Is mindset enough for success?

Success: Who doesn't want it? Three rules of the road...

For this post, let's say success is defined by income (you choose the number) and recognition. Here are three rules of the road.

1. Right attitude. Self-help movement leaders, mlm recruiters and Internet marketing gurus all tell us this is a key requirement.

Mindset. Attitude. Optimism. See the glass half full (v half empty). "Winners never quit and winners never quit."

No doubt about that. We gotta adopt the 'fail your way to success' mindset. Next -

2. You must develop a finely-honed skill set. Whether it's product sales or recruiting others, you must be not only GOOD at what you do, but remarkable. Else you won't be noticed at all, much less have someone buy from you or join you.

3. Just do it. Even though you know you're not very good yet. Doing it and adjusting it over and over and over is required. You can't just think about doing it. Or talk about doing it. You have to effen DO it: reach out online, offline, however.

With those three firmly in place, it's just a matter of time before you make it big. Right?

Wrong.

Unless you're a follower (and practitioner) of the Gita (next), and you're doing your thing primarily because you seek success, 1-3 are not enough. Not for big success. As academics like to say, 1-3 are "necessary but not sufficient."

Because. You. Need. The. Cooperation. Of. Others.

No matter how optimistic, skilled and consistent you, your business or you products are (consider Apple), everyone will not buy. In fact, almost no one will, relatively speaking. What, one in 25 for your product (after the relatives)?

One in 375 for your business (that actually DOES anything)? And those are high numbers in direct selling. Usually, we're looking at 1/10th of one percent "conversions" (buyers or joiners).

So am I seeing a glass half empty?

I hope not.

I tell you this for one reason: so that you STAY with it if you love it. My sticking advice:

1. Master 1-3. It's a daily heart churn..

2. Do not plan your success around anything that requires the one thing you cannot control: the cooperation of others. Others have to buy your product or your story, don't they? We all know that's the bummer.

It may not be because you did a bad job. It's that others have their own agendas. They're not planning their day - much less their purchases and careers - around you.

3. After you've got 1 and 2 down, learn to FIND YOUR AUDIENCE p. 212-218). Find FIRST those who already share the values represented by your product or business.That will reduce by far, the Nos from all the wrong ones. Thus making the process less painful and more survivable.

Make sense?

P.S. And anyway, says Woody Allen, "If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative."

P.P.S. Orange eBook hunt. I have put three links to a house copy of the Orange eBook on the Banana Marketing site. (NOT on the home page.) If you find one and click on it, you'll get the download link to the eBook, If My Product's So Great, How Come I Can't Sell It?
Give it time to download, ok? Links disappear within 24 hours.

Optimist or Pessimist?

"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute." -GB Shaw

You can do the same in your own mind for any undertaking where you cannot know the outcome for sure. Like your own business. Don't buy their simplistic notion that it's all about 'seeing the glass half empty or half full.'

More Building Less Talking

"Get things done. More building, less talking: A simple rule of thumb for raising money." - Garry Chan here.

Doesn't this rule apply to building a network too? More building, less talking. And perhaps, less whining?

The Secret To Amazon's Success...

"The secret to Amazon's success is half luck, half good timing, and the rest is brains." - Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO, Amazon

Mr. Bezos happily admits what is so hard for us to accept...that we are not responsible by ourselves for an out-sized success. And that is why big fat success is so rare. You'll have to bust it for sure, as Gary V says in Crush It. Every big successful person has. But if success doesn't come as big as you had dreamed, as soon as you dreamed, may this soothe you:

"We vastly underestimate the extent to which success happens because of things the individual has nothing to do with." See here.

"How do you not take offense?"

Do you get offended quickly (and maybe shoot back) when someone belittles you, heaps verbal abuse on you, ignores you, or just says NO without even listening to you?

The other day I told the story ("I Feel Offended") of Mr. G. He'd gone to visit a newspaper editor who made him wait for an hour, and then came out just to dismiss him with a curt "I'm not predisposed to listen to you."

"But," asked reader Trace in the Comments, "how do you take no offense? It is easy to say and much harder to do. I think Mr. G had something more going on that made him able to do so, don't you?"

He did. He remembered. And that saved him. He'll tell you...

