Number 1 Enroller Throws the Kool-Aid Down the Drain and Tells You Why it’s Time to Stop Lying to Your Prospects.
The Uncanny Valley
Whether you are a fan of Schelling or Freud’s hypotheses on the nature of the heimlich and unheimlich, or you spend your nights gazing with awe at graphs of Mori’s ‘uncanny valley’, you are – without a doubt – aware of the concept of the uncanny. You’re not? OK. Hang on. I’ll grab a cuppa and fill you in on the deets.
Right. I’m back. Tea in a Thermos cup? Not my best idea. Tea should be sipped from porcelain in my humble opinion. Now, where was I? Ah! The Uncanny. Prepare to be afraid… very afraid. Think of a horror movie. Got one? Good. Chances are that some aspect of the film you’ve just brought to mind involves shock and nausea-inducing uncertainty. Maybe there are zombies. Maybe the villain appears to be a sweet neighbor, but is actually a sharp-object wielding psychopath. Maybe you can hear the cliché of nursery rhymes sung a little off key in the background. Why is that SO freaky? Because it’s almost familiar and safe, but not quite. It’s something you feel you can trust, but it’s warped. Just when you thought it was safe… it wasn’t.
The uncanny valley is the lowest point on a graph where the horizontal axis equates to ‘human likeness’ and the vertical axis equates to ‘familiarity’. Bear with me. I’m going to explain all of this (and show you how it applies to MLM). Just walk with me through this and you’ll see where I’m coming from. Don’t worry. I’ll protect you. The point where the dip is lowest (the ‘valley’) is the point where –in scientific terms – you are most butt-clenchingly freaked out by the weirdness of a situation. It is where the human likeness of a thing is the greatest, but our familiarity with it is the least, and it is moving. On the graph, the ultimate manifestation of this uncanny valley is the zombie.
Now imagine not one, but many zombies moving toward you. Imagine them all acting the same, saying the same thing, over and over and over. No matter how fast you back away they seem to encircle you. The chanting continues. One of them offers you a drink. You look at the drink. It’s Kool-Aid. At the ultimate point in this nightmare, you suddenly realize the who these Kool-Aid swigging zombies really are: MLMers! Screaming, you wake in a sweat. It was just a dream. You hear a knock at the door. Trepidatious, you edge down the stairs. On your doorstep, catalogue in hand, urging you to be become ‘one of us’ you see your nightmare made real. A torrent of sales pitch streams from the mouth of the zombie in front of you, as you slam the door, fall on the floor, and rock in a fetal position until the men in white coats come to take you away. THIS is how most people view network marketers. And, in some ways, they’re right.
Why do people talk of MLMs being like cults? Why do they talk about being “forced” to drink the Kool-Aid (a reference to the Jonestown massacre)? It is because people fear brainwashing, and the loss of self. They fear the loss of their own free will. This is a genuine fear and you MUST address it, or you will go through your life in network marketing feeling that your closing skills suck, when actually you are just failing to see the core of most people’s objections. Often, the real objection behind the “smoke screen” objections boils down to a core lack of faith in the industry that equates to something as profoundly simple as not wanting to lose their identity.
I understand that. For someone as independent and unemployable as me to imagine falling into some kind of mind-control cult is beyond horrifying. Forced obedience is Rebecca-repellent. Those of you who’ve read all my columns so far will know why. I am largely auto-didactic. I attended enough school to work out the norms, but I avoided compulsory education enough not to be brainwashed. I’m one of those scary things you don’t often find in domesticated society: a free spirit. A wild thing. If you think you have a block to joining an MLM, put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s been writing articles urging people to avoid drinking the Kool-Aid for years. This was not a decision that I took without careful consideration.
I should probably explain my connection with the industry. I left the industry around three years ago when I realized that I was resolutely and completely not MLM compliant. However, I always remained an advocate for network marketing and wrote for the niche throughout my break from the industry. I’ve also written a couple of books on it. So, why was I an advocate even if I wasn’t MLM compliant? All in good time, my pretties. For now, be content with the punchline that after years out of the industry, I joined an MLM when my list and clients insisted I should. I became the #1 global enroller in 2 days, building my team to 6 levels of duplication in 7 weeks.
I’m still not MLM-compliant… I simply found a company that was Indiepreneur-compliant. Personally, I’m stunned at how few are. After asking my list to pitch me their links, I only found a handful that I would even consider putting my name to or telling my list about. Every other option I saw felt like prison – not Indiepreneur friendly in the least. That’s bizarre. There should be a whole industry of companies that make sense to independent home business entrepreneurs, and yet there isn’t.
There’s zombie factory after zombie factory, and I’m fed up with that silliness. The time has come for those of us who care about the home business industry to call for network marketing to raise its game substantially and step into this century. It is the path that so many take to arrive in the world of online marketing, and as a pioneer of the online marketing space, I get a bit territorial when I see people making a mess of my turf. It’s time to set some things straight.
