What do you lead with? Your product or your opportunity?

Interesting,

You said it all in one statement above, WE love our products. Obviously, this is great for YOU, but a prospect needs to also love their products, so how can you lead with the opportunity without your prospects commitment to the products? I don't care how good your opportunity is, if your prospect is not a customer first, you have little hope in convincing them to sell something they themselves have not even used. That is why the product has to come first, most people are not sales oriented, they are product oriented, you cannot sell what you do not believe in and are a user of yourself, it is as simple as that.

To sell an opportunity requires far more experience than it would to simply demonstrate and sell a product. I have evaluated both strategies over the years as one who has started several businesses over the years, both traditional and online and I can say without question, most people do not make good salespeople, and without sales, most people fail in their own home based business. Business opportunities are an abstract for most, hard to see or understand, and this is why get rich quick hype is often used to induce a person to look beyond the facts to get them recruited and then hope they make a purchase.

Bottom line, everyone is different, and yes, if you are advertising for distributors to recruit, then of course you focus on the income opportunity, but most people are product first oriented. I have witnessed so many people fail who pitch the income opportunity over products that I would bet most here have experienced the same results when taught to focus on money. In my experience, when promoting to business opportunity prospects, they all want to evaluate the products first. I would never sell something I am not already using as a happy customer, so for newbies im particular, go with what works best for you, if you are like me and love the product, then you will love sharing it with others, if you hate the product, but if it is a money oriented opportunity, this is a much harder sell than most newbies will be able to handle as I have seen over the years. Most people will shoot themselves in the foot selling the opportunity first over the products.

Again, selling the money is pie in the sky for most, and at worse, it turns off a person when you hit them with a money making business, and I have seen this as well over the years, most will shut you down when leading with the money. Show them a product which solves a problem everyone has, as in, it saves time and money, now you will have their undivided attention, especially if product can be demonstrated to perform as promoted in seconds, now you have a winner. People love to amaze people with a quick demonstration, just look at all the items sold on TV infomercials, yet when business opportunties were put on TV they failed and this is why we rarely ever see these anymore. Real estate flip courses were tried on TV, but when was the last time you saw one of these on TV, the same for radio advertising, you rarely hear a pitch on income opportunities which proves me point, it is not as easy as some will make it sound to sell the income opportunity first, products second. To each their own, but I will stick with products first.

Success to all,

 

Agreed, you can't have one without the others, good point.

Success to all,

 

I lead with myself first through my marketing. But besides that I let the person dictate what I present as a solution to them. If what I have solves a problem they are having then that is what I go with.

 

Good answer, of course you have to be your own best attribute, and knowing your prospects interest is also important.

Success to all,

 

I always lead with value. I help other marketers build their business online by implementing attraction marketing strategies. Don't just pitch people your business opportunity or product, HELP people. Do care about people, once people see that you actually care about them, they will more likely be interested in how to work with you. I hope that makes sense

 

It will depend upon where your advertising focus is. If you are getting word out to other network marketers, they will be most interested in the opportunity. If you are more focused on the general public, they may be more interested in the product first, then you can introduce the opportunity once they have had their chance to see what the product line is all about.

 

Good answer, and I agree, without value in this economy, you will not survive in any business. It all starts with value, and if you research the industry you will find out that the trend in online purchases is exploding, and why, value, you can almost always find what you are looking for at a better price than in any retail outlet.

The times, they are a changing, as they say, and never has this statement been more true than now. Most people are scrambling to survive, and everyone is looking to save time and money which no one I know has enough of either, never mind both.

With this trend well under way and accelerating this past year, just look at all the retail stores closing like Penny's, now Radio Shack going bankrupt, who would have imagined these long standing company names in trouble, and there are hundreds of others trying to survive in this down economy which as I see it is getting worse every day.

It is all about saving people time and money, TRUE VALUE should be your focus. Choose a recessionproof business which is any business which will save your clients, prospects and customers time and money. I don't focus on anything but TRUE VALUE which can be instantly demonstrated either face to face or via an effective web site demonstration focused whereby decisions to purchase are almost automatic driven on the VALUE equation. It works, so knowing the trend away from traditional retail is your door to success.

