Where DID The Money Go?

By: Chef Rose Mis

2011 is already ten days old … WOW !! I hope that you had a magnificent New Year's Eve and have enjoyed a yummy start to the New Year. Everything feels very different this year doesn't it? Kind of like coming out of a deep, dense, bone chilling fog and seeing the sun rising quickly, everything warming up again, hearing the birdies twitter … it simply feels lighter and better!

I do two things on New Year's Day. I fix up a KILLER brunch for a bunch of friends … H & H bagels, caviar cream cheese, hand sliced Nova, some kippered salmon, little beignets, a big batch of black eyed peas and greens, seared red chile shrimp and pots of French pressed Sumatra.

The other thing that I do is DEVOUR Frank Kern's Annual State of The Internet Address. (If you haven't seen it, you should especially if you are doing any kind of e-commerce.) Soul food of the best kind on both counts 😉

Recently people have been talking about the "Great Wealth Transfer" that is going to happen within the next few years … what alot of folks don't get is that it has started already, something that Frank talks about at length in his video.

You can’t change the direction and forces of the wind, but you can change the setting of your own sail ~ Jim Rohn

Frank's conversation revolves around the big challenge most business owners face today – figuring out how to make money selling to people that haven't got any. The solution most business owners opt for – slashing their prices to the point that they become "just like everyone else" and profit even less …

Frank believes that a business owner's best solution to the "Cycle of Doom" (as he so eloquently describes it) is not becoming a me-too commodity with lower prices, but by finding the answer to this question …

 

“What can I sell to people with money

… at a premium price …

that will be of greater value to them than the money they pay me?”

 

What a very thought provoking, multi-layered question … especially for anyone in the Network Marketing / MLM / Direct Sales Industries. And I want to explore it with you today. So … let's get started !!

What are MY BELIEFS?

Do I REALLY BELIEVE that there are people out there with lots of money … who will gladly exchange it with me?

Do I REALLY BELIEVE that I can provide something to them that delivers the results they want?

(Frank really gets into the nitty-gritty of those two questions in the video)

Read that last sentence a couple of times …

People are purchasing RESULTS …

So what I am really selling is –

If you buy __________, you will get ____________ … AND

I KNOW that I can DELIVER those RESULTS to you (100% guaranteed)

The implications of that are huge because my reputation and integrity as a business woman are involved.

I can ONLY guarantee what I have total control of.

If I choose to recommend something, I should only recommend other people, products and services that I personally use and endorse. And who I know give a 100% satisfaction guarantee.

Let's go down the rabbit hole a little further.

Do I REALLY HAVE something that is worth premium pricing because of the results it delivers?

In order to figure that out, I have to do some market research to make sure that people are actually spending big dollars purchasing something similar to what I have to offer. If they are, that is a good sign.

What does my competition look like? What separates me and what I am selling (unique value proposition) from anyone else in my industry?  Am I offering enough so that I don't have to discount and barter to sell my services? Do I have enough proof (results) that what I am selling does what I say it does?

Let's take a look at how this applies to Network Marketing.

This is really going to annoy a whole lot of people 🙂

Network Marketing is all about selling premium products to people that are willing to pay a premium price for the results that they get from those products. Those results are so positively life changing that they cannot imagine ever being without those products, so they order them like clockwork month after month, year after year.

I know … I know … I've heard it forever too … You don't build a network marketing business by retailing product, you build it by recruiting other business builders … P O P P Y C O C K !!

The only way to get paid legitimately in a network marketing business is to sell products. That's where those wonderful Fast Start Bonuses come from – selling someone that first big package of product. That's where residual income comes from – selling products month after month to people who LOVE those products and can't live without them. That's where those coded bonuses, matching bonuses and team commissions come from – the sales of product. You get my drift …

So a really important question to ask is …

What am I really selling?

A business opportunity is not a product. Money is not a product. Income is not a product. They are the results of selling products. They are intangibles. And as such, they are not within your control or even your company's control and they cannot be guaranteed.

If the result being sold is OPPORTUNITY, MONEY or INCOME, all of which come from selling products, shouldn't we be selling the products, which ARE guaranteed, in the first place?

How much more profitable and stable would a network marketing business be if happy, lifetime customer relationships were created due to the tangible results people got from our fabulous products?

Small wonder that most network marketers have to rebuild at least 60% of their business every year with new "business builders". Too many times the RESULT that people are buying is the MONEY, and when the MONEY doesn't come in, they get really angry and they feel ripped off because they were sold the wrong "product" to begin with.

Just imagine what could happen with nothing more than raving product users who can't wait to talk about their results with everyone they come in contact with! Product sales on steroids …???

