Step 6: Nobody Likes a Seller

(If recruiting isn’t going as fast as you’d hoped, consider, instead of quitting, building a steady customer base. Step ONE here. Step TWO here. Step THREE here. Step FOUR here. Step FIVE here.)

Step SIX: Seller or Adviser?

Two questions for ya:

1. When you realize there is a seller in the room, do you want to go TOWARDS that person, or AWAY from them?
2. When you’re not sure whether to buy something or not, would you rather be talking to a SELLER or an ADVISER?

Whenever I’ve asked this in my customer building classes, I learn that we who are sellers mostly choose to avoid sellers ourselves. Seems like nobody likes sellers. We’d rather have advisers (knowledgeable about the options) to help, particularly when we’re not sure.

Ergo, you must do everything you can NOT to be perceived as a plain old seller.

Fortunately, that is pretty easy to do. Because sellers, especially network marketers, have a way of talking that makes them instantly recognizable. And out comes the Raid from any listener. 🙁

Two signs of a seller.

1. Techno-babble. Sellers, especially new ones, are full of it. Lulu’s just signed the app and, fresh from her science-of-the-product meeting, bubbles to her prospect: “I’m a wellness consultant. We market unique patented nutraceutical products…”
(More in Orange book excerpt here.)

ANY jargon – words a 13 years old wouldn’t understand – is techno-babble. And it does NOT impress anyone outside your own company. Au contraire, others run. So don’t use it. If you slip, you’ll know why others glaze over or say they have to use the restroom now.

Quiz: Is the name of your company (or your product) techno-babble to people not in your company, yes or no?

2. Hype (two sorts – more in the Orange Book, p 32-51)).

a. Promises. Making ANY predictions about what the product will do for someone else. We do not really know the future, do we? No matter what a product has done for you, you can never be sure that will happen to someone else. Predicting the future for others (making claims) is something network marketers are known for.

NOTE: The new FTC regs make it plain that you can no longer use extreme examples of say, weight loss (or income) to sell your product or business. Not without telling what happens for the “typical” persons at the same time. Big FTC penalties too. See here and here.

b. Screaming. Perceived overstatement. How often have you heard networkers crowing about their products – “It’s the best, the newest, the most scientifically proven,” blah blah blah. Falls on deaf ears today. Because everyone does it.

Online, screaming is using too much red, too much bold, too capitals and too many exclamation points.

“When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follow will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment.” Elements of Style, 50th Anniversary Edition.

You do not want to come across as a dreaded seller anymore do you? So, no more seller talk. More examples of seller talk in the Orange book here.

Wouldn’t you rather be perceived by your prospective customers as an adviser? A trusted, knowledgeable person who dares to recommend another company’s product to Lulu when that’s the best choice for the her?

P.S. Even if you truly you love it with all your heart, you are the reformer when you approach others. And it is usually just “the reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even mortal persecution. Why may not society regard as retrogression what the reformer holds dear as life itself?” From Mr. G here.