Go Medieval
In medieval England, there were some pretty big scale building projects. Regular readers will know that the house in which I was raised was built during this period of history. However, some far grander edifices were put together during that time. The Palace of Westminster, Major cathedrals, Oxford University, and other impressive constructions arose during this period.
Three things had to happen for these places to be built. First, the architect had a vision that was shared by the workers. Second, it took a huge number of workers their entire working lives to build these palaces of politics, faith, and education. Finally, in each case, the souls and specific humor of the individual workers were honored. You can see this when you look at the gargoyles on these buildings. Each represents the workers’ own idiosyncratic views and talents. They represented satire and rebelliousness. They represented free will.
The point is that however inconvenient it may have been to the brains behind those big designs to have the workers place their individuality on the finished piece, it was essential to the process. It meant that the workers shared the vision. It meant that their energy lived on in that work. It meant that they left a legacy that reflected their own sense of self. This philosophy was later adopted by the Pre-Raphaelites and the Arts and Crafts movement.
With the rise of standardized industrialism, we lost this essence of the individual. Production lines led people to become part of the machinery. People became obedient employees who were instantly replaceable the moment a robot of similar efficiency was produced. People who seek a ‘work from home’ career typically seek to escape this kind of automated prison. They seek time freedom; geographical freedom; financial freedom. And, above all, they seek self-definition.
But many people looking at MLM are offered something different: They get an MLM opportunity where they are told to stick with the system, not reinvent the wheel, speak to anyone within three feet of them, and to lead with the product and company rather than themselves. They are also, typically, told that they cannot work for or with anyone else.
Hang on, though, if they can’t work for anyone else, doesn’t that make them an employee? Isn’t that exactly what they approached network marketing to avoid?
The MLM Contradiction
The reason so few people succeed in MLM is that they quit before they reach success, because the process of achieving success means they have to do the exact things they got into MLM to avoid. They must be coachable (a good employee). They must duplicate (production line efficiency is prioritized over freedom of expression). They must work long hours (but for no guaranteed pay). If they work like this long enough, the rewards can be substantial, but most people cannot abide suppressing their true self long enough to earn a decent residual income.
Instead, people feel they’ve been lied to, and they have. The standard MLM pitch leads to a “bait and switch” when it comes time to take action. Unfortunately, this bait and switch approach is so pervasive that many companies mislead people in a similar way, so people become increasingly suspicious of the industry as a whole.
Here’s a novel thought. What if people just stopped lying about the industry? What if, when you prospected, you told people that they would have to work hard, for years, but that the payoff could be eventual freedom on an unimaginable scale? What if you told people to work their new business exactly the way they had worked at their job? What if they were given the truth that being a “good employee” in network marketing is a sure path to eventual freedom? Too few marketers operate this way.
In fairness, that approach wouldn’t have worked on me. I’m unemployable. What did work for me was the knowledge that I am an entrepreneur to my core. I understand the delicate dance between two energies that define the true power of attraction marketing combined with the leverage of other people: duplication and differentiation.
Duplication and Differentiation
The “Powers that Be” in MLM would have you believe that all you need is duplication. Simply copy and paste and money will fall into your bank account. Take incessant robotic actions and all will be well. Nah. I’m not going for that. Here’s why … I’m human. You probably are too. Human beings bail on the mundane unless they’re given a really substantial bribe to act like a robot. That bribe? A salary, with benefits. In other words, a job. As I said previously, chances are you are not the kind of person who actually wants a job. So, here’s the pattern you’re likely to fall into:
Decide you want to be self-employed because you hate having a job and a boss.
Join an MLM to escape your boss, gain time freedom, financial freedom, and self-definition.
Copy, paste, and follow the rules.
Teach people to copy, paste, and follow the rules.
Teach their people to copy, paste, and follow the rules.
Realize you have no time freedom because you’re working longer hours than you would if you had a job.
Realize you have not escaped your boss, because you now take orders from corporate and your upline.
Attempt to pay your bills.
Realize you are earning less than you would if you worked those hours at a job.
Work your way through your downline’s complaints about the fact that they don’t have time freedom, geographical freedom, or freedom from a boss.
Realize you are thought of as “the boss.” Remember how much you hate having a boss.
Leave the MLM, thinking it must be the company’s or your upline’s fault.
Get a job.
Decide that you want to be self-employed because you hate having a job and a boss.
Repeat from ‘2’ to ‘14’ until you collapse.
I took you somewhere dark there, didn’t I? You OK? Don’t worry. It gets better. You’re at the scariest part of the film right now. I won’t tell your upline if any of this resonates with you. We’ve all been there. The key is not to remain there. There’s a better way. Remember, I knew all this stuff before I went back into the industry. Think I’d have done that if there was no hero in the story? The hero is about to step in. The hero is called “the bigger picture.”
