This game will make you rich

Most games are fun. This game will make you rich.

You’ll need a pencil and a desire to play fair. Your honest answers to the test are important. Then you can compare what the prospect wants versus what you deliver.

Professional salesmanship is delivering what the prospect wants to buy. Therefore, we should look at the recruiting presentation through the prospect’s eyes.

A survey of multilevel prospects asked what they wanted in a recruiting presentation. Ten factors were presented, and the prospects were asked to rate them in order of importance.

Here is your chance to pretend you are a prospect. Please rate the following 10 factors in order of importance for making a decision to join a multilevel company. Place the number (1) next to the most motivating factor, the number (2) next to the second most motivating factor, etc. When you have numbered the factors in order of importance from 1 to 10, check below to see how the prospects rated the factors.

Make sure you fill out the test before you check the answers below. Cheating will result in automatic qualification for the Sleaze Shallowman Ethics Award.

10 Factor Rating Game

___ Company literature shown
___ Marketing plan and potential earnings
___ Training provided
___ Who gave the presentation
___ Product line
___ Company management experience
___ Upline support
___ Company image
___ Sales kit provided
___ Being first in area

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Done? Scroll down for the answers!

How the prospects rated the factors...

#1 Who gave the presentation

This won by a landslide. The No. 1 reason a prospect joins a multilevel company is YOU. The prospect can’t see or touch the company. The prospect does not have personal experience with the product line. The prospect has not visited with the home office. All the prospect sees is YOU.

What about literature? Or videos? Consider this. If John Wayne presents a multilevel opportunity on the back of a matchbook cover, you’d still be impressed. However, if a drunken vagrant showed you a video, would you join? The prospect is looking at YOU.

Your prospect will be working with you, not with videos, flip charts, or the national marketing director. His thoughts throughout your presentation are:

• “Can I work effectively with you?”
  
• “Will you take the time to help me?”
  
• “Can you do the job?”
  
• “Are you telling the truth?”
  
• “Will you turn off my contacts?”
  
• “Can I trust you?”
  
• “Are you committed, or just a peddler?”
  
• “Are you giving me a memorized pitch, or really talking to me?”
  
• “Will you have the patience to train me while I learn?”
  
• “Do you only want my application and money?”
  
• “Do you believe in me?”

How the prospect perceives you is the most important factor in his decision to join. Doesn’t it make sense to improve your presentation image?

As a bad example of this concept, consider the following scenario. The motivated distributor spends the presentation hammering home memorized facts such as:

A. Where the president and founder was born. Come on. Does it really matter which county in Southern Montana was his place of birth?

B. The 49 incredible uses of Super-Duper Cleaner. Wouldn’t one or two uses be sufficient? Of course. Does the prospect really need to know the molecular co-efficient of the viscosity inherent to surfactants exposed to non-petroleum surfaces at less than 4.57 degrees Centigrade? (And don’t forget to read the laboratory report in full.)

C. What type of car your upline qualified for under the 9 Star PV/BV/CV regional leaders conference qualification. Does your prospect care what kind of car someone else is driving? Or, does he care if you can help him achieve the car of his dreams?

D. A 45-minute presentation on the marketing plan. Does 7% on level two mean anything in real terms to a prospect? Is 7% better than 6.5%? He isn’t even sure about the product acceptance of his friends and neighbors. Sure, we can get excited about the brand new achiever bonus added by the company last week. But does the prospect have a basis to appreciate the finer points of the distributor compensation package?

It’s clear that the presentation facts are less important than the prospect’s perception of YOU.

#2 Upline support

This translates into YOU again. The second most important factor rated by multilevel prospects was their ability to depend on their upline (YOU and others) to help them become successful. In every presentation the products are wonderful and the compensation is wonderful.

Yet, many prospects won’t join. The reason? They don’t believe they can do it.

Your prospect may be new to multilevel marketing. He will be unsure of his ability to translate his present skills into multilevel skills. In fact, your prospect may not even have the faintest idea on how to start. His future is in your hands.

What’s more important than upline support to his career? Not much. Soothe your prospect’s insecurities by showing how you and your sponsor have helped others become successful. Assure your prospect of upline support until he has reached a certain self-sufficient level of success. Your prospect wants to be successful. You hold the key. Why not stress your commitment to his long-term development?

Some phrases that should not be part of your presentation are:

• “I think this company is going to do well.”
  
• “Of course, I am also a distributor for several other companies.”
  
• “If you don’t like this program, I’ve got some more to show you.”
  
• “If this doesn’t work for us, I know another company we can try.”

#3 Training provided

Does your group have weekly or monthly training meetings? Seminars? Rallies? This is the classroom training your prospect will be looking for. And that’s only half the story.

