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When I first started the mlm I'm in now my biggest reason why I almost didn't join was because I thought I'd have to be a good salesman, saleswoman? Yeh, I'm not that big of a feminist. Anyways, I "knew" I wasn't a good salesman because I had completely failed before, with a product that really looking back I should have been able to get into a lot more hands. But here's the funny thing, last time I actually had learned some "sales" tactics and practiced the scripts.
But here's the deal, selling is not the same as marketing. They work together, but there are key differences that actually make it so that if you want to have some major financial success you HAVE to get good at marketing. That's why it's marketing that I've been learning and implementing into my business. It hasn't been presenting myself as a professional and saying the few key phrases that get me the sales, which what I thought I had to do last time. It's working a lot better for me to be me, to be honest with myself and others on how I am and having that be the main force in how I run my business. It's been a lot better for me, and I think it will only continue to get better and better as I'm vulnerable instead of being put together, polished and perfect all the time.
Because the fact of the matter is that's not me. While I am a very conservative person and I do like to get dressed up for when I go to church or military functions, on a day to day basis I am not a business or formal wear type of girl. I grew up in southern california in Carlsbad, and the beach was literally a mile away. And I played sports, especially basketball, all my life so it's not like I was switching from a skirt suit into a swim suit into some basketball shorts. And this is NOT to say if you do wear business or more formal attire than I'm better than you. That's not what I'm saying at all. All I'm saying is that's not ME! I'm a mom of three littles and at home all day so why would I put on a suit.
Anyways. Haha Sorry, I can get a little passionate about that. But So when I started working with this mlm that I'm in right now I had really good sales. It's an amazing product, A LOT of women use this type of product anyways so it wasn't like I had to really search to find people who I could say, "hey THIS is actually even better than what you have, let me show you" So things went really well, I even hit the first rank advancement in my very first month. I was feeling pretty good but I knew I didn't KNOW a whole lot about the products and sometimes people would ask me questions and I'd have to tell them I'd get back to them so I decided I needed to do a deep dive into the products. What was everything that we provided, what it was made up, prices, best ways to use it, All that jazz. I was feeling WAY more confident and ready each time I was talking to someone about but then this funny thing happened. My sales actually started to decline.
I started feeling very confused and frustrated because I KNEW that this was an amazing product. I KNEW that those who were purchasing were not only loving it, but it was bringing some big change and ease into their lives. But all of a sudden less and less of a percentage of the new people I was talking to were buying.
Then, luckily only a few weeks into this slump I was listening to a podcast, I'm pretty sure it was from Stephen Larsen again, he's seriously so smart about this stuff. But he was talking about how he had the same problem when he was doing summer sales. And it took him a lot longer to figure it out but what he eventually realized was he was word barfing on them. I just love having those "oooooooohhhhhh" moments because I hate having problems that I don't know how to solve.
But that's totally what I was doing! I was word barfing on these poor sweet women who were probably genuinely interested and would have loved the product but because every time someone had a question I gave a 3 minute answer and would use industry words that they weren't familiar with they would walk away. But just a simple YES or NO would have been completely sufficient 95% of the time.
It's funny. My husband's youngest brother is super smart in math and science. But the biggest gap between the siblings is between him and the next brother. So he's the youngest and there's no argument that with math and science he's always been the smartest. I'm pretty sure when he was in high school another in law called him for help with his college course. It was AWESOME. The hilarious part is my brother in law, Garen, he gets excited about things and just starts explaining them and speaks his math and science language and every time he would do this, FOR YEARS, every time someone in the family would just start saying "Geek a de geek nerd nerd" . Like this started long before I was even in the family.
Over the course of my marriage though one of the brothers went and got a Masters in some fancy America Literature English degree and then my husband got his Masters in Military Chaplaincy, which had a ton of counseling and psychology classes. So now when we are all together as a family sometimes the boys can't help but get excited about their work or in their playful arguments about ideas they get in their zone and just start saying words that No One Else knows, so of course, someone in the family starts calling out "Geek a de Geek Nerd Nerd!"
The funny thing is we all have our specialities. We all have a language that not everyone understands. Even a less dramatic example would be if you started talking to your husband or dad or boyfriend, who ever, start talking to a guy about makeup. Talk about all the products you use and why and while they might not get overwhelmed, if you aren't too careful you will very quickly loose them.
Have you guys ever seen NCIS. No before you check out, I promise I'll bring this back to mlm. This has a very real connection to mlm. But every episode there is Gibbs who is the Crime solver of all crime solvers. And in his team he has Abby, his forsensic scientists and then his computer pro Magee, both Brilliant at their jobs. Almost every episode there is always a scene where one of them discovered something key to the investigation and they need to tell gibbs. Gibbs always asks a very simple question like "What do you have" and they go off rambling about the science behind it or the algorithm jargon. It's always funny because Gibbs just gives them this look and the know they just have to give a quick answer in English instead of their specialty.
