Do 3-Way Calls Work?

When I got started with my first network marketing company, I was told that I wouldn’t have to do any telling, selling or convincing.  I must admit that I was relieved to hear them say that because I didn’t have any experience in sales and frankly I didn’t really want to become a pushy salesperson.

At first I couldn’t understand how you were supposed to sell your network marketing product without doing any telling, selling or convincing but they were the experts and I was totally new to network marketing.  Part of the appeal of network marketing is that you are in business for yourself but not by yourself.  Your network marketing company will help you to succeed.  So, I was taught about:

Closing the Sale Without Having To Say A Word

Most network marketing companies call it the 3-way call.  This is where you call your upline sponsor while you have your prospect on the line and let them take over the sales process and do the closing.  You don’t have to say a word.  In fact, you are encouraged to keep your mouth shut during this process.

When I was introduced to this network marketing technique, I thought it was very cool.  I didn’t have to say a thing and someone else would make the sale for me.  I mean who wouldn’t want someone else to do the work and you get paid? 

Six figures, here I come.

I got prospects to a presentation and I was even able to call them back and talk to them.  But then I had a problem, whenever I tried to call my upline to do a 3-way call, they were nowhere to be found.  I lost those prospects, my time, and the money that I spent getting the leads in the first place.  Did I do something wrong?

Yep, I didn’t make sure that I had someone to 3-way with before I called my prospects back.  No problem, I’ll just make sure that someone is available before I make my calls.  Now, I have a prospect on the line and someone from my upline (not one of the top dogs because they don’t do 3-way calls unless they benefit directly from the sale) but he’ll do.  So, it’s time to ask for the sale and he doesn’t actually ask the prospect if they are ready to get started. 

With my next prospect, I get someone else to do the 3-way call with and this time they ask but they weren’t very enthusiastic about it.  I try someone else, and someone else, I get someone from my crossline and we make a pact to do 3-way calls for each other and ask for the sale and are available and still no sales.  I lost more prospects, more time, and more money.  Did I do something wrong?

MLM Secret – YOU have to close the sale

As much as I wanted to make those 3-way calls work, they just didn’t – at least not for me.  I’m sure they work for some people or the network marketing companies wouldn’t teach that technique.  The key to MLM selling is YOU.  YOU have to form the relationship with your prospect.  Your prospect has to be comfortable with YOU and trust YOU.  YOU have to be able to close the sale.

With that in mind, I am going to be writing more posts about closing the sale yourself.  Stay tuned for some really good stuff about creating the urgency to buy and some pretty cool closing techniques that I am excited to share with you.

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Amy Howard, October 12th 2009 | Tags: , , , , ,
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Not Everything Is A Scam

I was reading this article in my local paper this past Sunday.  The article was about how someone was looking for a job online and came across an advertisement for a Google work-at-home business.  Apparently the ad had used the name of a very prominent newspaper in order to make it look legitimate.

It would seem that there are some unscrupulous people that are part of a growing trend on the Internet where they use fake stories and the names of respected news entities so that they seem like they are legitimate work at home opportunities.

Honestly, I don’t know why this would come as a surprise to anyone that they thought it warranted an article in my newspaper.  I mean, I get at least 3 emails a week offering me some amazing work at home opportunity where I can make a ton of money.  I don’t believe it for a second.

I really appreciate that there are people exposing these scams because I think that it’s important to know that there are people out there willing to take advantage of others in the name of making a dollar.  However, what I don’t like is when these good intentioned people go on to make a totally ridiculous statement like: “If someone asks you to pay to learn how to make money, that’s the tip-off to the rip-off”  That’s what was quoted as having been said by Bernas (I’m assuming they were with Google but it wasn’t very clear).

How ridiculous is it to think that someone is going to teach you something for free.  In the same paper that I was reading this article in there was an ad for Bartending School. The ad clearly stated that they would show you now to make money (as much at $35hr).  When you check out the website, it’s pretty clear to me that you will have to pay to learn how to become a bartender and make that money.

There was another ad for Real Estate School where you can get your license FAST.  And there is the implied reference to making a lot of money with a real estate license.  And by-the-way, you have to pay for the education.

The point is that you have to know what it is that you are looking for.  If you are looking for a JOB, why would you click on a work at home business?  Being a business owner is definitely going to cost you money, whereas, being an employee usually doesn’t.

