People often ask me why so many GOOD business people don’t catch the “vision” of the network marketing opportunity.
Here’s one reason: we come across as weird.
Ask Steve Jobs (iPod inventor) how he makes money, and notice your reaction as he responds…
1. Steve, what do you do to make money?
Oh! I share cool iPods and Apple computers.
Try these…
2. Lulu, how do you make money in real estate?
Oh, I share amazing properties.
3. Mr. Ford Motor company, how do you make money?
Oh, we share our wonderful cars.
Does anyone else in business say they share fashion, haircuts, telephones, furniture, computers, TVs, etc. to make money?
The world knows that business means buying and selling goods and services.
All except us. Ask a network marketer how they make money – “Is it sales?”
“Oh no! It’s not sales. We don’t sell. We share!”
We tell the world we make money sharing, educating, duplicating, helping others, making referrals, doing self-development, ANYTHING but the truth: We SELL stuff.
Jobs and the rest of the business world makes money selling neat products – through his webites, his stores, his catalogues and his ads.
Network marketers make money selling neat products and services – through their websites, their catalogues and their direct contacts with others. And earning overrides on others who do.
How much do you get paid if you do not get a customer to buy a product or service (yes, even through a catalogue)?
-Duplication doesn’t matter if no sale results.
-Working hard doesn’t matter if no sale results.
-Sharing and referring don’t matter if no sale results.
Hiding that we sell stuff to earn our income is one reason we are left with the dregs…the opportunity seekers with no money, no life force, and who don’t “know anyone.” We’ve chased all the good business enrepreneurs away with our silly talk. They just think we’re weird.
How much longer do you want people in your business who don’t want to sell?
Shall we stop attracting them then? And in the same breath, scaring away the good people?
Of all the things I have read on your website, this is the most common sense of all – this is it! I guess some of us, not me, are shy about our products/services that we need to be “reserved” or polite and say the “share” thing. Shake it off, folks – we sell things!!! I sell travel and travel websites…Now you go out and make that sale!!!
Yes, it’s just a caring, sharing world out there. I love the way my super-big-box-warehouse “shares” groceries and other goods with me every time I walk in the door.
You’re right, Kim. We sell like everyone else, and there is absolutely no shame in doing so. And we sound ever-so-much less like we just stepped out of the “Stepford” network marketing department when we clearly state what we do: sell a product that has helped us in a concrete, obvious kind of way.
Thanks for helping all of us hapless networkers cut through the cow patties!
Wow! This makes it crystal clear. Now I know what to say when people ask me what I do. “I sell beauty and health products.” Simple. Honest.
That is so right on. I wish the companies in Net work marketing would wake up before they fall off the window sill and break their neck. We SELL great products.
Some of the best products in the world come out of the network marketing industry. The have to sell and educate their customers.Period.
This, taken from a conversation in the new (soon—pant, pant, pant…) book It’s Time… I had with Robery Kiyosaki…
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So my whole point on recommending network marketing is you go there and you gain priceless business skills. That explains further what I’m saying about if I had to do it all over again—I would probably go and get training through a network marketing company.
Robert, can you break down what some of those skills are and why they are important?
SELL! Sell, sell, sell, sell, four-letter word, you’ve got to sell. And that’s the word everybody’s afraid of! But… sales = income.
So when someone has low income, 99% of the time it’s because they can’t sell something; they have nothing to sell or they can’t sell. You’ve got to learn how to sell.
If I’m going to be an entrepreneur then that is THE number one skill. That’s the theme to everything I tell you. You read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, it says, “I’m not a best writing author, I’m a best selling author.”
Here’s where most people make a mistake. They go into things looking at how much money they can make versus what skills they need to make the money.
I keep saying, “Just get the skills, and the money will show up!”
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Thanks.
I appreciate you.
— John
Thank you for saying this out loud. I am one that likes things said as they are… and the words we share..did not make sense to me when you exchange money it is saleing. Well said.
Ah, the voice of common sense.
As always. Bless you.
Greetings,
‘Share’ is inaccurate and misleading, AND the word ‘sell’ is too general. When people think of ‘sell’ they too often think of ‘hard sell, close early and often’. They also think of ‘the worst 5 things you can say’…those are all ‘sales’ tactics. There needs to be a way to differentiate between high pressure manipulative win/lose selling and the method that (gasp!) shares ideas and products/services and allows the prospect some input in the decision process.
glennjaffas@prepaidlegal.com
We all have a set of beliefs.
Some of those beliefs serve us and some don’t. It’s a matter of discovering what beliefs serve us, (keep those), and what beliefs do not serve us. We have the option of changing those beliefs to something different.
We do many things out of habit because of someone else’s belief, that we consciously, or subconsciously adopted somewhere along the way.
It’s okay to reinvent ourselves a little bit every day. Growth is good.
Lisa
Mentoring For Free
From the get go NWM has been pitched as an opportunity that anybody can do.
And, I really believe that anybody can do it.
The idea of building a residual income by doing what you are already doing anyway – use, recommend (products and opportunity) in the same way you recommend a good movie.