The truth is that you work for a company on a freelance basis. You are part of their marketing department. They possess all of the statistics about network marketing. They know how fast people typically move through the industry. They know how prone people are to Shiny Object Syndrome. Knowing this – rightly or wrongly – they have no practical business choice other than to assume you may be one of those, until you prove otherwise. So they need you to get into action within your first few hours and bring in as many leads and sales as possible, so that you build their business list while you’re there. If you bring in just a couple of people and then leave, they’re in profit. That’s why companies have fast start bonuses. They want you to hustle in the first few days, because bitter experience shows that most people will not swallow the medicine I outlined in the 15 points above for longer than a few weeks. Most people don’t think long-term enough to see the benefits of taking that medicine, and most MLMs don’t realize there is another medicine now available that tastes great and completely inoculates distributors from Shiny Object Syndrome: it is called trust.
The game has changed. People know how to market online. Most network marketing companies still don’t realize that. They’re still working from a list of rules set up before the internet, based around the idea that the average person is not a marketer. The average person – in this model – hangs out with neighbors, and they might have coffee with friends or larger gatherings from time to time. They have close family members and meet frequently with extended family. Everyone’s willing to drop what they’re doing for the chance to learn more about the life of their neighbors and enjoy some home baked cookies.
That’s the model most MLMs are still working from. But reality changed mid-way through the last decade, and they still haven’t noticed. Over the last five-plus years, people have become expert marketers. Every person with an active social media account markets every day. They market themselves. They differentiate themselves by being authentically and individually who they truly are. They trade in the currency of social capital; marketing for payment in likes, shares, and retweets. People know how to do this stuff. Then they join an MLM and are taught something completely alien, based on a 1950s version of what society should look like, which renders them strange to their online friends. This is literally a trip into the uncanny valley… where zombies and humanoid robots are what we most fear. The average owner of a network marketing company dreams of an army of Stepford Wives to sell their products. Spoiler alert for anyone who doesn’t know the story, but the Stepford Wives were robots. Real people are not.
It’s a game of chicken. From a company point of view of, when will the distributor cease to be an obedient robot? When will they leave? What punishments can be put in place to force them to stay? This fear-based approach to handling reps leads to marketing averse companies.
Just recently, one such company stopped its entire distributor force from doing any marketing of their own. Another company is hounding reps who do any work outside their MLM, and is attempting to discredit that work on social media.
From the point of view of the distributor, the game of chicken becomes one of weighing up the point when the residuals kick in against how long it will be before they are forced to drink the zombie Kool-Aid and get absorbed into the hive mind of the mothership. Feeling trapped, they look around for options.
What if distributors and corporations worked together? What if the architects of the companies – like the architects of the medieval cathedrals – had enough faith in their workers to allow them to inject a little personality into their marketing? And what if the distributors had enough faith in their corporate team to follow the basic, duplicable system where it clearly worked, so that newbies were empowered and taught to take simple actions in simple ways without overwhelming anyone? That would lead to a situation where people weren’t reinventing the wheel, but were just putting tires or hubcaps on it.
Something inherently useful could be made even more useful if the people who understand network marketing worked with the people in the field who intuitively understand social media marketing. That’s where really powerful change could happen in the industry. This change could happen from a context of love of success rather than fear of loss.
Guess what? There are companies out there embracing this idea – only a few – but they’re there. If they weren’t, I would have stayed out of the industry. If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool internet marketer who wouldn’t dream of looking at network marketing, you need to sit up and pay attention. If you don’t, you’re leaving huge piles of cash on the table.
Here’s the cold, hard truth. There is no business with such a low barrier to entry as network marketing that can pay you the depth of residuals available in that industry. You may well be a ninja at hustling sales or generating super-cheap cold traffic from solos and Facebook ads, but unless you actually show up for work or keep shooting vast amounts of money at cold traffic, you’re not going to get paid.
If you hustle for a relatively short period of time in network marketing, though, you can generate genuine “walk away passive residual income.” In other words, you can leverage other people’s work in network marketing way more than anywhere else. And that is true wealth.
You know this. The only thing keeping you from it, if you’re squeamish about the industry, is fear. And it’s a very specific kind of fear – the fear of a damaged ego. If you’ve gone around for years telling anybody who will listen that network marketing sucks, how can you possibly get into it now? Simple. You can do what I suggested the corporate teams at MLMs should do. You can have faith.
You can accept that things change. You can accept that even though many network marketing companies are still fighting a business battle from a different century, some have broken away from the zombie clan. They’re standing up and remembering they are human. They’re ready to trust you to be honorable marketers and show them how the new world of social media influence works.
If you’re wise, you’ll listen. If you’re really wise, you’ll act. If you act, the whole industry can evolve in a way that is absolutely authentic, and that liberates people to be truly self-defined. The nightmare is over. Time to live the dream. I’ll show you how on my webinar this month, and I’ll give you the truth.
©2014 Rebecca Woodhead
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