Had a long conversation today with two old friends and mentors of mine – Paula Pritchard and Kathy Robbins.
We’ve known each other for almost 20 years, and they’ve done a series of super successful network marketing gigs over the last 30 years. They’re the rarified types who’ve become accustomed to an obnoxious NM income of $100,000/mo plus.
They’re back working a network marketing company today after a few years’ hiatus, and we had a chance to catch up…
K: What are the biggest differences you’ve discovered in the business today and yesterday, i.e. 10 years ago?
P & K:
1. There appear to be fewer full time people compared to before. Many more part timers. That means less responsiblity to help someone make a full time income. But part-timers do less, so you need more of them to make up the income difference.
2. People are much more skeptical than even 5 years ago.
3. The big money is there, but it takes longer to build today. One reason is people start off with much smaller orders – $200-300 versus $2,000-3,000. Another is the monthly people do is much smaller – $100 of product per month versus much more before. Third is the huge majority of part timers. (85% per the DSA – kk)
We talked about the customer business model, like AOL and cable TV with their millions of regular customers. We discussed Steve Jobs (chairman of Apple Computer) who makes money doing one thing well – HE SELLS IPODS. He uses his sales people, his Apple stores, his lists, his websites and his ads as a MEANS TO SELL MORE IPODS. (Yes, and Apple computers.) Everyone’s there to sell more stuff.
In our business, recruiting to get those big up front orders is not a workbable business model anymore. Who wants a bunch of recruits with stuff in their garages? Nope. We need recruits to do one thing more and better: get customers for the products.
We all agreed that’s pretty different from how it was 10 or 15 years ago, when the product almost didn’t matter.
To be continued tomorrow…
