Tag: Marketing

Using High Probability Selling with Network Marketing and with Multi-Level Marketing

Does High Probability Selling work with Network Marketing? Does High Probability Selling work with Multi-Level Marketing? What’s the difference?

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)

What Would Sincere Marketing Look Like, If It Exists?

by Carl Ingalls

People automatically think of marketing as being insincere.  But what if it weren’t?  What if marketing were sincere?  What would that look like?

I turned to someone on Twitter who has done a lot more thinking about marketing than I have (but does not want to be identified).  I asked for her opinion about what sincere marketing might be, and this is what she told me.

I suspect it has to do with not over-promising, with having a clear, concise message that aligns perfectly with the actual product/service and doesn’t exaggerate or aggrandize.  I would say that this would be found in companies with a strong corporate ethic, environmental companies, and higher-end or possibly some luxury category goods/services.  Those that have a strong product/service that stands well on its own don’t have to ‘oversell’ so they would fall into this category I guess.

The reason this matters to us is that insincere marketing is not compatible with the way we teach people to sell.

What are your thoughts?

We Need Your Help with a Marketing Question About a Call to Action

We need your help.  What would a Call to Action from High Probability Selling (HPS) look like and feel like?  We want to hear your thoughts, and even more importantly, we want to know how you feel.

Marketing experts tell us that every “pitch” should contain a clear Call to Action, something that we want the reader or listener to do.  But they live in a persuasive world, where marketing and selling is all about pushing or nudging or influencing people into buying something.  High Probability Selling is not in that world at all.

We don’t pitch.  Instead of trying to get someone to buy, HPS is about finding someone who wants to buy what we are selling, and then communicating with that person in a way that is completely consistent with this purpose.  So, what would a Call to Action look like in order to be compatible with High Probability Selling?

It can’t be pushy.  We’ve tried that.  Our website used to say “Get Started Now!” in big bold type on the home page.  It just didn’t feel right, and one of our readers pointed this out to us recently on Twitter.  So we changed it to something else.  We thought about it, and made a guess about what might work.

Our thinking went like this.  In the world of persuasion, a Call to Action is a push in a direction chosen by the seller.  In the world of HighProb, it’s replaced by a map, so that the potential buyer can make an informed decision.  People want to know what direction to go, but they don’t want to be pushed.  What we have now starts with “What’s next?  We offer the following suggestions”.  This is followed by our best guesses about what a reader might want.

High Probability Prospecting contains a good example of a High Probability version of a Call to Action.  Another Twitter friend pointed out that we are asking someone to make a decision (a type of action) when we are prospecting and we ask, “Is that something you want?”  When we do this, we make no attempt to steer the prospect toward a particular answer.  It’s a Call to Action without a direction.

We need to be creative.  High Probability Selling contradicts conventional wisdom about marketing and selling.  We want creative people to tell us what they think and feel.

 

We thank our readers, especially Linda Sgoluppi and Russ Thoman (@Linda_Sgoluppi and @RussThoman on Twitter), for calling us into action and for helping us clarify our thoughts on this.

%d bloggers like this: