Kay Somji on Ranking on First Page of Google for Network Marketing
Kay Somji was supposedly living the dream as a Financial Risk Analyst when he knew there was more to life. He found MLM and the rest is history…
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Thank you so much for this interview, Kay! Wow, I have been watching your MLM blog for years now and really want to find out what makes your brand so hot. Let’s get started learning more about your powerful story in this exclusive interview!
Start us back to your childhood. What was growing up like in London, what did you want to be when you grew up, and what kind of long line of Entrepreneurs were your family?
Growing up in London, my parents had an off licence (liquor store to those in America) which they ran every single day 24/7, 365, and a post office.
We lived above the off licence owned so that was convenient but my parents worked every single day, even on Christmas and New Years, never took a honeymoon, no holidays, and my mum was even back to work the day after I was born.
I never saw that in a bad light, that was just the norm, but it did two things…
1) It instilled a strong work ethic in me (as my parents worked even when they were sick etc).
2) It also made me look for leverage, as I never wanted to have to work that many hours and not be able to take holidays.
My dad has always had businesses, I have never seen him work a job. My mum has mostly worked with him, but has taken jobs here and there for a couple of years.
With my parents and their family migrating from Africa to the UK in the 70s and some to Canada, they couldn’t afford education and so they started businesses. In addition to my parents, my dad’s side of the family have also been business owners, real estate investors, owned hair salons and others. So I don’t think a job was ever a long term option for me.
I think London is a good place to develop entrepreneurial tendencies. There is an extremely rich part of London, and extremely poor parts. Not being in the rich area, It was common to see people hustling to do whatever they can to get by.
I see this all over Europe, but very rarely in North America. I was even selling CDs at school at the age of 11 for extra pocket money, and making what most adults would from a part time job.
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You played drums and tennis (my two favorite hobbies as well). Are you more creative left-handed? And, how did this creativity of yours become a Financial Analyst?
That is a cool coincidence and actually funny you should ask. I am right handed and I would classify myself as creative. I have always been musical and into languages, and I even excelled at art, but I was also exceptionally good at math and more structured (typically uncreative) stuff too.
At some point I had to pick a path and both conditioning from school, and seeing the money I wanted to earn, I thought the only way would be to sacrifice my creative side and focus on my education. I was very good at tennis at the time, competing in national tournaments but the cost of continued coaching became an issue.
Cricket is another sport I excelled in, playing in teams 4 years above my age and (perhaps wishful thinking) could have played professionally. I never really thought of those and music as real career paths, despite personally knowing musicians who had gone on to become highly successful, the mentality that I absorbed was that those people got lucky.
So to answer your question, my creativity didn’t lead me to become a financial risk analyst at all haha. I was halfway through my university degree and decided to finish it because I had already switched career paths twice and invested a lot of money.
You discovered network marketing in 2006. What was that like, how did you discover it, and was it love at first site?
When I discovered network marketing, I remember exactly where I saw it and where I went to my first meeting. I was taken away with the leverage the MLM and affiliate marketing industry provided and the potential residual compensation.
I have never been motivated by money, but I saw how money could improve my standard of living and I felt like I could achieve that now, rather than after more years of studying and getting underpaid for years thereafter.
It was the residual part that really caught my eye, I had no doubt in my ability to earn that income, but to earn it residually for work done once, that was powerful.
Once I saw it, I decided I was in and joined at the top level within days, despite having no funds at all. I found ways to go out and make it (the lawnmower became a good friend of mine).
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What were the first few years like in MLM, and what was the most important lesson you learned?
My first few years were rocky, but to be honest I was more of a “glorified customer” than a distributor. I didn’t really make a proper attempt to build the business, I would only talk to a couple of people a month, I never really knew what was required to build a business and thought since “you only have to find 2 people” that I should be smooth sailing since I found far more than 2.
I actually enrolled 8 people my first month, but guess what happened? All of them quit. So while I could recruit, I wasn’t very good at targeting long term downline members.
What is Magnetic Sponsoring, and how did that change MLM for you?
I came across Magnetic Sponsoring while searching online for a way to build my business. I knew there had to be a better way to build the business than chase people around.
I had seen big companies like Sony and Apple, and knew there had to be a way to get people to come to me like they did. This all fell into place when I read Magnetic Sponsoring and it let me know that I wasn’t alone in feeling that way.
Once I read Magnetic Sponsoring I gained a lot more posture and I knew I just needed to work on a way to put it all together. I began searching online for how to put websites together to attract people to me and I began networking in forums with others who thought the same way.
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How do new network marketers screw up, and how can they fix it?
Most new network marketers screw up by coming across like a cheesy car salesman. It is not all their fault, most have no prior business experience, no marketing experience, and no branding experience.
This industry relies heavily on all three, so what most network marketers do is to just promote the company and products. This makes them come across as a salesman and their prospect’s guard goes up. You know what they say, no one wants to be sold, but everyone wants to buy.
People can fix this by leading with the benefit of the product or opportunity, instead of the product or opportunity itself. This will position the person as a resource instead of a salesman and shows that they actually care about the prospect more than just a dollar sign.
