THE TRADITIONAL PROCESS OF THE NETWORK MARKETING MODEL ALMOST NEVER WORKS!

Albert Einstein said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

On that note, it’s interesting that out of the hundreds and hundreds of books that have been written that promote the business model of Network Marketing, almost every single one of them tells you the same thing. They say that in order to be successful, you have to find a stable company to immerse yourself into, and to use and promote their products 100%. 

They advocate what every Network Marketing company urges their active or leading distributors to do which is encourage everyone that they sponsor into the business to buy the biggest “business builder pack” that they can afford because the more you’ve invested into your business, the more motivated you will be to succeed.

They promote using every product yourself and having enough additional products on hand to sell to those you come into contact with. They call it being “a product of the product.”  

They suggest that you purchase as much of the company marketing materials as you can distribute it among your prospects. There are pamphlets, and signs, and product cards, and testimonial sheets, and party aids, compensation plans, and on, and on, and on.

They all have their own “training program,” and with very few exceptions, they tell you not to sit on your laurels, but to make a list and immediately start contacting and recruiting your friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. They want you to strike when you’re most excited, while your enthusiasm is at its peak.

They give you suggested “scripts” to use as examples for approaching your prospects, and tell you that these are only to be used as “guidelines” and that you should customize the verbiage into your own words in order to feel comfortable when you’re talking to people.  

They stress the importance of developing your own story as soon as possible because, “Facts tell, but stories sell.” But until you have your own story, feel free to use the story of your upline sponsor or borrow a story from somebody else. They tell you to write down your list of several hundred “contacts” and your “hot list” of 25 of your closest friends, family and coworkers that you’re going to contact within your first week.

They say not to worry that you don’t know anything about the company, the product, or the business, because “Ignorance on fire is better than knowledge on ice.”

They teach you how to trick people into 3-way and conference calls with your upline, so the person that sponsored you can quickly attempt to recruit and close your prospect and create immediate income for you (and them).

They encourage you to invite groups of people into your home (party atmosphere) so that your sponsor can give a mass presentation with videos, party aids, product displays, samples & demonstrations, testimonials, and every other sales technique under the sun.

They suggest that you attend every remote convention; participate in every video and conference call, training session, frantic end-of-the-month “level-up” group gathering, and on and on.

There’s lots more, but I think you get the idea. And if you want to do all of this stuff, good for you! It’s a wonderful way of meeting new people, and making new friends, and learning skills like computers and social media and public speaking and personal development and other things. And chances are you’ll fail. You’ll fail because it costs money and takes time and requires a learning curve that almost nobody is willing to commit to.

All of the books and all of the companies tell you that the foundation of the model of Network marketing is DUPLICATION, which is very true.  But duplicating all of these things and finding someone else that is willing to make the same  is almost impossible. That’s why the statistics for Network Marketing success are so dismal.

It’s too complicated with too many moving parts that requires too much initial investment with too much time commitment with a huge learning curve and endless enthusiasm! IT’S TOO MUCH!!

Truth is truth and nobody fails at death. It can’t be done.

So why do people quit Network Marketing? They quit because they can’t hang with the seventy-five-year-old standard that is still the accepted method of running and promoting the Network Marketing model. They quit because most companies, although they have the most forward-thinking concept that exists in commerce, still haven’t turned the corner from the tired, old-fashioned approach that I explained earlier in the section that Network Marketing isn’t.

They quit because of the old-fashioned marketing strategy. The old and tired approach of pitching your circle of influence (friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, etc.) with the probability of being rejected, or even alienated, which is a huge source of anxiety for most people. When the excitement of the diagrams and dollar signs gets dimmed by the reality of rejection from those that you love, like, live by and work with, the enthusiasm morphs into disappointment leading to disdain resulting in departure from the opportunity…and they simply quit. And the emotional effects of this cycle in most cases will keep people from ever considering the business again. 

Even after seventy-five years of struggling to gain its legitimate station in the realm of commerce, Network Marketing companies still intensely hold on to these impractical marketing methods. They still want you to – as soon as you sign up as a distributor, and before you know anything about the business – explode out of the gate at a fever pitch like your ass is on fire, sign up as many distributors or customers as you possibly can, as quickly as you possibly can, so they will buy as much of the company’s product as possible, in order to produce as much profit as quickly as possible. 

That is what every piece of marketing material and training material pushes, because they think that it is the most profitable avenue for them to take. It is what they have taught their distributor base for the past 75+ years because it is the strategy that produces the most profit in the shortest period of time.

You can’t blame them for wanting to establish themselves and to make money. And while this short-sighted approach might produce initial big profits for the company, those profits are short-lived due to the huge mortality rate of the disillusioned and constantly overturning distributor base. So, when a company begins with a strategy that seems to work in the short-term, they find that it’s difficult or impossible to change strategies for the long haul. They feel trapped in a building mode that they continue to promote rather than shifting gears and settling in and going for the distance.

This is the very root cause of the negative reputation that has been the strangle hold on the Network Marketing model for the past seven decades. It is the impetus for the madcap recruiting and building strategies that the companies promote and the primary cause for the industry-wide high failure rate and low retention and success rates of its participants.

Network Marketing first and foremost is a business model, not a personal development strategy or a social exercise. It loses most of its efficacy when it is watered down by incorporating too many frills, distractions, and moving parts that have little or nothing to do with the process of building individual abundance.

Like the changes that have taken place in marketing and commerce, adjusting to the periodic, widespread socioeconomic shifts, Network Marketing is in the process of reducing itself down into its purest form. It is moving out of the carnival inspired, cult-like, groupthink atmosphere that companies felt was necessary to maintain interest and cooperation from their customer base, and beginning to move forward toward a more tactful, grounded, and individualized strategy of personal prosperity development. This is a paradigm shift that can mean great opportunity to those that recognize it and are willing to take advantage of it.