"I once went to an English hair-cutter in Pretoria (South Africa). He contemptuously refused to cut my hair. I certainly felt hurt, but immediately purchased a pair of clippers and cut my hair before the mirror. I succeeded more or less in cutting the front hair, but I spoiled the back. The friends in the court (Mr. G was an attorney) shook with laughter.

"'What's wrong with your hair, Mr. G? Rats have been at it?'

'No, the white barber would not condescend to touch my black hair,' said I, ' so I preferred to cut it myself, no matter how badly.'

The reply did not surprise the friends. Then Mr. G wrote this:

"The barber was not at fault in having refused to cut my hair. There was every chance of his losing his customers if he should serve black men. We do not allow our barbers (in India) to serve our untouchable brethren. I got the reward of this in South Africa, not once, but many times, and the conviction that it was the punishment for our own sins saved me from becoming angry." - M.K. Gandhi, An Autobiography P. 213-214.

He made three mental moves to avoid feeling offended and angry:

1) he shifted from his own to the barber's point of view. That softened the anger
2) he remembered that the very same conduct went on in his own country
3) he viewed his own treatment by this barber as punishment - for the sins his own country's people were committing against their "untouchables."

These are mental moves we too can make. They require though, the belief that we are not the center of the universe around whom everyone else should dance. And some practice.

P.S. Want to take some baby steps to react more like Mr. G? Here's a DIY program I personally recorded, edited and did: Unstick Your Brain. Go ahead and slip some new beliefs into your noodle. Most humans don't come equipped with them. Try it. Comes with my personal guarantee.

Step 7: Let Customers Be Customers

(If recruiting isn't going as fast as you'd hoped, consider, instead of quitting, building a steady customer base. Step ONE here. Step TWO here. Step THREE here. Step FOUR here. Step FIVE here. Step SIX here)

Have you ever tried telling a customer about the business when they're ready to buy the product or service? What happened?

"She rolled her eyes and said she'd get back to me. Then she didn't take my calls anymore."

Step 7: Let Customers Be Customers

You may not realize it, but asking a prospective customer to sell the thing she is just deciding to buy is a telltale sign to her that something is not normal. It sets off an alarm in her head that this must be "one of those things." That's not a good thing. (See Chapter 10 in Orange book.)

Cable TV Man Story (from the Orange book, p 163-4)

Picture this: The cable TV guy has just finished installing your cable TV (and Internet) hookup. You've just signed the order and are making your payment. Before he goes, he says:

"You know, Mrs. Jones, we make good money doing this. And we're looking for people to help us sell cable TV. It's really easy. Anyone can do it.

All you have to to is share it with your friends and family. You know, like recommending a movie. And we're the best cable company in the country. How about it? You want to make some extra money with us?"

What's your gut reaction? Here's what my students have said:

"I'd laugh."

"I wonder if I overpaid."

"I'd be surprised. Why ask me? I don't know anything about that."

"I'd wonder if they're financially in some kind of trouble"

"What kind of cable-TV company is this?

The next week, the phone rings, and it's the cable-TV man. He says:

"Hi Mrs. Jones...this is Joe, the cable-TV man. Say we're still looking for people...

You know, it could be your ticket to financial freedom. Do you want to talk to my supervisor who has made a lot of money doing this? He just bought a vacation home in Hawaii. How about it? You want to make some money with us? It's really easy. Everyone wants cable..."

The next week, he calls again. Same pitch. And the following week again.

How are you feeling right now about your cable-TV service? (By now the entire class says they'd ditch the service and find another cable TV company.)

But, says the die-hard recruiter, doesn't everyone want financial freedom? Or at least get their products or services at a discount for referring others to them?

NO. Everyone does NOT. Not if the price of either of those things is doing things they do not want to do. Like sell to their friends. Most people prefer to do other things to make money - things that have nothing do do with contacting and selling friends.

Referring products for discounts or in exchange free products seems simple to us, the seller, but it is also tricky. Many customers tell us that they will refer a product they love, but only if they are NOT paid for it. They feel being paid taints their recommendation to a friend. Others say they will but never do.

Warning. This is NOT like recommending a movie or a restaurant. You have no financial stake in either of those. The recommendations are clean and agenda-free. But when you're paid for your recommendation, the motivation is no longer clear. And that is why friends do not like selling to friends. And the FTC is now promising to levy up to $11,000 in fines to people who recommend stuff online without telling up front that they are being paid for it. So you lose all around.

