Today we interviewed Mary Jane Medlock, who talked about the crazy things she did when she first started marketing her weight loss product. Like walking up to obese strangers at aiports and handing them her brochure with her before and after picture and her story, saying “THAT was ME! Maybe I can help you!” and then running away.
She told everyone on the call, “I LOVE my company and I LOVE my product and I could NEVER have done any of those things if I didn’t, as Kim says, “love it MADLY”! Then she added, “I did really crazy things because I LOVED it and I was so excited…”
For love or money?, What’s YOUR reason?
This question is reminiscent of Doug Rushkoff’s thesis Get Back in the Box, that people who run companies do better if they love madly the core thing they’re manufacturing or marketing, because they’ll do a better job of both…instead of just trying to be #1, wipe out the competition, and cut costs and increase profits – the money motivated goals.
The most successful business people today say it all starts with something you love madly and that matters to you from your bones. Money is always secondary.,
One gal who today is one of our industry’s millionaires told me years ago that when she was first repping her then-company’s weight loss product, she was SO EXCITED about it, and about getting to the events each year, that “Kim I’d have gone door-to-door in my underwear to go. We all would have.”
Do you love your product, or the marketing of it, THAT much?
You’ll need that kind of deep love/obsession/crazines for it to survive the process of building your business. There are many less stressful and “Jennie-on-the-spot” ways to make income than your own business.
So do you love it MADLY?
If not, find something you do. It’s the best way I know to survive the process of building up a little business for yourself, because it may be a lot harder and longer road than you first may have thought.
Kim,
I sometimes believe that part of the problem is how people select an opportunity.
I work full time on the Internet in the Internet Marketing sector and am bombarded daily with offers, many times from people with whom I have a good relationship.
Over the years, I’ve learned to put on the brakes. I may or may not read an offer the first time it’s presented, as I often hear from another marketer in just a few minutes.
Due Dilligence is more important today than it’s ever been.
Just because your best friend has chosen to become involved with a company doesn’t mean it’s the right one for you.
Remember when our mothers would remind us that just because “everyone’s doing it”, doesn’t make it right for us? Such wisdom!
There’s no way to truely know your passion until you’ve allowed your brain time to really work through something.
A couple of brief examples, both based on a pretty fair amount of due diligence.
I became involved in a nutritional supplement company several years ago upon the recommendation and trust of a good friend. It’s an awesome company. I didn’t succeed. Why? Because I couldn’t see myself selling the product… and I’m a person who could sell ice to Eskimo’s in the dead of winter if I believed they would be right for them.
I couldn’t sell it because I couldn’t walk the walk… over weight, wasn’t into skin care, etc.
More recently, I’ve found some software that solves a lot of business problems for small business owners. I was one of those who had exactly the problems this software solves… it fits like a glove on my hand.
Often, it’s not the company… it’s us
Shari:
Right on. Very much overlooked and valid point. People love many things, but they can’t sell them all. Doesn’t mean the thing they can’t/don’t want to sell isn’t all it’s promised to be.
Sometimes, we don’t care what the promises are, cuz we just don’t connect. Like the latest greatest golf clubs…gets nothing from those of us who prefer tennis.
Good point.