3: Go To The Mall... Get Barfed On... - a podcast by Steve Larsen: Automated Downline Recruiting

Woo hoo, what’s going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you’re listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. Here’s the real mystery. How do real MLMers like us cheat and only bug family members and friends? We want to grow a profitable home business. How do we recruit A-players into our down lines, and create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That’s the blaring question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio.

 

All right, hope you guys don’t mind the energy. I think life’s too short to be boring, so hey now, one of the things that I had a hard time with when I first started MLM, one of the reasons why I didn’t want to join an MLM, was because I had this belief that I needed to be fantastic at speaking, and I needed to basically be somewhat of a slick salesman. I’m assuming you’ve had that feeling before, or you’ve had that belief before.

 

It’s kind of this façade that I feel like Hollywood has much to blame for, where you’ve got to be the guy who comes in in the suit, and you’ve got starch in your shirt, and you sit down and you’re doing the deal, and you kind of go back and forth and you haggle a little bit. You’re wearing sunglasses, of course, because that’s the cool thing to do. You’re maybe in a really nice restaurant, and you don’t even look at the waitress as she comes up and you just say, “The usual,” you know what I mean?

 

You guys know the façade, right? It’s this business thing. It’s this whole thing that “Forbes” and “Business” and “Us Weekly” even, all these different pop culture things create about what it means to be successful inside of MLM, and I totally had that, and successful in business in general, and I definitely had that. I believed that I needed to be a great salesman. I believed that I needed to be a slick speaker, that there were a few lines that would mind control somebody into joining my MLM, that there were a few things that would make someone want to come to me and say, “Please, take my money, Stephen. I want to be a part of your down line. I will do anything, I’ll bend over backwards. Would you like … What food can I go get for you?” They would grovel, and they would come.

 

That’s often how movies and our pop culture portray someone who’s successful in business, and I will tell you that I have made more money by being vulnerable, more money by highlighting my differences rather than my strengths, and I’ve made far more money being unpolished rather than polished. If I’m just myself, and I just do me, then it attracts more people to me than if I’m trying to go out and try and be all polished and everything.

 

There’s a reason why my podcast cover is a picture of me with a wrecking ball. I should probably talk about that sometime, why I did that, or sorry, a ball and chain and all these weapons and swords and knives in my back and stuff like that. One of them’s down line, and one of them’s up line. I’ll tell you guys that story sometime soon about why that is, why I said it that way. I’ve made more money doing things that way, and just being myself, and being myself loudly rather than being polished, than anything else.

 

I decided, you know what? I really want to be a good salesman. I thought what that meant was that I needed, like I said, I had to be a good speaker. What I did is, I decided I was going to go do door-to-door sales. I saw Rob Kiyosaki was in the military. I joined the military. It sounds crazy, but one of the reasons I wanted to join the Army is because I saw all these other successful people went into the Army, and were from a military background. It was like, “Cool, I’m going to go develop my discipline in that area. What other uncomfortable thing can I go do? Cool, door-to-door sales.”

 

I explicitly did door-to-door sales because I knew it would suck, and I would learn sales in the process. I went, and I was a telemarketer. I was like, “How can I get told no to repeatedly, over and over again?” I want to tell you guys, I actually don’t think you need to go through all that kind of crap in order to be successful with it. Honestly, I kind of wish that I didn’t, because it was a little bit of a waste of time. The way that I do it now is completely different, but I learned a lot of cool things in doing so.

 

I remember, I was selling pest control. I sold pest control, I sold security systems. When I was doing telemarketing, I was selling software to other businesses, it was B2B, and just really interesting, kind of cool sales tactics. What’s funny is that I’m really not that good of a salesman, but I’m good at marketing. I never realized that there was a difference, for a long time. There’s a huge difference between marketing and sales, and what I needed to get good at was marketing, but I thought that that was the same thing as sales. I was going after the wrong thing, and I just never realized that.

 

I remember, I was going door to door, and the hot summer sun was beating down on me, and I was going at a ferocious pace. It was my first week out on doing door-to-door sales, selling pest control. I was like, “Good, it’s hot. Make it hard, coach.” That was my mentality, and I was running door to door, because I just wanted to be successful so badly. I literally ran, every door to door, pretty much every day.

