How to Build a Massive Moneymaking MLM Machine by Mail
On a Shoe String Budget at Home
This report, "How To Build A Massive Moneymaking Machine By Mail...On A Shoe String Budget At Home" is one of 15 reports contained in our set, "How to Build A Lean, Mean MLM Machine . . .By Mail!" If you have not ordered the complete MLM Machine set of reprintable reports, I urge you to do so immediately so you can take full advantage of this program.
Before you can appreciate and understand how to promote MLM programs by mail, it is appropriate to review first the fundamentals of MLM(Multilevel Marketing) and mail-order methods that are proven. Let's talk first about MLM that is also known as Networking or Network marketing.
The Basics of MLM Programs
First understand that MLM is not an illegal pyramid scheme. It is 100% legal and many multimillion companies market their product strictly through MLM promotion. Some of the best known MLM companies include Amway, Shaklee, Tupperware, Princess House. . . a subsidiary of Colgate Palmolive, A.L. Williams, MaryKay Cosmetics, U.S. Sprint, MCI, and NSA. These companies have been around for decades. There are actually 100's to 1,000's more MLM companies. Like other companies, some are good and some are not so good. But one thing is for sure. MLM is here to stay, and it is an explosive growth field!
So what's the big attraction to MLM companies and programs? Well, it represents a wonderful opportunity for the "little fella" to start his own business on a part time basis and make a whole lot of money! How is this possible? The concept is fairly simple, MLM companies offer their products and services through independent distributors who can then recruit other distributors. That way, a distributor can buy the MLM products at a discount and earn money selling the product directly to others. He also earns "overrides" for the distributor that he has sponsored. And it gets better. Normally, a distributor also earns "overrides" for several levels that are deep in his organization. These distributors are called his "downline" or his "organization." You have probably seen how an organization can grow, but I'll show you again just in case. Let's say that your organization has 5 levels. Let's assume that you sponsor 5 people, and everyone does likewise. Your downline would then grow like this:
Level 1 5 Distributors
Level 2 25 Distributors
Level 3 124 Distributors
Level 4 625 Distributors
Level 5 3,125 Distributors
Total = 3,905 Distributors
Now that's quite a few distributors. If you earned $10 a month for each distributor in your "downline," you would be earning $39,050 a month! So theoretically, you can earn a lot of money! If everything worked perfectly. but it normally doesn't since your downline will not build perfectly. In fact, in most cases if you are using standard MLM techniques, you'll be lucky to build anyone on your second level! Now, I'm going to tell you the way it is in the real MLM world. You can make a lot of money in MLM, but most people don't! Let me explain what it takes to succeed and also to fail in MLM. You need to understand the underlying principles of MLM first.
You Must Build Your Organization Deep
Notice in the previous table that you earn your big money on your 5th level. That's because that's where most of your distributors are. To build a deep organization, you MUST train and help your first level! In other words, you must have a method that is duplicative! Your first level people must have a way to help their first level (your 2nd level) and so on. Otherwise your organization will die on the vine! Most new people in MLM make the serious mistake in trying to build their first level wide. That is, they personally want to recruit as many people as they can. Here is how they reason. If he can't or doesn't want to sell, surely if he sponsors enough people on his first level, some of these people will magically sell for him. Bad mistake! If you can't sell the product or service, how can you expect to train others to sell? You have just got to have a duplicative method that you, your people, and their people can easily duplicate. This is the fundamental basic rule that makes MLM promoters wealthy! Violate it and you're dead in the water!
You Must Learn How to Sell and Teach Others to Sell Yuck! This is the kiss of death for most people! Let's face it, most people hate to sell, can't sell, and don't want to learn how to sell! But don't fret. In these reports, I will show you how to succeed in MLM without direct selling by using mail-order techniques. but for now, understand that if you are strictly in MLM only, you "gotta" sell. There is no other choice!
