Here is a video presentation I just uploaded. As with my other video, these things will get better… please let me know what you think.

This is Brian talking about the Watkins Red Liniment. Let me know what you think.

My wife (Chris) had a few helpful tips for the next video. Hopefully these will get better.

I am going to hold off writing until after the first of December at this point, as we are going on vacation. As far as the Summit Group co-op goes, Steve wrote me yesterday and said that co-op #93 will begin accepting share purchases beginning December 28 and will start around the first of February. For co-op #91, we did receive a few visitors in the past day but no candidates. It has been very quiet, I have only gotten one catalog request from Canada… I have been working on the blogs, this one and my many others. I constantly make little tweaks. I did start a couple more generic network marketing sites to try to attract more visitors. My network of blogs is getting more visits which is nice… I have a generic small business blog that does pretty well and I have been contributing to it for over a year.

As far as Watkins goes, November will close out pretty slow, which is actually unusual. I usually have a ton of people asking for Vanilla. Oh well, I’m sure things will pick up in the next couple of months.

Ok the news… in the past day not much has happened. The Summit Group is postponing their next co-op start until after the first of the year since the current co-op is taking a while to get going. I may have to go back to advertising elsewhere because my activity level is mighty low. I’ll wait until after vacation though. I also think I’ll work to get more free prospects in different ways before I spend money.

We are continuing to work to make our corporate site friendly for our sponsored associates. If you direct your prospects here, just provide them with your Associate ID and send them here. We even have a shortened URL (website name) of incsm.com that you can use on literature, bumper stickers, hats, t-shirts, or where ever you like. Please make sure to promote our web site ethically. If you don’t know what that means, please let me know. Make sure to let us know when you sign up as a Watkins Associate so we can put your information on our web site.

First the news: Since last I wrote, we got two new requests for catalogs, one new visitor, and one new candidate on our Summit Group site. They were from the Summit Group’s co-op, although I’ve been seeing activity on my Watkins eAssociate site and on this site. Things are moving along…

Are you just starting out in the work force?  Young family?  How would you like to work extra hard for the next three to five years to have the freedom to do what you want with the rest of your life?  Just think about it… 30, 40, or 50 years of additional freedom!  Boy do I wish I would have followed through with Watkins when I was 28.  Everyone that I started with is making plenty of money working for themselves.  Boy did I miss the boat.  But you don’t have to!

Watkins allows you to build a group for residual income.  That’s income that doesn’t go away because of illness, a sick child, or layoff.  It keeps on paying… My friend once told me that it’s kind of like a welfare check, comes every month regardless of what you do.  Of course if you’re like us you’ll keep building, but you don’t have to!

How about taking that first step by requesting free business information… you’ll be glad you did.

It has been very quiet since last I posted… to be honest with you I’m glad it’s a little quiet right now.  We’re getting ready for vacation and we’re stressed enough.  I’ll keep you posted…  I am reworking my corporate blog to be more friendly to my group of Associates I don’t have quite yet.  See if you notice any changes.

The biggest problem with a Watkins business in The Summit Group is that the plan is very straightforward and requires a lot of patience.  New associates tend to want to try a lot of different things but if you just follow The Summit Group’s recommendations, your plan will be very simple.  It might take a while to see results, but you will see them, so it just takes some patience.

My advice for the new associate is to work at finding new prospects and follow up with existing prospects rarely.  You can do this entirely online by promoting your tsginfo site, you can hand out business cards, you can network on the telephone, or you can use the Summit Group’s advertising co-op to find new prospects.  Whatever you’re comfortable with.  But the main thing you should do is to find new prospects and keep your patience.

My main problem when we were doing our Metabolife business is that I would get frustrated that things weren’t happening fast enough.  And they were happening very fast, just not fast enough for me.  Our income ramped up pretty quick but we hit a plateau and never got beyond it.  Still we were making plenty of money, I just wanted more.

You will do fine in Watkins if you can keep your patience and remember that you should only commit as much money as you can afford to lose in the near term.  Long term you will do just fine.

Request FREE information by mail

This weekend has been pretty slow, just watching football and doing stuff around the house.  Today was decorate the house for Christmas day.  As far as our Watkins business goes, since last I wrote I got one visitor and one candidate from the Summit Group Co-op.  I also cancelled my business.com advertising… I’m going to stick with the co-op, it’s been pretty good and the other advertising has been too slow.

If you are wondering how you make money, specifically, with Watkins, here are the ways:

• You can sell the product to customers and make 25 to 39%.  The first 25% is your discount from Watkins and the remaining bonus is paid out when your volume exceeds 500, 1000, 1500, and 2000 points.  One point in the US is equal to about a dollar.
• When you sponsor an associate, you earn additional commissions based on their sales.  If they sponsor an associate, you also earn commissions based on that associate’s sales.  You can check out the compensation plan in my Watkins links on the right for more details.

