Powerful MLM Success Tip: From Now On, Think Of Every Person You Meet Online or Off As a Filing Cabinet

Laurel (my wife and business partner) and I have been "connected" to the MLM & Home Based Business industry for a long time, either as customers, as business builders or as trainers. We love the industry, almost all of the products and services it offers, and most of the companies in it.

But we disagree with much of the training. We think the training — or lack thereof — is the Achilles’ heel of MLM. It’s why, in our opinion, the vast majority of the well-meaning and hardworking distributors fail. Miserably. For one thing, it doesn’t teach distributors what to say and do to REALLY get people’s attention — and without attention, there’s no interest, no reaction, and no action.

And we’ve observed their failure to communicate properly — that’s what it comes down to — everywhere distributors market and advertise their products or opportunity: at networking events (especially), with their Web site, their capture page, business cards, sizzle cards, flyers, ads, emails, etc. Everywhere.

Let me share with you the best tip we gave people when we used to do live or telephone training sessions: Imagine, from now on, that every person you meet — online or offline — is a four-drawer filing cabinet. Your simple job — we didn’t say easy — is to get them to open a "mental drawer" to take in your information in order to make a decision about your products and business opportunity, with the hope that in the end, they will discriminate in your favor.

The only two questions in your mind at this point should be: "What does he mean by ‘opening a mental drawer’?" and "How do you do that?". Great questions. Let’s answer them one at a time.

Imagine that everyone is a filing cabinet with legs, feet, arms and hands, neck and head. As you probably suspect — just look at your own life — this "filing cabinet" is bombarded daily with hundreds, perhaps thousands of messages, from the outside — come to this event, register for this course, buy this brand of car, this house in this part of town, this shampoo, eat these cereals, eat at this restaurant, go there for your holidays, send your daughter to this school, use our credit card, our cellphone package, etc.

There are also a lot of messages coming from the inside — gotta renew my membership this week, gotta call the accountant, gotta order more checks from the bank, gotta change the batteries in the smoke detector, gotta get the oil changed on the SUV, gotta do this, gotta go here, gotta buy that...

Here’s what uninformed MLMers too often do: they bombard the poor soul with worthless words that just bounce off the sides of the filing cabinet and pile up at the bottom, words that will never be read, heard or referred to ever. Let me lift a corner of the veil and reveal why these words are worthless: these words speak of features and particulars. I’ll elaborate on this in a minute.

Let me share with you a very wise observation from a marketing genius named Michel Neray: "If you’re like most people, you try to tell as much as you can, as quickly as you can, in order to give your prospect as much information as possible in the hopes that something will trigger some interest. After all, you’ve got excellent credentials to describe great case studies, impressive expertise and a gazillion years of experience, and you really, really know what you’re talking about, right? If you never seem to get people as interested as you had hoped they would be, here’s why: the person you’re talking to simply can’t process all the information you’re overwhelming him with, and consequently, he just tunes out."

They tune out. They tune out because you give them too much information, yes, but more important, they tune out because you give them the WRONG information. I’ll address that in the answer to your second question.

Your mission, when you are marketing and advertising your wonderful MLM opportunity and your fantastic products or services, is to get the person you are communicating with to pull open one of the drawers to receive and store your information — the information they’ll need later to make a decision.

Bluntly put, if you don’t get them interested enough — if you don’t get their ATTENTION — for them to open that mental drawer, you are SOL. Finished. Kaput. Sayonara. Va con dios amigo!

If they don’t open the drawer, they will NOT visit your Web site, they will NOT keep your business card or sizzle card, they will NOT read your flyer, ad or email. Consequently, they will NOT buy your amazing products and will certainly NOT join your business opportunity. EVER!

Now, your second question was (should have been) "How do you do that?" Here’s how: first, you start my remembering that the most listened-to radio station anywhere on the planet is WIII-FM — What Is In It For Me. Then, you tell the person what is in it for him or her if they buy your products or join your business.

Give them the BENEFITS, first. Not the features, not the particulars, not how many years the company has been around, the fact that they’re in 12 countries already, that your upline makes 10 grand a month, that you’ve signed up 16 people in the last week, that if they buy now, they get two for one and free shipping, or the fact that you can re-insert yourself in your own leg by buying extra positions. WHO CARES?

I’ll tell you who cares: someone who has just taken in, tasted, chewed and digested a fantastic benefit for them. Someone who has asked — verbally or in their head — the question "How do you do that?" or maybe "Can you tell me more?" When they ask one of those two questions — consciously or subconsciously — they’ve now open a drawer and they are ready and willing (eager even if the benefit is huge) to take in your info and read it, watch it, listen to it, ponder it, study it attentively later. You’re "in"! You’re on first base!

