Posts tagged network marketing

For some it means “making little money,” while for others it’s “making lots (of) money.” Why the difference? Why do some succeed wildly, while others try MLM opportunities again and again, only to fail?

For those of you who wonder what the heck I’m talking about, let me say that MLM “is a marketing strategy in which the sales force is compensated not only for sales they personally generate, but also for the sales of others they recruit, creating a downline of distributors and a hierarchy of multiple levels of compensation. Other terms for MLM include network marketing, direct selling,and referral marketing.”

The Wikipedia post on Multi-Level Marketing goes on to say…

“MLM companies have been a frequent subject of criticism as well as the target of lawsuits. Criticism has focused on their similarity to illegal pyramid schemes, price-fixing of products, high initial start-up costs, emphasis on recruitment of lower-tiered salespeople over actual sales, encouraging if not requiring salespeople to purchase and use the company’s products, potential exploitation of personal relationships which are used as new sales and recruiting targets, complex and sometimes exaggerated compensation schemes, and cult-like techniques which some groups use to enhance their members’ enthusiasm and devotion. Not all MLM companies operate the same way, and MLM groups have persistently denied that their techniques are anything but legitimate business practices.”

What makes a successful Multi-Level Marketer? Is it the ability to ignore these all-too-common perceptions, and forge ahead with networking and relationship building? Is it leadership, pure and simple?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot - and I believe it’s time to hear from you. What do YOU think?

(Source: Wikipedia)

I’ve been speaking with lots of college and high school students over the summer, and I asked them what made an excellent teacher. What I learned was this: a great teacher is a phenomenal storyteller. They engage the student’s hearts and minds, with stories.The same is true for successful business people. Read on…

In a blog post from 2009 enticingly titled, Barack Obama is Tapping into Your Brain, author Kaihan Krippendorff wrote about the research of Dr. Marco Iacoboni. It’s powerful information - I suggest reading the post for yourself.

In a nutshell (for those of you who don’t have time), I’ll extract a bit from the post.

Stories are how we learn. As Iacoboni explains,

“Early on in life we learn a lot of things through stories. As a child, you listen to your parents and teachers and you learn lessons from their stories about right and wrong.  When you go to bed, you are told stories. There is something almost primal about our evolution and development that leads us back to listening to stories.”

“So,” concludes Kaihan, “to be a great communicator, a person needs to understand the importance of using narratives. To get people excited about a new idea or thought, he or she needs to be a great storyteller.”

This is important knowledge for any entrepreneur, network marketer, or home-based business owner…just as it was for Barack Obama during his Presidential campaign. He had to find those stories that would resonate with his public, and he succeeded in “creat(ing) a narrative that touched the hearts of many Americans. He was able to connect people on a deeper level than conservative and liberal.  Obama was able to use people’s mirror neurons to naturally and automatically empathize with him.” 

So…what’s a mirror neuron? It’s rather simple really - when a picture (or a story) looks/sounds more like the observer/listener, the observer’s mirror neurons fired more strongly. 

“In other words, the more someone sees himself or herself in the picture, the more his or her mirror neurons fire. The more people see themselves in you, the more they relate to you. They think, ‘This person is like me,’ and since most of us like ourselves, they think, ‘I like this person.’”

So, ask yourself how you can weave stories that both capture the imagination, and resonate with your listener’s sense of self. Give them ways of seeing themselves in your story.