Time is the most valuable thing another person can give you. When you have 200+ guests in a room during the evening that’s a considerable amount of time value. People give up valuable evening or weekend time to hear your pitch. They could be anywhere else, but with you.
This evening I was a dragged by family to network marketing meeting. My folks are in their 80s and have gotten involved in their 2nd direct sales project, with probably 40 years between the two. Half of my siblings have been involved in one form of MLM or another over the span of 10 years. And in truth anyone with half a business brain can see the profit potential direct sales offers, so who hasn’t hitched their dreams to some idea of early retirement?
As a local entrepreneur and business forum leader, I’ve heard just about every product in Indianapolis being pitched. What most folks don’t understand is that to the consumer all the presentations sound the same to the listener. And tonight’s was no different. It’s an industry and a profession and there’s a standardized plan with common language to describe the tangible and intangible benefits. While tonight’s program had some enjoyable moments and the leadership seemed genuine, overall as a business meeting it was remedial and a complete waste of two hours.
Here are some tips on how to ensure you provide an excellent experience for events.
1) Use greeters at the entrance directing representatives and their guests to sign in tables. Have guests write their name (first name at least), who brought them, but most importantly answer the fundamental question of their direct sales experience.
2) Hit the Dollar Store and buy bulk in Name tags. Ask people to write their first name only and underneath profession. Ask them to complete a 3×5 card with the question that brought them to the event.
3) Start the meeting on time. Begin with five minutes of mix and mingling. Ask people to stand and introduce themselves to strangers to share 1st name, profession, what brought them out and what do they hope to learn from the event.
4) Conduct a 15 minute BUSINESS meeting. Treat everyone like an investor. Provide the industry overview, corporate mission, research data, marketing data, competitor considerations, financial investment requirements, distributor duties, etc.
5) Receive the business questions about the presentation.
6) Encourage people to stay to chat more with the person who brought them or thank those who need to leave.
Presenters need to understand who is in the audience and the percentages. Are you speaking to total novices who have never seen a network marketing presentation before, someone whose had bad experiences or someone whose been engaged in due diligence considering several models, products or teams? Are you addressing employees or business owners that know something about business planning, development, branding, etc? The sign in sheets give you the basics and percentages about guests helping to streamline standard presentations to use language that connects to the crowd. The cards helps you know what brought people to you, so you can address the most important questions in the presentation and handle the reset during Q&A.
The fundamental building block of network marketing is meeting other people. Direct sales is a business and networking is a skill that needs to be practiced. From the very first experience you want to demonstrate you are interested in the individual as a person. You want to establish the common thread of team by connecting people right away. It’s incredibly rude to have people suffer through one to two hours of presentation on a $40 product and never give them a chance to meet other people. You also want them to experience how easy it can be to network with strangers.
Train people to respect time. Start on time end on time, offer bathroom, stretch or water breaks at an appropriate mid-point. Give people who are truly not interested the respectful chance to leave, so those who are hungry are obvious. Ensure every person regardless of their decision to stay or not the feeling that you run a professional business. Early departures may may change their mind a few months later, so you want them to come back to you and bring their colleagues because you made them feel okay regardless of their answer.
Understand guests are evaluating EVERYTHING and every guest will have different evaluation criteria. You want every aspect of hosting to be comfortable, easy, and most importantly DUPLICATABLE for everyone present. Every network marketing big shot makes the mistake of going to the back of the room, when someone else is speaking. You need to stay in the front to watch people’s faces. Observe how they are reacting to a speaker. Or you need a marketing and PR trained assistant or someone with a psychology degree to be there analyzing the experience for guests. All presentations can get better with frank feedback.
And if you’re really secure in YOUR BUSINESS, then ask anyone who didn’t like the BUSINESS presentation to give feedback on what they didn’t like to someone whose been involved in the industry for 3-5 years. Seasoned folks will not be flustered by an unhappy consumer. Just clarify the boundaries that you’re only looking for professional perspective of the experience, not criticism of products, services or industry. Listen without saying one word. Do not respond to any thing unless its a question. Simply find different ways to communicate “thanks” as the response. Take notes (WRITE DOWN) everything and at the end simply thank them sincerely. Tell the guest and mean it that you will share this information with your planning team. Be willing to learn from dissatisfied customers. People who drank the cool aid are easy to entertain every time. What you need to care about are the NEWBIES in the room. And you might just regain someone you initially lost by simply being willing to listen, learn and not defend or dismiss someone else’s unique experience.
The biggest problem in the MLM leadership is failure to listen to anyone’s else’s voice but their own or corporate speak. YOUR job is to find out people in the room’s WHY of being there that night. And help them achieve THEIR GOALS. Never miss the opportunity to find out what your “customers” want, need and hope.