It's the same with us and our MLMs. I did it! We talk our way out of sales and then we are like "what the heck, I just told you how awesome this product is why don't you understand" and people are either physically or mentally slowly taking steps backwards and away from us. But we just go from person to person speaking our geek a dee geek to them and don't stop to realize that we are not speaking the same language as them
So, Everyday I am becoming a bigger and bigger fan of these two guys, Stephen Larsen and Russell Brunson. I've mentioned Stephen a times before. He is my husband's really good friend from when they were in ROTC and the Army Reserves together when we were first married and he is very quickly becoming THE MLM Marketing Guru, maybe just even the MLM Guru. So I reached out to him and found everything he teaches first. Then Russell Brunson is a, if not the Top Marketer. He really helped make sales funnel common knowledge in the business world and his software, Clickfunnels, which I'm sure I'll talk about in a later episode has just changed the game because it makes it so people like me can build and make sales funnels SUPER easily and quickly. ANYWAYS, Stephen ended up being Russell's number 2 for a few years and these guys are just powerhouses and I've been learning A TON from them.
Anyways, in Russell's book the "Expert Secrets", which I completely recommend, I'll even put the link to it in the show notes description place because it's only available on his website, but he teaches you how to sell without being "salesy". The book teaches you how to deliver a message, how to put together a product and an offer, how to get the sales and marketing of something put together. And one of the most important thing he teaches to do all that is what's called the epiphany bridge.
What I have to do is go back and think how do I actually convey my mlm is a way that can be received by another person? How do I do I actually do that? I need to tell a story. Stories are what causes belief and beliefs drive everything in our lives. Sometimes we actually have real and even false beliefs. We have these beliefs and whether they are true or not there is an experience that is the driving force. There is some kind of story that is powering that belief.
So if I want to change my mind then all I have to do is change the story that's going on inside my head. That's Tony Robbins. "Change your story change your life." Now to change the story we have to tell a story. It's really hard to just say, no that story isn't true, we need to switch the story.
If you guys go back to the first episode of this podcast you will see what I was doing. I was purposefully telling the story of my first mlm and then me starting out again. Through telling a story I tried to help you get into the state that I was in, the desperation and then overwhelming excitement, all those different parts, and I got you into the same state.
I described the environment and getting you into the same state so then you can start to have some experiences with me and then you start to think "yeah, that makes sense." And you start to have these little epiphanies with me.
You have the realization, I didn't jump out and tell you right? So that's the epiphany bridge. You get someone in the same state, and help them realize why. It always needs a story to help people accept the new belief. Is this making sense? So if you are wanting to be good at your MLM then you need to think back and ask yourself why are you in it. What's the story? Why did you go and decide to buy the product or join the MLM? What is that story for you.
It might be about having some extra income. It might be about needing something that was just yours, it might even be that you feel in love with product and message of the company and wanted to spread that. Whatever it is, that's what Russell Brunson calls the origin story. It's how you originally got into this mlm you're doing. You need to go back and think deep and figure out how you can convey this story to another person. Think "how can I get her to be in the same state." Other wise every time you talk about it people just won't get it. It might require you to be a little uncomfortable and vunerable, but it's so important. It's like when you tell a friend about a funny conversation that you were having with someone else and you are so excited and giggling throughout it so then they don't get the whole story and you get to the punch line and you are busting up laughing but they are just sitting there… not laughing. Which is super confusing to you and We always end those conversations with "oh, I guess you just had to be there". But what's funny is if we just use the right words to get people in the right state, then they will laugh and cry right a long with you.
In the first episode I could have told that story in a much different way. Trust me, I am the QUEEN of getting right to the point in a conversation. I could have done that whole podcast in about 3 sentences. But to tell a good story I have to bring the emotions into it, because I need people to get a sense of and feel what I was feeling. Your origin story is super powerful if you can get others into the same state you were in and realize it.
The epiphany bridge is really the key to selling without being salesy. You create this belief, belief in you, belief in the product, then the "sale" is in the bag. So you don't have to be a smooth talking salesmen who knows all those key phrases and scripts to get the sales. You just need to be a good story teller. A marketer is just a really good story teller, they educate with stories, and marketers are the ones who really make it right? So that's what we want to be.
I want you to think back to the last person you talked to. How did you approach them? Did you break out into your Geek a De Geek Geek on them? At any point did they lean or step back with a "oh, okay" Now what should your story have been, how could you have educated them through that story. Because when you do that, NOW you're marketing.
Marketing is so much easier to do then to be walking around making hard sells all day. Marketing let's you drawn the people who actually have interest in your stuff, it brings them to you. Instead of having to hunt each person down for just a conversation and then wasting most of your time because you're talking to people who don't even need what you have.
The BEST part of all this is I'm starting to figure out how I can convey my message, tell the story over and over again through automated systems, and I'm REALLY excited to share all that with you throughout the podcast.
So until next time! Adios!!