Another unique problem with MLM'ers is that they find it difficult to generate leads. That is, once you have joined a MLM company, who do you find to sell? Where do you find interested people to talk to? Lead generation is generally very awkward. Since the very principle of MLM is that all selling is done by word of mouth, advertising just doesn't seem to fit. If advertising is used, it is mostly used nationally, and the long distance phone calls for following up gets to be very expensive very quickly. Generally, if your upline gives you a few leads a month, you're lucky. Or sometimes, you will be invited to participate in cooperative advertising. This is OK, but these leads generally cost $1 to $5 each and then again you have the long distance problem.
Oh yes, the MLM companies come up with all kinds of disguised ways to overcome the selling and lead generation problems. They try to teach you how to "share" your product with friends and relatives.
They want you to bring your potential distributors to rah, rah, rah "Opportunity Meetings." All selling techniques! And yes, they show you how you can lose a lot of money by trying to sponsor new distributors by "long distance." I say "lose a lot of money" because the MLM companies in general don't seem to understand the first thing about how to use proven mail-order techniques.
Another theory that MLM companies will tout is that you should be 100% loyal to only them. That is, they insist that you are active only with their MLM company. This goes against human nature! I know many people who are in MLM, but not one of them is in only one program! Most MLM'ers get into several MLM companies. Yes, I know some of the "old timers" that have been in only one MLM company, and they adamantly advise you to do the same. But it seems that most MLM newcomers all get involved in more than one MLM program.
Can you imagine K-Mart or drug stores if they handled only one brand of products? So this is a contradiction in the minds of most MLM'ers. They want to handle several companies, and most people want to "buy into" several companies, but no MLM company openly discusses it. Certainly no MLM company trains you how to do it.
How to Go Broke Promoting MLM by Mail
Let's review how MLM companies operate in general. Mostly, all quality MLM companies have first class promotional material and services that you can use. This can include expensive full color literature, audio tapes, video tapes, local and national meetings, training seminars and the like. They encourage you to have #800 phone numbers, voice box mail services and FAX machines. This is all geared primarily to sponsor local people. And it works when you are primarily selling face to face! But none of this is worth a "plugged nickel" if you are trying to sell by mail! It's way too expensive.
Here's how the typical MLM "BIG TIME" promoter can lose a lot of money. First, he signs up in a wonderful MLM program. And it probably is. Next, he decides to sponsor as many people as he can. (Surely if he gets 100 people in his first level, he can get 1,000's in his organization? Wrong!) Let's continue on. To sponsor 100 people fast, he advertises in USA Today under Business Opportunities." Ninety percent of all ads in this section are MLM companies and distributors! He gets to spend about $500 for one weed with a tiny ad! Next, he gets a voice box mail service with a pre-recorded message. (I hate those!) Now he sits back and, sure enough, he gets about 50 to 100 leads. (That's $5 to $10 a lead cost!). Now guess what next? He now has about 100 leads that he must call back at HIS cost! And he'll probably have to call several times to catch these people. Another cost of $5 to $10 for everyone that he talks to! Well, sure enough, some of the people are genuinely interested and they want more information and literature! Remember that expensive literature I told you about? Well, now he has to send it! Let's see. He has to send the expensive $10 to $20 video with the expensive literature. Otherwise he can't possibly "sign" anyone up without meeting him face to face. So be it. Send it all out. Now we're up to $30 to $50 cost on just this one person! Whew! Oh well, we have now sent out the expensive packages and we'll see what happens? Probably nothing! Well, that's what follow up phone calls are for. Another cost. More time. And if he is lucky, he will finally sign up 1 or 2 new distributors. What a messy, costly way to do this!
But what was that fundamental principle that I taught you earlier? You must be able to duplicate you system! Now that you have finally signed up 1 or 2 people, you are now going to try to show him how you did this! You would be nuts if you tried this! But nevertheless, there are plenty of people that try to do it this way. Just read the ads in the USA Today if you don't believe me!
OK. Let's recap on MLM. If you want to succeed in MLM using standard MLM techniques you need to:
- Handle Just One MLM Company
- Sell Face To Face
- Recruit Only a Few On Your First Level
- Have a Duplicative Method
- Build a Deep Organization
- Help and Train Your First Level
- Primarily Sell Locally
Mail-Order Techniques
Now that we have covered MLM, let's now see how the professional mail-order dealers operate. It's entirely different! Let me explain to you the fundamentals that all mail-order dealers will use.
