What is the Biggest Benefit in Running a Cooperative Marketing Business?

While I'm out there both in the real (and virtual worlds) advocating the many advantages of the cooperative marketing business model, I am often asked what I like to refer to as "The BIG Question":

"What is the NUMBER ONE unique benefit of running a cooperative marketing business?"

My answer usually goes something like this...

The biggest benefit that totally sets cooperative marketing apart from every other business model is that you can build a rock-solid monthly residual income WITHOUTever having to do any personal recruiting or selling. (Unless you want to that is! Doing so obviously gives one more "leverage" but it's not required.)

I want to make sure it's perfectly clear that you can come into a cooperative marketing business, never tell anyone about it, and generate a substantial income with very little involvement.

The only variables are your time and financial resources, and the only choice that has to be made is how BIG you want to grow your business, and that can be as simple as acquiring or earning more customers.

By the way, cooperative marketing is NOT about having to follow up on leads that a company generates for you. That is the very definition of a traditional direct sales business.

With a cooperative marketing business, the company handles all the daily operations (the things that most of us DON'T want to do), like stocking product, keeping an inventory of various products in our garage, fulfilling orders, retention, back-end marketing, bill collecting, reselling our customers additional products, and even talking to your customers when they have questions.

There's NO other business model in ANY industry out there that does this. None!

These customers want to order the products and are NOT making a purchase because there's a business opportunity attached to it, which in turn creates a stable and predictable residual income for home-based entrepreneurs.

Over time, this type of business can become an income-producing ASSETbecause:

· Cooperative marketing companies run infomercials and acquire customers for you.

· There's no need to rely on harassing your family and friends.

· It eliminates the headaches of buying leads and prospecting.

· It's an easy business to start up.

· There are easy business management components that are built in.

· You can experience a hassle-free monthly cash flow that equals and exceeds your equity, time and skills.

· There are no inventory costs, hassles or headaches!

· There are no employees or having to provide benefits or pay additional taxes.

· Your business can exist anywhere as long as you have a phone and Internet access.

By the way, in the wake of the Bernie Madoff scandal, The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) loves to pick on (and shut down) companies that are primarily focused on recruiting new associates, distributors, and reps in lieu of retailing their product or service.

Keep in mind that unlike MLMs, there are no "distributors" in a cooperative marketing business because they NEVER distribute product or provide services to their customers because the company handles all that.

What would you rather have?

Would you want to continuously spend time and money on expensive business opportunity seeker leads, face rejection, and do all the "grunt work" of sponsoring distributors that will most likely quit when they're not making money?

OR

Would you rather have a reputable company run television and radio infomercials and do ALL the selling and follow-up to acquire hundreds or thousands of legitimate customers for your business, while you sit back and collect the checks that come in from the customer's re-orders?

The answer is pretty simple and obvious, isn't it?

That's why I refer to this as the primary benefit, because it's that loyal customer base that creates the residual income we're all looking for. And remember, true residual income is ONLY generated ONE WAY: Customer acquisition and customer retention.

In closing, never lose focus on the fact that in marketing, proven systems work, so sadly, it's the people that fail. That being said, lots of marketers claim to have a proven system.

Of all the business "systems" that exist, franchises have been advertised as being the most profitable. But are they? Let's take a look at the numbers:

The average cost to start a franchise is about $200,000 on the low end and only promise you around $50,000 per year in income. So, it would take about four years just to break even and pay off your initial investment!

In other words, you would have to work for four years for FREE! As crazy as it sounds, lots of people still buy into this business model every year, only to find out later that they didn't buy a business at all, they bought themselves a JOB, including all the long hours and headaches that come along with it. No thanks!

Regardless of what we think about franchises, we know that all of the successful ones in the world use some sort of systemized approach.

Look at McDonald's for example... I don't think anyone would disagree that they don't make the best burgers, yet they continue to grow by billions of dollars every year.

Why? Because even though people will continue to fail, the system produces consistent results every time.

So, you've got to have the right vehicle and a system that works for everyone.

Cooperative marketing takes YOU out of the equation, meaning that even you can't mess it up.

That's why it works!

The Back-End

It's not enough for a cooperative marketing company to be able to advertise and acquire customers for you if they don't ever purchase again.

So, it's also critically important to find a company that will do ALL the back-end marketing to get YOUR customers to re-order. It's even more preferable if a company can do this for no additional cost to you. When done properly, a company's back-end marketing can put money in your pocket month after month for years and years down the road.