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[David Green Contribution Level: 1]

As part of my Internet marketing business development, I subscribe to several marketing newsletters and blogs. I recently got a message from Mike Dillard (of “Magnetic Sponsoring” fame and well-know on this site – and yes, I did buy and read his eBook and video training program); the message was titled “Which Company Is Better?”

Basically, Mike said that it was better to go with a “single product” type of Network Marketing or MLM company vs. a business with multiple product lines. His main point was that, in his experience, this created less confusion and more focus and duplication for new distributors, resulting in building a network marketing business faster. Here’s an excerpt:

The fewer the number of options, the more focus…

The more focus, the better the results…

Mike, I beg to differ.
(You can read my entire response to Mike on my blog, The Internet Green: http://www.theinternetgreen.com/)

I see your “single product companies are better” viewpoint as quite short-sighted. There are only so many people in your circle of influence (whether you reach them face-to-face or via PPC ads) who are willing to buy some “miracle juice” product as you described in your message; once you’ve reached them, you can no longer expand your market without additional products. In fact, you’re likely to start seeing both your organization and your product sales SHRINK after a while as customer slow or discontinue their purchases – assuming that the company stays in business for more than a few years!

Sure, you might get a big surge of sales as the company/product first hits the market (as you’ve illustrated). But are you building a business that will still be going strong 5 or 10 or even 20 years from now?

(Yes, I do think long-term when looking at a distribution business. One of my senior partners inherited the network marketing business from her Dad when he passed away – and she and her husband are now making >$25K per month from it!)

If you are building a business for the long term, putting all your eggs in one product basket is a recipe for failure in my view, especially if your network marketing company manufactures the product(s) that they sell.

* What happens if some component or ingredient of that product is in short supply (due to economic, political, competitive or weather-related issues)?
* Or what if the FDA steps in and outlaws the sale of a key ingredient? (Remember all the weight-loss products with ephedra? GONE!)
* Or what if the FTC shuts down the company’s sales of that product or service due to false or misleading claims being made about its benefits?

Boom – you’re out of business – and your wonderful new single-product company is sitting on a bunch of aging product ingredients in a shuttered manufacturing facility!

Every successful business I can think of would rather expand share of customer – sell more products to their existing customer base – than fight with other businesses to gain market share (more customers in the same market); to wit:

* Why did FedEx buy Kinkos?
* Why did UPS buy Mail Boxes Etc.?
* Why did Arby’s add chicken sandwiches and salads to their menu?
* Why did Microsoft expand from selling DOS and Windows into selling Office productivity applications – and then expand into the Internet and web search applications? (Bing!)

Because that’s what their customers also wanted and needed; they saw the need in the market and found the products and services to meet it – mostly by partnering with or buying up companies that provided the products or services that their customers were already looking for and purchasing.

Mike, you teach about developing a “You, Inc.” business strategy – a LONG-TERM strategy centered around developing YOUR OWN CUSTOMERS, not focused on a single network marketing company. That’s why you’ve developed multiple products yourself – Magnetic Sponsoring, Black Belt Recruiting, MLM Traffic Formula, etc. – so you can leverage your customer base to sell more products to your existing customers while also attracting new customers via affiliates and Internet marketing. So why are you recommending a SHORT TERM, single product company approach to network marketing? Why not follow a LONG TERM strategy and partner with a company that moves with the marketplace, expands into markets where the demand already exists, and leverages the Internet to market and sell all sorts of products that are in demand?

It seems like you’re contradicting your own business principles – unless you also recommend joining multiple companies at the same time to sell different products into other markets and expand your sales volume. Sounds like a recipe for confusion to me – and as Eric Worre of Network Marketing Pro recently said, “Pick a Horse” and ride it! http://networkmarketingpro.com/2009/06/18/nmpro-80-pick-a-horse/

David G.

[Bruce Ahlswede Company: Market America Contribution Level: 1]

I couldn't agree with you more.

Bruce

[Landon Stewart Company: ViSalus Sciences Contribution Level: 3]

I don't think that i agree with you here on this one..

First of all I think that Mike knows what he is talking about considering, well you are posting this comment on HIS website, so he must know a thing or two.

Second people don't join your business because of some product anyways. Why would someone join an opportunity because of some health product when there are THOUSANDS of them.

You are basically saying there that there are people that have always dreamed of selling vitamin juice and that is why they are in this business. Except now they just want more than one flavor.

When that could not be furthur from the truth. People join your business because of YOU not because of some product. They could care less about what it may be.

Think about it.