Features tell, benefits sell! Features make the "filing cabinet" airtight, benefits open up drawers. Don’t get me wrong, people will need the features, the particulars, the details to make a decision — LATER! But they FIRST need to see the benefits, or all the other stuff will be of no interest, no value. And what do people do — what do YOU do? — with things that are valueless? You discard them.

One more thing about benefits and features: you need to know the difference.

This is a serious problem I observe daily in MLM campaigns everywhere: most MLMers, it seems, don’t know the difference between the two. Let me shed some light on this. A feature is what something IS or HAS (a compensation plan with an auto-ship) while a benefit is what something DOES (it guarantees your income from month to month). And even better if you can express the benefit(s) in terms of what that thing does FOR me, the prospect (What Is In It For ME!!!).

For example, which one of the following two approaches do you think has a better chance of enticing Bob to open up a drawer and store your information for future consideration?:

"One thing I like about our comp plan, Bob, is that the customers get their products via auto-ship." (Bob thinking: "Who cares?")

"You know Bob, because your customers get their product via auto-ship, your income is guaranteed every month, even if you spend half the time away from the office, doing what you really like to do..."
(Bob dreaming: "... like fly-fishing, playing golf, building the cottage...")

In conclusion, people lead busy lives. They pay attention only to things that they consider of value, to THEM (WIII-FM...). Benefits represent value, features don’t — not until there is a benefit. If you want to get people’s attention, give them a good reason for action — aka the right information. That’s the only way to get them to open their mental drawer. When you get enough people to do that, sky’s the limit.

I wish you ALL the personal and professional MLM success you desire and deserve. (Just remember that...What you "desire" is a function of your ambition, what you "deserve" is a function of your ACTIONS...Are the two aligned?)

Daniel G. St-Jean, BB, IMA, AMA, FBMI, SEM
(BizzBooster, Internet Marketing Advisor, Article-Marketing Alchemist, Firm-Base Marketing Instructor, Successerenity Exponent & Mentor)

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If You Want Your MLM Business to Be a Massive Success, Learn and Implement These Two Invaluable TIPPPS™

It’s really hard to build a successful MLM business these days. There are many "external" factors for that, like the economy, the competition from other legitimate MLM business opportunities, the competition from bottom-feeders trying to pass their gifting programs and other scams as "legitimate" income opportunities.

By "external" I mean factors you have no control over. But there are also many "internal" factors that keep people from succeeding, and those you have control over. Most of those have to do with marketing mistakes and communication boo-boos. With proper MLM training, those can be fixed.

Laurel (my wife and business partner) and I have been "connected" together and separately to MLM, Network Marketing, Direct Sales or the Home Based Business industry for a long time, either as customers, business builders, or trainers.

One thing we’ve noticed during all these years of connectedness to the MLM Home Business industry is that few people actually experience MLM success (as in making a yearly six-figure income). There are, as pointed out earlier, many reasons for that sad fact (eg external and internal factors).

In regards to "fixable" factors, we’ve observed quite a few lethal mistakes being made by MLM business builders over the years, and one that stands out like a sunflower in a field of daisies is focusing their approach and marketing material on the wrong information. I will now share two TIPPPS™ (Thoughts Ideas Principles & Practices for Professional Success) that can eradicate this mistake.

Here’s the first TIPPPS™: Benefits! Benefits! Benefits!

One of the 88 TIPPPS™ in my book Milk & Cookies for Success is "If they’re not buying what you’re selling maybe you don’t have a good enough S.O.B.!" Before you start thinking that I’m using foul language, here’s the follow-up to that statement: "As a multi-level marketer, you have a much better chance of success if you use a compelling Statement Of Benefits (S.O.B.) that clearly tells your potential distributor what is in it for him if he joins your MLM opportunity."

S.O.B... not S.O.F (Statement Of Features)! Benefits galore, and features ignore!

The problem is that most marketers don’t know the difference between the two. Let me shed some light on this. A feature is what something IS or HAS while a benefit is what something DOES. And even better if you can express that in terms of what that thing does FOR me, the "buyer".

Example. This lawnmower has a 28-inch blade (feature — so what? Who cares?). It means you can mow your lawn is less time (generic benefit)... and you can use the saved time to do things you would much rather be doing... like fishing, golfing, gardening (personal benefit).

Which one of the following two approaches do you think has a better chance of enticing Bob (who’s eying a big Toro in the store) to pull out his credit card?:
"Good day sir. That baby’s got a 28 inch blade, you know?" (Bob thinking: "Who cares?")
"Good day sir. That baby will cut your mowing time in half. Now what could you do with that extra time?" (Bob dreaming: "I could go fishing, play golf, or detail my sports car...")

Bottom line is this: most people don’t care about the "details" (the features) until they see the "big picture" (the benefits) clearly in their head. It is crucial to your MLM success that you internalize this and apply it to ALL your marketing endeavors, online or offline: Benefits galore, and features ignore! The sooner you’ve accepted this basic truism of marketing, the sooner you can use it to become more effective and persuasive in your communication.

Now we need to add one bit of important information to this "Benefits!" TIPPPS™: WHAT benefits should you focus on? Should they be based on what people actually want, or need? Or on what YOU think they want or need? The answer is contained in the second TIPPPS™.

TIPPPS™ #2 (courtesy of Robert J. Ringer): "The simplest, safest approach to financial success is to make it a habit to sell people what they WANT, NOT what they need, NOT what they THINK they need, and especially NOT what YOU think they need."

As a MLM business builder, you’re making a disastrous mistake if you’re trying to sell people what YOU think they need. Here is Robert J. Ringer once again:

"People want to smell better, look better, feel better, be more sensual, work less, make more money, play more. The fact is that people don't need beer, cigarettes or thousand calories triple burgers. And they don't need pick-up trucks that go from zero to 100 miles per hour in five seconds. Try to sell people what they need (vitamins, education, insurance), and you're liable to end up in bankruptcy court.

Now, if you try to sell people what YOU think they need, you might also go broke in the process. The problem with selling people what YOU think they need — even if they really need it — is that it takes too long and costs too much to educate them, i.e., to convince them that they need your product or service. The simplest, safest approach to financial success is to be an accommodating free-enterpriser and make it a habit to sell people what they want."

Been there, done that! A few years back, I was very involved in a MLM that marketed fantastic health supplements. Great stuff! But I almost lost my marbles and all of my savings trying to "educate and convince" people that they needed those supplements to stay healthy and live long. The only person who got an education was me.

I got that education partly from my failure to make headway with my supplement business, partly from watching a good friend of mine making a fortune selling video-games (aka something people "want").

Then I came across the text above by Mr. Ringer. One part of the sentence was flashing in my head like a neon sign on Times Square: "People want to... make money." Following that enlightenment, I put aside ALL my literature about the products and focused solely on showing people how they could make money with my MLM business opportunity... money they could spend on video-games, big-screen TVs, and pick-up trucks that go real fast.

As a result of that change of approach, my MLM business took off like a Ferrari on steroids!

In conclusion, focus your marketing on benefits your prospects want, not need, and certainly not on benefits that YOU think they need — even if you know for a fact they do indeed need them. Those are wise words of advice you can take straight to the bank.

I hope the "knowledge" you gleaned from this article will be helpful. Remember though that knowledge is power ONLY when it’s combined with ACTION! If you think the TIPPPS™ above are valuable, DO something with them, and seek out more of them.

I wish you ALL the business success you desire and deserve. (Just remember that...what you "desire" is a function of your ambition, what you "deserve" is a function of your ACTIONS...Are the two aligned?)

Daniel G. St-Jean, BB, IMA, AMA, FBMI, SEM
(BizzBooster, Internet Marketing Advisor, Article-Marketing Alchemist, Firm-Base Marketing Instructor, Successerenity Exponent & Mentor)

P.S.: This article was inspired by a very informative and enlightening 5,500-word article which you can read by following the link listed in the Resource Box.

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If You Want to Market Your MLM Business Opportunity Successfully, Do Not Do Like Xork and Xindy

It's very possible — more like probable according to the latest statistics — that as a MLM Marketer you're you having PROBLEMS...

• Grabbing and keeping the attention of home business seekers...
• Driving lots of targeted traffic to your Web site...
• Generating scores of high-quality leads and prospects...
• Building a large, responsive mailing list...
• Sponsoring hordes of hardworking and loyal distributors
• Making enough sales and signing up enough distributors to cover your expenses (even though your goal is to make lots of money to do the things in life that you and your loved ones really want to do).

If you are experiencing ANY of the disheartening problems mentioned above, a big reason for your lack of results could be that you’re making a marketing and prospecting mistake of Xorkian proportions.

Many of you (especially baby boomers) will remember "Mork & Mindy", the popular and funny sitcom of the late 70’s. Mork (Robin Williams) was an alien from Planet Ork sent to Earth to study human beings. He looked just like an earthling (though he did not behave like one) and lived in Boulder, Colorado, with beautiful Mindy (Pam Dawber).

