One sign that you really need to get your own business website and start branding it is the feeling that only doing business with and selling products to family and friends is actually limiting your ability to attract wealth.
If you think about it, it makes sense. Let’s say that you’ve decided to do one of those pop-up stores on social media and so you are making the rounds asking friends if they’d like to join your high-end sportswear party, or your jewelry party, or whatever you’re pitching in the way of MLM or affiliate products.
It feels great to get those sales and it’s satisfying to see your customers, meaning friends and family, walking away having purchased something from you that will bring them enjoyment and be useful to them.
However, now you’ve obligated yourself to reciprocate when they sign up for their own MLM.
Well, sure, you want to support them. And now the money that flowed your way thanks to your kind friends is flowing away again. That’s okay for now, but just pay attention to the flow.
Doing business with family and friends means the money is going around in a circle.
Really think of money as a flow. If the money is going in a circle among you and your friends, then it’s a finite amount. Last week you dropped 150 toward a friend’s sales effort. This week another friend is pulling that 150 her way.
But ideally the wealth should flow in from an outside source. Meaning outside your social circle.
If you want to make something bigger, you have to bring it in from the outside. You’ve got to add more. Right?
Money is infinite and that means you want to pull out all the stoppers so more of it starts flowing your way from the outside.
How do you get it to come in from the outside? You start talking to people who are not in the circle.
You build a relationship with new people who want what you sell because that’s what they want and because you are good at providing it. Not because they’re friends of yours who feel obligated to buy from you or vice versa.
Another problem with only selling to friends and family is it puts a strain on those relationships.
Did you just invite me to a party because you enjoy my company? Or because you like it when I purchase wine from you? Definitely both in many cases. But only selling to friends and family creates a certain unspoken feeling of obligation.
The feeling can correct itself when you know you’re getting sales from beyond the circle of safety. It’s because you’re no longer depending on family and friends to flow the money your way. Now, if they want to buy from you, it’s like a special extra bonus to be grateful for.
Let’s talk more about that money flow.
I like to visualize things like this as having movement. I’ve heard that it helps to think of money and where it’s flowing from and where you are flowing it to. That’s an amazing, truthful concept. In fact I love thinking about that because it positions you to be in control of where the money flows in from.
You can be the wealth attractor, opening the floodgates of money so that you can contain it and then keep on graduating to a bigger container.
So now how do we resolve the issue of only selling to friends and family?
I know social media can seem like your whole world. But just like a child who only knows his or her family, then only knows his or her neighborhood, then only knows his or her friends from school, you’re going to keep on discovering that life and relationships expand beyond your limited circle.
A blog or website is your vehicle for business expansion. For real.
If you want to jump into that, get a website and start talking and put a sign up form on there so people who like what you’re saying can keep in touch.
Those people who appreciate what you are saying can become your customers. And if you’re talking about the right topics, then the people who want to buy will be searching for that and they’ll find you and they’ll be ready.
And that’s when you can breathe a huge sigh of relief and say, maybe not literally say, but in your head you can say, hey, I don’t have to put pressure on family and friends just to make a little side income or to keep my bill money coming in.
That’s the same feeling as leaving your parents house as a young adult and recognizing that you are now able to financially support yourself through your work.
Thanks for reading my thoughts here. I’ve been in online business since 2003 and I’ve seen a lot of changes in that relatively short time.
I have definitely had working relationships where I buy things from friends and they buy writing services from me. And it only works in some cases. But when it does work, it’s really great!
But one thing that’s constant is that really good content always seems to come out on top.
Sharing what you know and love will definitely get you places.
Rock on with your bad business self!
Dina