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One Letter, Many Readers by Bob Giddens
Thirty-eight years ago I was new to multilevel marketing. The emotions I was feeling were excitement, fear, hope, and urgency. I was getting out of the navy, I didn't have any savings, I had a wife who didn't work and two small children, and I wanted to make it full time in Amway. I could have gotten a any number of basic jobs, but no other obvious career was staring me in the face. The EcoQuest business is 1,000 times better than the Amway business was. We have products that can be sold for profit. Our Wellness Business Pack bonus program (part of the Nutrition division) can generate good up-front money. We have the Success Pack program. Our mix of products is far more interesting. In 1970 Amway only had cleaning products, household stuff, and cosmetics. But even though EcoQuest is a lot better, an ambitious new guy will probably feel more or less like I was feeling. He'll have a lot of excitement mixed with a lot of fear. All in all, it is better if a beginner keeps his job and works EcoQuest part time. But in today's economy, some people don't have that choice. Their job is gone. Can they make EcoQuest work? If they have some people skills, yes they can. But they need to start getting people immediately. A good salesperson can also make immediate money by retailing Fresh Air, DuctwoRx, LaundryPure, or PowerwoRx-e3. You'll need some up front money to buy units to sell, or if your credit is good you can qualify for a financed Success Pack. How many people are good salespeople? In my experience, maybe one person in twenty. If you're that one, go for it! Here is some excellent sales training.
A week later I switched to Shaklee and was almost back at square one. I had my 100 Amway people as prospects (a few came with me, but not many), and I had eight months of MLM training under my belt. However, my levels of fear and urgency were greatly increased. On the positive side, I had a higher sense of confidence in the new program. Shaklee had vitamins. It made sense to me that people taking vitamins would be long-term buyers. Also, I had seen proof (Bob Holker's bonus checks) that big money could be made. Amway people would never show their checks (because they were lying about their incomes). When I moved to Shaklee, I was glad to escape the Amway strategies I had not liked. I could not invite my friends to a meeting without telling them what the meeting was about. Nor did I like the fact that revealing specific bonus income amounts was considered taboo. People wanted to know what kind of money was really there, myself included. EcoQuest veterans who move to our "All of the Benefits, None of the Pressures" system may feel a similar sense of relief. You've finally found a way to meet your monthly PQV requirement through simple sponsoring ("simple" means sign up for $25 with nothing to buy and no purchase requirement to earn bonuses). I have always understood that the key to success in multilevel marketing would be to have lots of people. In the beginning, a person is excited about the idea of having half a dozen people. Going from zero to six is big! But you eventually will want to have dozens, then hundreds, and then thousands if your dreams are big. Will you be able to handle so many people? Won't that cause an overload problem—like putting too many plugs into one electrical socket? Do not worry. Handling thousands is a little more complex than handling six, but not as much as you might think. All of your people need the same basic information. In 1970 (when Xerox copies were expensive and we did not have fax machines or computers), I used to type half a dozen letters every morning, but I made carbon paper copies so I could spread one letter to multiple people. Some letters started with "Dear John, Bill, and Mike." In other cases it was just "Dear Mary," but I sent the copies to Mary's uplines. I would add handwritten sentences to each letter to give it the personal touch. I tried not make too many typos, which were hard to correct on the carbon copies. Another challenge was to write the letter in a way that would be interesting and helpful to all the people who were receiving it. Today it is easy to send one message to multiple addressees. We have email, websites, conference calls, web links, and fax machines. Even more important is the network process itself. I was a diligent leader and a good communicator. But I had to multiply my effectiveness by training my subordinates to also be leaders and communicators. Multilevel marketing isn't just about signing people up. It's about training them, encouraging them, helping them, motivating them, spanking them when they are bad, solving their problems, giving them new ideas, alerting them about upcoming events, giving them responsibilities, etc. Your efforts in these areas cannot be limited just to the people you personally sponsor. Your efforts have to be multi level (hence the name of our system). You'll need leaders under leaders under leaders at all levels. Note: I often hear someone say "It's all about training" and that always makes me cringe a little. It's not about training or communications or sponsoring or selling. It's about all of these things...and more. A person who tries to boil EcoQuest down to just one area misses the point. The term leadership covers more bases than any other single word, but even leadership doesn't cover it all. In the final analysis, EcoQuest is what you make it. In 1995 I decided to make my business a multimillion dollar enterprise that would involve tens of thousands of people, and it was clear that these people would be spread among hundreds of Managerships. My general goal was to get a lot of people, but my specific goal was to identify leaders and build them into Managers. While mapping out my plan I came to the realization that just getting Managers wouldn't be enough. I had to get Master Managers. So that's the way I pitched it; and that's how it has worked for me. One final and important thought. When you use "mass contact" methods such as email, websites, conference calls, and newsletters, remember that your people are all different. Some read emails diligently and really love them. Others think emails are annoying. A leader who gets hung up on just one method will lose the people who do not like that method. Some people—particularly those over 50—are uncomfortable with websites. If you want them to benefit from all the good stuff on chippynews.com, you have to (a) paste the info you want them to see in an email, (b) send them an easy-to-use link so they can click and find the lesson they need, or (c) print the important stuff and send it by mail. Same with conference calls. Some people are bad listeners. Even after they dial in, they don't pay attention, they don't take notes, and basically they get very little benefit. Most of us do better when multiple resources are available. |
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My
last day in the military came eight months after I had joined Amway.
My final A-4 flight was on November 1, 1970. I zoomed through the
skies of South Texas, pulled six g's a few times during a dogfight
with my student, flat-hatted over the cactus at 50 feet, and made a
simulated short field landing just for kicks. By landing in a stall,
I had that baby stopped in 2,000 feet. On November 2, I said goodbye
to my paycheck.