The Secret to Success… Is Being a Good Copycat
Have you been taught that being a copycat is a bad thing? In school we were punished if you copied your buddy’s homework or for plagiarizing an essay…
While imitation may be the best form of flattery, a knock-off Rolex watch, Armani handbag or pair of Gucci shoes won’t put you on the “A” list.
Now in the Direct Selling Industry (MLM, Network Marketing) you want to be a good copycat. As a matter of fact, you want to be a copycat maker.
The power of the direct selling strategy is that it allows you to tell a story about your product, your company, and yourself. It is this combination of the word-of-mouth endorsements with the loyalty of its customer base that adds instant credibility that a product on a shelf or a television advertisement cannot come close to.
Somebody told you their story and you joined up, and somebody before that told that person, and someone before that, and so on. The danger of relying on this storytelling method of advertising is best demonstrated by the party game called telephone.
Let’s Play Telephone
Playing this game, the first player whispers a phrase or sentence to the next player. Each player successively whispers what that player believes he or she heard to the next. The last player announces the statement to the entire group. Errors typically accumulate in the retelling, so the statement announced by the last player differs significantly, and often amusingly, from the one uttered by the first.
This same problem plagues many direct selling companies and becomes a liability as their distributors begin to change the story by adding to it, via exaggerations and hype or subtracting there by failing to mention or downplaying important information.
Imagine if you had 42 people at your party and each of the people at the party had spent 5 minutes with the original person (in this case you) and listened to you tell the sentence over and over again. This time the outcome of the game would almost certainly come close to, or even exactly match, the original sentence. It would not make for a very fun telephone party game though, especially for the person that had to spend 5 minutes with everyone saying the same sentence over and over again.
What if you just picked 6 people and spent the 5 minutes with them and then had those 6 people do the same? The game would have a very similar output but you would have only spent 5 minutes to reach 42 people instead of the 3 1/2 hours it would take telling each person.
Recruit, Recruit, Recruit?
The direct selling system is not designed for 1 person to recruit a ton of distributors. As you see from the simple math of the example above, utilizing the power of multiplication is much more powerful than addition (2×2 or 2+2, its really that simple, now you are getting it multiplication is the key you want to copy or should I say copycat). If you concentrate on adding more distributors personally then most of your time and effort will be spent training, encouraging, and following up with each of them.
Chances are that you joined your direct selling company to create more time for yourself and your family while generating an income stream that continued to work without you having to be present to do so. Like the person in our telephone game, you can spend your time doing this but it isn’t going to be much of a party.
If Momentum Is Going to Be You Have To Copy Me
Instead, find 6 distributors and then say to them, “You Have To Copy Me” Take the time and effort to teach them the direct selling company story and the nuances of it. Make sure that they hear you tell the story over and over again. A great way to accomplish this is to offer to talk to their prospects with them as a three way call or meeting.
You could do this in a group all at once, but doing it one at a time so your distributor has a chance to hear you tell the story to different people multiple times is much better. In the process, you train your new distributor how to tell the story and make a copy of yourself that can now go out and do the same with their 6 distributors, and so on, and so on. That’s the power of multiplication!
Remember it only takes 2 personally sponsored distributors to qualify for team commissions in the binary compensation plan of most direct selling companies. If everyone commits to bring a minimum of 2 new qualified distributors into business with them and teach them to copycat and each of them do the same everyone’s business will grow exponentially.
Let’s say that you understood the simplicity of this duplicatable business model “Bring 2 Teach 2 to Copycat and Help 2 Teach 2 to Copycat” and you brought 2 new distributors into your business in your 1st week for example and taught them to copycat and you, then helped those 2 distributors bring their 2 new distributors the following week and teach them to copycat and so on, in 3 months, you would have 8,392 distributors in your business. That’s the power of exponential growth when everyone commits to bring 2, teach 2 and help 2 (that’s with everyone committing two just 2, you can bring more, what if you brought 6. then your business could grow even faster, but you only have to bring, teach and help 2). Now that’s simple, just become the best Copycat.
The Best Copycat Wins
The secret about direct selling is that it isn’t about selling at all, but about teaching. Teaching your downline (distributors who come into business with you) to become copycats, it helps to eliminate the direct selling buyer’s remorse, reduces the need to generate a huge list of people to prospect, prevents over-hyping and over-exaggerating the story, and provides more free time and financial security. Aren’t these some of the main reasons people list for the negative reputation of the direct selling industry? Can you imagine if more direct selling sponsors would spend more time creating copycats?
While it is true that timing and positioning are important in the direct selling industry, there are many who have got in early and did not make it big. If you fail to properly train your downline distributors the odds are that you and they will fail. The early bird may get the worm in direct selling, but it is the cat that gets the bird … the “Copycat”.