How to Combat the Bad Reputation of MLM

Todays MLM or Direct Marketing carries the weight of many ill conceived notions and negative connotations. Much of this bad press in the MLM industry comes from within the industry itself.

How can that be? We all remember our parents telling us that our “Actions speak louder than words” and that is the main way that we have created this negative view from the general population in regard to direct marketing.

Perception

Perception is everything in our industry. How we portray ourselves and our industry is the key to everyone else’s perception of not only our products, but also the MLM industry.

When you promise the sun and moon and deliver an asteroid it tells a lot about who you are as an individual and it also delivers a message about the industry you are involved with.

Market your product line with honesty and integrity. Its easy to fall into the trap of misleading your site visitors into believing that what you offer is more than what it is.
This happens when you misrepresent what your product is and what it offers.
Certainly play up the qualities of your products, but don’t exaggerate or be misleading about what you offer.

In addition when you are sharing information about your business opportunity, its important to be real. Provide accurate information about the history of the company as well as the residual structure set up by the company.

When you provide information in a clear and accurate way, your prospects and customers will be able to draw their own conclusions and make their decision based on facts not hype.

Deliver what you promise

Direct Marketing has huge potential to provide an affordable way for people from all walks of life to realize their dreams. It also has the one of the highest failure rates estimated at 95%! How can this be when we are supposed to be in control of our own future and success?

Many who sign up in an MLM quickly become disillusioned when the support and tools provided to them fail. This is also because of the lack of true leadership within our industry.

Our industry is filled with the empty promises of our sponsors and uplines. Its up to us to educate ourselves on what works and doesn’t work and then to pass that information and training along to our downline.

We promised to help them and we can’t do that when we don’t answer our phones or use double speak when answering their questions. Its important to make ourselves available to our downline and provide them with accurate information and usable tools.

Realizing that deviating from the “standard” tools is not a practice that is smiled upon in our industry, how can we continue to promote these tools knowing that they don’t work. I know I got pretty tired of hearing, don’t reinvent the wheel, but if the wheel is broken, it needs to be fixed.

Back to Basics

Somehow we have gotten away from the products in our business and started focusing only on the opportunity, and our dropout rate continues to climb.

You can combat this by teaching your team to build a strong foundation. Pay attention to keeping your training focused on the products. Allow your team members to develop their own individuality when it comes to marketing, remember they got into this because they didn’t want a “JOB” or a “BOSS”.

The ability to break down the different aspects of what we do in their simplest form and relay that information to our team will help us to help them start building their dream and ensure that we continue on the path to achieving our own dreams.

Its up to us to keep focused and consistently provide what we promise. Our ability to do this will do volumes in building the reputation of our fast growing industry. It will also do wonders in our own retention rates and start a trend of lowering the percentage of folks that quit out of frustration.

Todays MLM and Responsible Leadership

Multi Level Marketing is different today than it was just a few years ago. When the World Wide Web opened up it changed how we promote our products, our services as well as ourselves. It changed the way we do many things in our business and our personal lives. Our ability to adapt and our openness to developing new, up to date tools to help our own business grow as well as that of out downline should be a major concern for all of us.

My experience is that the majority of the “Old School” marketing techniques just don’t work in todays modern, electronically driven Multi Level Marketing businesses.

I've been told that in the not so distant past when you wanted to share your Multi Level Marketing opportunity with someone you would invite him or her to an Opportunity Meeting at a local hotel. If they showed up, you relied on the Key Speaker to “Close” for you. Conference calls, online meetings and digital recordings sent over the Internet now relay our message to our prospects.

We have a huge advantage over Network Marketers of the past. We are able to reach more people and have the ability to target exactly who we are looking for. It is in our best interest to develop the tools and training to teach our downlines how to do exactly that.

The Internet has made it possible for MLM prospects to look at many different business opportunities at once, without leaving the comfort of their homes. Today’s prospects are savvier and rarely fall prey to the old school pressure tactics. They also have the ability to shop for their sponsor, which can make the competition stiff. Knowing this, you have to find a way to stand out from the crowd and offer something special to your prospects and your customers.

Working Your Warm Market

We have all been told to work our warm market. The warm list is an MLM standard. Make the list of your friends and family and then introduce them to your business. Is this really a method that works?

If you think about it, this method is ineffective in todays MLM. Look at the top money earners in your company. When they show up at a company function are their friends and families there with them as top money earners? A better way to work your warm market is to send out an announcement about your products and leave it at that. This gets the word out and you will still be invited to family dinners. Working your warm market may work if you have a quality product that is affordable, but if you are looking to build a downline your warm market is the last place you should start.

The Company Convention

How many of you have been told the importance of attending your company conventions? I know I was. I even hosted a couple of events myself. “If you attend the company convention your business will grow!”

I will be the first to tell you that what I got from attending company events was some warm fuzzies and an empty wallet. Yes these events are exciting and get you pumped up. If you determine that is what you need to be successful, then you should go.

I'm not "anti-company convention”, but you have to keep in perspective. I personally can't justify telling someone in my downline who is struggling to show a profit each month that they should do what they have to in order to attend a company function because attending company conventions does not generate income or leads.

Get Them Into Profit

As sponsors we have a responsibility to help our downline get into profit as quickly as possible. This is not accomplished by sending them to meetings they can ill afford or by getting them hooked up with all of our affiliates before they really need those services.

We do need to provide our downlines with these resources, but only when it is appropriate. Our first efforts need to be focused on getting them into profit so they can generate the income to pay for the affiliate services they need using the money they earned.

Provide Accurate Information

Another change that the Internet has brought about is the amount of information that our customers and prospects have access to. As a young adult I attended some of the opportunity meetings for several different companies. The only information I was given came from the person who invited me to the meeting and those who ran the meeting. Now they have it all at their fingertips and it amazes me how much wrong information is being given out.

As responsible business people we do a disservice to our company and ourselves if we represent our products using incorrect information. If you have to misrepresent your product to make a sale or recruit someone you should reconsider what you are marketing.

Empowerment

Much of the MLM world is focused on empowering your downline. However, to accomplish this you must provide the tools of empowerment. If someone in your downline asks what they should do to build their page rank and you tell them to write articles and submit them, is that really empowering them? What if they have no clue about article writing let alone where to submit one? Telling someone who has never written an article that this is what he or she needs to do is only going to put another obstacle in his or her path.

A better option is to tell them they need to write articles and provide some resources for the basics of how to write an article. Not providing this simple type of resource has the ability to make your team member feel trapped and anyone who feels trapped is not very productive.

Whats Your Bottom Line?

Lets face it; most of us are in business to make money and because we were tired of having a JOB and a BOSS. As Responsible Leaders we need to provide our downline with up to date tools that produce and stop telling them to do things simply because that is what we were told.
Don’t short change your own or your teams creativity because you are more comfortable with the old school ways.

Allow yourself and your team to “Step out of their Box” by not shooting down their new ideas and exploring the possibilities because it doesn’t fit into your way of thinking. Empower yourself and your team by looking for new avenues that teach what is necessary to be successful.

Conclusion

Take the tools you were given and find a way to adapt them to our time. No you don’t have to reinvent that proverbial wheel. But you do need to modernize it. But keep in mind, if the wheel is broken, you are going to need to get out your saw an hammer. If these means putting in some extra time and developing tools that work, then get to it! Teach your downline to build a firm foundation and lead them by example!