Stop Sharing Your Business With Your Prospects!

How many times have heard "This Isn’t Sales" in your traditional network marketing training?

Your upline perhaps? The person who convinced you to join? Your network marketing training coach?

Or maybe you’ve heard a slight variation to this lie: We’re not selling, we’re sharing.

Sound familiar?

This "lie" of network marketing was engrained in you from the moment you were first introduced to your opportunity, and continued throughout your network marketing training. And as a result, it’s likely caused you tons of unecessary disappointment and frustration in your MLM prospecting efforts.

So for the sake of your sanity (and your MLM prospecting future), let’s explore why network marketers make this claim, and more importantly, let’s uncover the actual truth as it pertains to your business and future network marketing training.

Now to start, here are the 3 main theories that make up this idea:

1. Your friends or family probably use this product anyway, why wouldn’t they purchase it from you? They know you, they trust you, and they’d rather help you than give their money to someone they don’t know and trust in purchasing the same product.
2. Our product helps people. You are doing them a disservice if you do not share with them the benefits they can get from this product. Once they realize how much good it will do, they will be glad you showed them the product and purchase it from you.
3. We’re just sharing product testimonials, and recommending a product. Haven’t you ever recommended your friends go see a certain movie you liked? Or tried a certain type of ice cream you really like? You do this anyway. You are often responsible for inadvertently selling products you like yourself. You’re not changing anything, just getting paid what you deserve.

OK.

First off, a lot of people are afraid of even thinking about being anywhere near sales, much less be in sales themselves. In fact for some, sales is a borderline phobia. So the idea of taking part in network marketing training that includes sales training scares the hell out of many new distributors.

Well let me start by comforting you a little, while we also get something straight. Everyone is in sales. You may not be in sales on a commercial level, and it may not be your profession, but you sell people on a daily basis.

If you are in a relationship, you sold your significant other that you are worth their time and that it is worth it for them to be in a relationship with you.

You sold your parents that they should give you an allowance, or let you go to the movie you wanted to go see.

You sell your boss that you should get a raise at work, or time off.

So in reality we are all in sales – every minute of every day. So relax, you can do it – and as a matter of fact, you ALREADY do it!

So now that we got that straight (and hopefully eased your fear a little), let’s get back to the lie and how it pertains to your future network marketing training.

Here is the fundamental difference between selling and sharing:

Once you have something to gain – compensation of any type – you now have a vested interest in your client’s decision. Which means that you are no longer offering your "unbiased" opinion, but rather are trying to sway your client to make the decision that best benefits YOU (in other words, you’re selling them…)

As an example, when you are simply telling a friend about a cool movie you went to see, you have nothing to gain monetarily if they go see the movie too. So you have a relatively unbiased opinion. In other words, your opinion hasn’t been “purchased”.

On the other hand, when you introduce compensation into your sharing, it not only cheapens your recommendation, it turns it into that 4-letter word: sales.

Why?

For starters, when you are telling your friend to check out the new movie you saw at the theater, it’s easy. Everyone does something like this to some extent, and it’s part of our everyday life.

Think about it: Why are you sharing this movie with them?

Most often it’s because you really did enjoy it, you think they would enjoy it too, and you want them to avoid seeing some other movie and not enjoying it as much as you think they would enjoy the movie you just saw.

Now let’s try that with your fancy Juice from your MLM, or whatever product/service your opportunity offers. Why are you sharing this product with your MLM prospect?

You might think it will actually help them, but you also have something to gain. And as a result, the simple everyday action of sharing is much different – even to you. Not only does your friend see right through your ‘recommendation’, but it’s much harder for you to verbalize your sharing the same way. You feel a little awkward, maybe a little out of place, and when they don’t seem interested, it blows you away!

After all, they’re your friends and family… shouldn’t they want to give you their business?

Truth is, in some families it is enough to be related and they would give you their business no matter what. In other families, it’s not. Maybe your family doesn’t even like you, maybe they hate the products you sell, maybe they just don’t have the money – the list could go on and on.

