Got an MLM “war story” for ya today.
One that could save you LOTS of buckeroos if you ever choose to “piggyback” off another successful business’s marketing ideas, campaigns or strategies.
Here’s the scoop:
As you may (or may not) know, I used to be in MLM.
And while I’m no longer in “the business” anymore, I learned some invaluable lessons while being pounded on by prospects day after day.
My favorite is the infamous “Get Your Spot” fiasco.
This was a doozy of an idea my upline leader cooked up.
What he decided to do was create a “mass sponsoring” campaign by aping what AOL (at the time) was doing — which was blanketing millions of homes with AOL CD’s. But, instead of AOL software on the CD’s, my upline dude’s idea was to put his sponsoring video on them (he labeled them “Get Your Spot!” — as in, “get your spot in this MLM deal while it’s hot!”)
Look, I won’t say it was a completely bad idea.
On the surface it almost even made sense.
I mean, AOL made hundreds of millions of smackeroos from it, yeah?
But there was a “snag” in the master plan:
The AOL discs were mass mailed to peoples’ mailboxes with an offer to try their Internet services free for 100 hours. It was a no-brainer for anyone wanting to get online (which was a LOT of people at the time).
The “Get Your Spot” thing?
Not so much.
In fact, it was almost the exact opposite.
Because instead of mass mailing millions of people a product they already WANTED (like AOL did), we manually passed out these “Get Your Spot” discs to people, and then tried selling them something they didn’t want and, in some cases, were even HOSTILE to.
Anyway, here’s the “moral” of this story:
Be careful when mimicking another successful business’s ideas — whether it’s a sales letter, marketing campaign or business plan.
I’m not saying it never works.
But most successful marketing has lots of “moving parts.”
And it’s usually very hard to mindlessy copy and pull off.
Ben Settle
P.S. To “get your spot” in my Crackerjack Selling CD Club, go to:
