A lot of what determines success or failure is NOT the obvious stuff that you see and are concerned with.
Studies have shown that whether you’re talking to someone on the phone, or in person, their impression of you & what you say is based ONLY ABOUT 8% on the words you use!!
The other 92% is your body language and the sound & qualities of your voice. I’m sure it’s easy for you to understand that if you sound uncertain, no one is going to follow you. To be successful, you must sound and look like you know exactly what you are doing.
That is one of the reasons that this blog is so useful to you. The more time you spend learning about the intricacies of Success In 10 Steps, the more certainty you will have when you talk to a prospect. And as you study & gain the ability to direct them to a specific page that answers their question, you look to them like someone who really knows what they are doing.
And when they see you that way, it’s a big key to their desire to work with you.
This is something you just cannot afford to shortcut. So open a new text file. Read Success In 10 Steps again, and take notes by chapter. Write down what strikes you as really memorable, really useful, and note the page it’s on. Talk about it out loud. Tell what you really like. Again, write down your notes.
The better you get at this, the more confident you will sound when you speak with a prospect. When they can hear in your voice that you are certain you know what you’re talking about, you are in good shape.
It’s worth your time to take a look at the section on “Marketing Insanity” on page 17 of the Success In 10 Steps ebook by Michael Dlouhy. I was talking with a husband-and-wife on a 3-way call the other day. They’re in a company selling water filters. Their basic product is a $4,000 sale.
And they tell me, “But you can buy it over time!”
Boy! Hope springs eternal in network marketers, doesn’t it? They KNOW they can make this thing work. “Heck, they can buy it over time. This’ll work.”
So here’s the deal, which is what I told them:
“FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS?!!!!!!!”
Are you kidding me? You HAVE to be a salesperson. You HAVE to be a salesperson to do that. A $4,000 product is a sales business. They can call it network marketing if they want, but let me ask you a question:
Does your new rep go on autoship for $4,000 a month?
I didn’t think so.
Here’s what I told them:
“Success In 10 Steps is a great tool, but it won’t work for you. You can’t use this ebook to find people who’ll spend $4K. Our system is perfect to build a relationship business, but that’s not what you have … you have a SALES business. You need to run ads to find salespeople.”
Again, it’s a $4,000 product. And THEY bought it, because it’s something they really believe in and they wanted. But they are the exception. You need REALLY targeted leads to sell that product. You sure as heck aren’t going to buy MLM leads and sell any $4,000 water filters. There’s no way you can recruit those people, because they won’t buy the product.
There was a time when it was pretty standard in MLM to advertise for salespeople, but not so much anymore. Traditionally, salespeople haven’t done that well in network marketing, for a lot of reasons. Most of all, salespeople can’t train anyone to do what they do, and so what they do is not duplicatable.
What you want in network marketing is a lot of people, with each one doing a little bit. That is the model that works. You can build a big business with that model.
The standard for MLM has always been lotions and potions and vitamins. Outstanding nutritionals & personal care products that get raved about and used up and bought over and over. That is the type of product that creates residual income.
And I would go so far as to say that any product that doesn’t create residual income – people on autoship who buy automatically every month – is NOT an MLM product.
Feel free to argue if you want. But the #1 reason for doing MLM is to create an income that goes on whether you are working or not. And that ONLY happens with people on autoship.
It’s simple. No autoship = No network marketing.
That water filter customer never goes on autoship. So not only is there NO residual income, but you also must be a pretty good salesperson to sell a $4,000 product.
I’m not a salesperson. I cannot do it. Almost everybody out there cannot do it. Can you work and work and work and find someone who can?
Sure. That business has been going for awhile. Here and there, they find a salesperson. But man, what a tough way to build a business.
So it’s really helpful to know where this stuff is in the ebook because when that topic comes up – and it will – you need to be able to direct people to the source that explains their situation. That’s way better than you trying to do it yourself.
That is what I think.
Richard Dennis
PS – I would LOVE to hear your comments on this one …
The most frequent question I get about using the “Success In 10 Steps” ebook to generate leads:
“What methods do you recommend to people to advertise their ebook page?”