I want you to imagine for a minute that Xork (Mork’s brother) and his girlfriend Xindy arrived on earth a couple of days ago. Now they’ve decided it’s time to learn to drive a car — the one parked in your driveway.

Having seen TV commercials about "filling up", the first thing Xork does is to grab the garden hose and fill your near-empty gas tank with water.

What do you think will happen next? How quickly do you think Xork will learn to drive? How far will he go? You can pretty much figure out that the whole project will be a disaster.

Yet, the car is in great working order (except for the content of the tank), the keys are in the ignition (tsk tsk tsk...), the roads are fine, the weather is great, the instruction manual in the glove compartment is very informative and user-friendly, Xork and Xindy are patient students and they really want to learn. And yet, disaster looms. Why is that?

Because the ‘essential’ ingredient for the success of this endeavor is a tank full of gas. And in the scenario I just described, there’s no gas—just water. No matter how good the car, the road, the weather, the manual, the student or the intention, without gas Xork & Xindy ain’t gonna go nowhere.

Does that sound like some of your MLM marketing and prospecting endeavors?

Here’s why that’s the case: no matter how many people are out there looking for a business opportunity, if you don’t have the ‘essential ingredient’, you won’t have a whole lot of traffic. And without the ‘essential’ ingredient, the little traffic you’ll get will be made up of poor quality leads who won’t join your MLM business opportunity or buy your products. And you might go broke as a result.

Now, let’s juxtapose your situation with the Orkans’ to bring the point home. No matter how good the car (your company and its comp plan), the road (your products and opportunity), the weather (the Marketplace), the instruction manual (all the MLM training), the student (the shopper) or the intention (looking for a business-income opportunity), without the ‘essential’ ingredient, your marketing — no matter what method you use — will be a flop. Without "gas", you’re SOL—just like Xork & Xindy!

Well, if the ‘essential’ ingredient for Xork is gas, what’s the essential ingredient that will make the marketing of your MLM home business take off like a Ferrari on steroids? It’s simply this: knowing precisely what makes people tick. If you don’t know that, you’re up a creek without a paddle.

Some of you might be slightly disappointed that the ‘essential’ ingredient is something so "ordinary" — no big MLM secret — so... common sense. It IS that, but as you are well aware, common sense is not common practice. What is baffling is that no sane person would think of starting a road trip with a thank full of water, and yet, those same "sane" businesspeople will conduct a MLM marketing campaign using messages full of the wrong stuff, stuff no one really cares about — like features for example.

Look, do you want to experience MLM success so you can make tons of sales so you can make lots of money so you can have some time freedom to enjoy your life? Do you?

Good answer! The sure-fire way to do the aforementioned is to be "in-the-know".

What does "in-the-know" mean? It means knowing precisely what motivates people to act — to click, to sign-up, to join, to buy — to do anything, really. It’s knowing WHAT to say (or write) and WHEN to say it, and it’s knowing what NOT to say (not that you want to hide things, but for example, telling people on your home page all the details of HOW the company’s marketing plan is designed to produce group volume — aka the features — before you tell them WHY that is important for residual income — aka the benefits — will be a big waste of everybody’s time).

Now, as an MLM business builder, your chances of success at ‘selling’ — as in trading goods or services for money, but also as in convincing, persuading, influencing — will improve significantly, perhaps even dramatically, if you are selling what the business-shopper is wanting to, ready to, and agreeable to buy into! And to do that well and consistently, you MUST be "in-the-know".

Here, for example, are three irrefutable and undeniable facts of life you become acutely aware of when you’re "in-the-know":

• Everything people do, they do either out of their need to avoid/reduce pain, and/or their desire to gain/increase pleasure.
• People buy on emotions... and then justify with facts.
• Everybody, all the time, is looking out for number one — himself or herself. That’s because self-preservation is the first principle of human nature.

A successful MLM business builder is one who uses that knowledge — and the many other facts of life one learns when "in-the-know" — to design every element of his marketing campaign, keeping in mind at all times that the best possible selling-buying scenario is the one where, at the end of the deal, EVERYBODY WINS!

So, if success with your MLM opportunity is key for you and your family living the Richer Life you all desire and deserve, do your research and your due diligence and find out all you can so that you are in-the-know about what will grab the leads’ attention, what will make them stop what they were doing long enough to read your material, listen to your audio or watch your video, internalize your message, and follow your command — click, join, buy — now!

The information is out there. Find it, and be in-the-know: it’s a matter of (Richer) life or (MLM) death!

I wish you ALL the business success you desire and deserve. (Just remember that...what you "desire" is a function of your ambition, what you "deserve" is a function of your ACTIONS...Are the two aligned?)