Most new network marketers don’t create any intrigue and instead give everything away. Network marketing is like fishing, you need to put the bait out, and then allow people to come to you.
They also need to do their target marketing correctly, and fill a need. Not everyone is your customer, and that’s fine.
How do you know Ray Higdon, what is MLSP, and how has that helped your online business?
I had seen Ray Higdon online, but my first real exposure to him was when I purchased his 3 Minute Expert Attraction Marketing Edition course
This taught me how to blog and has been a key component in my blog becoming as successful as it is. I have also met Ray Higdon and we have chatted at a couple of events too.
MLSP is the best attraction marketing education platform out there; it has completely changed my business.
MLSP has taught me how to brand myself online, how to implement various marketing strategies to get my message in front of the right people who are looking for what I have to offer, and it has taught me how to make a full time income from the people who don’t join my business.
If that wasn’t enough, the main thing is that MLSP has cut my learning curve at least in half. Having all this information under one roof meant that I didn’t have to search it all out myself.
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You have a powerful blog! How old is it, how many posts are on it, and what is your daily traffic like?
Thank you for the compliment on my multi-level marketing blog posts! I have had my current blog for about a year and a half, and I have over 150 posts on it. I get about 100 daily hits on days that I don’t blog or actively drive traffic to it; that number is higher on the days that I do.
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I am always amazed to see many of your articles on the first page of Google, for big keywords like “MLM and Network Marketing.” Can you give us a few secrets on how you rank your articles?
Maybe I can share a few search engine ranking hacks. There are a few criteria to getting content to rank.
Firstly, you want to know what you’re gonna talk about and deliver high quality content. Then decide which keywords you want to target and use that throughout your content – but you don’t want to overdo it and make it seem artificial.
Use the keyword about once every 100 words. People tend to overcomplicate SEO, use the SEO Yoast plugin for a start.
Secondly, write good engaging content and solve a need. The longer someone stays on your site, the more valuable the search engines deem it to be. Content is definitely king nowadays.
You can increase the length of time a visitor spends on your site by linking to other articles within your site, and by making it aesthetically pleasing (use pictures, and make it easy to read with whitespace and formatting).
Backlinks – this is where it gets a bit technical, so I won’t go into too much detail, but backlinks help. The more links that point back to your site, the more valuable it’s perceived to be. There’s different types of backlinks so they’re not all the same. People will need to do their research on this but it’s not too difficult when you learn how.
When your post is brand new, getting engagement on it early on helps. Using syndication groups (where a group of you like, comment, and share each other’s posts) is a great way to get the ball rolling.
You have a lot of great video on YouTube. How has video helped your brand and business?
Video has exploded my brand and business more than anything else. It’s made me more recognisable and it allows me to essentially clone myself – it’s the absolute best way to build rapport online.
Many people feel like they know me before we’ve even spoken. Then when I get on the phone with a prospect and they already know all about me and love my content, it’s a very different conversation from the old days of trying to convince someone to join.
The best part is that video establishes you as an authority right from the start. The fact that you’re willing to put yourself out there and help others makes people want to listen to you.
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What is the best way for you to generate leads these days?
Right now, my best and favourite way to generate leads is Facebook Live. It’s the unscripted nature of Facebook Live that allows people to feel a deeper connection with you, the same reason why people love reality TV. The platform allows you to be genuine, and interact with your audience.
You can also answer questions on the fly and since people are seeing the real you, it speeds up the rapport building process. I either generate leads by telling people to message me directly, getting people to subscribe to my newsletter from the Live video, or leaving a link back to an article on my blog where they can learn more.
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What is your favorite book right now and why?
My favourite book right now would have to be The Membership Economy. The concept of network marketing is built around recurring subscriptions, but even when we look outside that realm, some of the biggest companies in recent years use subscription models, Netflix, Spotify etc. I see a lot of businesses moving this way in the future so it is good to read up on it.
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What are your goals for 2023?
In 2023 my goals are focused more on helping others to be able to accomplish what I have. I feel blessed to be able to work on my own time from anywhere in the world, and not have to work a job anymore.
Some people are building their businesses, but I want to help them attain the same degree of success that I have because I know when you have momentum on your side, things snowball. I also want to help people who are already successful in their own right to be able to take their businesses online.
The increased freedom to be able to work from anywhere is liberating – which is why you will often see me working from a café in Paris, a tapas bar in Madrid, or vlogging on the streets of London.
Obviously I have my own personal goals, and those include creating a course (which launches in January), creating a group coaching program, some big income goals to retire my parents with a nice lifestyle, and taking on some employees so that I can free up time to do more of the things I enjoy, and shift my focus more on creating content and serving others. I am also planning to work on some side projects outside the industry, but those details will come later.
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What is your favorite quote and why?
“It’s easy to make money; it’s extremely hard to make time.” – Lyndon Redman.
Lyndon is a personal friend and a 7 figure annual income earner in the network marketing industry. Since I heard him say this it has always stuck in my mind. I have always known I wanted to make a sizeable income, but I never saw trading time for money as the answer. This quote summed up my mindset perfectly.
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Thank you so much for this interview, Kay!
Any time Erik, I really appreciate you and all that you do, and of course for featuring me!
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