MLM E-commerce - ARE YOU A PLAYER OR A HATER?

The pending marriage of the Internet and MLM e-commerce promises to take network marketing in a whole new direction.

And as history has shown us, the dawning of this new age in sales and network marketing is being met with great resistence.

Some marketers love the possibilities of the idea of increased sales and flexibility that MLM e-commerce and Internet marketing promises, while others dread the thought of the Internet invading on their long established way of conducting MLM business.

This very moment, cyberspace is raging in violent debate over this MLM e-commerce marketing phenominum.

The technological advances are reaching into the MLM arena and causing sides to be taken in what appears to be a pending 'battle to the death.'

Visit most any MLM blog or network marketing chat session, and you'll find marketers and salespeople in hot debate over the merits of adapting to an MLM e-commerce world.

On one side you have the 'old school' MLM'ers who see the concept of MLM e-commerce and Internet-based network marketing as a passing fad destined to go the way of Disco, Rubic's Cube, and the Pet Rock.

These people view MLM e-commerce and the Internet as an assault on their industry's tried and true network marketing methods. On the other side are the new breed of marketers and businesspeople who aren't beholden to what they see as outdated and mostly ineffective MLM sales strategies.

These folks view MLM e-commerce and the Internet as providing an optimum way to reach prospects and sell products by taking advatage of the benefits of an ever-evolving technological paradigm shift.

And the question comes down to, 'Who's right?' Is MLM e-commerce just a passing fancy, or is it here to stay?

In order to answer that question, one must weigh the pros and cons, the benefits and drawbacks of traditional sales and marketing strategies used by MLM against the possibilities created by the presence of MLM e-commerce and Internet-based marketing.

ADVERTISING POWER

The first issue to consider is the various MLM advertising techniques and their effectiveness in reaching the consumer.

It's an accepted fact that from an advertising standpoint, a businessperson's number one goal is to make as much of the public aware of his company's product or service as possible.

The more people you expose to your company, the more sales you're going to have.

In traditional network marketing, your sales 'territory' is usually going to be limited to whatever geographical area you can physically cover.

This is determined by how far you're willing to travel in order to 'show the opportunity' or make the sales pitch.

Most people are not willing (or realistically able) to drive more than ten or twenty miles on a regular basis in order to prospect and market their product, and they most likely will be covering the same ten or twenty mile area as one (or more) representative of the same network marketing company).

Not the best way to do business.

In traditional brick-and-mortar sales businesses (e.g., franchises or 'door-to-door' sales), you're usually assigned a 'sales territory.'

This geographical territory belongs to you and you alone.

You don't have to worry about competition from other competing salespeople in your company.

This is why you will never see a McDonalds or Burger King or Taco Bell too close together.

It's also why two Zerox copier salesmen will never be caught working the same territory.

Companies like these have pre-established guidelines on how far apart any two stores or sales territories must be in order to give every salesperson or franchisee as equal a shot a success as possible.

But MLM is totally different.

Unlike traditional sales intensive businesses, MLM doesn't have certain geographical areas exclusive to you and you alone.

In MLM, there can literally be hundreds (and even thousands) of people working in the exact same geographical area to find the same few customers and recruits as you are.

The problem with this is that when you take your 'opportunity' or sales pitch beyond your limited 'warm market' of friends and family members, you'll have to go out and solicit strangers.

And when you do this, you'll likely encounter many people who've already heard the sales pitch from another MLMer working that same area.

Even worse, the prospect may have already signed up with them.

Now there's no problem with this theoretically. Free trade, equal opportunity and all that, right?

Well, fair enough.

But the problem comes when you're only able to reach two or three prospective customers at any given time, and they continuously turn out to be people someone else has already prospected.

This is where the geographical constraints of old-school MLM sales strategies can prove very limiting.

You see, the average person simply can't talk to enough people fast enough to be very effective in this strategy.

And unless you're selling a product or service where the commission is in the thousands of dollars(not likely), you're just not able to generate enough sales in a given day to make it all worthwhile.

This is why so many people quit MLM.

Imagine if you have a corner store, and only two or three people came into that store every day, and only one of them actually bought something.

You'd be out of business in no time flat!

This is the actual plight of many network marketers.

The old school MLM sales tactics simply don't provide them with an efficient enough means to reach an adequate amount of prospects easily enough to grow their business.

But MLM e-commerce and Internet marketing changes all of that.

The Internet allows you to take your network marketing business from a local 'corner store' model to a national (or even international) conglomerate.