Personally what drew me to NWM was the idea of a whole lot of people doing a little bit versus me doing a whole lot. With that in mind I have not and do not plan to push my products in the same way that I would have to if I were a commissioned sales person in the pharmaceutical industry with my territory. To me that is true sales.
Instead what I do is educate/recommend (call is sales if you want) my products with enthusiasm but only when I feel like it and where I see a need. Doing this, I have built up a customer base of about $600 per month in revenue. WOW. Amazing or what? 🙂
But, to tell you the truth I am cool with that. My customers call me to order or order directly from my site. I do not have to chase down and push at all. I even get calls now from people I do not know who were given my name from one of the customers who bought from me. My products are creating a buzz.
My objectives are not to sell thousands of dollars per month in the product. My objective is to get a whole bunch of people to promote a little bit and feel good about it. Truly do what they are already doing.
Just last night I heard my wife who has virtually no involvement in our business (from a business perspective) talking to her friend. They were talking about her friends’ baby who has skin irritation. My wife proceeded to recommend she try a non-chemical detergent. She really had no clue what she was doing but next thing I heard she was going out the door with a small bottle in her hand for her friend to try out. Today we got a $200 order. In my opinion Jennifer never sold a thing and if she had felt she was selling it she may not have done it with the same level of comfort that she did.
Personally I think the real problem is not that we often say it is not sales, it is our over-selling of the products and opportunity. Yes, product testimonials are great but lets keep them real. Yes, opportunity presentations are great but lets also keep them real, without the hype and portraying our companies and industries as the be-all and end-all.
Chris Spurvey
http://www.mlm-journey.com
For years I was one of those “Oh-I-can’t-sell-because-it’s-pushy” people. Then I realized that, no matter what your business is, you better be able to sell. If you’re a lawyer, you have to sell to clients or a jury. If you’re a consultant, you have to sell to your potential clients. If you’re a CPA, you have to sell to businesses (or the IRS). If you’re working at the local hamburger joint, you have to sell to your customers. Sales makes the world go ’round.
No wonder people think we are weird – you hit the nail on the head when you wrote this…. When I saw these words we use in print – they sounded hilarious – more fodder for my eventual YouTube parody ☺
The word share always reminds me of a Nursery School or Kindergarten teacher trying to get kids to share some toy…..
Most everyone knows we are selling something yet we insist on using words like share, educate and – when we do use the word “sell” we include the magic phrase – “our products sell themselves”…
We also may seem odd to anyone who loves their career and can’t see why someone would want the hassle of having to keep selling themselves. i.e. be self-employed.
So – the new mantra to practice is …”I sell” or “I market”…..
Lynn
grow older better
I have a hard time with the word sales, even though that is what I do. I sell candles, but I really do see it as sharing as well. I can see where saying I “I share candles” with people would sound rather silly, but I am fearful of saying, “I sell” because I don’t want people to think I am pushy. And, I really do enjoy sharing my scents with people and experiencing their reactions even if they do not buy the product. Yes, I sell candles, but, I also think I sell a life changing opportunity that people can get really cheap!
When I think of sales I think of the eternal sales person that can sell ANYTHING and find a way to make it sound good. That is not me and that will never be me. If anything, I sell myself, but people might take that the wrong way :-).
Laura Kane
http://www.lbkscents.com
Thank you Kim. That was a great post.
As soon as I get up to speed I will tell you more about myself and how
you have helped re-launch my career, but for the moment I just want to say I am glad you hit the nail on the head.
One of the blessings in my selling career is that I have never been
under the illusion that I was doing anything else but selling.
Whether it was myself, an idea, a service or a product I knew at the end of the day I wanted folks to take action, i.e. buy what I was selling. They understood that too before we ever got together.
Part of the reason is that I was initially trained in direct selling
before I was introduced to network marketing, and part of the reason is that I have never, until very recently, ever sold in network marketing a tangible product. It was always a service of some sort.
And even though I know have added a product to the mix (real estate) you still can’t sell an inventory of residential homes or commercial properties. So I knew I either sold or died on the vine.
There was never any confusion about whether you should sell or not either, that was a given. Some people led with recruiting, others led with the product, but ALL of us understood that most recruits were NOT going to make it long term, so whatever your approach you best get the name on the dotted line and some referrals to boot. No stashing/selling inventory because
our inventory was intangible.
Lots of networkers shy away from saying what they are doing, but that is because they have never been exposed to professional selling. Sure there are pushy/bad salespeople, but there are bad/incompetent people in every
profession.
If you have ever been around a sales pro you probably didn’t know it, cuz a pro will have you thinking that you bought something, not that you have been sold something. They are good enough they come across more as counselors and there is nothing “pushy” about them at all.
Years ago the great motivator Zig Ziglar said the root word for sell in French means “to serve.” Done properly that is exactly what we do, helping people to acquire unique and helpful products and services they might not otherwise be exposed too.
Sales is a glorious profession without which the world as we know it would not exist. I for one am proud to be a part of the world known as network marketing and have no intention of hiding my light beneath a bushel.
No promises, no hype. I love it.
I know what you mean. The other day I was listening to a training tape. The Rep. was asked what she sold. She said “Oh, I don’t sell anything, I teach.” I just started laughing. Thank goodness for Kim to show how how funny we sound to others.