If you talk to 100 people, 99.9 of them will tell you they’ve never sold product retail to Mom. Why?

It’s because:

1. Products are too expensive.

2. You don’t feel right making money off Mom.

What’s the answer?

You must have value-priced products that you’re not ashamed of. The problem in network marketing is, companies have such massive overhead, they have to charge tremendous prices for their products in order to pay a commission.

When that happens, you cannot sell to Mom retail, because you know the price is way too high. So you’re always selling wholesale - and probably, not just to Mom. Most people can’t sell MLM products retail to anybody!

If your payplan is all about wholesale - in other words, it’s “recruit, recruit, recruit” - where is your retail profit?

If you’re in a business opportunity and it’s always about “recruit”, new blood, new blood, new blood … it’s called Vampire Network Marketing. You need to ask yourself whether you can have long-term success in a business where nobody sells products retail.

Hint: there’s a real logical answer to this question.

We Appreciate You
Michael & Linda Dlouhy
Call 1-352-799-8779 (anytime)
Get my FREE ebook: Success In 10 Steps
“Be A Mentor With A Servant’s Heart!”

Is retailing product a true network marketing opportunity?

On this planet, the lifeblood of any company is retail sales to the end consumer. Think about this, Business models drive the behavior in the field.

Would you agree with me that every product - doesn’t matter what it is - a bottle of water, a coke or Pepsi, an aspirin, a vitamin, a liquid nutritional drink - it could be any product out here … if the quality and quantity of all the ingredients, are exactly the same, I ask people, “Would you agree with me that the wholesale manufacturing cost of any product is within pennies of each other?”

And the answer I get is, “Absolutely, no question about it, that is true.”

Now here’s where the problem comes in.

Marketing The Product To The End Consumer

Let me you a story. Companies A, B and C, these are real companies in real life. Company A hired a doctor to formulate the best vitamin product on the planet - and they did. it’s something you can take all at once. It doesn’t interact with any of the other ingredients. Works great. That company is marketing that product. They are a fairly large company, publicly traded.

Another company comes along and what’s so funny about the story is the COO, the bean counter for the first company, sold his piece of the pie and became a distributor with company B.

company B has a binary compensation plan. Now the first company is a stairstep break away comp plan, second company is a binary. So A is the stairstep, B is the binary. And the binary plan is just one left, one right.

Now, that guy said “Whoa! We had this great product with company A … now we want it with company B. So they go and hire the doctor away from company A to formulate them the best product.

And I would ask you another question. When you are a publicly traded company, you are not spending your money. You are spending investors’ money. So when you put that dot, the comma, the zero on a check, does it really matter to you? Does it really matter where you put it? Absolutely not, it is not your money. It’s like you shopping with my credit card.

So they hired the doctor. What that cost, I have no idea. But they told the doctor, “Make us the best vitamin product!” And he said, “Well … they’ve already got it in company A. But we could take that same formula and I could increase everything one gram.

So He Added One More Gram of Stuff To The Stuff

So every capsule of THEIR new stuff had one more gram in it. Great, no problem, So they created that product.

Now, company C came along, The founder of the company said, “Whoa! Company A, company B, they have got a great product. It’s not patented. Don’t need the doctor. Four manufacturing companies make the identical product. All I need to do is get the formula, take it to our manufacturer, see if they can improve it.”

So they did. So they took the same formula and added to it, improved the formula.

Now, here is the reality, I am going to give you the retail sales price on all 3 company’s products.

Company A: $114 retail
Company B: $104 retail
Company C: $39.95 retail

But Isn’t The Wholesale Cost Identical?

Now, you agreed with me that the wholesale manufacturing cost of any product is within pennies. So why the big spread? If you joined Company B, I know for fact that you can buy that product at the super duper low wholesale price of 79.95.

Now, you got to ask yourself this question, since Company B’s wholesale price is double the retail price of company C. why the big difference? Well, first, you need to understand that the business model drives the behavior in the field. In company A and B, the business model promotes the behavior of recruit, recruit, recruit, recruit, recruit. Why? Because normal mortals will not pay that kind of money for product.

They’ll only buy the product to be in the business. So that business model creates the behavior of recruit, recruit, recruit. Now, company C, because it’s $39.95 retail, that creates a behavior of retail, retail, retail. And you can prove it with these numbers.

To make $10,000 a month on the residual auto ship volume in Company A, you need 1400 – 1600 people. Company B, you need 2200 – 2400 people, Company C … you need less than 400 people. Same product. Same people you are selling to. So the big question is, can average part time people ever build a group of 2400? Or can they build a group of 400 easier? Think about that.

So The Business Model Drives The Behavior In the Field. Always!

Why is your product so expensive? Here’s why, the company need a big, big, big, big, big building. It’s so comical. They say, “Oh, we’re debt free.”Yeah. They’re debt-free off the backs of the distributors, they stole the compensation plan to build the big building. Doesn’t help the reps at all.

Think about this for a second. Companies A, B and C, and the breakage … that’s all profits that they make out of you, the distributor. Breakage is the difference between the wholesale cost and the retail cost, that mark-up from 39.95 retail to the 79.95 wholesale. That pays for the big building, the company jet, pays for all that.

A few years back, a prepaid phone card company charged $2 or $3 a minute for prepaid phone calls. You bought a prepaid phone card back then for a dollar a minute. But these were collector’s cards. (”If you don’t scratch the back of the card off, and don’t use the time, it makes it more valuable.”)

So this plastic card, which cost maybe 25 cents to create, was selling for $2 a minute. And the company convinced the people not to scratch it off, so they never had to pay for the phone time.

Isn’t that amazing? It’s no wonder network marketing gets a bad name.

One way to build your business is to sell products at retail. And to do that, you must join a company with value-priced products. It’s important that you look around to find that. Don’t settle for a company that charges 2 or 3 times the product value. Consumers are smart. You will always struggle to build with that company.

We Appreciate You
Michael & Linda Dlouhy
Call 1-352-799-8779 (anytime)
Get my FREE ebook: Success In 10 Steps
“Be A Mentor With A Servant’s Heart!”

You need to talk to your front-line leaders regularly. At least every other day. Sometimes it’s 2 or 3 times a day. Make yourself available anytime for 3-way phone calls. Give your team a system to help them find the people and sponsor them into your business. Make yourself available.

At our 35th wedding anniversary on June 21st, we had 2 of our front-line Diamonds at the celebration. And my sponsor My sponsor & his wife flew across the country to attend. Several others from our group were there. And we had a ball.

Here’s what it’s about.

I have a gentleman in my group, awesome guy, he lives up in Monticello, Florida. On our way back from a seminar trip to Houston, Texas, I stopped by to see Richard & Cheryl. They have a big old hickory tree that was leaning towards their home. It got hit by lightning, and it was dead. They were very concerned it could come down, and it’s a couple thousand dollars to have that cut down & carted away.

So I got together one day with Linda & our son Matt & a friend, Lynn Rothfuss, from New Jersey, and we made a day of it. We took a picnic up and we cut the tree down, cut it up, stacked it up for them.

That builds relationships. We just did that to help them. When’s the last time your upline did something like that for you?

That’s what this business is about - it’s about building relationships. We’ll be in business the rest of our lives with Richard & Cheryl. I’ll be in business the rest of my life with all our top leaders. It just goes on and on and on.

You’ve got to build it solid. We just sponsored some awesome people down in Puerto Rico, Nestor & Toni. They’re so excited, they’re going on the MLM Cruise with us. When we come back, we’ll hang out there for 2 or 3 days and do meetings and build them an empire while we’re there. They’ll have it started before that, but we’re going to explode that island.

The Mistake That Many Leaders Make

People are telling their downlines all the time, “You have to change. You have to get out there and sell. You have to become this other person that you aren’t right now.”

The truth is, YOU are perfect just like you are. Everybody on your team is perfect just like they are. They don’t need to change. They don’t need to become a pushy, aggressive salesperson.

Ninety-two per-cent of the world’s population is sales resistant. You don’t like to be sold. You walk into a store, looking for shoes. You want to look around, pick out what YOU want. You don’t want some sales clerk coming around, telling you they have a sale on such & such a shoe. You want to shop & buy what YOU want. Maybe you’ll ask for a clerk, once you’ve decided what you want.

So it’s only about 5% of the people in network marketing who tell the others that they have to change, they have to become this pushy, aggressive salesperson, make a list of your friends & family and go puke all over them, force them into the business.

That Is NOT How To Build Your Business!

My belief is, just target the market and find people who already are looking for the business, people who already believe in network marketing. Don’t go out and try to build them a dream to get them in the business.

It’s kind of like religion. Some people believe in God, some don’t. Don’t try to convince the people who don’t believe in God to believe in Him. And don’t try to convince the people who do believe in God to not believe in Him.

Just go talk to the ones who already believe! Talk to the people who already believe, and are looking. Those people are warriors. Those people are ready to take action. Those people will build an empire. They will build a legacy income for you. Those are the kind of people who will drive 6 hours to your house and cut down a tree for you.

Those are the people you want. Build relationships with those people. Get them into your business, and never, never, never quit building the relationship with them!

All these years in the industry, it’s almost comical to me. I hear so-called heavy hitters talking about building relationships. But the truth is, they don’t have a relationship with their spouse, they don’t have one with their kids, and they don’t have one with their business partners. They rattle on about relationships, but they don’t know how to build one.

Bulletproof Your Income!

What if your company went out of business tomorrow? Don’t laugh - it has happened to many, many people in this business. What would you do? Would you have to start over from scratch?

Well … NOT if you have strong trusting relationships with your people! If you have taken the time and made the effort to build that steel-ribbed “know, like, & trust,” then your people will stick with you. They will follow you to your next company. They will trust in your judgment.

If you haven’t built those relationships, your future is very much in doubt. Why take that chance? Work hard at getting close to every person in your group. That’s a strategy that will pay off for you big-time, whether your current company is around forever or not.

We Appreciate You
Michael & Linda Dlouhy
Call 1-352-799-8779 (anytime)
Get my FREE ebook: Success In 10 Steps
“Be A Mentor With A Servant’s Heart!”

