The Three-Thousand Mile Rule

Maximizing Process and Technology
to Create a Thriving Organization

By Stephen Colwell

It's no secret that Direct Sales is in a state of cathartic transformation. Organizations leaning on the overly hyped use of auto-response content delivery have now been relegated to "flip-chart" status just 4-5 years after the "do nothing, get rich" crowd began to peddle its wares. What happened was nothing short of a sponsoring bubble. Lots of bodies and no production; excessive dead weight brought into an industry that, while tactics evolved, tried to replace the most fundamental principal of business. It's a sorry state of affairs when an industry built on the concept of relationship-building turns away from the one principle that got it to where it is.

I'm hoping someday that, that last sentence never-ever needs to be uttered again outside of a new builder's first "fast-start" training. Fat chance I know, but maybe something in this article will trigger remembrance at a certain vulnerable moment when the idea of generating an auto-ship customer without ever communicating to a human being starts to seep its way into your pleasure dome.

Now that that diatribe is out, let's turn the coin. Kudos to the innovators and change-agents pushing the technology envelop to make the sponsoring process as simple and streamlined as possible. Without the millions of collective dollars spent by network marketers bent on leveling the playing field for ALL who venture into this industry, we'd still be stuck with the 3-foot rule. All of you working to help your team members succeed by trying new things, developing better more effective strategies, tools, online, offline, designing, writing, integrating, whatever it takes. YOU are the heroes of this industry. Your company manufactures great products, pays generously, and ships checks on time. That's what companies do.

 It's the field leaders who are the marketing innovators, educating consumers, streamlining the sponsoring process, developing the tools, training, co-ops and lead generation strategies to make sure their people never run out of opportunities to spread the gospel.

It's the leaders and the producers who are delivering the marketing milestones in this industry. Make no bones about it. Those at the home office and in the field who are still stuck on the three-foot rule need to just stop. Yes, wake-up out of your myopic stupor and understand this…while the necessity to build and cultivate long-term relationships has never changed and never will, the strategies and tactics for doing so have changed dramatically. A great product, compensation plan, and management team just doesn't cut it anymore. A skeptical and savvy marketplace demands effective systems and processes that result in predictable, quantifiable results.

The web and the telephone are the single greatest gifts the network marking industry could ever ask for. Maximizing both is an imperative. Helping others maximize them is THE imperative. It starts by understanding the true economics of the sponsoring process and then working backwards.

The average cost per conversion, meaning the spectrum of resources required to generate an auto-ship customer is roughly $150-$250.

Travel time, phone time, meeting rooms, hand-outs, Power Points, meals, business cards, web tools. It all adds up. That said, it's our job as companies and leaders to do whatever we can to bring that number down. Our survival depends on it. The only way to do it is to develop systems and processes that are measurable and quantifiable at every step. The result...a prospective builder with real-world business experience takes a hard look at network marketing, evaluating its viability for his/her future simply needs to look at the numbers to see a 1-5 year projection to make an educated decision. A bona fide marketing plan bears the facts based on the efficiencies of the sponsoring process.

A true system breaks-down the sponsoring process into its five stages, optimizes conversion at each stage, measures the results and continues innovating, improving and testing. The stages are:

1. Lead generation
2. Presentation
3. Follow-up and conversion
4. Training and duplication
5. Leadership Development

Lead Generation: What are we doing to ensure our people never run out of prospects to speak to? Ad co-ops, lead programs, landing pages, webinars, SEO campaigns, banner ads, direct response, radio, TV, print, blogs, podcasts and the list goes on. What are we doing to get the phone ringing and Inbox screaming and how are we pushing opportunities out to the field. Three-foot rulers…please stop. Get over your "cold-market" phobia and get real. It's not "cold market". It's "new market." Three feet is now three thousand miles. Distance is meaningless. Now, it's about innovation and use of every available tool at our disposal. You test it first and if it works, you test it some more and if it still works, you roll it out to your team. We, as leaders, take the risk. We never ask our struggling, eager beaver single moms to do the testing for us. They're gone before they even start and it's our failure, leadership's failure. Party plans aside. We're talking streamlined, measurable marketing that gets the cost of auto-ship conversion below $100. 

Presentation: What are the exposure tools and do they work. If not, how do we create an impactful presentation that can be remotely delivered, doesn't require excessive travel, and moves a high number of prospects into predictable, quantifiable action? Videos, Webinars, DVD, CD, Power Points, Sizzle messages, meetings. These are all exposure tools and in the context of a systemized, standardized sponsoring process, the right tools are to be used at only the right time. Our audience can only handle so much information.  It's got to be organized effectively and sequenced to be delivered at the right time and our people must know how to deliver it effectively relying as little as possible on personal skills. 