Network Marketing For "Average" People

Years ago, a friend of mine got involved with an MLM that was selling weight loss products. Back then I was working 70 hours a week and I was tired all of the time. I wanted to lose 50 pounds – less baggage to haul around. I knew that my friend had lost 30 pounds pretty quickly and I was REALLY curious about what he was doing. So, he took me to a meeting and I got to hear all about the company, the products and the business. I decided to give the products a test drive and I signed up as a distributor even though I knew that I wasn't going to say anything to anyone until I knew for sure that the products worked.

In order to get the results that I wanted, I needed to buy about $200 a month worth of products and use them for at least 6 months.

After a couple of months, some of the gals I was working with got really curious. They saw the physical results I was getting (I lost 35 pounds in 8 weeks), and they wanted to do the same for themselves. So, they purchased the same products I was using as "preferred customers" to get really good pricing. The company paid me a 25% commission on those product sales.

$200 X 10 = $2,000 X .25 = $500 a month, every month

… with NO opportunity recruiting …

My products were FREE and there was enough extra money to make my car payment. The best part … I wasn't "selling" a darn thing. My "upline" HATED what I was doing by the way. I wasn't a "business builder" because I wasn't "aggressive" enough … LOL

A couple of months later, a few of the girls had friends that wanted to know what they were doing to lose weight. So they told them. Their friends wanted to buy the products too. So, they came to me to find out if they could sell the products to their gal pals. I explained what they needed to do and they signed up as distributors.

Long story short, with ZERO recruiting and selling on my part, I ended up with something like 37 or 38 consumers on my "team" and I was seeing anywhere from $420 – $600 extra added monthly to my check within 8 months. We didn't do meetings, trainings, conventions, garage qualifying or any of that … we didn't need to … everything grew organically. No one was talking about building a business with anyone. One of the girls ended up earning more money than me! How cool is that?

Did some of the people not like the products? You bet … and they returned them and got their money refunded. Did some of the girls cancel their monthly orders? For sure … and 80% of the time they were ordering products again in 60 days. Did anyone ever say to me … Rose, you PROMISED me that I would make money and I'm not … you LIED to me … NO … NO … NO!!!

Integrity is nonexistent and reputations have been ruined when the wrong "product" is sold to people who have been led to have unrealistic expectations of the results they can get and how quickly they can get them. This is what has caused "diminishing down line syndrome", "program jumping" and the "97% failure rate in network marketing" that everyone talks about. It is also the biggest reason that Network Marketing developed such a bad reputation as a viable, legal business model. Thankfully that stigma is being reversed because of the higher caliber of people coming into the industry today.

Most people don't want to feel like they have been misled and they don't want to mislead others. Most people don't want to get "hurt" and they don't want to "hurt" other people. But that's what happens over and over again in Network Marketing because the wrong thing is being sold.

If people sell from their personal "truth" … what they know in their hearts to be absolutely 100% true for them … they are telling their story. That's what catches other people's attention and causes them to listen because they are thinking to themselves … "Hey, that sounds just like me! I wonder what she's got. It might help me too".

Here is something else to think about. People buy what they want, not what they need. People HATE to be sold to and they just LOVE to buy from people they know, like and TRUST.

People do not like salespeople. They usually run away from them. People do not like to feel pressured. People do not like to feel as though they are being manipulated. People respond to empathy. They respond to people who are interested in THEM. People are dying to know that someone actually has their best interests at heart and CARES. When that sort of a relationship is built, it becomes very easy for people to do business with one another.

When I speak from my heart about my results and those are the results that someone else wants, it's a good bet that they will find the money to buy. If I help them to get the result they want, I have provided them a GREAT service and they are a happy customer. Happy customers buy more and they stick around for a long time. They also refer other people because they trust me to take good care of their friends.

And isn't that what having a thriving business is all about … Selling something to someone which is of greater value than what they paid for it?  What is the value of honesty and integrity … doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do … loving and really caring for others enough to honor them with our intentions?

If we exercise our right to refuse to do stupid sh%$, as Frank so bluntly stated in the video, and we give happy, loyal, long term customers their proper place in our businesses, Network Marketing just MIGHT become THE business of CHOICE for SERIOUS entrepreneurs worldwide.

You can’t change the direction and forces of the wind, but you can change the setting of your own sail ~ The Late, Great, Jim Rohn

You are loved and missed Mr. Rohn. Thank you for the wisdom you left here on earth!

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  Rose Mis is the author of “Dead Blogs Don’t Lie ~ 7 Secrets To A Wildly Popular High Traffic Blog” and the editor and publisher of The Frugal Networker Newsletter. She is the creator and Executive Chef of the internet's only Award Winning Attraction Marketing Training Kitchen. Rose is one of the top MLM / Network Marketing bloggers in the blogoshpere and is a featured blogger at thatMLMbeat.com. You are invited to stop by the Kitchen anytime you have any questions about blogging, marketing or mindset. Rose is here to help you get the results you are looking for as quickly and cost effectively as possible.