TRANSCRIPT

Imagine with me for a moment that you are in a shoe store, it’s pretty crowded and you are looking for a good pair of running shoes to buy. You are in a bit of a hurry, so you want to try them on and if they fit, buy them and leave.

The assistant tells you about the quality of the shoes for about 15 minutes in techno speak that you don’t understand. Even though you’re antsy to leave, you think “fair enough, he seems passionate about these shoes, but I’d already decided to buy them anyway”.

Next, the assistant tells you the price. Then he starts telling you that if you just worked for 2 hours on a Saturday and got your friends to buy the same shoes, your shoes would end up being cheaper or even free. If you worked hard, and got your friends to introduce their friends, you could really get loads of great free shoes and retire to a house in Hawaii.

He then asks you to come through to the back as he has a “short” three-hour training meeting that explains all of this and it will be the most valuable, greatest, bestest, not-to-be-missed three hours of your life.

If you’re like me, I would have long-before, run out of that store throwing the shoes behind me. All I wanted was a ****** pair of running shoes!! Wouldn’t you feel somewhat dirty and scammed as well as angry, frustrated and confused?

Well guess what. That’s what the overwhelming majority of network marketers do on a daily basis.

Let’s look at the supposed logic behind this. Introduce a person to your product and service, they’ll love it and the fact that you can then make it a business and be off and running making money for you. Does it make sense that just because I wanted to buy a pair of running shoes, I’d change my whole life to building a shoe business?

The truth is that if you are thick-skinned enough to wear out enough relationships with friends and family and have enough stamina to offer product/service plus opportunity over enough time, you will inevitably find business builders. What an inefficent and deeply challenging waste of life.

Why not let customers be customers? Why? You love your product or service. You can feel great about introducing others to it. People understand retail and referral. When you feel the instinct kicking in to introduce opportunity - don’t! Picture yourself in the shoe shop scene!

If you cannot make income from retailing a product or service, then I would certainly question whether you are involved in a worthwhile opportunity. The vast majority of network marketed products and services are excellent and indeed better than the traditionally sold equivalents.

Introduce your product or service to someone with clear eyes. You are letting them know about this product or service because it will benefit them in some way. The statistics do not lie. 95% -98% of those that sign up will NOT be business builders. Be at peace that the person is a customer. Enjoy your retail commissions. If the customer is entrepreneurial do you not think that they will look at a website, see the opportunity and contact you for more information?

I KNOW I can work in a shoe shop or start a shoe business if it was what floated my boat. It isn’t, but I am a good customer when I find products I like.

If you mention your opportunity to customers, you will turn customers off who think it’s “one of those things, you will spend hours and hours that you will never get back having training meetings and webinars with people who have zero interest, skills or desire to be a network marketer.

Overwhelmingly, people will only ever use the product or service or introduce it to one or two others. Going through this process of “showing your customers the way to independent wealth” is therefore setting up a huge amount of people for disappointment and dissilusionment, setting yourself up for frustration, anger, burnout and doing favours for no one.

Therefore, when you are approaching someone about what you do, decide in advance if they are potential customers or business builders. If youdecide they are customers enjoy the clarity and focus that gives you. Enjoy that someone new ses the value of your product or service. Enjoy the retail commission you make and reaaly enjoy the countless hours you have saved by not “training” people who will never do what you do.