Wait for your customers to come to you. Some invariably will ask you - "Hey, I'd maybe like to sell this - how do I do that?" Tell them then. Meanwhile:

Step 7: Let Customers Be Customers

This is the end of the series: How To Build a Customer Base in 7 Steps. I might put all the steps into a little Manifesto -a PDF. Would you like that?

Excerpts from the Orange Book here.

Audio classes of the teachings on how to build a customer base here. Enchilada=12 CDs. 3 Scripts=5 CDs.

P.S. I might do a bonus Step 8.

New FTC Regs Claim Mr. Filsaime's IM Guru Career?

(IM=Internet Marketing)

Ready to earn $537,897 on the Internet like Joe did? Want to make $250,000 in your first year of MLM like I did?

As of Dec 1, you can't do that anymore. Wow. No more 'dramatic' testimonials says FTC

No more big income statements unless you ALSO report the results that the typical persons who follows the program got.

Who in the how-to-make money business wants to do that??

Within a few days, my pal Frank Kern announced on his blog (bottom) that he would no longer be using big income stories. And Mike Filsaime, one of the most active Internet marketers of all, announced around then (on Twitter) that he was becoming a software developer. Yesterday, Mr. Filsaime confirmed that "I am excited to close out 2009. Time for me to pass the GURU baton on to others." (A "tweet" on Twitter 11_2_09)

I suspect he's concluded that the new FTC regs will bind him too much. Either no more income stories, or else he (and everyone else) has to disclose how everyone else has done with the programs. That is, compared to the income numbers that were advertised.

UPDATE 11_08_09: John Reese, another of the big names in make-money Internet programs, just announced he's gone offshore, to the Philippines, to market his incomedotcom business.

The buyers of these programs, lured in by the big money, have no way of knowing just how atypical those big income numbers are.

On December 1, 2009, that will change. Big income claims will no longer be allowed. Not without admitting to the audience what typical results were. (Same for weight loss, etc. see below.) From the FTC site:

"Under the revised Guides, advertisements that feature a consumer and convey his or her experience with a product or service as typical when that is not the case will be required to clearly disclose the results that consumers can generally expect. In contrast to the 1980 version of the Guides – which allowed advertisers to describe unusual results in a testimonial as long as they included a disclaimer such as “results not typical” – the revised Guides no longer contain this safe harbor." From the new FTC Guidelines here.

I think this is a good thing. Not because big income is not or cannot be earned. But because the numbers bandied about are earned by almost no one else, despite good and honest efforts.

No amount of sweet talk - it's really easy, look at us, we're just like you - can change the results most people have gotten, even with honest effort.

I think there are better ways to entice good people to join your program. Coming soon.

I Felt Offended...

Feeling offended leads us to do dumb things. Here's an instant fix I'm practicing now.

Mr. G went to see the editor of a local newspaper to pitch him his idea for an editorial article that he hoped the editor would write up in his newspaper.

The editor kept him waiting for an hour, during which time others who wanted to see the editor came and went. Finally, it was his turn. Mr. G tells us:

"He would not so much as look at me... On my venturing to broach my subject after the long wait, the editor said: 'Don't you see our hands are full? There is no end to the number of visitors like you. You had better go. I am not disposed to listen to you.'

"For a moment, I felt offended, but I quickly understood the editor's position...I could see there was a regular stream of visitors there...they were all acquainted with him. His paper had no lack of topics to discuss, and mine was hardly known at that time."

Mr. G's attitude kept him from feeling offended, getting discouraged and perhaps giving up. He explains:

"However serious a grievance may be in the eyes of the man who suffers from it, he will be but one of the numerous people invading the editor's office, each with a grievance of his own. How is the editor to meet them all?...

"But I was not discouraged. I kept on seeing editors of other papers..." and others "realized the importance of my [issue] and they published my interviews in full." - M.K. Gandhi, An Autobiography.

Isn't it the same when we want to introduce our product or business to someone with a wide sphere of influence? Are there not many folks lined up to see such a person?

It's so easy to feel offended when they won't see you. But it's better to find a way to get over it quickly, so your own offended state doesn't keep you back.

Mr. G's strategy which I am practicing: Take no offense, ever. Think from THEIR point of view. Do not even try to convert. Go to the next one.