It's true that you will still compete with other MLM e-commerce Internet marketers for the same customer.

After all, there are no geographical boundaries in cyberspace.

But this works to your advantage now because the number of people you can potentially reach is so much greater.

And your goal (or expectation) isn't to corner the market and have a hundred percent of the business anyway.

Your goal is to create a niche within the MLM e-commerce industry that will attract a percentage of those that prefer you and your product or service to that of the competition.

This is why you always see a Burger King next to a McDonalds, or different grocery stores directly across the street from one another.

They know people looking to buy products similar to theirs already shop there.

Kind'a like casting your line where you know the fish are already biting.

And because you've created an MLM e-commerce website (store), you're now able to establish a 'presence' in the marketplace that potential consumers can see and identify with.

Your website expertly positioned where you know the fish are biting.

And because your MLM e-commerce 'store' reflects your personality, your website will resonate with like-minded people.

People who will be drawn to your particular website store because it's a reflection of you...and them.

This is called the 'Law of Attraction'.

This law is why you prefer one store over another, even though both carry the same products you're looking for.

This universal law of attraction is in short supply in the offline world of MLM.

In fact, I'd bet the most traditional network marketers have never even heard of the concept.

It's one of the telltale signs of the absence of a proper sales and marketing education.

In old school MLM, the network marketer is really nothing more than a 'door-to-door' salesman.

He has no individual personality or presence because his business is not established in a way that the customer has the opportunity to 'get to know him' - on their own terms.

And if you're going to get good sales, and repeat business, it's ALWAYS going to be on the customer's terms, not yours.

After all, when's the last time you bought something from an MLMer, or any salesperson for that matter, because they wanted you to?

You only buy when you're ready to, right?

Well, so do your customers and prospects.

The advantage of the MLM e-commerce website is that it gives you the opportunity to create a presence that you could never financially afford to create in the brick-and-mortar world.

And it's that presence, that ability to remain in a fixed location on a continuous basis, subject to the examination and inspection of the customer, that eventually creates a sense of confort and trust that in turn leads to the sale.

PROSPECTING

How many times have you approached a friend, relative, or even a stranger with your MLM opportunity, only to be unceremoniously dismissed?

This is the main way that traditional MLM teaches its members to recruit for prospects and customers.

One at a time, or maybe in small groups of three to five people -and only if you're 'advanced' enough to handle talking to that many people at one time. Some people in MLM are very successful at the time-tested techniques of one-on-one, home party, and hotel meeting sales.

But for most people, this type of sales prospecting is not only terribly painful, but also no where near efficient enough to work.

There just aren't enough hours in the day to grow your business to a sustainable level by recruiting only a few people at a time into your company.

And even when you manage to recruit someone into your opportunity, you're only treading water because while you're bringing one or two in the front door...

...one or two are also leaving out the back door.

And this doesn't even get into the subject of the quality of the people you're bringing into your business.

The fact is most people enter an MLM company on a lark, or to have a 'business' tax write-off, or just to get the member that's recruiting them off their back.

These type of people are never going to be effective business builders because they never really wanted to be in business anyway.

So in effect, even though you think you've made progress by recruting someone, that person is going to be nothing but dead weight because they aren't going to do anything to benefit you, which is the whole point of network marketing.

Network marketing is premised on building your wealth by leveraging the efforts of others. But if your 'others' are giving no efforts of their own, you'll have no wealth of your own.

Again, the Internet eliminates all of that.

MLM e-commerce eliminates the dependency that MLM'ers traditionally have to place in others for their personal success.

When you employ the Internet as an MLM e-commerce marketing tool, the site does most all the prospecting and sales work for you.

When done correctly, your MLM e-commerce website becomes a twenty-four hour prospecting and sales engine that never sleeps, never gets sick, never breaks down, and never takes a vacation.

Your MLM e-commerce website will never call a propsect at the wrong time, but will always be there to answer their questions.

And when your MLM e-commerce website is effective, the quality of your prospects are automatically enhanced. By the time you make live contact with a prospect or customer through you website, you know they're interested in whatever your product or service is because they've really contacted you first by giving you their e-mail or telephone information, downloading a FREE e-book, or making a purchase.

And having customers and prospects contacting you 'first' makes all the difference in the world to your business success.

When it's your idea to make a sales pitch to someone who isn't expecting it, or simply isn't interested, you'll almost never get the sale.

But when the consumer is the one making the choice to patronize you and your website store, or making the choice to give their information so you can contact them, you chances of sales success multiply tremendously.