My friends Don Standard & Penny Dude do a 1-hour training on some unique way to advertise your ebook each week. And we’ve got over a year’s worth of these calls archived online. These trainings are priceless and … they’re free. So when I’m talking with someone, I mention these trainings. My job is just to point. Pretty uncomplicated.
You have the opportunity to listen to people who have been generating leads using the STS ebook describe exactly which online (or sometimes offline) resources they use and how they use them most effectively. You can find a ton of really good & useful information in those calls.
(And I’ll come clean here – these resources can be used for any type of advertising, not just the Success In 10 Steps ebook.)
Again, this is something ANYBODY can do. You can give people enormously valuable information without knowing anything yourself. All you need to do is point to this website & tell them to go through the archives and listen to our Thursday afternoon recorded calls.
I tell them to listen to 4 or 5 or 10 calls and to choose ONE thing that sounds good to them and that they feel comfortable doing. Well … two at the most. Better to concentrate on one to start, but you might test one against another, if you find two you really like.
And I tell them to talk with me after they’ve chosen one of these resources, and we’ll plan exactly how to use it. And if you tell your prospect that, but you don’t know the resources yourself, you can certainly put them on the line with me when they’re ready to start.
It’s critical that you NOT position yourself as the expert who knows everything. Our audio archives are a wonderful resource, and you just point them to that resource. And your new rep realizes that as they bring people into the business, they can also point people to the same resource. They don’t need to know anything.
What could be simpler? Truly, anyone can do that. It makes your business very duplicatable.
(If you would like the web address for this resource, email me: rtdennisfl AT gmail.com)
You’ll find “Voodoo MLM Economics” on page 15 of “Success In 10 Steps” by Michael Dlouhy. This one is one of my favorite sections.
A few weeks ago, I was talking on the phone with one of my prospects who had downloaded the ebook. Prospects fall into one of two groups:
Already in a business & trying to figure out how to make it profitable.
Looking for a business to make profitable.
This lady was in group #1. And since I was on the line with her, she decided to reverse-recruit me. So she told me about her incredible company and their 98% retention rate.
Nobody ever left that company. Everybody stayed. Fascinating.
OK. You could give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she was new and was just repeating what she had been told by her sponsor. But she was also telling me how wonderfully successful she was, too, so she probably doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
We know that in MLM, like any other business, most people aren’t going to make it. Most people are going to leave. Most people are going to quit before they are successful. Most people don’t commit themselves. Most people don’t value spending time training themselves. Most people won’t put in the time necessary to actually work their business.
It all boils down to the “C” word: most people just won’t make the commitment.
And so it enhances your position when you are talking with a prospect that you flat out tell them all this.
“Jack, what I know from my experience is, most of the people I talk to will not make any real commitment to this business. Most of them will quit. Most of them will find a reason not to do it.”
And of course, I always add in there, “We’ve been using the STS ebook for over 4 years now. And the reason we like this ‘Success In 10 Steps’ lead generation system so much is, we talk to so many people who have been beat up in this business. And yet, so many of them are people who just will NEVER quit. They’re determined to keep going forever. They are determined to make it work.”
I can’t tell you how many times I say that to one of my ebook download prospects and they say, “Yeah. That’s me.” It’s like that company’s retention rate … it’s over 90%.
Well … it’s probably 80%, anyway. They say, “Yeah, that’s me. I’ll never quit. I’ll never stop doing this. I’ll never give up. I’m going to get it right. I’m going to figure it out or die trying.” That is the type of person who read this ebook.
And you increase your own credibility and their trust in you when you tell them that you know most people will quit. At the same time, you give them personally a way out of that group, because most people who come in through the STS ebook are warriors. They are just never going to quit.
So it’s very worthwhile for you to point out page 15 of the ebook to your prospects and let them know that most people quit. If this was an easy business, everybody would do it.
