STORY REPLACES PITCH.
Skip the glowing hyperbole or esoteric technical descriptions of a product. Instead, “tell us
some good stories and capture our interest. Don’t talk to us as if you’ve forgotten how to speak.
Don’t make us feel small.” (Levine et al., Cluetrain Manifesto)
Two hundred million people on the National Do Not Call List can’t be ignored. Do you want to be on your friends’
Do Not Answer list?
When people detect the scent of a seller, they’re gone. (Kim Klaver, If My Product’s So Great, How
Come I Can’t Sell It?, Ch 4) But marketers slide into seller talk whenever they think a prospect might
be listening. They unconsciously get up on their mental soapbox:
“X is the most amazing, unique, patent-pending nutraceutical complex—it penetrates the cell membranes
directly and it will set your clock back ten years. Blah blah blah…
Compare that with how Lulu talks to her Grandma at the kitchen table: “Grandma, I never thought
I could lose that stupid 10 pounds without starving myself, and now I did! Look at me now! I found
something that actually works!”
Learn to talk about your thing the way you would if you were not selling it. The same way you
might talk to your grandma or your 13 year-old nephew when you tell them about a product you’ve
just discovered that’s helping you. Then ask for the referral.
7 > NO PROMISES, NO PROBLEMS.
“It’s easy! Anyone can do it!” “Make big money fast!” “Next billion dollar company!!” “Everyone
wants this product! It sells itself!”
Most people know that’s an MLM (multi-level marketing) calling. It’s how the industry’s members
have been taught to sell for years. It’s also what has gotten the companies into trouble with the
regulators. Why do they keep doing it?
It works. Pulls in tens of thousands of desperate people clutching their last $500, hoping for some
magic to save them. And others, like me, who couldn’t walk away after hearing, “If this simple waiter with no education can make $90k a month, you can too. Err, can’t you?”

Ha! We never knew how many years experience he’d already had, that his father built a huge
organization which he brought with him to the new deal we were in. No one told. Because we were
sold with “Easy, if he can do it, you can too.”
Not so. Only a small percent make it. Isn’t it misleading to promise an easy road to financial freedom
when 95% of the people who buy in fail? People who fall for those promises are the wrong people
for the business anyway. Most long-termers stay in because they love their products or some aspect
of their network marketing business.
8 > ENTHUSIASM SELLS. HYPE AND HOUNDING DON’T.
Don’t tell them how great your thing is. Don’t use exclamation points. Don’t use big red type on
a bright yellow background. Don’t keep hounding.
Just yesterday, a real estate broker who was looking to start a network marketing business told me
he had stopped looking into a deal because the person kept hounding him about it. Six phone
calls within two days of his inquiry, all to tell him how great the company was. Never asked him
what he was looking for.
Who believes the claims sales people make anymore? We’ve all bought on hype and promises that
were never delivered.
The greater you say your thing is, the more suspect and desperate you look. Remember, they know
you’re selling it and will make money if they buy. Tell your hot button story. Then let the authentic
tale and referral magic do their work on likeminded people.
comes from the inside. It’s the energy with which you tell your story. The deep emotion
and passion for your thing that touches the person you’re telling it to. People love to be swept up
in a wave of enthusiasm. Energizes them, too.
9 > RECOMMEND THE SMALLEST PACKAGE,
LIKE A PRUDENT ADVISOR WOULD.
Imagine your friend is interested in starting their business with you and it’s time to buy inventory.
They often ask how much you started with. Tell them the truth, whatever it is. Even if you started
with the biggest deluxe package, surprise them:
“You don’t have to start with the biggest one. Maybe the starter package is the best one for you.
Tell me how you would use the product and we can see if that’s the best option. You can always
buy more later.”
What do you think they expect a seller to recommend—the biggest or the smallest? Your recommendation
tells your friend you’re still a friend, advising them rather than preying on them.
10 > SKIP THE THERAPY.
THEY DIDN’T ASK FOR IT AND WON’T PAY YOU FOR IT.
Women especially want to save the world, save people from themselves. But you’re a marketer,
not a therapist. Therapists get paid by the hour, we get paid by the piece. Besides, unsolicited
therapy often comes across as nagging. How many sales could you have made in the time it took
you to try and change all those prospects? How many friends might you still have if you hadn’t
insisted on saving them from their obesity, fatigue, poverty, etc. with your product or opportunity?
Even if people say they want to lose weight or make more money, etc, often they’re just venting.