Let's say I am the typical person that loves selling more than one product such as yourself.

I am in an opportunity that has let's say 10 different products.

Now of course I want to market that product because we all know that it is not about the person with the best product it is the person that market's the product the best.

So i write one article per day about one of the products each day.

After 10 days - 1 article about each product.
-No one has heard of me in the search engines.

After 20 days - 2 articles about each product
- Hey I got my first visitor!

After a month- 3 articles about each product
- Getting about 10 people per day now not bad!

After 60 DAYS- 6 articles about each product.
-I am getting 20 visitors to my site a day
- I stop writing articles - and right now i get 5 leads per hundred visitors on my site
- that's about average.
- I convert 5 of every 100 leads to distributos.
- 80% fail I just got one new distributor in 160 days not bad at all!

Did you see how that happened?

I was getting 5 leads per every 5 days. Then 5 of every 100 became distributors. Which would take 100 days altogether

Let's do this again with one product.

I write one article per day about that ONE product.

10 days- already 10 articles about it.
-more than I did the whole 80 days about the other
-get about 10 people to my site per day

20 days - 20 articles about it.
-More than three times the articles I had last time around
-20 visitors per day from the search engines

30 days- 30 articles!
- 5 times the amount I had in 80 days
- 30 visitors per day

40 days - 40 articles about it in only 40 days
- 40 visitors per day.

50 days - 50 articles
-50 visitors.

I get 5 of every 100 visitors to become leads.

Hey thats 5 every 2 days! Not bad.

Then 5 of every 100 become disrtibutors. 20 days later I just got 1 awesome new distributor.

I just did the same thing in 70 days that it took me 160 days with more than one product.

How did you plan on marketing every single product that an opportunity offers?

O an even better question..

How do you plan on explaining how to market it to your downline?

And this worst part is that studies have shown that when people are given more than one choice they usually do nothing at all. How crazy is that!

[Curtis Royse Contribution Level: 2]

I could not agree with you more Landon.

It is nearly impossible to market every single product that an opportunity offers.

Even when I was with a company that had more than one product I only focused on one because people just cannot and will not make decisions. You have to guide them wherever you want them to go.

It is that simple.

And why would you even want to recruit a "so-called" business builder into your opportunity because he thinks that you have a bunch of great products.

Because honestly I have gotten to the point to where I don't really want to sell my products anymore.

Look at a car salesman for example.

Yeah, he makes good money. But who makes more money, him or his boss?

He is doing all the manual labor, yet his boss is bringing home the bigger paycheck.

I want to bring in business builders that are going to sell hundreds of products for me every single day on autopilot.

It is about duplication, not vitamin juice.

Good stuff landon

To your success,

Curtis Royse

[Richard Bravo Company: Life Force International Contribution Level: 9]

*

In my case, our company has an extensive product line.... 16 all together.
A few of these make up a package program, such as our colon cleanse (3 individual products that make up the colon cleanse system) The products are all wellness focused products designed to address overall good health or to target certain needs. e.g. Daily vitamins & minerals, bone & joint health, colon cleanse, etc.

I like the examples Landon and Curtis laid out, but I do have some feedback on both.

In Landon's case, the article marketing/SERP result example is excellent.
The power of consistent incremental marketing is shown vividly.
However, I would argue that someone in a company with multiple products could leverage that strategy 10 fold, just as you did with the single product example. To downplay the results possible with multiple products for the sake of the example isn't a fair conclusion.

So for instance, I have 16 products, why would I only write 1 article? Of course you could factor in time constraints and so forth, but really, if I am going to write 1 why wouldn't I write 3 or 4, 5, 6? Thus increasing my exposure exponentially. The larger product base gives me more to write about, a larger audience and a more diversified syndication map. All of which can be directed back to a single focused sales funnel.

To leverage this even more, the entire process can be outsourced for pennies on the dollar to the extent I could easily have 10-15 articles per day written and loaded into my blog and syndication system 30 days ahead of time. And my content library and available topics are multiplied by a minimum of 16. Which also dramatically reduces my worries of any duplicate content issues and so forth and again exponentially increases my keyword/keyphrase base for SEO purposes. That's a powerful blueprint.

Point being, there's always two sides to the coin and multiple perspectives to be seen based on where you are standing.


Curtis...
The main issue I have with your feedback is not standing behind the product you promote.
I completely see your point about being the dealership owner, not the lot salesman. I get that. But if that's all it is and there is no "pride of ownership" behind the products your team are selling, that just doesn't register with me. Simply for the fact that at that point it wouldn't matter what the product is as long as the benjamins pour in.... right? Ever hear the phrase "Greasy Used Car Salesman?"