 

I would run person to person, and I would just deliver the message. I really didn’t know that much about the product. I knew that it was good, and I knew that it worked, and that was pretty much it. I knew that it was safe, it was pest control, and that there was some organic aspects to the one that I was selling. What was really funny is that I kept my blinders on. I didn’t look at anybody else, and in no time, I was the number two, first-year salesman. The number one guy had been out there like six weeks prior to me, and he came out way before I did, and it was really hard for me to catch up, but for the first half of the summer, I was the number two guy. I was killing it, and I was making lots of money each day. We were selling … There was lots of bugs all over the place, we were selling lots of pest control, and life was good.

 

I was really, really excited. What was funny is that all of a sudden I started asking questions like, “What really is made up of our product? How do you actually apply this? What’s the name of this chemical? How do you actually put it on the house, or how do you actually …?” I started learning, I was like, “What kind of bug does that repel? How come we’ve got to do two treatments back to back? How come we’ve got to do this?”

 

I started learning about the product, and I started learning what I was selling. You know what’s funny? My sales plummeted, I mean hard, very, very hard. I was like, “What the heck? I know more than everybody else about the stuff. I’ve really given myself to learning and understanding what we’re selling, so I can serve better on the doors.” That’s not how it worked. I started talking too much. I started barfing all over people.

 

I’d come out and they’d say, “Hey, is this good for my kids?” I’d be like, “Yes, it’s okay for your kids and blah, blah, blah.” I’d just come and I’d barf all over them. I’d go, “Here’s all this stuff, and here’s why, and here’s the name of the chemical, and here’s how long it lasts. You could lick it after so long.” I started going through all this stuff, and it was like a five minute answer to their one question. Then they’d come up and they’d say, “Okay, that’s a little bit weird.”

 

I’d say, “Hey, come over here, and I’ll show you something on the side of the house.” I’d show them something on the side of the house, and I’d be pointing out what’s going on in the grass or something like that, and they’d ask the next question. “Well, does it get this kind of spider?” I’d go, “Blah, blah, blah,” and I’d barf all over them. “It gets rid of this kind of spider for this long, it doesn’t get the eggs, you’ve got to do two egg cycles,” tons of stuff, another five-minute answer to their question.

 

I’m pretty sure people started seeing the pattern, and those who were maybe more thick didn’t, and they’d go and ask a third question, and the same thing, “Blah, blah, blah,” and I’d barf all over them. I’d say all these really technical terms, and I’d use all this vocabulary that made me sound smart, and made me feel like I knew what the product was, and scratched my own back, but it talked me out of the sale. They always said no.

 

I went from selling three, four, five, six, seven in a day, to like two a week. It’s not like they just went down a little bit. My sales all but stopped halfway through the summer. I remember the guy in charge of the company came and he asked me, “Dude, what’s going on, man? You are our pinnacle poster child, man. We were blasting you out to the rest of the company, showing them a good example, what it looks like. What’s going on.” I was like, “I have no idea what’s going on. I tell them what it is. I tell them this stuff. I tell them exactly what it is, what the product is. I tell them how it works. I tell them … I’m better right now in knowing about the product than I ever have been.”

 

It wasn’t until two or three years later that I realized why my sales dropped. I went home really frustrated, why it happened. It’s something that happens in MLMs very, very frequently, so frequently. What ends up happening is, somebody comes up and they get interested in MLM or the product or something. They get interested in anything in general. What happens when you pick up a hobby? You learn about the hobby. You learn about … I like to shoot. I really like to shoot. I love music, huge music fanatic. I’m a music fanatic. I was a concert junkie for years. I know the names of the singers, and I know the type of drums. I played drums for six years. I played piano for eight years. I sang in a band. I’m really into the technobabble of music.

 

I know all this stuff, and my wife looks at me and she’s like, “I don’t even know what you just said. That makes no sense to me, what the heck?” What ends up happening is, I go out and when somebody says, “Hey, do you like Audioslave or Incubus or Muse, or do you like this person or this person?” I know about that band, and so I would just like barf all over them. “Yes, blah, blah, blah,” singer name, brand of their drums, “Did you hear that sweet staccato in their song? Did you hear the vibratos inside? Blah, blah, blah,” and I start saying all this technobabble stuff, and the guy kind of just backs away like, “Okay, dude, see you, bye.”