Follow-up and Conversion:  A lead is generated, a prospect is presented. What happens next?  Standardized follow-up scripts, upline three-ways, call tracks, lead sheets, form letters, email templates. Is the follow-up process and communications standardized? Is the timing of its delivery standardized? Again, the leadership tests it. The field duplicates it. Contact and task management, reminders, file sharing and content distribution, scheduling are all processes that, utilizing currently available technologies can be automated and duplicated to an extremely high level, something unimaginable just a few years ago. Measured, we now begin to get a pulse on the numbers, our conversion milestones such as lead to prospect rates, cost per lead, cost per prospect, and ultimately cost per acquisition. Once we know it, we get to the nectar that all business leaders salivate over…predictability. An inkling of it and the capacity to attract large swaths of new blood grow rapidly. 

Training and Duplication: No need to hammer here. We know it's the lifeblood of the business. The question is…is our training slapped together into a mishmash of varied and even conflicting methodologies or, is it an organized curriculum that addresses the fundamentals of starting and owning a business and cultivating customer and business prospects. Example: "get a business credit card and begin separating business expenses from personal expenses so you can begin to take full advantage of the tax benefits of owning a home business." You get the idea…optimization, standardization, protocol, process. These are the new chakras of network marketing. Replication and duplication happen at each stage. Technology automation streamlines and supports the processes that move the prospect predictably down the sales funnel and ultimately into a buying decision. Replicated websites, landing pages, streaming video, webinars, auto-responders, and pipeline management tools all have a place here. Back-office productivity, branded email, contact management, calendaring, reminders, file sharing. It's all available from literally hundreds of vendors.

Leadership Development: Is there a career training curriculum in place? How are new leaders brought into the fold, empowered, recognized and taught? When a budding leader emerges, what's the learning track? Reading lists, leader gatherings, guest speakers, trainers, and mentors. Marketing specialists, process specialists, technology specialists, motivation. Who are we bringing in to educate, empower, and motivate our emerging stars? Nothing new here. Bottom line, develop your career track separate and distinct from your "fast-start" training.

Effective systems employ strategies and technologies that replicate both the "front-end" and "back-end" processes.

The front-end is everything the consumer and business prospect sees. It's all the elements of the marketing message. Lead generation, Websites, advertisements, collateral, email, and all the other "touch-points." Front-end tools are usually created just to get another tool out there. It's not good enough. Tools that are effectively used are developed within the context of the sponsoring process.

Another brochure or video might sell, but it doesn't translate into growth. New tools are needed of course and everyone's grateful to have another tool, however, start thinking about process and how the next hot tool is going to move the prospect down the funnel faster, cheaper, more efficiently.

The "back-end" comprises all the solutions that allow field leaders and members to manage an increasingly growing number of warm-market and new-market relationships and a growing distributor force. Private Team Intranets allow an astonishing amount of leadership and field efficiencies. Collaboration, communications, sharing, and administrative functionality now costs a fraction of what the Forbes list paid twenty years ago. Strategies and teaching espoused by the leadership can now be enforced, optimized, and standardized with the use of team Intranets. Email is no longer a struggle against an aging list and 30% bounce-backs. Guaranteed delivery, team dashboards, pipeline management, follow-up processes, tasking, scheduling, document distribution and content sharing, training automation all have become essential elements of the attraction and retention process.

It's not a home-based business, it's a worldwide business. The technology has freed us in so many ways and constrained us in others. Regardless, we all benefit. Often times, companies have the dollars and field leaders have the vision and the know-how. Companies and leaders need to co-opt each other's resources and develop a coherent approach to marketing, duplication, and retention. Too often, the great chasm between corporate and the field stifles growth. Corporate has the financial wherewithal. Leadership has the knowledge wherewithal. When they're not in sync, partnering on the task, we get the same old shoddy marketing, inconsistent message, diluted branding, non-compliance and ultimately fragmented organizations working in virtual silos. The groups that are thriving are leveraging corporate resources and support and doing so by innovating and testing strategies, maximizing new media, and using available technologies to optimize, standardize, and streamline all the way to the bank.

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Stephen Colwell is President of Clarify Solutions, a marketing and IT firm based in Orange County, California.

For additional information visit: http://www.clarifynow.com

or call (800) 965-1494.