Expecting your friends and family to purchase from you solely because they are your friends and family will lead you down the deep, dark road of lost friends and avoidance lined by Network Marketers who went down the same path.

You see, network marketing is built on the premise that sharing product experiences and recommendations is the most powerful form of marketing there is.

Which, I have to admit, is somewhat true.

Think about it: most of what you use on a daily basis – from laundry detergent, to trash bags, to dishwashing soap – you use because either you saw someone else use it, or someone personally recommended it to you.

I remember a marketing class I took in college. I was doing a research report on why people purchase certain household products. What we uncovered was that well over ½ of total sales of something like dish soap was as a result of 2nd + generation use. Meaning, for the most part, people use the products their parents/grandparents/authority figure used and they are comfortable with. You have a loyalty to that brand because you grew up using it, your parents or other authority figure in your life used it, and therefore you trust it.

This applies to things like drinking Coke vs. Pepsi, or using Cascade vs. Electrosol. The reality is you do use these products as a result of sharing, but those that shared it with you did not gain monetarily from the transaction.

Traditional network marketing training is attempting to capitalize on this type of relationship and knowledge of product usage, but they are introducing a variable that changes everything – compensation. It changes how you approach the sharing, and most of all it changes how your recommendation is received.

But there is also another huge issue when it comes to thinking the sharing model of building your business will allow you to reach your financial dreams.

Think about this: Do you think that you can reasonably make a 6-figure residual income off of the people you know?

Just to be generous, let’s assume that between friends and family you are in a “sharing” relationship with MAYBE 100 people. That would mean EVERY PERSON in your circle of influence would have to get in your opportunity – and not only just get in, but dominate the business and do what you did.

But wait – your family has the same family you do! So now what??

The point is that you cannot hope to create a large income just off of friends and family, despite what your traditional network marketing training would have you believe. Local businesses don’t expect to maintain their businesses just by their friends and family using their products/services. So if you still believe your friends and family are enough to build a sizable income through your opportunity, perhaps you should take a hint from them…

Now with that in mind, we’ve just exposed a MUCH bigger problem with MLM:

If this is not sales, and is simply sharing, then once you exhaust your sharing circle, what do you do next? (also referred to as your Circle of Influence by those in the ‘biz)

Well, from how I see it you have two choices:

Either you fail and give up on all of your dreams, or you find network marketing training that will show you how to sell and market your opportunity like a real business! That’s right – sell – the 4-letter word that is avoided by this industry more rigorously than you’re avoided by friends and family when you take the sharing approach with your MLM business.

Now at this point you may be thinking…

"So if it’s so incredibly obvious that the sharing mentality of building my business simply does not work, why in the hell does network marketing train me to do this?"

Great question. And here’s a couple of reasons:

To start with, most people hate sales. In fact, most people absolutely fear rejection. And sales is rejection on a grand stage. You must deal with rejection in order to get to a sale. And as you become more advanced, you must also learn how to turn that rejection into an actual sale.

So if Network Marketing was pitched as for what it really is – sales – it wouldn’t be an everyman’s business anymore, would it? And even worse, your upline would then have to teach – ah, oh, here it is – actual sales strategies in their network marketing training.

Not only would it take away how easy it sounds to just share these great new products you just found with your friends/neighbors, but you would suddenly question your qualification to be in such an industry – You should.

I’m not trying to scare anybody, but misunderstanding that you are really in sales only creates problems. You face rejection when you never thought you would, and you wonder why you have dismal results when you thought everything would be so simple. You get down on yourself, question your abilities, and wonder if your future in Network Marketing really is the answer you thought it was.

Let me be clear: Network Marketing can be the path to the successful future you’ve always dreamed of.

All it takes is participating in network marketing training that teaches you how to treat your MLM opportunity as a real business. As you progress, you must learn to implement real marketing strategies and harness the power of technology to grow your business in a way you never before thought possible – just like I show you here. And as a result, you’ll also reach levels of success you never before thought possible…

So where do you stand? What’s your take on the idea of sharing in network marketing?

Comments/thoughts?