 

I technobabbled my way out of sales like crazy when I was doing door-to-door sales, and I did it even more so when I first joined MLM. That’s the exact same thing that happens with most MLMers, is they go learn about the MLM. They’ll figure out stuff about the MLM. They learn about it, they figure out what’s going on, and the first person they see, or they go to the mall, they do a home meeting, a hotel meeting or phone meeting, whatever it is. They go see the next person, and they just barf all over them.

 

It’s all technobabble. It’s all this stuff and all this crap that the other person has no idea what you’re saying. They have no idea what you’re saying, and it just confuses them to death. They come back out and they go, “Okay, I don’t really know what that person said, but all I know is I don’t like it, and I’m going to walk away. You could have been handing me a million dollars, and I don’t want to be near you,” you know what I mean? They say no.

 

Here’s what happens. Guys, I’m a huge fanatic of a man named Russell Brunson. He just came out with a book called “Expert Secrets,” and what it does is it teaches you how to sell without being salesy. It teaches you how to deliver a message, how to put together a product and an offer, how to put together the sales and marketing of something. It teaches you how to put that stuff together. He has in there what’s called the epiphany bridge.

 

What I have to do is, I have to go back, now, how do I actually convey my MLM in a way that is received by the other person? What do I do? How do I actually do that? The way that I do it is, I need to tell a story. Story is what causes belief. Beliefs are what drive everything in our life, whether or not they’re real beliefs. Sometimes, we have beliefs that are false. Sometimes, we have beliefs that are true. Whatever it is, there’s an experience behind that belief that made that belief what it is. Every belief we have is based on some kind of story that’s running inside of our heads.

 

If I want to change my output, all I’ve got to do is change the story that’s going on inside my head. That’s from Tony Robbins. Switch the story that I tell myself in my head, I will literally have a different life; anyway, huge fan of Tony Robbins as well. What I have to is, I have to tell a story. Now, what I do is I go back, if you guys listen to my first episode of this podcast, what was I doing? It was on purpose, I was telling you my story of how I got into MLM. By telling you the story, I tried to help get you in the state that I was in, the sheer excitement, all the pieces and all the elements of what it took, going through that story, and I got you into that same state.

 

I described the environment. I did that on this podcast. “The sun was beating down on me, I was running door to door, because I had this huge desire to prove to myself I could do it,” right? I’m getting you in the same state that I was in while I was experiencing it. What happens? You start to have these little epiphanies along with me. “Oh, you know what? Yeah, that makes sense. Why wouldn’t you learn about the product so that you could be better?”

 

You have the realization. I didn’t come out and tell you, right? I got you in the same state, and I came out and I helped you realize why. There’s a story that I had to tell, to help you accept that new belief. Does that make sense? It’s the same thing. If you want to be really good at conveying your MLM or your product to anybody else, what you need to do is think back. Ask yourself, why are you in it? What’s the story? How come you got in it? How come you went, and you actually decided to join the MLM? What is it for you?

 

It might be about money, some extra income. It might be about trying to help some other people. It might be about spreading a message. Whatever it is, go back and tell what Russell Brunson calls the origin story. It’s your origin story. It’s how you originally got into the thing that you are doing. Go way back. Dig deep and think, “Huh, how do I actually convey to this person the story? How can I get them in the same state that I was in when I was experiencing it?” Have you ever got out of a movie before, or something really crazy happened, and you run up to your friend and you say, “Hey, what’s going on? This crazy thing happened, it was nuts.” They look at you and they go, “Huh.” You’re like, “That’s not the reaction I was thinking, like you should have gone nuts, like I was going nuts.”