That is mainly it… you share the products and opportunity with others and earn commissions off of their purchases and sales.  As your group grows you earn more and more money.

Request FREE business information (click)

It’s Saturday morning and I have some mail to get out.  We got five new prospects, now from the co-op, and it’s time to do the follow-up for them.  It should be a pretty quiet weekend otherwise.  We placed an order with Watkins, mostly for ourselves, this week so that we receive it before going on vacation.  I did have a friend that wanted to try a couple of things.  Watkins was out of November/December catalogs and we only have about 10 left, so we will probably stock out soon.  Watkins is not going to produce additional November/December catalogs but they said the 2011 mainline catalog will be available November 15th… I’ll wait until I stock out and then order some.  They were also out of the Lemon Laundry Detergent but I still have some left.

Watkins, being around for 142 years, is not a ground floor opportunity.  The idea of being on the ground floor can be kind of exciting… but how about the idea of being part of a 142 year old company that has a ton of room to grow?  That’s Watkins.  Our sales force has been much larger than it is today and people really do love the products, so you have a bunch of potential customers out there that have no idea where to buy.

Sometimes people with opportunities say that you must get in today to get the most benefit out of joining.  Also not true in the case of Watkins.  It will be a good opportunity today, tomorrow, next month, in a year… hopefully forever.  But, if you wait a year that will be another year of working for your employer or without your dream house.  Or whatever your dream is, Watkins can make it happen.  But any delay is a delay in your dream.

I am not sure that I am going to write every day from now on but I’ll try to give you updates from time to time.

Get FREE business information here (click)

Ok, first the news.  In the past 24 hours, we received one new candidate on The Summit Group’s prospecting site.  They likely came from the business.com advertisement.  The Summit Group’s November Co-op started but I have not received any prospects at this point.  Business.com wrote and said they are going to be handling advertisements through Dex from now on, so I don’t know what that means for this advertising medium.  I’ll learn more in the coming days.  Going on vacation beginning the 20th does have it’s challenges, although the mail can probably wait for a week with this method of doing business.  We also don’t expect any customer orders… if we do get any we can ship directly from Watkins.  Note that our home will not be empty while we are out of town…

Watkins and Metabolife are both network marketing, or multi-level marketing, companies.  So why do I believe that Watkins is stable and that they won’t hang us out to dry?

• Watkins has been a direct sales company since 1868… yes, 142 years.  They need us to do business and they know they need us.  Minor changes tend to happen with the compensation structure all the time, but mainly to our benefit.
• We have been Watkins Associates for 18 years as of November 1st.  Yes we see changes, but nothing to get excited about.
• The product line is larger and the minimum volume for commissions is lower.  All of the items Watkins sells are exceptional and are tried and true.  Watkins has moved towards a natural product line more recently in a sign of the times, but the products are still great.  Metabolife effectively had one product that was later banned by the FDA.
• Watkins has their guidelines but they don’t drive you crazy.  If you do something wrong, which you should strive not to do, you will typically get a friendly call.  Metabolife always threatened us.
• Watkins shipping is exceptionally consistent.  Metabolife took anywhere from 3 days to 3 months.
• Watkins tries to be there to support us.  Metabolife sold to consumers directly when they could.

Please note that this comparison is with the Metabolife of old, pre-2002.  The Metabolife brand these days is owned by TwinLabs and I am certainly not bashing them.  Metabolife products are now sold in retail stores.

All of these differences are the reasons why we will be Watkins Associates forever.  Are there any other differences you know?

Brian & Chris Satterlee sold Metabolife products on the web site ShrinkMe.com back in the late 1990′s and early 2000′s.  Learn more about their current business venture on SatterleeMarketingInc.com.

We were in the top 5% of distributors by sales volume and served on Metabolife’s Distributor Board.  We had over 350 distributors in our group and earned nearly $15,000 per month.  This was from 1997 through 2002.  In 2000, Metabolife began selling their products through retail outlets like Walmart, Target, Walgreens, etc., and discontinued the use of their distributor network.  This was a bad move for them, as the company ended up declaring bankruptcy later on.

Read About Our Metabolife Business Here (click)

Since 2002, we ended up going back to the normal work-a-day world.  I (Brian) pursued my college degrees and received my Bachelor of Science Degree in Management in 2005, and my Master of Business Administration Degree in 2009.  Satterlee Marketing, Inc. started as a Business Consulting firm in 2008 but I decided to also invest in our Watkins Products business in 2010.  We have been Watkins Associates since November 1992 but mainly sold to our family and close friends.  With our experience in network marketing, we decided to start building a network marketing group with Watkins.