Success to all,

 

Honestly, it's not about the product or service. It's about you. It's all about how you brand yourself. If people really wanted to make money they can just search on google make money and there's 537 million results. People join people not businesses. I hope this helps.

 

Interesting,

Obviously, it is about YOU, but YOU alone without a product people want and need, and saves them time and money, as in value, YOU alone is not going to make a dime. You can't sell yourself, you have to have a product to generate any income, and those who work on the internet as I do, it is not as essential to be the product, and in many cases, it is my website that does the selling, so most are clueless to who I am.

Certainly from a face to face direct sales scenario, then YOU does make a BIG difference. Look at the growth of internet sales and you see the trend is clear, face to face retail is dying. I buy very little in retail stores anymore, and I could care less about dealing with a salesperson in a retail store. I do my research online and buy almost everthing online, to the YOU is not as important as the product, price, value, and customer service.

Success to all,

 

Depends on the situation! On a day to day basis, I let my products do the talking. You gotta use it to sell it! When I use a roller bottle of essential oil, someone sees me doing it, smells the wonderful aroma, and asks, why did you do that and what is it, it smells so good! When I'm advertising, I post about my opportunity. When I post on my facebook page, its a mixture of both.

 

Selling things is not easy. The best way I found was to put myself in the customer's shoes. Would I want that product or service? Why should I go with this person/company than the competition? If somebody else is selling the same product, is that product at a better price? Stuff like that.

When I was selling my web site design services years ago, the market was over-saturated, so I had to sell my services at a lower price than others, plus have superior quality. Therefore, I had to have a portfolio of past work ready for others to see what I could do for them, at the best price possible, of course. Oh, and web sites usually require a lot of feedback and getting the product in their hands as quickly as possible.

Last, is honesty should be the very top of the priority list in my opinion. I did not promise something I could not deliver and was up front on what I could or could not do. If that led to a lost sale, at least the customer was well-informed and had full disclosure before making a decision. That led a lot of sales for me, plus I made some very good friends in the process. Sadly, that business ended when the technology was changing at a rate much faster than I could keep up with. That and pre-made templates were extremely cheap and plentiful, so the demand dropped off.

I suppose network marketing might work the same way. Work hard, be honest and know your limitations.

 

Good question Matthew,

In network marketing, people join people, not products, services or opportunities. The "networking" part is a major emphasis. People could care less if a person's product is gold, silver, etc.

You have to offer them something bigger than that. What is overlooked is owning the intangible value that you as a leader and as a person bring to the table as well that of the value of your team.

Companies, products and services do have intangible values such as: longevity, leadership, results of products, etc.

But, keep in mind that the most value that matters most is you: you character, your values, your mindset, honesty, integrity, etc. and your team. People may not trust as much a company, but they will trust a person snd a team that offers multiple values.

I would say lead with your team and the vision of your leaders. Because, people want to have a sense of belonging, purpose and vision that binds them with a common purpose.

If a person leads by product, than it would be promoting users and salespeople. They will not last long in your team.

If you lead by the mlm opportunity, you are going to attract with people who are going to hop from deal to the next deal.

 

Hi,

This is a perennial question and some of the answers have already covered the basics. Hopefully, your product is something people want or ideally need without any recourse to being a promoter of the Company. Sadly it is too often the case that people would only buy the product to get into the scheme.

If you have a product people want and need my suggestion is to lead with it. They can learn about a business opportunity, maybe even MLM itself at a later time when their faith in the product is established.

However, its always a case of 'horses for courses' if the discussion you are having has been about the wonderful earnings you are making it may well be appropriate to start with the opportunity.

In my case it is almost always the product first and very nearly all my distributors have come from existing customers just thinking the product is brilliant.

Hope this helps

Regards

Robert

 

I would say a combination of both! You can't really restrict yourself to just one. Good products create opportunities.