What's going on everyone? Last Christmas I went to a Phoenix Suns game down in Arizona. That's where my parents live, and I went with my brothers, and it was awesome. In the stands, we were there in the stands, and the game was cool. It was awesome. We're in this big arena downtown. There's lots of life, it was at night obviously, and the city's alive. It was super fun, right? Very vibrant. A lot of life. That's what it felt like, and you walked in and it was an indoor arena, a basketball court in the center obviously, and it was a lot fun, but I remember sitting down, and I was looking at all the different logos of all the businesses, all the people who had paid to put their name and their logo inside the stadium, right? Lots of money inside of it. Lots of money on those ads. Lots of money, and there are two kinds of these ads though. I remember sitting down and I was looking, and was noticing that there was a difference. There was really two kinds. There was one kind, and this difference is one of the major reasons why I know my upline didn't know how to teach me to be successful when I was doing MLM for the first time, this one difference.
I was looking around, and I was reading all the signs. I'm really fascinated with ads. I'm the kind of guy who would watch an infomercial for fun. I get it. I obsess over it, and I know it's one of the reasons why I've been able to be good at it. I encourage you to obsess over your craft also. But anyway, so I was sitting down and we were in the basketball game, and it was a lot of fun. Very close as I remember it. It was a great game, and like I said, there's two different kinds of businesses that had bought ad space. The first kind was they just had literally their logo and their name, and that was it. That was it. The second kind had a logo, a name, and a call to action. There was an offer on there, meaning it would be like, "Until Tuesday, get two extra tacos for just a dollar each," or something like that. I was like, "Huh, that's interesting." One kind of business type in this arena just wants their name out there, and they're literally throwing money away in my mind. The second part though, they had an actual offer on the ad with a call to action. They were trying to recoup money from the ad space they had purchased. Interesting. Hmm.
Let's think about the difference between those two real quick, because the difference between those two is why I can do paid prospecting, meaning I get paid even when someone doesn't join my downline. Last year I made about fifty grand that let us go, we went on a cruise, my wife and I, we went for our anniversary, I set up a bunch of cool stuff in my home office, we got a gym, lots of stuff that it did regardless of somebody joining the downline or buying a product or whatever it was. Those are the kinds of systems that I give my downline, these paid prospecting systems, and because of this one principle, I'm allowed to do that. Any time you place an ad, any time you go and you put your name out there, this is the reason why I don't have a business card. Any time I go put my business card out there and I say, "Hey, here's my business card," it's nothing. There's no call to action, there's no offer. There's literally no reason. I literally just gave it to them so they could put it in the trash for me. That's it.
I know I did that episode a little while ago about business cards, but this one principle, you've got to understand that there's a huge difference between promoting and advertising. An ad versus a promotion, and most people in MLM, like 99% of them are stuck promoting their MLM. One will get you a lot of money. One will get you almost no money, but you'll spend a lot. Does that make sense? If I am just running promotions, if I'm just promoting my MLM, it means I don't care who I'm targeting, I don't care who sees my ad, I don't care that I had to spend money to get it up there, I don't care to make back the money I spent to put the promotion up there. Does that make sense? When you're promoting, in my mind, it is the absolute least effective kind of marketing that's out there. Big corporations are known for this, right? Massive, massive with huge, deep, unlimited pockets, and they'll go buy an ad on the Super Bowl and spend millions and millions of dollars just to get their name to flash on the screen a single 15 second spot, right? Or even they'll just put their name inside the actual arena itself. That's it. Coca-Cola and their name's spinning around the inside of the stadium. That's it.
They can afford to do that. They've got a massive, massive, massive bottomless pit of cash they can just toss at stuff, right? They're in an awareness branding stage where they don't care about anything else except sustainability, people seeing the name over and over, that's it. They don't care about recouping the ad cost. I care about that. My ability to go and create some piece of marketing where I can recoup ad costs, now we're getting into sales funnels. Oh, baby! That's my actual job if you guys don't know. I build sales funnels for a living, and the reason that they work is because they are based 100% on recouping ad costs. How does that sound as a business owner? Sound freaking amazing. What I did, and what I do, is I place cool pieces of training, these cool tools, things I'll ship to you, stuff like that, for very cheap. Even I'll give them away for free even if someone just pays for the shipping. I do that kind of stuff all the time. After they buy that first thing, I'm like, you know what, if you like that, you also might like this. There's a little upsale that says, "Hey, I think you might like this." A good percentage takes that next one.
Well, now I'm already making money, right? My average cart value is now above what I paid to get that ad out there. That's a way better form of marketing, and most people, they get out there, and all they do is they just start promoting their stuff. They don't care where their ads are at. If you're spending money for an ad, would you not care who's actually seeing it? Think about this with your MLM. Think about this with who you're promoting to. Think about this with the people that you have been even walking to and talking to. Are they even in the market to hear about your MLM? I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to them about them, but I am never, ever, ever going to buy a pink Volkswagen. I'm not going to. I'm not in the market for it. I will never buy it. I do not have a preset disposition to buy that, right? A lot of times, guys, if you want to get better with your MLM, if you want to actually get people recruiting and get people, you've got to solve a problem for them.
