Is Network Marketing Hard
Recently at the No Excuses Summit in Las Vegas Tim Sales was one of the speakers. During his presentation, he talked about how he got involved with network marketing and compared the business to his former occupation, he was on the bomb squad in the military. Obviously disarming bombs and being a home based business owner in the network marketing industry are 2 completely different things. Tim does a great (and humorous) job of explaining the the night and day differences between the 2 professions.
Tim also did some work with DEA, which led him to bring up the topic drugs and how much money illegal drug sales generate each year. Because of the nature of the business, no one really knows what the exact number is, but it is estimated to be somewhere near $400 billion in profits each year. 400 BILLON! Have you ever seen a commercial or billboard that says, “Buy Drugs Here”? The point is, drugs sales, which results in an estimated 400 billion dollars in profit a year, are all generated through word of mouth. Drug dealers can’t advertise.
Does this mean word of mouth advertising works? I think it does. I understand that drugs and meal replacement shakes, vitamins, make-up, jewelry, candles, or whatever it is you are selling are completely different. But if word of mouth advertising works for something that will ruin one’s life, couldn’t it work for a product that could improve one’s life as well? Of course it could.
Tim admits that when he first heard about network marketing he didn’t know much about it, but he did know that word of mouth advertising worked. He decided that he wanted to get involved in network marketing, but before he did, he wanted the person who introduced the business to him to be straight with him and tell him everything that he needed to know, the good, and the bad, without leaving anything out. Their conversation when like this( I’ll refer to Tim’s sponsor as Joe):
Joe said , “Okay, I’ll be honest, Tim, one of the problems you are going to have is going to be rejection, people will tell you no.”
Tim replies, “and then what do I do?’
“You find someone else”, Joe says.
“Okay, what else”, Tim replies.
To paraphrase the rest of the discussion, Joe goes on to tell Tim that people will deceive him, they will tell him they are going to show up, but then they won’t show up. People will also join you in the business, then quit and not do what they said they would. And lastly, people will disrespect you, and laugh at you. People that don’t know the industry will tell you its a pyramid scam.
Tim asks Joe what he is supposed to do in all of these situations and Joe simply replies, “find someone else”.
Tim goes on to explain that while these things may seem horrible to the average person, to him these things were minute. In his former profession on the bomb squad, rejection meant a bomb was blowing up in his face. In his military days, he describes how he had to sit in a hole for a week straight, no sleeping, no getting up to use the bathroom. If you had to go, you just went. So from Tim’s perspective, being involved in networking marketing was a cake walk, all he had to do was talk to people. If they said no, then big deal, find someone else.
Tim makes some great points. Here is a clip from his on stage presentation:
