flavorConvenient: Just pour and enjoy.  Versatile: Use on chicken, turkey, pork and ribs.

Order here <–

Save 25% on all Watkins Products by becoming an Associate. You don’t have to operate a Watkins business to get this discount! Only $39.95 to join. Request FREE business information here (click).

Watkins Products are backed with a 100% unconditional money-back guarantee. Call Brian at 1-224-276-6035 if you have any problem at all.

Handy building blocks for delicious home cooking! Whip up delicious stocks, gravies and sauces without hassle. Real beef, chicken, cheese, mushrooms and other wholesome ingredients give you homemade flavor without expensive canned soups and overly-salty bouillon cubes. Enjoy a quick cup of soup orcreate quick, flavorful entres and side dishes by adding items from your pantry.

• Makes up to 50 servings per can!
• New, improved packaging for more freshness

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More Detail About Watkins Beef Soup & Gravy Base

–> Chicken Soup & Gravy Base

–> Cream Soup & Gravy Base

Save 25% on all Watkins Products by becoming an Associate. You don’t have to operate a Watkins business to get this discount! Only $39.95 to join. Request FREE business information here (click).

Watkins Products are backed with a 100% unconditional money-back guarantee. Call Brian at 1-224-276-6035 if you have any problem at all.

Use the form below to request a free Watkins full-color catalog and product samples. Limit one per address. Please note that we can only ship to addresses in the U.S. and Canada.

Our Privacy Policy: We may share your information with one associate within our team.  It is possible that you may receive a telephone call from that associate if you provide your telephone number.