I Discovered A Big AH-HA! That's Destroying MLM by David Ledoux

I was sitting in a coffee shop yesterday, patiently sipping my java while the wind howled outside at a numbing minus 18. I was waiting for a very special guest to arrive. I hadn't seen him in 13 years.

In December 1990, I had answered an ad in the Business Opportunity section of the Toronto Sun. I cover the details in the Ultimate MLM Blueprint, so I'll skip them here. I ended up at a MLM presentation for a water filter company at their local training center. The guy giving the presentation that night was named Johnny. He must have done a good job showing the plan that night, because I joined. That pivotal night got me rolling in this crazy business.

I hadn't seen Johnny in more than a decade. He walked in beaming that million dollar smile and shook my hand. The years vanished in a heart beat. He was still having fun in MLM.

We caught up and gossiped about what the old gang was doing. Sadly, most of the stars and superstars from the late eighties in the old water filter deal had dropped out of the industry. It was almost like the extinction of the dinosaurs. The big lumbering dumb ones couldn't change with the times. The smaller quicker ones survived by adapting.

John said something so profound it made me sit up straight in my chair. "David, the problem with the business today is nobody knows how to show the plan anymore!"

Truer words have never been spoken. To confirm it, I started doing an informal survey last night. Take a minute to complete this little survey, first yourself, then with 10 members of your downline.

1. How many face-to-face 1-on-1 presentations did you give in the last 30 days?

2. What was your sign up ratio?

3. How many face-to-face 2-on-1 presentations did you give in the last 30 days?

4. What was your closing ratio?

5. How many new frontline distributors did you teach to do their own 1-on-1 presentations in the last 90 days?

6. How many presentations did they give in total last month?

I can hear the howling across the world as I sit here typing.

"David, presentations, are you crazy? I want to do everything at home sitting in my underwear on the Internet!"

Exactly my point. I repeat, exactly my point. And the exact reason why your group is ADDING some customers, ADDING very few distributors and not MULTIPLYING!

Hello? Remember the words duplication?

Adding is not multiplying. Training housewives to blast spam is not network marketing. Building independent leaders is.

Don't feel bad. That evil siren, the Internet, sucked me in too. I also fell slave to her deceptive charms. I luckily broke free and came to my senses about 3 months ago on a trip to the back jungles of the Philippines.

This may be too much for some of my readers. The very thing that all of us have been avoiding is the very breeding ground of greatness.

For those of you who have a feeling in the pit of your stomach, listen to your intuition. Figure out a way to create a duplicatable, effective 1-on-1 flipchart that takes 15-20 minutes to do. And figure out a way to teach it to your team. And do it, lots of it.

I shook John's hand at the end of the meeting. We squared our shoulders, leaned slightly forward like only northerners do, and stomped out into the arctic blasts. I wonder what I'll RELEARN the next time I see him?

David Ledoux