First, the basic idea in mail-order is to get as many customers as you can get so you can sell to your customers over and over again. The very first objective in mail-order is to develop your own customer base. Once you have a customer base of, let's say, 100 to 10,000, you can keep sending them your new offers or catalogs and keep reselling them! Professional mail-order dealers talk in terms of the "front end" and "back end." The "front end" is the method of simply getting customers . . . even at no profit or at a slight loss! No professional mail-order dealer will ever attempt to make a "killing" with advertising or mass mail to non-customers!
It just doesn't happen. They will, however, do a lot of advertising and mass mailings to build their customer base! A customer base is pure gold! These customers like to deal with you and they buy again . . . and again. . . .and again. As long as you have several offers! And that brings up another fundamental point. To succeed in mail-order, as with any business, you just have to have several products or offers to sell. If you don't, you will most likely lose money in trying!
When it comes to advertising, these guys are pro's. All will use tiny classified ads that you see in the back of national advertising. If these ads get results, they will test and test and then place small 1" ads. When they have an offering and a publication fit, they then might place a large ad. Only then. You will rarely see them advertise in USA Today. Way too expensive!
They will use "leader items." A leader item is an inexpensive report or item that typically sells for less than $5.00. By advertising a leader item that costs 2 or 3 dollars, you can expect to get orders directly. The objective is break even with your mailing and advertising costs and build your customer base. Reprintable reports are excellent for this. Sometimes you can actually make money right up front if you have a "HOT" item.
Everyone that buys the "leader item" will then get another literature included. It generally goes postage FREE! Do you see how they operate? Slowly but surely. Making money as they go!
Testing and re-testing! Mail-order dealers know that they can make a lot of money! Some reports say that there are over 50,000 small mail-order dealers quietly earning over $50,000 a year operating out of their homes! You and I also know that there are also many big time mail-order operators that become very wealthy by selling by mail.
Let me recap what successful mailorder dealers will do.
- Develop as many customers as they can
- Promote nationally
- Have several offerings
- Develop cost effective ways to generate customers
How to Combine MLM with Mail Order
If you look at the "recaps" above, you will not find many common ties between MLM and mail order . . do you? But yet, there are a lot of amateurish MLM distributors and companies that try to promote MLM via mail without understanding the first basic principle of mail-order techniques! But it can be done! With astounding results!
Do you see some of the main differences between promoting MLM and mail order? In MLM you should "Sign Up" only a few people on your first level. Say no more than 10 and then help them. With Mail order, you want to develop as many customers as you can. . . 1,000's if you can! With MLM, you want to sell locally, and with mail-order, you have to sell nationally! With MLM, you are told to be loyal to just one company, but with mail order, you should have many offerings.
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to take all the good techniques from both MLM and from Mail-order Techniques and throw away the nasty ones? Well, that's just what these reports are all about!
Mail-order dealers operate lean and mean. If they don't make a profit on everything that they do, they are out of business! That's a good premise to start with. don't do ANYTHING unless you can make some up front money, or at least break even! If mail-order dealers were to make deals like a lot of MLM distributors do, they would be out of business immediately! Let me give you a few examples. Avoid them like the plague!
MLB Offers to Avoid
In these examples, remember that the offer that is being made must be duplicated (by you) if it is any good!
"Join my program and I'll pay your way in." What a miserable offer! This guy is willing to pay his money to get me into his program. What is he really saying? If I join him, I will have to pay for my new people? This can't get any worse!
"Sure, I'll send to you the information FREE." Now let's see. If he is sending me video's and expensive literature, I'll bet that is costing him at least $10 to $20! Hmmm. If I get into this program, does this mean that I will have to send out this FREE stuff? At my cost? No way!
"Join now, and I will build your downline." This guy is absolutely naïve or just a flat out liar! It is impossible for him to build your downline. And you cannot possibly duplicate this method. Watch your wallet and stay away! While you may be able to help a few select people by "signing up" a few people for them, you cannot possibly do this for your entire downline! You must provide a logical method that your people can do this for themselves!
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