Key: How Your Company Business Model Drives The Behavior In The Field 

A huge percentage of successful businesses, both online & offline, offer “autoship.” Autoship - also known as “til forbid” - means your company automatically ships product every month on a credit card order, until they are told to stop.

I never talk to a prospect about our company compensation plan without telling them that they need to be on autoship. I start by telling them how Linda & I won the Diamond trip to Italy last year. A week before we left, our company President called me up and said, “Michael, I’ve got to ask you a question.”

I said, “Sure. What is that?”

He said, “Last Thursday, we noticed in your group that you had a 94% autoship.”

I chuckled and said. “Huh? It should be 100%!”

And he laughed and I laughed. I know that’s extremely high. And he wanted to know, “Well, how do you do that?”

I told him, “Because we explain it.”

Here Is What I Say To My Prospects

It’s designed for my company situation, but you can model it for your company. Just think about these points, and how you can relate them to YOUR business.

Here is what I tell my prospects:

If you’re going to join me in my business, you’re going to want to be on autoship for 4 good reasons. Let me explain that to you.

The first reason you want to be on autoship is, you can now write that autoship amount off your taxes as overhead, just like your advertising budget, because you’re going to use those products to give away as samples to somebody. That is an advertising expense. So you can write that off and get free product from the company.

Reason number 2: you do want to get free product from our company. We have X number of products, and if you’re only using 3 or 4 of them, you might never ever experience our Super Duper Energy Formula. Last month, they gave that away to everyone on a $100 autoship. This month they gave away their weight-loss product.

Now, you might not need to lose weight, but maybe your sister does. If you had a free product, you’d probably give it to your sister.

Reason number 3: you’re going to want to qualify for a free $2000 monthly car bonus. The only qualification for you to get the car bonus is to be on autoship.

When you join as an Instant PooBah, for $189, $29 of that is your kit and your 6 websites. There is no monthly hosting fee for your websites. You get $160 in product, and they pay an $80 fast-start bonus. And in 9 months, you qualify for the car bonus. In 9 months, they add up the autoship volume on your 3rd level, which is your widest level, and if you have a total for the calendar month of at least $2500, they pay you a 10% 3rd level bonus … starting at $250, and it caps out at $2000 a month for your car bonus. So if you had $20,000 autoship volume on your 3rd level, you’d get $2000 a month for your car bonus.

The only bad part of the car bonus is, you don’t have to buy a car. You can use that money for anything you want. Pay off your mortgage, pay your rent, your power bill, buy gasoline, pay for insurance, take a trip to the Bahamas. It’s YOUR money.

Linda & I use that money to invest in real estate. I have one guy buying a boat, another buying an airplane. The point is, it’s YOUR money. Do what you want to do with it. A lot of companies would force you to buy a certain make & model of car with your car bonus. With us, you can use it however you want.

So reason #1 is to write the product off your taxes as advertising, so you’ve got free product. Reason #2 is to get our free extra product every month. Reason #3 is to qualify for the free $2000 monthly car bonus, and … …

Reason #4: If you join as an Instant Grand Space Commander, that’s $499. You get $600 worth of product, and the $29 kit. You get the same websites, no monthly fees. And the company pays up to a $200 fast start bonus on that. So when you sponsor new Instant Grand Space Commanders, you have the potential to make $200 from every one of those sign-ups.

If you come in as an Instant Poobah at $189, you can get up to an $80 fast start bonus.

Now … there’s also a $29 level, if you just want to be an associate. You don’t get any product.

The main thing is, the autoship is the same for both the Instant Grand Space Commander & Instant Poobah. So if you come in at $499, you can leverage and earn a $200 fast-start on your recruits, and if you want to build income, that gives you your best value.

I Never Push Them One Way Or Another

I give them that information and let them make up their mind. And most come in as Instant Grand Space Commander.

Now here’s the point. If a person almost understands what I just said about the business, and about how they can write it off their taxes and everything, is there any reason they wouldn’t be on autoship?

There’s only one time a guy told me, No, he couldn’t afford it. And I asked him what he did for a living. He said he worked for Home Depot. So I told him that when he goes in to work on Monday, change his withholding from 1 dependent to 9 dependents. The government will never challenge it or check it. They’ll take $50 to $70 a week less out of your check.

And you’ll get $200-$300 a month more money in your pocket that you can build your business with. At the end of the year, when you file your taxes, all you have to do is claim your home-based business, and you can write off all the money your’re spending on your business because of that. (I’m not a tax consultant, and you need to talk with your tax consultant to verify this.)

If you explain that, you’ll get 90% or more on autoship. Why would they not be on autoship if they understand how this works?

Now here’s the point. Maybe you build a group of 1000 reps. But if you only have 100 of them on autoship, what good did you do? So you’d better build from the top down, having your front-line leaders on autoship.

Make sense?

We Appreciate You
Michael & Linda Dlouhy
Call 1-352-799-8779 (anytime)
Get my FREE ebook: Success In 10 Steps
“Be A Mentor With A Servant’s Heart!”