The better a sales person is, the more sales they make. Right?
Ergo, the more people you sell your MLM to, the more you should make. Right?
Apparently not.
Unlike selling pots and pans, a one time thing, selling a business is selling a journey. Only almost no one buying in seems to realize that. Nor is she encouraged to realize that.
Lulu is sold a dream – a dream of that glorious state (whatever hers is) – which she can picture in an instant. That’s why she signed. She wants it.
Only no one told Lulu that her dream doesn’t come true when the application is signed and she places her first order. It only begins there.
The journey of attaining her dream takes years, patience, resilience and a willingness to tinker and experiment. It’s not as though anyone can credibly predict anyone’s dream coming true with the drop out rates we’ve got. Although they pretend.
And here’s the worst part: Lulu’s dream may never be realized with this business. And neither might yours.
So here’s what you want to know about yourself:
Will you love what you do enough to do it long enough to get really good at it? Even if it doesn’t pay off the way you hoped in the time you hoped?
That’s a question I used to ask (still do today) of all my new sign-ups, especially those with no business, sales, or MLM experience:
“Lulu, if you didn’t make money in the first six months of learning how to do this, would you stick with it?”
If the answer was no, I’d have warned them up front. They could then decide.
Since 95% of the new people coming into MLM drop out because they’re not making the money they were promised (or thought they could make in the first 90 days) this was a reality check. It saved many relationships. Expecially theirs with their families.
They were prepared for the worst. Which is actually the commonplace in our business.
—
These kinds of questions are in the 3CD + PDF Skeptical Market Recruiter CD ($119) (or the MP3 program here $79) and more in the new “Art of Recruiting Program” 9-MP3 +PDF Cribsheet See here ($63). CDs of this program coming beginning of 2008. ($97)
Hi Kim,
I have always been of the opinion that the best way to hang onto a team member is to get them making money ASAP. It doesn’t have to be armoured car variety. I can remember an MD in a previous business getting all excited about his first check. In that company the smallest payout was $100. So here is a man used to earning heavy six figures all excited over a $100 check. I didn’t say anything, but it was comical to me and has stayed in my memory vividly.
Just seems to be something magical about that first check. Validation, perhaps?
Show ’em the $,
Tom Doiron
Hi Tom —
Yep no question show ’em the money helps. I’d bet that that $100 check did not put the MD in the black, given what he’d spent on the business. Am I right or wrong?
When a new recruit doesn’t see any real money for the first few months (unless they buy a big package and sell 3-5 of those same packages) we want them to stay in, and not feel like they’re a failure.
Countless people quit because they don’t make the big money in the first few months.
Peter Drucker says plan four years before you are in the black. Even Mozart, he wrote, didn’t write a concerto until he was four(!)
Hi Kim,
Your right, the ol’ Doc was still in the red even with his first $100 paycheck.
Another key thing to remember is that back in those days, products had a MSRP that was high, high compared to status quo. Therefore immediate profit from retail sales was very rare and the margins were awful. I sold a few friends, but they didn’t reorder.
Kim, I think one of the first signs of your tenacity to revamp the Network Marketing industry is that newer companies are paying more attention to retail sales and ‘right now’ profit for their distributors.
So even if the overrides and bonuses from sponsorships are slow coming, the newbie can make some retail profits to help defray start up costs. This can’t hurt retention.
Cash, check, or charge,
Tom Doiron
Being that I have been around this industry for 20 years, I can really embrace what has been said here. To me, reality is key and not giving people false expectations. Newbies expect instant success if they haven’t been prepped to know it might not happen overnight.
Some of the networker still has employee mentality who still expect to earn money with the effort.
In Network marketing, the initial effort to retail and recruit may not be pay off especially there are many variable to be learned.
It is good to make it clear to potential biz builder what their expectation of income.
This will save up the effort of spending time with the wrong person to nurture biz builder
I think the phrase, “Under-promise and Over-deliver” is very applicable here. Isn’t it better to be honest with your new people and then have them get what they expected or be pleasantly surprised, rather than disappointed?
Our industry is suffering because for years people have created a “get rick quick with no work” mentality. That hasn’t served anyone and never will.
There is nothing wrong with knowing that you will have to work for your rewards…. and sometimes you’ll have to work very hard and it will be a while before you see those rewards.
For so many years, in the “conventional business” world, we have been told that a college education is the only way to go. No one who bought that expected to make any money for at least the first 4 years and many didn’t have that six figure income waiting when they finished college. So why should anyone expect to start making big bucks in NWM within the first 90 days… and decide to quit when they don’t. There is a learning period to everything, and network marketing is no different.
The people that really waste their time though are those who join a company and just sit and wait for the money to start rolling in. How much further ahead they would be if they began their learning process immediately after joining and pursued learning their business with passion and dedication.
We all have a responsibility to ourselves to become the best that we can be and to share that attitude with others that we bring into the business. Together, we will be more than the sum of our parts.
JUDY MARSHALL
“Travel is my passion”
http://www.judyann.networkmarketingcentral.com