Does High Probability Selling work with Network Marketing? Does High Probability Selling work with Multi-Level Marketing? What’s the difference?
I believe that High Probability Selling (HPS) should work with Network Marketing, when it is only used to sell a product or a service, and when several other conditions are met (see below). However, I haven’t yet seen any examples, good or bad, where those other conditions have been met.
Jacques Werth believes that HPS will not work at all with Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), based on his own experience. He trained a number of people in one of these organizations how to use HPS. It was very successful in increasing product sales, but it was not successful in meeting the organization’s other objectives. Ultimately, I suspect there was a problem with transparency.
Network Marketing and Multi-Level Marketing are similar to each other in that they both use a large number of agents (that are not employees) to do a combination of marketing and selling. The main difference between them is that the Multi-Level Marketing is built on multiple levels of agents, where agents who are higher up in the structure collect money from those who are lower. In Network Marketing, when all agents are at the same level, the agents make money only when they sell a product or service.
Tony Shays presents a very clear distinction between Network Marketing and Multi-Level Marketing in his article “What Is the Difference Between Network Marketing and Multi-Level Marketing?”
In any system, the methods of High Probability Selling work best when the following conditions are met:
- Clarity. What the buyer gets must be extremely clear and definite. Simple to explain.
- Transparency. Potential negatives must be at least as visible as the potential positives. The whole deal must be visible. Full disclosure.
- Honesty. If the salesperson needs to deceive someone in order to make a sale, even by just a little bit or by omission, then HPS will not help.
- Reputation. If the organization has a poor reputation, which can happen when some of its agents sell by misleading customers, then High Probability Selling probably won’t work.
- Know How. You have to know how to find people who want what you are selling, for their own reasons and in their own time. You also have to know how to interact with these special people, in ways that are extremely different from the norm. A good place to start is by reading the book, High Probability Selling by Jacques Werth and Nicholas Ruben (can be purchased here). After that, we also offer training.
If your Network Marketing or Multi-Level Marketing system meets the conditions above, then High Probability Selling might work for you.
Questions and comments are welcome. I will respond to as many as I can. – Carl Ingalls
Upcoming HPS Workshops:
Chapter 12 Explained (15 Nov or 13 Dec, $45); Getting Personal (6-20 Dec, $245); Prospecting (Jan-Feb 2017)
Author
Steve Alexander had this to say about MLM businesses:
If all the negatives were revealed, most people would never enter MLM in the first place. For example, about 99% of people entering MLMs are out of business within a year. This figure varies a little, but it’s in the ball park.
Do you really want to enter a market where your chance of success is 1%? Even newbie stock traders succeed about 5% of the time.
Tom Schrade also has relevant experiences with MLM businesses, and he wrote the following:
I appreciate the explanation of MLM vs. network marketing but my experience with it is that the difference is moot and I never before heard of anybody trying to draw a distinction since in my experience the terms were used interchangeably. Some just call them pyramids. Even the many companies who have used the model over the years have used both terms as well as things like “relationship marketing”, etc.
All MLMs require recruiting and selling product in some allegedly balanced mix, usually starting with a somewhat unique product from water filters to tea tree oil to Limu to a thousand in between, most all of which run into some combination of legal or financial or credibility difficulties which leads most to bankruptcy. Or their unique product ends up on grocery shelves for 1/10 the price. Or people realize they can buy the same product from a regular distributor online for half the price or less. The web has changed so much. Or part of the “registration” fee is used to pay upline, which moral or not, is still considered illegal by the FTC.
Many of the products have excellent benefits but the business part of the MLM marketing/selling process is incredibly inefficient and expensive and difficult and doomed to failure for the majority.
But despite all the shortcomings, many continue to participate and invest time/money in them. I think they, as I did, get some kind of gold/greed fever which leads them into a “get rich quick” mindset which rarely ends well either financially or psychology/emotionally.
Reading the comments about Network Marketing and the dismal results are basicly true. But one has to step back and realize that the individuals that decided to get involved shouldn’t have in the first place. Well over 70% of the population is not cut out for any kind of sales position. Whether general sales or MLM. The problem is all between the ears! This IS a sales business. Look how hard HPS works to help real “professional entrepreneurial” sales individuals that pay to learn the right way and still they will go back to there “comfort zone”. Now imagine the “job minded” individual who never had a business and really wants to give it a try, but not realizing that this is a solo business career that is up to themselves to have success! There is no difference between the Pro or Beginner to make it work.
Like Steve Alexander said….If all the negatives were revealed, most people would never enter MLM in the first place. Well lets add tradional sale in that mix. That is the real problem. There is to much to address on this matter but I’ll start with this…Start With the Correct Target Market, it’s so much eaiser!