In the quest for network marketing success, many people often engage in insane activities. Below are eleven horrible things I will NEVER DO AGAIN (and you don’t have to either, if you don’t want to).
Cold Calling Nightmare
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1. Cold calling realtors and mortgage brokers who did not ask for information I bought recruiting “guru” MLM consultant‘s training program that practically guaranteed wild network marketing success. He purported that if you bought it and followed it, your business would explode. In the 6-8 CD program, Mr. MLM Consultant Guru trained on how to “recruit up the socioeconomic chain” by contacting professionals. It came with a slimy script, email messages, and letter templates to contact them. I dutifully listened to the entire set of CDs, which included recordings of Mr. Guru MLM Consultant calling these professionals.
The call went something like this, “Hey, Bob. This is Nancy Carroll here in Seattle, Washington. How are you doing? Excellent! Bob…I was conducting a search on the internet for real estate professionals in the Orlando area and located you. I own a company here in Seattle and I am in the process of expanding some of my operations into Florida. Anytime I move into a new area I personally talent scout top notch sales professionals for my business. I have a very simple question for you. Do you keep your options open at all in terms of earning income outside of what you are currently doing in real estate?”
Blech! I followed Mr. Guru’s script, calling thousands of realtors, mortgage brokers, and insurance salespeople. If they said they kept their options open, I did something I will NEVER again do….
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2. Mail out packages of materials to uninterested parties As soon as they said that they kept their options open, I asked for their mailing address and sent them an info pack with a personal letter, a CD, and a brochure about the company. I spent hundreds of dollars mailing out at least 300 information packets. Then I would follow up a few days later. Mr. Guru MLM Consultant claimed that the close was “easy” because professionals were smart and would practically enroll themselves. Did that happen? I think you know the answer.
I also used this insane method with another company, and simply sent the realtors a link, and confirmed a follow up appointment. Most of the time, though, they hadn’t watched the video, hid behind voicemail, or were repulsed by network marketing.
Yes, I did get a high percentage of people to agree to look at the information. Out of all those thousands of phone calls, and hundreds of dollars in postage, and time away from my family I spent pounding the phone—I did enroll one realtor. In fact, I was so thorough about calling, that our real estate broker (who sold us our home) asked me to STOP calling his agents.
If you want to stay married, have a good relationship with your children, and avoid time in a mental institution—I do not recommend the aforementioned method.
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3. Call people from craigslist looking for a job. Another “leader” put out a training on contacting jobseekers on craigslist. This is a strategy that I attempted. This approach was actually less painful than the real estate approach, but dreadful nonetheless. I called a few hundred job seekers, and enrolled one.
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4. Call women liquidating their Mary Kay inventory. No one actually told me to do this- I made it up all by my newbie self. When I first started in the network marketing arena, and had exhausted my initial warm market list, I noticed a lot of women were selling their Mary Kay inventory on craigslist, after they decided that they were tired of their business. I would call them and then ask them to join my super galactic business. I enrolled one lady, “Svetlana,” after doing this. She invited me to a Mary Kay rally, which I attended. I called her a few days later about my company, and she enrolled. She actually recruited several people to the team. She was soon gone after she got bored and started drinking a new weightloss tea. I think Svetlana lives in South America now.
5. Hold business opportunity meetings at the back of grocery stores. While tooling around in her Mary Kay mobile, Svetlana encountered a small grocery store owned by a very sweet couple. She enrolled them and then we started to hold semi-regular opportunity meetings at the back of the grocery store in a little room. Two guys who didn’t even have debit cards, bank accounts, or even the cash to get started attended one of our meetings as I presented with index cards and an infamous white board. Maybe one of Svetlana’s reps cajoled them in from the street?!
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6. Put up business cards at gas pumps. I attended one webinar on which the trainer suggested that you get business cards with dollar bills printed on them from Vistaprint, complete with a titillating message about the business opportunity, and put them wherever you go. I plastered them at gas pumps, newspaper machines, and other public places. I even snuck them inside library books on business and personal development. I did not enroll a soul using this method.
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7. Clean my house for home parties. Although I am a gregarious gal, I detest home parties (i.e. business opportunity meetings in the home). I enjoy entertaining friends and family at my home, for the pure social aspect, but NOT to plug and play a company DVD, business presentation, etc. I do know that some people are wildly successful building using home parties. If you enjoy them, great! I’m not saying to stop doing them–they’re simply a way that I DON’T want to build right now.
When my sponsor told me that the company was going “back to the basics” and returning to building via one-to-one meetings and home meetings, I had a breakthrough. I didn’t want to spend my nights and weekends away from my family, especially while my daughter is in high school. Ethically I also couldn’t ask other moms and dads to do the same. It was time to move on.
8. Dress up for a hotel meeting. Maybe you like putting on pantyhose and heels AGAIN after you’ve already been at work all day, fed the kids, straightened up the house, and done errands. I don’t even like dressing up. Getting gussied up in a suit on a weeknight to kick off a meeting is NOT freedom. In my book, ideal business attire is jeans, a cute t-shirt, and flip flops.
9. Three-way phone calls. Three-way phone calls can be an effective way to build your business, and I’ve enrolled lots of people using this strategy. However, the better I got on the phone, the more my team wanted me to talk to their prospects, and then my phone rang more and more at weird times. Is that freedom?
10. Demand my team members fork over their friends’ and families’ phone numbers. In one company, the head guys wanted you to get your team members to make a list of their warm market, along with their friends’ and family’s numbers, and then CALL THEM for the new reps.
Having a thriving home business means that you are an INDEPENDENT business owner, and you help other INDEPENDENT business owners who are ready to step up to the challenge as grown-ups. You’re not doing ADULT DAYCARE. With a large and growing team, who has time for that meddling? Again, is that freedom? Is that why you got started?
11. Call 100-200 prospects daily. I’ve been quite successful at phone prospecting, and I even did national training conference calls for a company. The phone can be fun, rewarding, and a great way to connect with others who have ASKED to hear from you. However, in the twenty-first century, hardly anyone answers their phone, like they did in 1975. Today people check caller ID, check their voicemail, or often will text back a response instead of picking up the phone.
Even if the lead company claimed that these were the best telephone-verified leads on the planet, I found that REAL lead quality varied like a wacko Richter scale. Some of the leads had been dead for several years, others had only completed the form online to get a free laptop, many were on Social Security and entrenched in a victim/lack mindset, some men just wanted to keep talking to me because they said I had a pretty voice (I got off the phone fast with those guys).
I have connected with some wonderful people on the phone, and enrolled many reps this way. I’m no longer willing to spend days, nights, and weekends hitting the phone. I don’t mind getting on the phone with a prospect who has viewed the information in entirety, is genuinely intrigued, and just has a couple of questions before they get started.
Many “leaders” say that in order to achieve network marketing success you got to sacrifice, you might have to miss your kids’ sporting events, and go on 90 day blitzes where you don’t eat or sleep. Plain unhealthy malarkey.
Are you done with any of the exhausting aforementioned methods? Sick and tired of being sick and tired?
Real Network Marketing Success
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Marketing online has been refreshing. Before discovering our team’s proprietary 5-Step formula, I was burned out on the entire home business industry and tired of pounding the phone. The first thing I noticed is I ONLY interacted with prospects who were interested in working with me directly or purchasing the products and services I promote. Since then, we’re generating several leads per day and our traffic has increased dramatically. And the best part about this is that my friend Jerry Chen teaches everyone on my team the exact same formula so that they can learn and apply this information to design their lives… on their own terms!
Get your life back. Click on the big yellow button below, and I’ll see you by the pool (with your kids, if you want).
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P.S. This works even if you’ve never made a dime in network marketing, you’re brand new, and you are technologically challenged. Find out how here. You deserve to set yourself free.