Just like the brick-and-mortar stores, your MLM e-commerce store gives your customers the freedom of when they want to shop with you.

This freedom of choice is the principle upon which EVERY OTHER BUSINESS IS RUN!

And it's why so many network marketers fail. Their (potential) customers have no freedom of choice. They're simply assaulted by unwelcome phone calls, mailers, and other solicitations when they least expect it.

Taco Bell doesn't drag people of the street into their store. KFC doesn't ring your doorbell or call your home asking if you want to buy a bucket of chicken. Wal-Mart doesn't harass people into coming to take a look at their latest line of 'what-cha-ma-call-its'.

Only in MLM is this done. And guess what?

It doesn't work.

It doesn't work because you can not force people to go to your meeting, buy your product, or join your business if they aren't interested.

When you develop a good, content-based MLM e-commerce website that delivers valuable information for customers who are already looking for the products and services you offer, the sale becomes an almost foregone conclusion.

COSTS

Not establishing and keeping a keen eye on the advertising budget is one of the main ways most MLMer's go out of business before they even get started.

First of all, most newbie network marketers are never really told that they even need an advertising budget.

And because many have no real prior business experience, and they're being told by the MLM company that they can start their business for the 'one-time start-up fee of...', the newbie doesn't figure that they'll need a regular monthly advertising budget to get their business in front of the potential customer.

It's only after the 'newbee' MLM'er is in the business, that he finds out that MLM calls for him to continuously invest his hard earned cash into purchasing the company's various booklets, brochures, CDs, and tapes that are 'supposed' to be recruiting tools that magically draw prospects into the business.

A little known MLM secret is that this is one of the main ways the company's make their money.

But for the members, the fact is most end up going broke and leaving the MLM business with less money than when they started because they unexpectedly spent whatever savings they had on postcards, magazines, and brochures, and never made any money because the products they were buying didn't get people interested in the business the way the MLM company said they would.

But when you switch your marketing efforts to the Internet, you invest in a one-time cost for the establishment of your website.

That's it.

No monthly 'auto ship' products, ineffective magazines, or 'in the trash as soon as you pass them out' brochures to purchase.

You can have a website you paid for once that can reach literally millions of people... or you have brochures, CDs, and tapes you have to continuously purchase to hand out to people in malls and parking lots.

People you know aren't even interested in your business or product.

Now having that MLM e-commerce store is by no means a guarantee of instant success either.

But if, for some reason, you're not initially as successful online as you thought you'd be, you still have the established site that can be fairly easily altered, retooled, or 'restocked' to accommodate whatever products, sales or business opportunities you chose.

Your MLM e-commerce store is totally adaptable. The company's printed brochures, tapes, and CDs are not.

With old school MLM, the hundreds of useless brochures just end up collecting dust in your attic or basement.

Advertising power, prospecting effectiveness, and overall marketing costs are really the three key factors you have to consider when developing both your online and offline sales and marketing campaign.

How much of the market can you reach? How many willing, ready, and able-to-buy customers and prospects can you find? How cost effective (return on investment) is the overall effort to do so?

Even though there are many naysayers, the fact is there are many convincing reasons why a network marketer would want to seriously consider incorporating the principles of e-commerce and Internet marketing into their MLM or sales strategy.

But even with all the clear evidence, there are going to be some people in favor of doing it the old way.

And that's perfectly okay.

After all, everything is not for everybody, and there's certainly more than one road to success.

If there is someone who's super-successful and satisfied opporating their business according to the old-school MLM recruitment and sales methods, that's fantastic.

They should absolutely stick to them, because these methods obviously work for them.

Or if someone has a powerful aversion to e-commerce, the Internet, or technology in general, Internet marketing is certainly not for them either.

But for those who want to take their business to another level, and aren't opposed to using every available strategy to become more efficient in order to realize more sales for their business, the Internet is certainly an extremely effective way to go.

What many people who are opposed to e-commerce and the Internet fail to understand is that e-commerce and Internet marketing is not an 'either or' proposition.

You absolutely can use e-commerce and online marketing strategies to suppliment whatever offline marketing tools are already working for you.

In fact, it's almost mandatory that you do so.

The fact is that, if done right, the Internet can be an great enhancement to whatever offline marketing strategies you employ now.

And it's only an illogical businessperson who wouldn't want to at least consider a marketing strategy that has the potential to create additional revenue streams for their business that weren't there before.

What do you think?

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