 

At the end, you eventually say something like, “Oh, I guess you had to be there.” Well, what happened? You technobabbled them. They weren’t in the same state that you were in going through it. They were in a different state, and so emotionally, they were in a different emotional and mental state, so they couldn’t accept the story that was going through there. You go through, and you paint the picture, and you go through … What’s funny is, I might as well come out, if I didn’t want to actually get you guys in the same state, most people tell stories like this. “Hey, I did door-to-door sales, and I did really well at first, then I did really bad, and I couldn’t figure out why. It’s because I realized that I was saying too much technobabble, and not enough story.”

 

That could wrap the whole podcast up in like one sentence, if that was how I told stories. You’ve got to get into the emotions of it, help me feel what’s going on there. Now, I told you on the last podcast episode, I stayed up until 3 a.m. I wanted to feel like I was providing, I wanted to feel like a man, I wanted to feel like I was providing for my new bride, you know what I mean? That origin story is very, very powerful, if I can help you get into the same state that I was in, and realize it.

 

That’s how you create belief, and when you have belief in a product, you don’t really have to sell. That’s the whole key. Guys, the epiphany bridge is the key to sales without being salesy. Does that make sense? It’s the whole key to this entire thing, so anyways, I’ve been going for 15 minutes here, but I just wanted to point that out, that if you want to, you don’t need to be a slick salesman, but you do need to learn how to tell stories. You need to go, and you need to learn how to tell stories.

 

Seth Godin, one of the best marketers out there, has got a great book called “All Marketers Tell Stories.” All marketing is, I believe it was … No, it wasn’t Frank Kern, I think it was Dan Kennedy. Oh gosh, I can’t remember who. Actually, I think it was Perry Belcher. Perry Belcher said that the only … Gosh, I’m so sorry if I’m misquoting, but that he said the only job of marketing is to educate and to innovate. I’m sorry, all marketing is education, and the only responsibilities that an entrepreneur has is to market and to innovate. That’s it, and marketing is just telling stories and changing belief patterns. You’re just educating through stories, that’s all it is.

 

Think to yourself; the last person that I spoke to, the last person that I walked up to, how did I approach them? Was it all about me just technobabble crapping the … Just going nuts all over them and saying, “Hey, it’s got this, and it’s got this, and it’s got this”? They kind of back up, they’re like, “Oh, okay.” What’s the story, though? If you can do that, you educate through story, you are now officially marketing. You’re no longer prospecting, you’re marketing.

 

I want to congratulate those of you who take that step and make that bridge, because as you guys know, prospecting pushes, marketing pulls. Have you ever chased a rabbit before, and tried to catch it? It’s ridiculous. It’s so hard. That’s like prospecting. On foot, like running and chasing a rabbit or a fox or something really, really fast, or a little rodent or a squirrel, it’s almost near impossible to do that. That’s prospecting.

 

Marketing is … Marketing pulls. Marketing is putting bait out there, and waiting for the … We used to put little peanut butter things out there, and we’d watch the squirrels go out into the yard, and they’d go up and they’d start eating the little peanut butter ball and stuff like that. That’s marketing. Marketing pulls. Marketing makes them come to you.

 

A lot of you guys just need to switch your bait, so you get the right kind of person, and you’ve got to switch up the story so that when they’re there, they actually want to change their beliefs, so they don’t have any more false beliefs, and they see why your product is important, and they understand why, and you create belief on why they should join the MLM. That will change everything.

 

What I started doing is, I started figuring out how I can convey story over and over and over through automated systems, and that’s what I’m excited to share with you over the course of this podcast, as I keep recording these. Anyways, guys, thank you so much. If you guys want, you can go get the MLM Masters Pack. It’s completely free, but what it will do is dive deeper onto the things that I’m sharing with you right here. I recommend you listen to it with your down line, because it will educate them.

 

I don’t mention my MLM in it at all, so there’s not any kind of pressure at all, just this is completely just as a help. I just want to be able to help right now, because I feel like the MLM industry as a whole stereotypically is very, very broken as far as how we actually get people into them, and so I want to help change that, and it’s part of the mission of this podcast.

 

Anyway, guys, thanks so much. Go to SecretMLMHacksRadio.com to download that, and I’ll see you guys in the next episode. Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Would you like me to teach your own down line five simple MLM recruiting tips for free? If so, go download your free MLM Masters Pack by subscribing to this podcast at SecretMLMHacksRadio.com.

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