Lie No. 7 - The proven system
Just follow the proven business plan! This is basically a culmination of all the other lies.
The so-called “proven” business plan is a broken-down, rusted system that’s composed of faulty techniques and out-dated methods. And the worst part about it is that not only doesn’t it work, it’s severely harmful to your business (and your social life).
The only thing that the proven system is proven to do, is cause massive failure. According to the annual reports of many mlm companies, along with research done by numerous tax preparation services, only 1-2% of network marketers earn substantial incomes.
Similar studies indicate that 97% of network marketers never reach a positive cash-flow in their business. These sobering numbers give solid proof to the fact that the strategies and techniques being taught only work for a very small percentage of people.
Please understand, when I refer to “the proven system,” I’m not talking about network marketing itself, but the way people build network marketing. The techniques being taught are SO bad that they make this business as difficult as it possibly could be and success becomes nearly impossible. Distributors literally have all the odds stacked against them.
Let’s just re-cap what we’ve already covered:
1. Many times people are lied to, about the fact that they’re in sales.
2. Distributors are either provided no sales training or the training that is provided is extremely poor and ineffective.
3. Most of the sales methods commonly used are annoying “used car salesman” tactics that involve tricking – even lying – to your prospect, cramming information down their throat and relentlessly hounding them for the close.
4. The idea that anyone can do this business leads to the “thrown-‘em-up-against-the wall- and-see-who-sticks” mentality that is largely responsible for the attrition rate in this industry.
5. Because of the lack of good sales background, most people resort to hype and over exaggerated claims to win over customers and prospects.
6. Way too much emphasis is placed on motivation and belief…while the real rock-solid fundamentals of sales and marketing are ignored.
7. Distributors are given the impression that because their company’s product is the greatest and their compensation plan the most lucrative, they’re guaranteed success. This is far from the case.
8. Distributors are told that everyone is their prospect…which leads to millions of network marketers pestering the living daylights out of every human being they cross paths with…creating enemies of this industry in their wake and all the while seeing no results for their efforts.
No one who knows anything about marketing would ever, in their wildest dreams, try to sell to people who have no interest whatsoever in their product – let alone people who are downright hostile to it! Yet that’s exactly what network marketers are taught to do! Sales can be challenging enough as it is, let alone trying to do it when you’ve got two strikes against you by using crummy techniques.
The whole model of coffee appointments, home parties and hotel meetings completely ignores the real key to success, which is this: getting the customer to come to you first.
You see… People Never Want What’s Forced On Them! All those motivational speakers just tell you to waste more time, energy and sweat chasing people. And when it doesn’t work – get this - you’re supposed to do even more of it. That’s like telling a drowning man to drink more water!
Here’s another lesson that the proven business plan fails to take into account: More important than the company…the person…the product…or even the message…is the market!
If you’re not selling your opportunity to people who genuinely crave what you have, you’re always going to be trying to force a square peg into a round hole!
You can be selling the tastiest burgers in the world but if no one’s hungry, no one’s going to buy.
Here’s a million dollar secret for you to chew on: A Mediocre Message To A Great Audience Will Always Do Better Than A Great Message To A Mediocre Audience!
Fully comprehending said principle will change your business career forever. No exaggeration.
Therefore, your biggest concern should always be to make sure you have the right/best/hungriest/most rabid audience possible.
This also explains why it’s so puzzling to people when they bring a friend to their hotel meeting and they witness a phenomenal presentation, yet seem to be totally indifferent afterwards. They weren’t the right person in the first place.
There are millions of people who are actively trying to figure out how to make money from home. What good marketing does is stand right smack dap in the middle of this flow and catches people when they’re hottest – while they’re seeking solutions to their problems. It enters the conversation that’s already going on inside their head and gets them to take action.
In order for a business owner to be successful, they have to have a system that consistently does this for them over and over again. You hold up your end of the bargain and a good system will produce for you. It has to be fool-proof.
One of the most important functions of your system is that it needs to make sure you’re only spending your valuable time with the highest quality people. Prospecting simply means sifting and sorting through people to find the ones who are interested (aka – a lead). The sheer volume of lead flow you need to have coming into your business is impossible to achieve if you try to do it all yourself on an individual basis.
Doing it the old manual-labor-make-a-names-lists-and-ask-for-referrals way is like using a typewriter to bang out 10,000 letters when you could have a printing press do it in a fraction of the time. A finely-tuned marketing system should do this sifting and sorting for you automatically. It's like a machine used in a manufacturing plant: You put raw materials in one end, it spits out qualified results - prospects - on the other end. Predictably and consistently, ‘round the clock. Every day when you wake up you know it will produce new potential business partnerships for you to cultivate.
The problem that most network marketers face is that they spend so much time prospecting, they don’t have time to actually sell. Once you implement an effective marketing system, you can spend twice as much time in front of interested people and literally double your results immediately.
Sound good? But wait – there’s also the immeasurable benefit of positioning. When the customer finds you, instead of you finding the customer, her perception of you is totally different. She naturally has more respect for you and perceives you as a consultant, not a peddler.
Customers don't respect peddlers as reliable information sources. Any mlmer who goes out and tries to recruit people is improperly positioned as a “peddler.” By applying the above concepts, my business changed almost overnight. Sponsoring people became almost…well…too easy.
I don’t want to give you the wrong impression that everything is all of a sudden a cakewalk. There are a few months here and there were I’ve still had to work at it to get my numbers…but once I discovered these marketing and sales “secrets,” sponsoring double digits every month became the norm.
And you know what else? That whole problem of not having duplication went away. Because for one, I now had enough serious prospect flow to get the really good people in my business; and two, of course I was now teaching everyone in my organization the same techniques and they were sponsoring 5-10 people a month as well. Network marketing starts to get real exciting when your organization is putting out those kind of numbers.
Wouldn't you like your business to run that way? Wouldn't you like your sales process to be a machine that runs on autopilot, constantly generating leads for you whether you're awake or asleep? When you have that kind of marketing machine working for you…you'll make more money…have less stress…avoid the social grief that comes from warm market prospecting… enjoy the kind of natural motivation that comes from real results…experience visible, consistent growth in your business … you won’t have to work nearly as hard to get results…and your distributors will be forever grateful they ended up doing business with you instead of someone else, because they won’t become victims of the insane practices that dominate our industry.
So there you have it.
The 7 great lies of network marketing. I was a victim of every single one of them for quite a long time. I never knew any better because that’s all I’d ever been taught. If I hadn’t been willing to look around and keep an open mind, who knows how long I would have continued beating my head against a wall.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this post
the 7 Great Lie Of Network Marketing but even more so, I hope it’s given you some fresh insight into this Network Marketing business and helped you realize that there is a better way to do it.