On page 14 of “Success In 10 Steps” by Michael Dlouhy, you can read about “the monk in the white lab coat.” I don’t think it’s just the people I’ve talked to recently. I can definitely remember when I used to think this way.
There are just a LOT of people who believe that far and away THE #1 reason to choose a network marketing company is the product. And even after talking with them a bit, it is a very tough idea to dislodge.
MLM companies must have a great product to compete in today’s market. But it is effective marketing, not a product, that will either build an empire or not. Specifically, you should be searching for a group with an effective, results-producing marketing program in place. So it’s important to give prospects as much evidence as you possibly can that product focus is not what will build them a great income from home.
To have any hope for building a successful MLM business, they have to get this concept. If all they want is a great product, that’s fine. If they don’t care about the money, no problem. They can do whatever the heck they want to do.
But most people … and certainly most of the people your prospect will be talking to about the business … are looking to make money at it. And if you ask even this product-focused prospect, you can pretty much be 100% sure they’ll say, “Well, yeah – I want the money!”
And to do that, you’ve got to have those other 4 Pillars in place – not just the product. So page 14 is a very good place to point your prospect to, to make that point and get them headed in the right direction.
At the bottom of page 11 of Success In 10 Steps, you see a reference to “greed and ego.” That gives you another good point to make with your prospect.
Prospects don’t come into this process thinking about “greed & ego”. But if they have experience in MLM, there’s a good chance they’ve already run into the problem. It’s worthwhile pointing out that the greed & ego of sponsors and/or companies is one of the reasons so many prospects are never successful in network marketing.
Let them know how important it is to have their radar up and operating sensitively.
This doesn’t mean you search for some Pollyanna who lives their life only for others. Putting yourself first is the natural order.
What it does mean is that you MUST avoid sponsors whose goal is to be successful no matter who they have to step on. You want someone who is determined to be successful by creating those win-win relationships with others.
A lot of times, you can actually hear this in their voice and in what they say about the business and about others. One of these clowns once told me that 95% of all prospects were dead wood, and he just kicked them out of the way. Not only was he proud of it, but he thought anyone who didn’t do that was a fool. What more could you possibly need to know about this guy?
So you’ve got to watch and listen and train yourself to spot “greed & ego” before you join a company where you are smack-dab in the middle of it. Your best bet is definitely to avoid it from the start. Once you are in a group dominated by the greed and/or ego of its leader(s), you are lost. It’s a situation you must train yourself to see and walk away from.
It is key to make your network marketing business as duplicatable as possible. And the less you have to talk, the more duplicatable it gets. The ability to use the Success In 10 Steps ebook and just point to sections that answer certain questions or to sections that would be valuable to people makes your life a lot simpler.
The format of the ebook has been very successful. It’s had over 107,000 downloads in the past 4 years. A lot of people have used STS to generate leads and build an MLM business. It is set up to make it easy for people to do network marketing. You don’t have to be an expert at anything. You hardly even need to be able to answer any questions.
We know the 3 questions people most ask when they’re looking for a business:
1. Is this something I can do?
2. Can I make money at it?
3. Can you help me?
For them to answer question #1 positively, the business has to be really simple. And it’s important to show them that it’s going to be simple for them to give this system to the people they bring into the business.
They may not be thinking that far ahead. But as soon as you point out to them that they have to be able to give THEIR prospects a simple system or their business will not duplicate, they know that is true.
On page 10 of STS, Michael Dlouhy talks about the 100 MLM companies that he joined. It’s a good story that can answer several different questions.
Most of the people who download the STS ebook are people who have already been in network marketing, but who have struggled with the business. They’re looking for answers. They don’t know why they haven’t been successful. They know it’s not because somebody else is smarter than they are. They are frustrated.
So Michael joining 100 different MLM businesses to kind of get an idea of how the whole thing works resonates with them. It makes sense to do that. And it helps give your prospect some background that helps them see all the value they can possibly get from reading this ebook.
Page 10 is definitely one of the sections I would point out to prospects. Again, when you only need to point someone to a page in the book to answer their questions and gain credibility, it becomes obvious that this is a very easy business to do.
