Re:
Truth be told, I have an associate (40 ish), earning in the 100's of thousands. Projects to do 300k.
How?
First, he sells AFLAC insurance to businesses. Also, not a scam. You know, the duck?
Second, he offers Pre-Paid Legal to the employees.
My understanding of it, is that offer's legal services to those who would otherwise not be able to afford them. It's simple to sell and you get renewals on repeat business.
For under $50 a month, clients can have access to legal representation, ask legal questions, and even have minor wills and trusts done for them. Market penetration is under 5%, which is why the opportunity is so lucrative right now.
Yes, it is MLM, but so are many financial planning companies. And in a way, any organization that sells anything is MLM. How? Because, if you create a product and sell it, your goal is to sell more, right? So what do you do? Hire more sales people to pitch your product. It's no different. MLM takes a dive when you earn more money from the recruitment of people than the sales, and also when you begin pillaging your own area by saturating it with sales people.
It's worse when people pitch it like: "No sales involved. Earn 100k working only part-time." Then you find out only 10% of the company makes that kind of money and you have to pay an entry fee.
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Commission itself is paid to SOMEBODY. A company that prides itself on sales people, usually doesn't do much public, tv, radio, or billboard advertising.
See there's 2 scenarios, either you pay significant money to advertising and overstaff an incompetent service department to offer your products and service them, OR...
You offer high commissions (which is the dollars you'd spend on advertising anyways), and hire salespeople. The more complex the product, the more likely this is to happen. Also, high-touch businesses are likely to require salespeople and to do less advertising, OTHER than brand name recognition.
You don't need a small sales rep to sell to people Guillette razors.
You do need it for a home, for insurance, for pharmaceuticals, for tech stuff. Why?
It's cheaper.
Sales people are just a form of advertising and marketing, that's it. If a company does the name recognition and pays the dollars to advertise a new product and pays big buck for a huge back office support team, then there's less commission dollars. If they offer little in the way of customer support and little on advertising, then bigger bucks go to sales people.
I know guys who sold equipment, like big machinery for building massive projects (think Big Dig Boston). They made huge money because you just don't advertise for a Front End Loader. It's negotiation process with the budget and planning department that gets the salesman 10k plus per sale.
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As far as clients go...this is a business skill all must know. It's not taught in college. Sure, you learn HOW a sales process occurs, but they don't teach where prospects come from in each business/industry. Nor do the teach the highly successful methods of doing so.
There's plenty of sales programs out there that offer systems you can personalize to your industry.
And you know what, just b/c you don't have an answer for the clients, who care? If he has a market for the product, if he has demand, it will sort itself out.
You could try an internet site, fliers, mixers, chambers of commerce, family, friends, teasers, even e-books. The limits are endless, and where problems seem big, so are profits.
A-Unit
