MLM Products and Mormonism

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010 at 9:49 PM

So, quite a few summers ago I had a friend that enlisted me in his summer sales team. I had been pitched the idea of door-to-door summer sales by various friends and acquaintances before, but each time I managed to escape unscathed…

This time was different though.

The guy that convinced me to give it the old college try was a close friend and former team mate from my high school wrestling days – Cody “Big Mac” Fehlberg.

Cody is flat out a fun person to be around. He makes me laugh so often and so hard that he may as well slash my sides open with a dagger… Which is one of the reasons I made the decision to spend the summer with him in Colorado selling DVD’s of animated Bible and Book of Mormon stories.

And that, my friends, is where I made mistake numero uno. There were pest control, satellite dish, and security companies that offered much better compensation to their door-to-door salesmen, but I refused to work for them because I couldn’t get behind their products or services… they just didn’t get me going.

These scriptural cartoons, on the other hand, I had grown up with and had a real appreciation for. They helped me develop an interest in the stories found in the scriptures. As a result, I now enjoy studying the scriptures even more because I can tie what I read back to a story I remember from growing up as a child.

It’s kinda like reading a bedtime story that your parents always used to tell you – brings back good memories.

But back to my story…

We really had a VERY fun summer. Besides pounding the pavement every day, we went to Six Flags Elitch Gardens, a Denver Bronco’s game, and a Colorado Rockies game. Only problem was, I came home with a seriously emaciated bank account.

I think I grossed a little over $10k that summer.

However, in addition to our recreational activities, we were living in a nice apartment, eating out every other day, and driving up to seventy or eighty miles a day, so by the time I made it home in August, I didn’t have much left over. (Oh, AND I made the mistake of “over bonusing” one customer, which ended up coming out of my paycheck… STUPID!)

On the other hand, some of my friends that had gone out and sold security systems or satellite dishes came home with over $60k in their pockets.

So what was my big mistake?

When I made the decision to sell cartoon scripture stories instead of security systems or satellite dishes, I was concerned more with what I thought about the product than I was with what other people were interested in. I didn’t even stop to think that the market for Living Scriptures products was limited to a very small niche – Latter Day Saint families or, as they are more commonly known, Mormons – whereas my friends could sell security systems and satellite dishes to Mormons, Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Moslems, and even Athiests. (In my case, I was also limiting my market to only the “Mormons” in the southern Denver/Colorado Springs area.)

Now, the last thing I want to do is get into a religious debate here… I only share these details because they illustrate a VERY important marketing principle that pertains particularly well to network marketers.

When investigating a new company, most MLM’ers are hell-bent on a finding a product that significantly benefits them personally before they can really believe in it enough to get started.

And there’s the problem.

Even a noteworthy product is not going to benefit everybody, and even if it does, the benefits may not be outwardly visible. For that reason alone it is not a good idea to make business decisions based solely on how a product benefits you individually.

Instead of selling a product like animated scripture stories that only Mormons would buy, sell something like security systems and satellite dishes… things that many more people would have a need for.

Don’t let your lack of immediate passion for a product prevent you from seeing the big picture. You can and will develop that passion. I’m confident that you could even become passionate about a product like paper clips if they paid for your kids college tuition.

So here’s the key…

When looking for a company or product, base you decision off of what the market wants… not what you want or think you need. Make sure that the majority of people are hungry enough to buy it and then study and become passionate about that product.

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To Your Smashing Success,
Jeff Maughan

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