Most network marketers are quickly persuaded to believe that the ability to generate network marketing leads is one of the most important skills they can learn. In network marketing, they are told repeatedly in training meetings, the ability to add new prospects into your marketing pipeline is essential for success. Without it, there can be no retail sales or recruiting of new independent sales representatives.
While there is some truth to this statement, the entire premise of this approach is incorrect. Frankly, MLM should not be seen as a marketing business because the MLM model does not provide any particular training to become a good networker. So if MLM is not a marketing business, what is it? It is an approach to income generation through a simple referral program.
Since this definition is contrary to most descriptions of MLM as a complete “soup to nuts” home business, in this article we will go into great depth about how MLM does not offer representatives a marketing business. When a business cannot offer its “sales force” effective marketing and sales techniques can it really be called a “marketing business?”
Although most network marketing companies are in the business of telling people that they need training and they must attend meetings to learn marketing and selling, 90% of people fail because the systems in use are not working at all for distributors. Even attraction Marketing and all the other “new” systems are just a variation of what has been out for quite some time.
Let us take a closer look at what is not working in MLM before we can talk about solutions. The solution we propose will only make sense once you realize that there is a serious, unaddressed problem in MLM.
Popular MLM Marketing Strategies
When it comes to lead generation, new reps are taught by their MLM company that there are online and offline marketing techniques that they can use. Moreover, top MLM producers use a combination of both ways of lead generation. For offline marketing, they usually suggest using the following strategies: warm marketing contacts, local prospecting, traditional advertising, and buying leads. Then, for online marketing, they suggest using Internet Marketing techniques like search engine marketing and social networking to drive people to a landing page. We will go through each of these lead generation methods to better understand why they are not working.
Offline Marketing
Tapping into a Warm Market
When people join an MLM, they usually start with the people they know. This is known as their warm market because a warm relationship already exists between family members, friends, acquaintances and work colleagues.
Although this method is often recommended, it has numerous problems:
i) It puts people you know in an embarrassing and awkward position. On one hand, they want to be supportive, encouraging you to pursue financial independence with your home business. On the other hand, they may have no interest in using your product or joining your MLM.
ii) If you are too aggressive, your circle of influence will gradually shrink. People will begin to avoid you. They will stop answering your phone calls, responding to your emails, or wanting to visit with you. This unexpected alienation can be emotionally painful for someone new in MLM eager to build their business.
iii) A warm list is quickly worn out. Unless one has a large circle of personal influence, it is easy to quickly run out of people to contact.
Local Prospecting
Once the warm list has been exhausted, the next place new reps go to get leads is their local community—ranging from stores and restaurants in their local town to their religious and social groups.
Essentially, this is a cold list, and you may experience a considerable amount of rejection, even rudeness as people try to protect themselves from what they perceive as an invasion to their pocketbooks. Unless one is already a well-known person in the community, the chances of success are not high. This is because there is a low level of trust here. Since people don’t know you well, they are also less likely to trust you and buy from you. One has to be particularly thick-skinned to do well in local marketing.
Traditional Advertising
This is using advertising sources like:
i. Radio
ii. Television
iii. Newspapers
iv. Magazines
v. Direct mail
vi. Billboards
vii. Buying space on cabs, buses, park benches, etc.
This does not work very well for personal retail sales and recruiting and the only time it works is when it relates to promoting a large event. The main disadvantage of this method is that expenses can far exceed expected revenues.
Buying Lists of Names
List Brokers collect names of different types of consumers, including those who are interested in starting their own home business and network marketing.
Often these lists are completely useless. This may be due to the fact that the list of names was collected without approval. For instance, if someone ordered a product from a classified ad, their name and address may have been sold without their knowledge to a list broker. Even if the list was obtained legitimately, for example, the people on the list signed up for a survey and expressed an interest in being contacted, the list may have been used so many times the people on the lists are fed up with getting unsolicited phone calls. Usually the cheaper the list, the more likely it is to be a low quality list.
Leads from the Internet
Let us now look at problems associated with leads generated through the Internet. Although Attraction Marketing is purportedly designed to revamp all the problems associated with traditional marketing and selling, it quickly becomes obvious that this is just another variation of a system that is fundamentally flawed.
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a combination of pay per click leads and leads from organic search engine optimization.
This type of lead generation requires a great deal of skill and knowledge and experience to do well. For instance, in order to be successful in pay per click marketing, a person has to be very good at keyword research and writing persuasive ad copy. Similarly, it requires a considerable amount of study to understand how to do search engine optimization (SEO) well. Additionally, the major search engines are constantly upgrading and updating their algorithms. Consequently, it’s possible to have your website on the top of Google’s top 10 listings for a well-researched keyword that has low competition and high search volume for a while but then have the website listing disappear completely from the search engine results pages (SERPs) because Google has changed the algorithms.
Social Networking
There are numerous websites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and so on where people can meet and share ideas.
Most people who visit social networking websites are not looking for home business opportunities. Instead they are there to simply meet their friends, connect with others, and enjoy companionship. Consequently, it requires a great deal of sophistication to know exactly where to place your posts and how to word them so that they don’t sound blatantly commercial.
Another problem is that there are so many social networks that it’s hard to know which ones to use. Moreover, since each is slightly different, it can become bewildering trying to figure out where to go and what to do.
Is There an Easier Way?
Although these methods do not work, they are regularly promoted by MLM companies as well as ancillary marketing training companies to be the very best ways to generate leads. When there is an ineffective lead generation method that fails for 90 percent of the people who use it, can any network marketing company really claim that they are in the marketing business? Despite the name, there is no marketing. Moreover, if there is no marketing, then there can be no sales. This is why we define network marketing as a referral or sponsoring system, but not as a marketing business.
Now that we’ve gone into the systemic problems in MLM, it is time to begin talking about solutions.
The Tru180 System
If the current paradigm of network marketing, ostensibly to generate leads and convert leads into sales, is not working, what is a pragmatic solution? This is a legitimate question, and looking into the many challenges independent sales representatives have had with lead generation, we at Tru180 decided to create a much better lead generation system than is available anywhere. So what is the Tru180 System and how can we help? Think of the Tru180 System as a consultant. However, it is a performance-based consultancy—because we only get paid for producing results.
Here’s another way of thinking about Tru180: monthly purchase requirements can be viewed as investing into an IRA or retirement account. However, unlike these investment instruments, the only difference is clients receive income monthly without penalty.
As a way to introduce people to this unique technology, we are inviting people to preregister for our launch. For more information, please http://www.tru180.com. Reserve your place without risking a dollar.
