Dont Be An MLM Zombie - The Worst MLM Marketing Techniques Ever (True Story)

Until now, I have only shared these experiences with some of my closest friends and business partners, but today I am putting it all out there with the hopes that it resonates with others. At the very least, you will have a good laugh at my expense. I hope that by sharing a few of my past horrible experiences in my first network marketing company, I can prevent others from going down that path. A path that leads to a very dark forest, where you will alienate, or even loose friends, and send business prospects running from you as if you were a real life zombie from Day Of The Dead.

My first exposure to the network marketing/MLM industry was when I was 19 years old (we will not mention company names). I was actually taught, and in some cases, I even paid to learn these marketing strategies. The funny thing (well maybe not so funny) is that I still see people doing some of these exact activities. I don't know if they are being taught these techniques like I was, or if they just came up with them on their own. One thing's for sure, they will be learning a hard lesson.

I have named each of these techniques accordingly. Some of you might even recognize them ...and yes I admit it, I once actually did this stuff.

So, here we go...

1. Mr. BizOp Party Crasher

This is the guy who shows up to every gathering, party, or event whether invited or not, with a pocket full of business cards and a fist full of CDs. Then proceeds to hand them out to EVERYONE. This individual may even be so bold as to wear his company logo, t-shirt, or level pin, thinking that people will ask him about it.

2. Mr. Bookstore Prospecting Heavy Breather

This is the guy who hangs out at the local bookstore in the business/self help isle waiting to pounce on anyone who reaches toward a Robert Kiyosaki (or other business related) book. We call him the heavy breather because when someone did this to me no too long ago, I could hear his nervous breathing behind me as he watched my every move. I could almost feel him trying to gather the courage to start a conversation.

3. Mr. Awkward Conversation Mall Lurker

This guy will hang out at the mall all day thinking he is working on his business. After several hours of trying to get a conversation going with anyone who will give him the time of day, he may even resort to desperate techniques like dropping phony $100 dollar bills with a sticker on the back with his phone number and company website. Then watch as people pick them up, realize they are not real and promptly toss them in the trash.

4. Mr. Open Car Window Grenade Tosser

Oh, ya! This guy is a real annoyance. He is the one who flings his business card or CD/Cassette into every parked car window with a widow slot big enough. Then, after spending the day tossing grenades, he rushes home and sits by the phone waiting for interested prospects to call. I did not realize how annoying this actually was until it was done to me.

5. Mr. Front Porch Bomber

This guy drives around nice neighborhoods and leaves brochures on porches thinking that the owner will surely be interested enough to check out his website and sign up in his business. I even had a member of my up-line drive me around for an entire day to do this. Unbelievable!

6. Mr. Chat Room Loiterer

This guy pays $95 to attend a 4-hour class to teach him how to log into AOL chat-rooms and butt himself into every conversation to jam in something about his product or business. As you can imagine, this does not go over well.

7. Mr. Windshield Litterer

We have all been victim of this guy. He finds large parking lots with no security and proceeds to pin his business card or other material under the the driver's side windshield wiper. He actually thinks that people will take it out, read it, and be very interested to buy from him or join his business.

8. Mr. Piece Of Crap Car With A Millionaire Bumper Sticker Driver - (this one I never did, but I still see it all the time, so I thought I better include it)

This is the guy that has a custom bumper sticker made that says something like "MakeYourMillion.com", or "TheMillionaireDad.com" and proceeds to fix it to the bumper of his 1981 Honda civic with faded paint. Now this one never made sense to me, even back when I was doing the other activities.

Now, most, if not all of you reading this post already know that the above techniques will net you absolutely nothing but loads of embarrassment. It is no way to attract friends, build your business, or sell anything. The biggest lesson I learned years ago after being taught that the above strategies were "how you do the business"?

NOBODY CARES ABOUT YOUR BUSINESS, UNTIL THEY CARE ABOUT YOU!

People join people, not businesses. In order to be successful in this industry, or really any industry for that matter, you need to become the kind of person that people want to join. These days, I seldom ever talk about my business unless someone really asks me about it. I spend my time sharing information about internet marketing, social media, my family, or great places to ride Mt bikes. These are some things that I am passionate about, as you can see from reading my blog.

Put your focus on the things in life that you are truly passionate about and people will find you interesting and become your friends, and some of them will join you in business.

The faster you adopt this concept of "Attraction Marketing", the faster you will see success in your business, and your life.

If you are trying to get your head around how to attract people to you on the internet, be sure to request a copy of my Social Media Blueprint. I have broken down the steps to setting up your personal brand and tying it all together with a blog, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. It is delivered to your inbox in bite-sized chunks that you can immediately implement to begin attracting new friends and prospects to you.

If you found this post helpful, or if you have some of your own horrible networking experiences, I would love to hear about them. Please leave me a comment below and share. This post was originally posted on my social media mlm blog