“On-the-job” training is what really sells your prospect. Why did franchises take off in the 70’s and 80’s? They offered a company-trained mentor to work at the franchisee’s location to help them off to a fast start. The purchaser of the franchise felt secure with the addition of the on-the-job training.

Help solve your prospect’s fear of the unknown by emphasizing your own personal on-the-job training, the two-on-one presentations. Tell your prospect you will give the recruiting presentations to his prospects while he observes. Anyone can feel confident if all they have to do is observe. Once your prospect feels he has sufficient skills and group-building success, then he may decide to continue without your help.

Prospects like to buy “sure things.” Make his success a sure thing with your commitment for continuing on-the-job training.

#4 Marketing plan and earnings potential

Surprised? The money doesn’t show up as a factor in the prospect’s decision process until #4. Promises of earnings are meaningless without the prospect’s confidence that he can work the business successfully. Or, in other words, who cares if you earn 99% commission if you are selling ice to Eskimos?

The belief that the prospect can succeed in the business transcends the percentages in the marketing plan.

Remember your first exposure to multilevel marketing? Could you go home and completely explain the finer points of the compensation plan after only one exposure? Probably not. So don’t spend too much time making a big deal out of the 1/2 of 1% super override bonus on non-qualifying directors on a regional basis. It won’t help your prospect make a decision to join.

Recruiting professionals concentrate on a few basic points in the compensation plan, explaining it in layman’s terms.

Some parts of the compensation plan explanation that can be saved for training are: “Non-encumbered volume,” “PV as related to distributor net,” “Freight adjustment factors,” “Roll up commissions,” “Group quota differentials,” “Grand Puba titles.”

#5 Product line

A good way to irritate prospects is to demonstrate every product in detail. An eager prospect wants to know one thing about the product line: Will people buy it? Your product may have gold plated bearings instead of stainless steel bearings. So what? If no one will buy your product, does it matter how wonderful the quality is?

Your prospect does not want to join a company with products people don’t want. Professional recruiters concentrate on showing the market for their products and why the general public desires to have the product. You can handle product quality and credibility with a few short demonstrations, testimonials, or support material such as laboratory reports.

#6 Being first in area

Maybe he’s not the pioneer to blaze the trail, but your prospect wants to see a large potential of qualified prospects. Assure your prospect that together, you can actively create a viable business. This is already a very minor point as we are in the bottom half of decision factors for the prospect.

#7 Company literature shown

Beautiful literature doesn’t sell; people sell. If you are relying on 70 lbs. four-color enameled stock with artistic photographs to sign up prospects, maybe you should reconsider your career and become a photographer. If you are a jerk passing out nice-looking flyers, you are still a jerk. Do you think your prospect wants to bring a jerk to do a two-on-one presentation with his friends, neighbors, and relatives?
Ha! Ha! Ha! Well, jerks think so anyway.

#8 Company image

You are making a presentation to your best prospect in Miami, Florida. You show him a beautiful video describing the 45,000 square foot home office on 3 acres in the exclusive suburb of Olympia Fields, in the town of Flossmoor, Illinois. Big deal. So what if the company has a lot of money for videos, offices, printing, etc.? The real question is: “Can my potential sponsor do the job? Will he be capable of helping me reach the success I desire?”

After all, what can the home office really do to help? Send the prospect another video? Oh, wow, that will surely help to build his business.

#9 Sales kit provided

A fine collection of reading material, brochures, sales receipts, videos, cassettes, etc.; all totally worthless in the hands of a prospect lacking confidence. Prospects get confidence and support from their upline, not from ballpoint pens and bumper stickers with the company logo.

Inside joke of multilevel pros: “Here’s your kit. Go for it.”

#10 Company management experience

“Our president had 2.173 years of public auditing experience with one of the largest regional firms in the South Atlantic States. His grading on his personnel report by his superiors was 2.46, one of the highest ever given.” Pretty ludicrous, isn’t it?

What not to say:

Our president has 12 years experience in multilevel management with 8 different companies.”

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Brainstorming Session

Well, how did you do? Did your answers match what our prospect survey showed?

Is your presentation giving prospects what they want to buy? Or, is your presentation giving your prospects what’s important to you?

Which parts of your current presentation need to be emphasized?

Do you disagree with the prospects’ answers to the survey?

Maybe in your opinion the prospects should have rated the factors differently. What’s more important? How the prospects look at your presentation or how you think they should look at it?

What are you going to do different?

Do you promise not to laugh during someone else’s presentation when they explain “the molecular co-efficient of the viscosity inherent to surfactants exposed to non- petroleum surfaces at less than 4.57 degrees Centigrade?”