MLM Success: The Truth And Illusion Of Network Marketing

So Mondays sometimes make me a little philosophical, and yesterday morning I was thinking about the several calls I’ve gotten in the past week where people who were still totally immersed in the MLM business philosophy of traditional MLM building called me and They tried to prospect me.

Of course, there’s always the discussion of the game-changing product and then the description of the company’s latest success stories, and how everyday people finally get there just by sharing this great network marketing opportunity.

Get in now!

Now, in the early days of my MLM business career, I could have bitten, but I found that I was totally immune to pitches thanks in part to what I learned over the years while studying MLM marketing and discovered that the real opportunity it’s not so much in the deal as it is in the marketing (MLM Success-The Tyranny of The Deal Blog Post).

Now if you take a close look at the business models that are used in a traditional MLM building process and then compare them to the people who instead build their business using online MLM marketing, you will see that there really is a big philosophical difference. .

The traditional MLM business philosophy is that you need to build a great group through the process of recruiting and duplication.

It is common knowledge in the industry that entire MLM organizations can be divided into 3 groups.

The percentages at 80%, the percentages at 20% and the percentages at 1%.

Now the ultimate goal is of course to find the 1% Percenter, you know, that’s the person who walks into your network marketing organization and just blows it up overnight. The Japanese refer to it as “Lightning Striking”.

Now, sometimes they are a leader in the MLM industry who already has a following, but sometimes they are a nobody who has never been successful in MLM before, but this time something unique happened, a totally random occurrence.

Then there are what I like to call “natural.”

A “natural” is someone who is a major center of influence (knows a lot of powerful people), or maybe someone who got really excited and was a natural networker.

The 1% percentages come in all shapes and sizes, but in fact they are the fundamental factor for your success in the MLM universe, especially if you are working in a standard MLM (as opposed to a higher level MLM).

Now the standard MLM building process is to filter through the prospects to find your distributors, then filter through the distributors to find the 20% percentages, and then with enough 20% percentages working in your group , a percentage of 1% should appear somewhere in your organization.

Now, of course, if you’re in a single-level network marketing compensation program, then you expect the top 1% to be near the top of your organization rather than somewhere in the downline outside of their pay levels.

MLM binary compensation plans, of course, are much more forgiving of a power player deep within your organization.

The analogy that I sometimes used when doing MLM trainings to explain this building process was to visualize yourself on a big beach in Washington state, the kind that has these rocks all over the place, and you’re picking up every rock by looking under it. it’s for gold

Now there are thousands of rocks on that beach and it will take you a while, so you have to develop the skills of concentration, determination and persistence.

I used to call it the “blue diamond” mentality.

Now, once you’ve sponsored your first 20% Percenter, there are now two of you picking up rocks and so on.

Once you have twenty or thirty 20% Percents in your Network Marketing group and they each have a few hundred people in their group, you now have a small army scooping up those rocks for the gold.

That’s how it works, with a big enough organization, you can’t miss.

Of course that gets you there, there are many other factors that can make or break your MLM success such as product longevity, company viability, competition, and of course that nasty word, attrition.

However, those are all factors for another discussion.

Now the goal of MLM online marketing involves the same process, only we can push more people into the equation much faster, but it’s still the same basic model.

So at this point there is no business model divergence.

However, the philosophy of how to get there differs dramatically and this is what I refer to as

“The truth and illusion of network marketing”.

The truth of network marketing is that to find the people who are really serious and committed, you have to be able to go through a lot of prospects to hit the gold.

Another truth is that all approaches to MLM prospecting and lead generation work to some degree, although some are excruciatingly slow.

The “Network Marketing Illusion” is what we see when we go to company events and the latest success story is paraded on stage that says:

“I just talked to 4 of my friends and they talked to some people they know and suddenly I have 10,000 people in my group and I make $40,000 a month and this business is so easy and fun.”

Now let’s face it here, you know it bothers you when someone else succeeds and you don’t.

So, let’s see, our first thought is to go out to the parking lot and cut the tires on their car (just kidding), and our next is to go back to our warm market again and try to beat them up. be gold there somewhere.

Now the truth is that it was pure luck that they found so much gold so easily with just a few prospects.

The sad part of this truth is that there are so many people trying to build a successful Network Marketing business based on luck.

They are there every day hoping to stumble upon success just by taking a few people here and there.

Sorry, that’s a total illusion.

Network marketing is a business, and like any other business, you need to treat it as such and learn how to market.

Now there are many MLM marketing approaches that can get you there, but your success will be based on volume, the more people you can get information from, the luckier you will be.

Now, as I pointed out in a recent training webinar I conducted on blending traditional MLM marketing approaches with the online world, there are a lot of really great ways to generate lead streams other than doing it online, but of course , online is the most powerful.

Now the traditional MLM building philosophy at this point begins to emphasize things like linking the distributor to the company, having lots of events and recognition (“Hey team, Bob just made his first sale and it only took him 2 years… well done Bob!).

Now, the whole culture is designed to form a kind of self-reinforcing social cult (yes, I called it a cult).

Now, if done correctly, you are now in a social group where you would never think of leaving, even if you are not making any money.

The MLM company realizes that with enough foot soldiers on the ground, promoting the company, someone is going to hit “pay dirty” and be successful.

They just have to keep everyone in their place. (Of course, this is the same philosophy your upline uses.)

So what do you listen to when you go to MLM company events…?

Stories of perseverance, persistence and luck.

Fun story here, I spoke to a prospect recently who was very excited when I called. She told me that she knew my story and so did everyone in her upline, and they all loved the story.

He then told me a story where I joined an MLM and then after 6 months I got frustrated and just stopped working but of course I stayed active.

Then a year later my MLM organization had skyrocketed and was making over a million a year because my organization kept going without me and also because I stayed active in autoshipping.

Now of course you can feel the moral of this fictional story, never give up, and even if you do, make sure you keep your autoship active because you never know what you might leave behind.

Now she was a bit shocked to learn the real story, which was that I did get frustrated in my early days and probably quit 5 times in the first 6 months alone, but then I discovered marketing and developed a high volume lead strategy using newspapers. advertising.

Then I sponsored 250 dead serious people in my MLM group in about 2 years and made so much gold I couldn’t fail.

Totally different story.

I guess what really bothers me about the traditional low volume MLM building approach is that it uses people.

Now it’s not that basing your life on persistence, hope and trust is bad, on the contrary, those are great principles to base your life on, but not your MLM business.

As online marketers our philosophy is very different, we understand that success is related to volume.

You see… we have this magic fast-forward button that we can push and shorten the growth curve by years.

The average person in MLM usually brings in 1-3 people per month. What are your chances of finding a percentage of 1%?

Thin to none.

With online MLM marketing mastered, you can attract 10+ people to your deal per month and bring out key players much more easily.

It also gives you the ability to use that fast-forward button to stress test the company’s business model to see if it actually delivers.

Now, using this accelerated build process, I’ve learned that if I can’t get a business model of the company all singing and dancing in 6 months, it probably won’t happen.

Next….

Because of this results business orientation, online marketers are powerful and dangerous in an MLM environment.

I wrote about this recently in a blog post called “MLM Success: Why Your Upline Hates Online MLM Marketing.”

MLM Online Marketers Slowly Learn What Entrepreneurs have always known, time is the limiting factor.

They realize that there are many network marketing opportunities that they could focus their attention on, and also that it can be almost impossible to predict in advance which companies will fly and which will die.

So instead of pushing a business plan based on luck and chance, and spending 5 years slowly growing a company that just never makes it,

Just press the fast forward button…..