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How many of you practice and teach the “Three Foot Rule”?
It goes something like this - if someone is within three feet of you then talk about your company or your product.
If you do this, please stop it now. Without knowing it you’re helping to run the reputation of the network marketing industry into the ground.
Yep, into the ground.
And you’re killing your new business builders.
This week (like most weeks) I got a call from a distraught business builder who asks, “How can I introduce my product or business to people I don’t know? My upline says I’m supposed to talk to everybody I meet.”
How many of you have been told when you go to a party to look for a way to bring up your company or your product?
How many of you have been told to join the Chamber of Commerce (or just go to the mixers) and pass out your cards and “listen for a need” so you can talk to people about your business?
How many of you really feel comfortable doing this? For what it’s worth according to the people I coach not many of us do? Why? Because it’s disingenuous and unprofessional.
I’m not saying don’t talk to people. And I’m certainly not saying never talk to a stranger. But I am saying the industry needs to upgrade most of the training I hear about. And that folks means it is up to us. When you train your business builders to attend an organization to “see who you can get” rather than to get involved and offer what you can give, it is going to continue to drive down the reputation of our industry…and drive away our business builders not to mention customers. It’s obnoxious.
I know of business network groups who have “banned” network marketers because of this kind of business practice! And to drive that home a bit, how many of you shouted with joy when you found out your company was network marketing? hmmmm
Let’s put this into perspective. How many times do you go to a party and meet someone who’s a real estate agent and they ask you if you’d like to buy (or sell) a home?
Or how many times are you at a party and the person you’re talking to manipulates the conversation to find out you don’t have life insurance and then wants to sell you some?
Or have you ever met a dentist at a party who said to you, “you ought to come into the office” because s/he could straighten your teeth?
Why not? Because it’s not professional. But we teach, train and sometimes bully our new business builders into doing this. I had an upline in Excel that told me (and everyone else in his downline) that anyone who wouldn’t be my long distance customer wasn’t really my friend and I should tell them so! Yikes!
I know that one of the keys to build a successful MLM business is to get in front of new people all the time. But the only way that works is to be invited in - not to push or trick ourselves in. We need to cultivate professional relationships by working with others on projects, in professional communities and organizations.
If you want our industry to take its rightful place as a powerful way for people to take charge of their lives –
And if you want your network marketing business to flourish –
Then its time we build networks not crash them.
As networkers we are all looking for that person with the ever expanding sphere of influence. Yes? Aren’t the best sponsors exactly what they are looking for?
I know this will take a little longer. But businesses are built systematically and typically by members of the community..
Wouldn’t you love it if the next time you tell someone you’re a network marketer they tell you a wonderful story about a networker they met once.
What do you think?
