Recently I was listening to an MLM tape and I had a fairly revealing insight into something that appears to be going on in MLM field.And it isn't something that's working to our advantage as beginning network marketers.
I'll explain.
Now you know and I know that there is one and pretty much only one reason that we joined our MLM main company, right?
It's same reason that industry is so powerful at attracting so many folks to it.
You know what it is...
Money.
Right?
Ask someone why they joined their MLM deal on day that they join and you'll find that about 99% of them joined to make money.
I know, I know. Your company has SUCH great products. Right?
Well, they might be best products out there. That's not issue here.
The issue is what direction we are told to take our efforts in when we are just innocent MLM beginner's.
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Well, when we get deeper into our main MLM company's message and we forget 'why' we really joined this industry in first place, that is when we get into trouble.
That is when things can start to go downhill for us, if we aren't alerted to what's going on.
You see...
... What's first thing that most main MLM company's tell their new distributors to do?
Get on products, right? Whatever product is...
Telecom.
Vitamins.
Magnetic shoes.
Toothpaste.
Whatever.
"Just, get on products."
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THIS part makes sense to me. It should for you too.
You need to experience your products in order to best tell others about them.
Nothing misleading here.
But what happens after this is what generally is what gets misleading and sends most new MLM'ers into a downward slide they never recover from.
And then one day, they're gone.
I'll explain.
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After new distributors 'get on products', they are told to learn about products.
Why does this happen?
Answer: so that distributors can know what they are 'selling' or 'sharing' with folks.
That's what big founding company distributor or diamond upline tells these impressionable beginning MLM'ers to do.
They are told that "they, as a distributor of product, HAVE to know products."
- They have to know how they work.
- They have to know dosages, amounts, frequency.
- The ingredients.
- And who should be taking them and for what and for how long.
Never mind worrying about contraindications and all that potentially medically-damaging stuff.
I speak from first-hand experience. My first two MLM deals were both consumable products.
And I was told for both companies that I had to know products before I could 'really' sell them to others. They told me it just made sense to do it that way.
I was told to focus on products and money will follow.
Well, let's see what happened. And what happens to virtually most new MLM'ers.
I was spending majority of my precious new free-time learning about products and all that other stuff instead of working on reaching out to folks and getting them involved in business opportunity I was in.
I was basically totally focusing on learning just about all that I could about products so, you know...
"I could tell people about them."
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Well, what happened to business side of things?
Didn't I and most others join MLM to MAKE money?!...
I relate this to an experience I had in mid 1980's after I graduated from University and found myself unemployed for two years.
At least unemployed in sense that I wasn't working in my academic field of choice.
I found myself eventually selling new cars at a local dealership.
(And you think public looks down on MLM! ;-)
Anyway,...
The day that I started with new car dealership was same day this fellow named Lionel started.
Lionel and I were quite different in our approaches in 'selling'. I found myself thinking that I couldn't possibly 'sell' someone a $20,000 car without MY first knowing everything about it.
I mean, 'what if they asked me something about it'? And I didn't know answer. Wouldn't that just blow sale?
So what happened?
Well, as I was busy figuring out all package options, combinations, and features of each of dozen new car models on lot...
...Lionel was actually SELLING cars to people.
From his very first day.
I had to stop him and in my naiveté I asked him how he could do that.
I asked him how he could sell something that he didn't know anything about, or at least only minimal information.
He answered that he didn't really care that he didn't know everything about cars. And in fact knew very little about any one of them.
He said that when his potential customers asked him something about car they were looking at and he didn't know answer -- he just said "I don't know. But I can find out for you".
He said that people always said "Oh never mind, it's not really that important. Let's just go for a test drive."