P.S. For Twitter followers: A similar "I felt offended" event made news around the Twitter world yesterday. Actor Stephen Fry, with 942,803 followers (!!) offered to QUIT writing on Twitter on the spot. Because. Someone said he was - ready for this? Boring. The sequence:

Mr. Fry to fellow who called him 'er, a bit boring' on Twitter:

1. "You've convinced me. I'm obviously not good enough. I retire from Twitter henceforward. Bye everyone."

2. "Think I may have to give up on Twitter. Too much aggression and unkindness around. Pity. Well, it's been fun."

Mr. Fry expressed second thoughts the next day:

"Well maybe I'll see how I feel in a few days. Very low and depressed at the moment and any drop of meanness makes it so much worse. Sorry."

With only kind words for the gent who called him boring:

"Arrived in LA feeling very foolish. Wasn't the fault of the fellow who called me "boring", BTW. A mood thing. Sunshine will help. So sorry."

And then Mr. Fry pleaded with his followers to stop banging on that guy:

"Feeling terrible for that poor guy.He had every right to call me boring.Not his fault it caught me at a vulnerable time. Pls be nice to him."

Mr. Fry is now live on Twitter again, making his nearly million readers very happy. And showing us all how vulnerable we humans are, how easily we take personal offense, when we only think of ourselves and our own point of view.

P.S. Twitter lovers can follow Mr. Fry and/or see his notes here. And yes, I'm on Twitter too, here

Step 6: Nobody Likes a Seller

(If recruiting isn't going as fast as you'd hoped, consider, instead of quitting, building a steady customer base. Step ONE here. Step TWO here. Step THREE here. Step FOUR here. Step FIVE here.)

Step SIX: Seller or Adviser?

Two questions for ya:

1. When you realize there is a seller in the room, do you want to go TOWARDS that person, or AWAY from them?
2. When you're not sure whether to buy something or not, would you rather be talking to a SELLER or an ADVISER?

Whenever I've asked this in my customer building classes, I learn that we who are sellers mostly choose to avoid sellers ourselves. Seems like nobody likes sellers. We'd rather have advisers (knowledgeable about the options) to help, particularly when we're not sure.

Ergo, you must do everything you can NOT to be perceived as a plain old seller.

Fortunately, that is pretty easy to do. Because sellers, especially network marketers, have a way of talking that makes them instantly recognizable. And out comes the Raid from any listener. :(

Two signs of a seller.

1. Techno-babble. Sellers, especially new ones, are full of it. Lulu's just signed the app and, fresh from her science-of-the-product meeting, bubbles to her prospect: “I’m a wellness consultant. We market unique patented nutraceutical products…”
(More in Orange book excerpt here.)

ANY jargon - words a 13 years old wouldn't understand - is techno-babble. And it does NOT impress anyone outside your own company. Au contraire, others run. So don't use it. If you slip, you'll know why others glaze over or say they have to use the restroom now.

Quiz: Is the name of your company (or your product) techno-babble to people not in your company, yes or no?

2. Hype (two sorts - more in the Orange Book, p 32-51)).

a. Promises. Making ANY predictions about what the product will do for someone else. We do not really know the future, do we? No matter what a product has done for you, you can never be sure that will happen to someone else. Predicting the future for others (making claims) is something network marketers are known for.

NOTE: The new FTC regs make it plain that you can no longer use extreme examples of say, weight loss (or income) to sell your product or business. Not without telling what happens for the "typical" persons at the same time. Big FTC penalties too. See here and here.

b. Screaming. Perceived overstatement. How often have you heard networkers crowing about their products - "It's the best, the newest, the most scientifically proven," blah blah blah. Falls on deaf ears today. Because everyone does it.

Online, screaming is using too much red, too much bold, too capitals and too many exclamation points.

"When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follow will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment." Elements of Style, 50th Anniversary Edition.

You do not want to come across as a dreaded seller anymore do you? So, no more seller talk. More examples of seller talk in the Orange book here.

Wouldn't you rather be perceived by your prospective customers as an adviser? A trusted, knowledgeable person who dares to recommend another company's product to Lulu when that's the best choice for the her?

P.S. Even if you truly you love it with all your heart, you are the reformer when you approach others. And it is usually just "the reformer who is anxious for the reform, and not society, from which he should expect nothing better than opposition, abhorrence and even mortal persecution. Why may not society regard as retrogression what the reformer holds dear as life itself?" From Mr. G here.