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There’s a lot of “Buzz” right now about Buzzirk Mobile. It’s supposed to be a cellular phone service that will let you use it to gain access to the internet via your computer. So the idea is that it’s one solution for your phone and internet service. Most people have two solutions for that. This technology as I understand is already somewhat available and is called tethering.
But I see several issues with Buzzirk. First is that announced they were ‘launching’ on July 1st. But apparently that launch only meant launching the company not the product. Second they seem to lack officers on their board.
Four positions and two people occupying two positions (here)? And their voice mail is full according to various complaints at this site. I take that site with a grain of salt, but so far I’m not sure this company is “Buzz” worthy.
Party plans are those get togethers at people’s homes where the product is demonstrated live. The party is a sales opportunity for the company’s products and there’s no better to way retail the products. That’s because the product(s) is sampled at the home party. This gives people hands on experience with the product before they buy it.
But not every network marketing company can benefit from party plans. Party plans or home parties are best suited for products that have a “WOW” factor. Products that have instantly recognizable benefits are good candidates for a party plan. Products that have more subtle benefits don’t do so well. Skin care products do well in home party plans and certain other products do as well.
For example, I have been to an Ecoquest home demonstration. Ecoquest makes those Fresh Air air purifiers. The demonstrators brought an onion with them. They cut a piece off the onion. They told me to hold out my hand and they smeared onion juice all over the back of my hand. Then they told me to smell the back of my hand – which obviously smelled like onion. Then they had me hold my hand in front of the Fresh Air for 45 seconds. And then they told me to smell my hand again. WOW …no more onion smell. That product had WOW factor and it was well demonstrated. I ended up buying a unit on the spot but did not join the business side.
Party plans can be great for retailing the product. Retailing the product can bring in quick cash flow and some of those people might later want to be in the business.
There is quite a lot of debate about the warm market in network marketing these days. Usually the ‘warm market’ conjures up the visualization of one sided conversations with friends, family, and contacts. And it conjures up scenes of broken or damaged relationships.
There are people on both sides of this debate. On one side, you have the ‘renegade’ folks who say steer clear of the warm market and focus on attracting prospects instead. On the other side, are people who still swear by the warm market technique.
One well known network marketer still gives this advice to people: build your business around the warm market. He has also made seemingly conflicting advice statements like ‘lead a large group of people’ and ‘you can’t market to strangers’. This particular individual is a multi-millionaire (many times over) so he must know something. Right?
Yet I could not reconcile in my mind how you can use your warm market (which is a limited group of people) and build a large team. At some point you’ll have to market to strangers. And I know perfectly well this person did not make his money marketing his company to friends and family.
In digging a little into this person’s background, I realized several things. First he has been at it since at least the 1980’s starting with old school Amway. (Did everyone get their start at Amway?). Second, he is a well known motivational speaker. I would imagine his wealth comes mostly from his speaking engagements. When you can draw thousands of people into an auditorium, that’s big bucks! That’s bigger bucks that warm marketing bucks.
Another thing I realized about his is how he defines warm market. He says to work on continually expanding your warm market. And he also believes that you should establish a relationship before trying to recruit anyone. That reconciles the “don’t sell to stranger” statement. But I’m still not 100% comfortable with warm market techniques over attraction marketing techniques.
What about you? Yeah, I know I didn’t mention his name. Who do you think I’m talking about?
When you’re on a call, you probably have a set of question you ask. I have some open ended questions that I ask in order to find out more about my prospects. One such question is “Have you ever been involved in a home business before?”. If the prospect has, I will almost certainly find out whether or not he/she has had any previous exposure to network marketing. And from those conversations, you can find out what kind of experience it was for them.
A dream prospect will be one who is involved in a network marketing company already and has an existing large team already built. Perhaps looking for a 2nd option and this type of prospect can built your organization very quickly. Those don’t come around that often however, and for most people you will have to judge their ‘team building’ capacity. You can’t always tell for sure because some people talk a big talk and then never take any action. But lately I have been making a point to aim for team builders and it’s beginning to pay off for me.
I’ve been on a warm market kick lately. Can strangers be part of your warm market? If you live in even a decent sized town, you have a never ending supply of strangers that you can see every day. The so called “3 foot rule” says you should talk to all of the people you come in contact with.
If you don’t mind striking up a conversation with strangers, it that a good idea? I think not. The biggest problem with this ‘3 foot’ approach is that it’s a huge waste of time. The vast majority of people you come in contact with are not going to be interested in what you have. And you have to spend a lot of time to find out if they’re interested (assuming they’ll talk to you). Since they’re strangers, you don’t know anything about them and won’t have a clue if they are interested in your business (much less a home based business in general).
To me, this is a tremendous waste of time. For all the time you spend doing that, the time would be better off spent talking to interested leads on the phone. The only time the 3 foot rule might make sense would be if you were at a network marketing convention or home business expo.