"Hey, I'm going to teach you guys how to do X, Y, and Z, or I'm going to give this away to you for free," or whatever it is, and you're paying to place that ad in front of somebody, if you've some kind of loss leader out there, if you've got some kind of product out there, some kind of ad out there, figure out some way to recoup on that ad cost, and now you're getting customers for free. Does that make sense? If I can just get that first interaction to break even in my pocket, in my wallet, boom! You're getting customers for free. You literally have created and redirected a traffic stream towards your direction. How cool is that? That's why I can do what I do. That's why this works. That's why I'm so passionate about fixing this for so many people. What I did is a systematized it. I put the whole thing into a system, and that's what Secret MLM Hacks is. That's what the product is. It teaches you how to do that. That's step one of five. Now, there's four others, which are mind blowing and automate everything. It's true duplication. It's awesome, but that's why.
People ask, like, "Stephen!" The other day I got an email from someone, and this has happened many times. I've been approached by five MLM owners about my system. I've been approached by tons of people who are like, "Hey, I've got this huge team. I'd love to come join you also, and I'll bring hundreds and hundreds with me and put them under you." That happens frequently. Why? Because I solved a legitimate issue in the MLM space. I'm not trying to pat my own back or toot my own horn here. I'm just trying to tell you, if you really want to get massive with this, you can do it. Figure out what your biggest pain point is, solve it, and turn it into a system that you can give away for free when people join your downline. What? Boosh! Value bomb! Does that make sense? I hope that that's clicking. That's all real marketers do. Real marketers. Real marketers, and you're in multi-level marketing, so you're a real marketer. You're listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. You're a real marketer. Real marketers try to spend as much money as they possibly can in order to acquire a customer, and then they figure out how to break even with that ad cost. They figure out how to make that money back.
My friends, that's the kind of stuff the uplines don't teach. That's why I am. Does that make sense? I had to go to a different industry. I had to get an expertise in a different area and come back to the MLM space to help teach that. That's why I'm doing this. So anyways, I've got books all over the place. I love books. I don't read them as much as I want to right now, I'm in kind of a different execution phase as I go, but anyway, I buy almost every MLM book that I see, and it's because I want to see what they're doing. If someone takes the time to write a book, they have to have some good ideas, unless it's like a pamphlet. I go though and I start reading through it and I figure, "Hey, that's cool. Oh, that's bad. Oh, that's cool. Oh, that's bad." You know what I mean? Anyways, I'm not going to tell you the name of this book because I got some positive feedback and some negative as well, but this book goes through tons of low cost tactics for growing your network and advancing to the top of your pay plan. It's cool. There's some great stuff in here, there's just a lot of stuff that I also totally disagree with.
So let's think back to my experience watching that basketball game, right? There are certain pieces in here that are just straight promotional when I was in that basketball game, there's certain pieces that were floating around and companies paid all this money. They're just trying to promote their name, get their name out there, but then there's other pieces where I can tell it's an actual ad. I can tell that they are actual marketers. I can tell that they are trying to recoup an ad cost, and there's an offer attached to the ad. Does that make sense? In here, here's a list of things that you're not supposed to leave home without. As an MLMer, this is what these authors say you should never leave home without. Number one: soundbites. That could be a cool idea. I'd put them on flash drives, you know? That way you can hand it out, but I'd tell people that you don't have that many on you and you want to get it back from them so they've got to call you back or something like that. Don't leave home without testimonials. I actually agree with that one also. That's awesome. Testimonial from someone else is worth way more than you own words.
The next thing it says is business cards. I actually really disagree with that one. I don't have a business card, I don't plan on making a business card. The only time I ever made a business card is when I had a promotion thing on it, and it was for a specific event that I was attending, and I could measure the effectiveness. It's kind of interesting. Anyway, brochures. Brochures in my mind are like websites. I think websites are garbage, and it's like hitting a flat wall. Internet sales funnels, though on the other hand, that's where the money is. Oh my gosh. A website though, like a brochure, brochures, that's a great way to just print a whole bunch of stuff and waste a lot of money printing stuff. I hate brochures. How many times, like okay, let's say you spend tons of time going out there and actually hiring some awesome sales guy, but then all he does is he stands in front of the store and just hands out brochures. How many sales do you actually get from a brochure? I don't know. I've never had it happen. Same thing with the next one on here, which is catalogs. Now, I get that that if you're selling the products and stuff like that, but I don't know.
Article reprints, maybe, but it's got to be a give and a take thing. You can't just hand them out like candy, meaning somehow you've got to get that prospect to invest in a relationship too. That's why I ask people for their email or their phone number or something, that way I know that they have invested in the relationship back. They've also given. I can't just give for free free. You've got to sell stuff that's free also. Tip sheets, I don't even know what that is. Research studies, maybe, but I feel like when you pull out a research study, you're farther along in the sales process. I don't really lead with a research study. I don't know. I don't know what my opinion is on that one, but that sounds a little more promotional. These are all promotional things almost. Now, CDs and DVDs, I agree with that as long as you're not giving it away for free. CDs and DVDs, somehow they've got to pay for it. That's why I do free plus shipping models all the time. It's free, but they pay for shipping, so if someone isn't willing to pay just a few dollars in order to get something that could benefit themselves and their business and their life, I don't want them to even be a lead. Does that make sense?
Okay. I'm sifting. It's literally filters all over the place. Okay, next one. Next one on here it said is bookmarks. That sounds like a supreme waste of money. Toll free number, don't need that. Google Voice is totally fine. Next one on here is voicemail. That kind of comes with it. I don't know why that's considered to be a promotional item. Next one on here, recorded info my phone. I mean, if it's a free training or something like that. Bumper stickers and buttons. That's a supreme waste of money. I would not do that at all. How the heck would you recoup ad costs from that? I mean, I guess. I just hate that. I come from the direct response marketing world where we measure the direct response on the actual consumer the performance of the ad, so if the ad sucked and the customer didn't do anything with it, we're not going to keep spending money on it, but that's exactly what this book's telling you to do. Product samples. Yeah, but again, I would somehow figure out a way to make these guys, somehow you've got to get that customer to have skin in the game, so either make the offer better or make it super cheap on their first one, or collect some information from them that's usually more hard to get, or set up an appointment to come back. You know what I mean? Something.
All I'm trying to say is, let me wrap this up here and I'm going a little bit while here and I'm getting a little more in the weeds. Sorry about that with this episode here, but the whole point is you've got to ask yourself in your MLM business, are you promoting your MLM, or are you advertising your MLM? You're a true marketer. You should want to spend as much money as possible. Please, for the love, become marketers, real marketers, and learn how to use ads. Now, it might help you to know that I don't know how to use Facebook ads. I know how to use other ads, so I hire someone out. I just go find someone. There's people all over the place that will do that for you. It's great. It's awesome. I didn't have to learn it. I used a team. I outsourced. Does that make sense? It's the same thing for your guys. Think through what are the things, and I'm not telling you to bag on or nitpick on your upline or anything like that, but just think through effectively, I mean really honestly. What are the things your upline has told you to go do that is straight promotion based? Waste of your freaking money, money you should be spending on ads that you can track and see the effectiveness with rather than hand out a brochure.
You're never going to see them or that brochure again. You know what I mean? Has it happened where someone actually gets recruited from it? I'm sure, but the effectiveness and efficiency of it is so, so, so small, you have to hand out billions of those things. That's just, I get sick thinking about it. I hate marketing like that. That is so awful. Find out what things you're doing where you actually can't measure a direct impact on. Does that make sense? If I'm going out and I knew when I was doing door to door sales, if I knocked on a hundred doors a day, I was going to get at least two or three sales. That was good. For what I was selling door to door, that was actually pretty good. I just tried to do that, and that's how I measured it. My marketing was my actual walking door to door. Does that make sense? Figure out what it is that you're doing, and try and figure out are there tasks that you're doing, are there tasks that your upline is having you do where you're just kind of being busy rather than actually pitching people?
That's what's so cool about ads. Ads let you pitch people. You spend a little money to get it in front of them. That's fine. Figure out how to recoup the ad cost. As soon as you do that, man, you just got yourself an unlimited source of leads. That's the kind of stuff that I never had any MLMer ever mention ever that I'm excited to keep teaching you guys inside my new product that'll be coming out soon. Yes, that's a shameless plug. I hope you guys all get it. I'll be offended if you don't, because it is freaking amazing, and there's nothing like it in the MLM space. I literally had to create it. It's been four years in the making to put this thing together. Got some awesome guests coming in and teaching stuff, got some awesome. Anyway, you guys will enjoy it. Hey, if you want, hint hint, nudge nudge, look at what I'm about to do right here. Watch the magician's hands. Watch the man behind the curtain. Listen to me right now. If you want me to teach your downline more about systems they can use to recruit the right people, attract the right people, create automation in the recruiting process or in the lead gen process, if you want anything like that or you want me to be teaching you that, there are five free videos you can go get at SecretMLMHacksRadio.com.
When you opt in, there will be five days. They'll come five days, one in each. I'm sorry. I'm saying this super messed up. There will be one video that comes each day for five days, and it's going to walk you through. Each video's 15-20 minutes long, and it's going to walk your downline through ways they can set up your MLM in a way to make it unique and sexy and attractive again in a world where MLM is no longer that. I'm very excited to show you how to do that. It's free. I recommend you watch it with your downline, send it to your downline, and guys, I hope you enjoy it. Guys, I'll talk to you later, and we'll see you next episode.
Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Would you like me to teach your own downline five simple MLM recruiting tips for free? If so, go download your free MLM masters' pack by subscribing to this podcast at SecretMLMHacksRadio.com.