Salespeople: The Curse of Great Salespeople in Network Marketing

You’d think that salespeople would be good at network marketing, but I’ve found that not to be true. Network Marketing requires a different type of sales.

The Curse of Great Salespeople in Network Marketing

A lot of times people get in network marketing and we tend to think that if someone is really good in sales, they’re going to be amazing in network marketing and what is more amazing than our thought that they’re going to be amazing is that in many cases, they are not. They are terrible.

Why would it be that people who are great in sales end up being really bad in network marketing?

They should naturally be good, wouldn’t you think?

In many cases, the opposite is true because in network marketing, what we do is about sales but it is a very different type of sales.

Over the last 24 years, having built teams that have grown to over a million customers, personally enrolling hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people over the years and being part of personally enrolling thousands for other people on the team, what I have noticed is that when someone comes in and they’re a great salesperson, they tend to think they can take those sales skills and use that to sell and convince people to join.

They can convince people to join, but what you have to understand about our profession is it’s not about convincing people to join.

It’s Not Just About Closing

Yes, you want to use your sales skills and your closing skills but what’s really important is in network marketing, we have to do what duplicates, not just what works.

You can’t only do what duplicates.

I’ve seen people who won’t take action because they somehow feel like it’s not absolutely duplicatable.

Leaders do things that are not duplicatable all the time, but great salespeople often will convince someone, close someone, and enroll that person in a manner that is not duplicatable at all.

Even if they enroll that person, that person will not go have success because people tend to want to enroll other people the way in which they were enrolled.

If you are doing a sales presentation, if you’re getting on the phone explaining everything, and getting the credit card number, realize that is never going to duplicate.

I learned this many, many years ago. I got to the point where I was a really good salesperson and I had personally enrolled 90 people into my organization in just a few months.

We Were Great Salespeople But There Was No Duplication

You would think, “Wow. Personally enrolling 90 people in a few months. That is absolute rock star status. You must have built a huge organization.”

No. My group grew to 150 people. I taught one other person who was a sales guy my sales ability, my sales skills, and my system to convince and close, and we had zero duplication.

We had three people outside of our organization.

All 150 had been closed, except for two or three that had been closed by either me or my buddy.

Why?

Because we were doing something that was not duplicatable at all.

We were amazing salespeople. We were super good. We’d assume the sale and take the credit card numbers.

We would slam people in. We’d have contests. We’d get on the phone and see who could personally enroll the most people in a night.

There was one night, either he or I had personally enrolled six people. It was crazy.

We were ridiculously good but zero duplication.

What happens in a lot of other cases is if you’re an amazing salesperson and you go in, and you start showing someone your opportunity, your products, or services, they look at you and they think, “Wow. You’re going to do amazing,” but they don’t join.

Why don’t they join?

They Don’t Believe They Can Do What You’re Doing

Realize the number one question people have when they’re looking at getting involved in network marketing from an opportunity side is can I do it? Can I be successful myself?

If you’re doing something that they don’t believe that they can be successful in, they’re largely not going to do it. That’s why we often rely on systems, tools, and three-way phone calls.

I was never doing three-way phone calls.

When I enrolled those 90 people, I didn’t know about three-way calls. I just slammed people in because I could and just because you could, doesn’t mean you should.

We want to follow a duplicatable system.

I had a great friend of mine who was an amazing salesperson, who would call me and he’d go, “Hey man, I got one.” And I’m like okay, cool. How did you get them?

“Well, I just talked to him about it. I was at the bar and we were talking, and I explained it and I got his credit card. I had an app on me and had him fill it out.”

That’s cool, man, but you didn’t show him anything. He didn’t see a video. He didn’t see a PowerPoint. All he knows is what you convinced him.

My friend was kind of like me. He was good at enrolling people but there was no duplication.

We have to do what duplicates, not just what works so learn to do what duplicates.

Salespeople Need to Listen More Than They Speak

If you’re talking more than you’re listening, you are going to have a very hard time.

In any sales situation, you should be listening more than you’re talking.

You should be finding out what the person wants in their life. What are their goals? What are their dreams and pains? Where are they? Where do they want to go? What’s the gap in between?

When you can get amazingly good at filling the gap between where they are and where they want to go, that’s when you become masterful and you don’t learn all of that by talking.

You learn all of that by listening, by fact-finding, by you being more interested in helping them versus you making a sale.

If you want some advanced training hop over to LeadwithMatt.com. I’ll give you some powerful insights on how to become a powerful leader and how to recruit some powerful leaders as well.

What we all want is time freedom, the ability to travel around the world, take your family wherever you want to go and have your income not skip a beat. It’s an amazing life. That’s what I want for you guys.

If you’d like to learn how the difference between going wide versus going deep in network marketing, check out this blog post.