Daniel G. St-Jean, BB, IMA, AMA, FBMI, SEM
(BizzBooster, Internet Marketing Advisor, Article-Marketing Alchemist, Firm-Base Marketing Instructor, Successerenity Exponent & Mentor)

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In regards to success and your MLM, Network Marketing or Direct Sales business, we want you to imagine the following: you are currently on the shore of a large lake (say one-mile wide) and success as you’ve imagined it when you joined your company (whatever level of achievement ‘success’ means to you) is on the other shore.

Here’s a good question for you: how will you get there? We’ll look at our favorite answer in a minute, but first, let’s see what many hardworking networkers and distributors tend to do when they just get started on this shore.

They’re walking back and forth along the lake, looking for various modes of transportation that could be available to them: canoes, kayaks, rowboats, rafts, dinghies, yacht, etc. They’re looking for the ONE that will take them safely across to the other side, to success. And hopefully, the ONE will be inexpensive, easy and fast—and effortless would be even better

We feel sorry for those poor misguided folks because we think they’re doomed. Unless they change their approach and their attitude, they will stay on this shore forever. Or they’ll make it part-way across the lake, and sink.

We’ve never watched the TV show The Amazing Race, but we’ve seen the previews. What we’ve noticed is that to win the race and get the prize—aka ‘success’—the participants need to do many things (walk, run, jump, swim, dig, etc.) and use many ‘tools’—train, plane, taxi, motorcycle, bicycle, kayak, camel—to get from the starting point to the finish line.

And you and we know that if they were to walk around the starting point for a while and try to pick ONE easy, effortless, simple ‘tool’ to do the whole race and win, they’d be doomed to fail. They know that to win, they’ll have to use a wide variety of tools and perform a wide array of tasks. It’s a given.

Same thing for MLM networkers. If you want to succeed at this, if you want to get across the lake, you will need to use a wide variety of tools and perform a wide array of tasks.

By the way, did we tell you what the name of that lake is? It’s called Lake Education. Lake Education is what stands between where you are today—on THIS shore—and where you want to be—the OTHER shore. You want to succeed? You need to cross Lake Education, plain and simple.

And we’re here to tell you there is NO single ‘tool’ that will take you across. You need to use many. Contrary to popular belief, there are no speedboats available. In fact, there are no canoes, no rowboats, no kayaks either; the only things available to you are inflatable rubber boats. The bad news is; no oars. The good news is; there are thousands of them available to you. All you have to do is use them intelligently.

How? Well, you start by securing one to THIS shore where you are. Then you attach a second one to the first one, and a third, and a fourth, and so on. It’ll take a while, but if you repeat the process often enough, you’ll eventually get to the other side.

Of course, talking about rubber boats is for illustration purposes only. But what do these represent in the real world of MLM business? They are books, ezines, books, newsletters, books, teleclasses, eBooks, articles, books, special reports, eCourses, teleseminars, books, boot camps, recorded calls, webinars, live seminars, more books, software, conferences, conventions, etc. Did we mention books in that list?

The folks running the Amazing Race know that they need to use many tools to win. There’s NO other way. It’s the same for you and your MLM business. The sooner you get that, the sooner you’ll reach the other side. Stop looking for the ‘one’ that will do it for you, that will ‘save’ you, that will carry you away in comfort to the other side, to success.

Here’s the key to success in two simple words: earn it! Get ALL the education you can on marketing, advertising, copywriting, prospecting, sponsoring, interviewing, training, etc.

Does it work? You bet it does. It did for us. By any standard, we are very successful in the Direct Sales / Network Marketing industry. We attribute our success to five main factors;

• an awesome package to offer our leads (company, product, compensation plan),
• an intense core desire to succeed,
• the fact that we’re helping a lot of people improve their lives,
• working hard but more importantly, working smart, and,
• constant education.

For example, we recently needed to add one more ‘rubber boat’ to get closer to the other shore: Google AdWords. So what did we do? We bought three (THREE) programs from three Google AdWords gurus, for a cost of over $200. Why three? Because although 80% of the content in each program was the same as in the other two, 20% of each program presented original ideas, suggestions, tricks and tips.

The result? Within a week after educating ourselves thoroughly on how to submit and manage AdWords campaigns, we doubled the number of visits to one of our websites. A very wise investment of resources indeed.

Our advice is this; find as many tools as you can, buy them, learn from them, implement the lessons (remember that the goal of education is not knowledge but ACTION), work your butts off, and we’ll see you—and celebrate your success with you—on the other side.

Have an amazing journey!

And speaking of education, you might want to visit www.YourMarketingToolsForSuccess.com where you can purchase the books and eBooks from which we've extracted most of the content for these articles.

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