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Oh no! Panic stations!
November 24th, 2009 | 
Author: 
The King of Magnetic Sponsoring, Mike Dillard, has caused consternation, confusion and dismay by announcing that he now plans to focus on building his MLM business OFFline because that’s where the majority of REAL prospects are to be found, like the Baby Boomers.
He’s right. But he’s also young, so it’s taken him a little time to realize that it’s never been any different. More power to him for making that decision.
But now those lost souls who’ve been following Mike slavishly, with not a lot of real thought about what they’re doing or WHY, are panicking and wondering what the future holds for them.
Well, folks, for what it’s worth, here’s my advice to you…
FOR PETE’S SAKE, GET A GRIP!
The great strength of the Internet for network marketers is NOT lead generation and recruiting. It never has been.
People with real business smarts realize that Quality is CAUSE and Quantity is EFFECT. If you have to use QUANTITY to create QUANTITY, where’s the leverage?
For most, it’s actually REVERSE leverage: that’s where you use HUGE QUANTITY to create LESS Quantity (or none at all). They spend huge amounts of hours and dollars advertising and promoting online, trying to find and recruit thousands of eager prospects who will magically join them and create HUGE residual income for them. (Yeah… right.) What they end up is with little or no money left, no time and no recruits to speak of.
So what IS the Internet good for in MLM?
Any serious leader knows that there are FOUR ESSENTIAL TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES that MUST be done regularly to maintain momentum and growth in YOUR downline team:
1. Communication
2. Training
3. Support (especially emotional support and encouragement)
4. Recognition
Traditionally, there have always been THREE MAJOR OBSTACLES to performing these four essential activities:
• Time
• Distance
• Cost
If you had a downline of 1,000 people and you wanted to publish a monthly newsletter, before the Internet, it could easily cost you $2,000 to $4,000 per month, not including your time. Add to that training venues, AV hire, catering, parking, babysitters, etc and you begin to see the challenges.
The Internet effectively eliminates all three obstacles and streamlines and accelerates all four essential team-building activities.
It means you can take care of your orphans in remote areas or even other countries.
It makes it easy for you to establish and build a high professional profile (which is the real key to attraction marketing).
Before Web 2.0 there were less sophisticated social networking communities online — but they existed. They revolved around forums, IRC channels, chat rooms, bulletin boards and email discussion lists. Looking at Facebook and Twitter today, there’s little difference in true content than what used to be found on all those older sites and channels. The main difference is photos, videos and audios. But the overwhelming volume of content on social networks is mind-numbing trivia and drivel!
It’s not the content that attracts most people to Web 2.0 communities… it’s the human CONTACT.
See the Internet for what it really is: a magnificently powerful, flexible, economical and universally available set of communication channels and media formats, nothing more.
Human beings haven’t changed. We still crave social contact, acceptance and security. But for serious business builders, there are better venues for prospecting than the online equivalent of bars, water coolers, street corners, happy hours and dance parties.
Horses for courses, folks. See things for what they really are, and use them for what they do best. And don’t ignore ANY part of your target market. Including offline and online.
Hope this helps.
John
Author Profile Consults to managements of direct selling companies, small business and home business owners. Writes regular columns and feature articles for various business media, online and offline. Author of several best-selling business books. Presents seminars and workshops, webinars and other training programs. Creator of Fourth Generation Thinking, Selling, Business Systems. Read more from this author
Posted in Bad Practices, Best Practices, Dubious Practices, Sponsoring Methods, Sponsoring Systems, Sponsoring Tools | 
Tags: baby boomers, confusion, offline, online, panic
5 Responses to “Oh no! Panic stations!”
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Hi John – exactly. Although I do advertise on-line – I see the real role of the internet is communication and information dissemination.
Yes — it’s fine for fulfilment of digital products that can be downloaded, but as a regular distribution channel for marketers it simply doesn’t work.
It streamlines and automates administrative and clerical functions and communications.
The Internet is actually the Fourth Generation of these technologies:
1. Mail — originally by courier, then leveraged by transportation innovations.
2. Telegraph — streamlined mail by eliminating the time, cost and distance through technology.
3. Telephone — took this to the world and made voice, fax communication available to all. Paved the way, too, for…
4. Internet — a cluster of computer-based technologies (web, email, ftp, IRC, etc) that rode into town on the back of dial-up connections, then graduated to broadband. It also combines radio, television and other distribution and broadcast media.
But, like all Fourth Generation systems, the physical dimension is massive. The Fifth Generation will reduce the physical apparatus to a minimum. The Sixth Generation will eliminate it altogether: mind over matter.
Can’t see it happening in my own lifetime, but it will happen. I suspect the medium that makes it all possible will turn out to be light.
John
It seems that the internet is creating a range of products which can be delivered digitally – a whole new segment. But having said that I find that segment basically rather restricted (good for what it does but) basically physical distribution is still the most important – and should not be overlooked in the hype.
As you have listed the internet is just an extension of earlier modes of communication. I find it quite a revelation to read books, say, from the 30s which makes reference to, say, the role of postcards for regular communications, making appointments, bookings etc. Seems quaint now. In a less hectic world (and a better postal service) it undoubtedly worked. The internet is just a vehicle for increasing the pace of our lives.
Hello John,
It’s been more than two weeks now since I last read your blog. I haven’t been updated on what’s happening in the network marketing industry and what I read from you about the recent decision of Mike Dillard comes as a surprise to me. But not exactly.
You wrote: “But now those lost souls who’ve been following Mike slavishly, with not a lot of real thought about what they’re doing or WHY, are panicking and wondering what the future holds for them.”
I know very little about this industry but the above statement seems to be a confirmation of the observations/insights I was confiding to you in my emails before.
Thanks John for being a light in this industry.
Jose
Hi Jose
Nice to hear from you, my friend.
John