And that has been the demise of many businesses throughout history and the association of people viewed as ruthless and that of cold hearted coprorate greed. I'm not saying that's you by any measure, I'm simply saying that along with a streamlined sales funnel that kicks ass in the market place, you should also be proud of what your organization represents and the products they are selling. And that doesn't mean you have to be out there selling them. Although I do believe strongly that anyone building any particular business should be a customer of the business as well.

There are thousands of real world business examples to illustrate success with either strategy.
It all goes back to the same principles... One product or many, it's all about how you manage YOUR business.
Multiple products is not a defacto of failure.

That's my thoughts. Good show.
~RB

PS:
I'm eagerly awaiting Mike's response to this thread.

*

[Landon Stewart Company: ViSalus Sciences Contribution Level: 3]

Hey Richard you know what, you are probably right. I got a little carried away ther with my story and all.

I guess for me it all goes back to personal experience. I mean thats the only way that I can really judge it.

When I first got in internet marketing I started marketing a bunch of different click bank products thinking you know that the more I had the better. The more streams of income I had the better off that I would be.

The only bad part was I was not very focused on any one single product. So I would write articles on one, and then move on to the other and so on. I had no real core funnel, which like you said is HUGE. I was just kind of bouncing around all over the place.

I never got any real traffic to my pages and gave up on that phase. That is when I decided to pick one and just go after it. Start advertising, blogging, writing the crap out of just one product.

I had so many articles about that one product that I was bound to start generating traffic, and I did.

And started getting sales. So I guess I was a little one sided with my approach. I saw that using one product was best for me, but your right Richard as long as you have a core funnel it should work out great either way.

[Curtis Royse Contribution Level: 2]

Landon told me about your comment Richard..

I did not mean to offend anyone with that statement. I just think that people are so worried about themselves selling all of these different products that they forget about duplication.

They forget to help their down line do the same as they are.

If your down line is only one level deep you are not going to be bringing home those big bonuses.

That's why i personally like just one product. Because it is easy for me to focus on first.

But not only that it is easier for a newcomer to focus on, which brings duplication into my down line. It just something that I have found as worked better for me.

For example..

This summer I sold Cutco Knives, as did some of my other friends such as Landon.

Anway. A lot of my friends went out there trying to sell every single knife that they offered, which is good, but they were never REAL enthusiastic about just one product.

They were monotone about each and everyone just because they had so many to go over. Then at the end of the presentation the "client" was not very exciting about any one item, and had way too many to choose from. That customer usually would not buy anything at all, and those friends just did not do real good in the business.

Now what I did was a completeley different approach. Instead of trying to sell all thirty. I was REAL REAL enthusiastic about just one knife. It was called the Petite Carver. It cost 75 bucks, which was like a middle priced knife.

And i did real well. A lot of people liked that knife so much that they would end up buying sets to just to compliment it. I would get bigger sales, just by trying to sell one thing. And even if they did not buy a whole set, selling one knife is a whole lot better than selling none at all.

So that experience really just got me hooked on focusing on one product, and I have always been a huge believer in duplication. Which is why i commented the way that I did earlier.

[T Beck Contribution Level: 1]

As someone who is very new to this i think having one product is definantly enough. I spend what time i have promoting and learning (mostly learning learning learning)

in fact i'm so eager for information i think i'm spreading myself out too much. anyway i have no idea where i would possibly get energy or time to start marketing another product.

this may very well change in future, and i do understand the point about diversification, but i must also trust my current product has longetivity.

interesting topic!

[Joyce Penner Company: Life Force International Contribution Level: 8]

And i did real well. A lot of people liked that knife so much that they would end up buying sets to just to compliment it. I would get bigger sales, just by trying to sell one thing.

I agree with you here Curtis. But if you wouldn't have had the availability of the sets your sales would not have gotten "bigger".
I have always been involved in companies with multiple products and considered it a bonus to be able to supply this to that person and that to another however it was only when I got into my last company I realized the benefit of being laser focused. What has intrigued me as I've progressed is the focus on one and then the customer asking if I also have XYZ. Of course I can answer yes. I personally never would have thought of that as a marketing strategy but the owners obviously did and it's brilliant !
To your success,
Joyce Penner

[Richard Bravo Company: Life Force International Contribution Level: 9]

Landon & Curtis...
Don't take that as I was ragging on you guys - not at all.
You both have been throwin down valuable feedback since you've been here.
My comments were an observation, thinking out loud...
It's all good.

~RB