I also believe in the saying that you get what you pay for.  If someone is going to teach me something (like: mlm sales), I want to be sure that I get what I pay for.  Learning is not free; you have to pay for it one way or another.  That being said, even some of the high priced network marketing training programs out there are very expensive and don’t really deliver on their promise of showing you how to make money from home.  Do your homework folks.  It’s a dog eat dog world out there and there are those that will take advantage of you and still sleep soundly at night.

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Amy Howard, September 29th 2009 | Tags: , , ,
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How MLM Companies Grow Their Businesses

If you have ever been frustrated with how slow your home based business is growing, you will want to pay attention to how your MLM Company is growing their business using your hard work and money.

First, I would like to say that this is not meant to bash any MLM Company.  I have been in network marketing for quite a while now and even though my first networking venture was a complete failure, I love this industry and the potential for regular everyday people to make a 6 figure income from home using the multi-level marketing platform is huge. 

One of the things that attracted me to network marketing was that I could own my own business without having to have a lot of start up capital and I also loved the idea that my MLM Company was going to provide me with all of the training that I would need to succeed.  There is only one problem.  The methods and strategies that your MLM Company trains you to use will absolutely grow their business but they may not grow yours.

Why Your Network Marketing Business Will Fail But Your MLM Company’s Business Will Grow

Your MLM Company is supposedly giving you all of the training that you need to grow your business to a level where you are making money on a part-time basis from home but their methods only work for about 2% of the people that get involved in network marketing and here’s why…

MLM Company Training Secrets Exposed

Here is a list of  some common tools, methods, and/or strategies taught by every MLM Company that I have seen and why they work for your MLM Company but don’t work for you.

  • Make a list of friends and family – In order to grow your business you will have to talk to people and who better to prospect than your friends and family.  Most people can sit down and make a list of about 100 people that they know and when they contact all 100 people and share their home based business opportunity, on average the network marketer will get 2 people to sign up.
  • Pass out free samples of your MLM Product – This method is often used to get people to at least try your MLM product.  The idea is that if you can get a prospect to try the product, they will love it and want to buy more.  The problem comes in where, one little sample of a MLM product that will need to be taken continuously for 2 or more weeks before the prospect will see any results can’t be done from one little sample.  So, the prospect takes the free sample and tries it and when they don’t see any results from taking it just one time, they decide that it just doesn’t work.  Here is where it works for the MLM Company – the sample is free to the prospect but the network marketer has to pay for them.
  • Pass out CD’s or DVD’s – This method is often used to get people to look at your business opportunity without having to apply pressure.  The marketer simply buys a bunch of CD’s or DVD’s from their MLM Company (who makes money selling them) and they just hand them out to everyone they know or come into contact with.  All the prospect has to do is plug in the video or audio to see how great the MLM Company is and how much money they can make from home.  If even 1% of the people actually look at the information, you would be lucky.
  • A replicated website from your MLM Company – Everyone wants to be able to market on the Internet these days so MLM Companies are providing their distributors with replicated websites.  The marketer has to pay for the website and it’s supposed to make your home based business explode.  I guess by magic or something because the MLM Company won’t show you how to effectively drive traffic to that website.  The reason they don’t train you on how to use the Internet to grow your MLM business is because these replicated websites are NOT a good tool to use to sell your MLM Product or the business opportunity.

Have you ever used any of the above tools in an attempt to grow your network marketing business?  Let me save you some time and money, STOP USING THEM.  With the exception of making a list of your friends and family, these methods don’t work for 95% of distributors anyway.  Even then, making a list of your friends and family only works if you haven’t pitched them on all of the other network marketing ventures that you may have joined.

The reason these methods work so well for the MLM Company is because they know for every free sample they sell to you to pass out, a certain percentage will buy the product.   They know that for every CD or DVD that they sell to you to pass out, a certain percentage will sign up as a distributor and get on auto ship.  The percentages may be small but since it’s the MLM distributor paying for the stuff that gets passed out to prospects, they have nothing to lose and their business continues to grow while your bank account gets smaller.

So, if you are part of the 2% that has used these marketing methods and you are growing a home based business, I say good for you.  Keep up the good work.  If you are like I was and spent more money on the tools than I could ever hope to make on bringing in a distributor, just know that you are not alone and please, QUIT DOING THOSE METHODS.

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Amy Howard, July 27th 2009 | Tags: , , , , , ,
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