They might whine or make jokes or beat themselves up about it, but they never do anything
to remedy the situation. And they won’t spend money on your thing. Arghhh. They’re venting.
Let them go.
11 > USE MULTIPLE VENUES TO TELL YOUR STORY.
Get your story out in as many different places as possible—from doorknobs to the blogosphere.
Your choice of venue depends on your interests, budget, time, skills and creativity.
With a budget, you could do Google ads, print ads or direct mail campaigns. With little or no
money, you might choose Orange ads, a Network Marketing Central profile or the belly-to-belly
methods: mixers, home parties, business leads groups, social websites and chat rooms.
If you like causes, join volunteer groups and interest groups. If you enjoy public speaking, give
talks to audiences who might benefit from your product.
If you’re good on the phone and don’t mind rejection, do phone leads. If not, try direct mail.
Do what you’re good at and what you enjoy doing. All these methods have worked for some people.
Don’t be pushed into one method or another by your upline. Don’t blindly copy something someone
did who is now successful. You may not have the same skills and circumstances, and therefore,
not the same success. Experiment and see what works for you.
12 > WOMEN: STAY IN YOUR COMFORT ZONE.
YOUR NATURAL WAYS ARE WORKING IN TODAY’S SKEPTICAL
MARKETPLACE.
Business gurus like the authors of The Cluetrain Manifesto, Doug Rushkoff, and Seth Godin have
observed that a gentler, kinder way of doing business is working better in today’s marketplace.
Advances in communication technology are allowing the people to voice their resistance to being
steamrolled by marketers. Instead they are displaying their individual passions and creating millions
of tiny market niches (Chris Anderson, The Long Tail).
The old ways are largely styles and strategies that come naturally to men.
Men tend to strut their stuff; women don’t, says Marti Barletta in Marketing to Women. Today’s consumers
are tired of hearing that every product is the greatest in the history of the world. Phrases
like “scientific breakthrough” don’t get sales anymore. Advising today’s marketers, Levine et al ask:
“The inflated, self-important jargon you sling around… what’s that got to do with us?”
(The Cluetrain Manifesto, p. xvi).
Huge generalization warning: Men like to score on the first date. They push to make the sale on the
first call. Women like to wait until they’ve been wined and dined. On the first date, they open the
kimono just a little. They revel in the romance before the score. Godin says business is the same:
“Great blogs…are built brick by brick, a little at a time. You learn what works and do it more….
It’s okay to be long…”
Men love to talk about a gadget’s technology, the science behind it. Women care more about how
other women are using the gadget to make their lives easier. Many of my students tell me that they
are trained to lead with the science of their product, to use technical jargon and breakthrough
language to impress the customer, to sound like a mini-doctor. The reaction from their friends?
“Their eyes glaze over!” Women come to my class to get the courage to go back to what they used
to do it years ago—tell how their product helped them. Marketing consultant David Meerman tells
marketers that today “gobbledygook” doesn’t sell (from The Gobbledygook Manifesto).
Unlike men, women tend to support what’s best for the other person regardless whose side they’re
on. I’ll never forget how mothers at a little league baseball game cheered when any child got a hit,
no matter what team they were on. The dads would react in shock: “Hey, that’s the wrong team.
What are you cheering for?” Rushkoff sides with the women, in his book, Get Back in the Box. He
tells company CEOs to follow a play ethic that values staying in the game over a war ethic which
values only winning and destroys innovation in the process. More support for women’s style comes
from Dr. Gregory Berns, psychiatry and behavioral sciences professor: “Humans are wired to collaborate.
Altruism turns people on even more than making money.”
Harvard has just appointed its first woman president Drew Gilpin Faust, “to move the University
forward expeditiously…in a time when society has become ambivalent, even skeptical about universities.”*
Might allowing women to take the marketing lead move the industry forward expeditiously,
in this time when the marketplace has become ambivalent, and even skeptical, about marketers?
82% of network marketers are women. What if they were given the freedom to build on their
own natural styles to develop marketing approaches? Instead of being pushed to market like men?
Given the current 95% drop out rate in the industry, how could we lose?
End Note
These views are the manifesto of a tiny cadre of network marketers composed of women and
evolved men. We tell our friends up front what we’re doing—selling our thing—the same way a newly
minted cardiologist might announce to her friends what she’s doing. We don’t ask for the sale,
we ask them if they know anyone who might like to know about what we’re doing. We tell our story,
make no promises, tell no half-truths, and never hound anyone. Once we announce, we let the
magic of genuine word-of-mouth among friend networks do the work.