Jeremy T. James – Origin Story – Part 2
Origin Story – Part 2
Later in life, once I met my current wife, we went to meet her family.
I was warned by many of her family members that her father was a ‘network marketing guy’. “He will most likely try to get you into his business, so watch out“, they would say. As if he had the plague or something. Little did they know, I had been ‘that guy’ too…
Now, even though I was not successful in my prior venture. I had learned a lot. Some of this was summarized in the prior post.
In general…attempting to learn how to be a network marketer gave me the skills I used to get a great job, talk to people (even though I still didn’t love it), get into management at an early age and so much more.
It wasn’t the first time I met her father, but at some point, he did pop a DVD in to show me the plan for his current business venture. I knew what was happening, expected it at some point…and was ready to say “No, Thank you” when it was over.
However, I immediately saw a need for the product for me and my new family. Note: Lead with the product can work…though the opportunity at the end of the presentation did win me over.
I quickly noticed, there was no white board with circles. Times had changed. The DVD did the work for him. With this new technology, everyone had the same presentation this way. Plus it could be sent to other states even (I wasn’t thinking international…yet). I thought it might be time to try again.
We joined that night. I wanted the service offered anyway, so if it happened to make some extra money…great! I would not have to present the plan myself, it was a service rather than a product list (so no distribution like last time) and there were built in residuals since the service was monthly subscription based.
I asked for a bunch of DVDs and started contacting everyone I knew. They were not all happy to hear from me…I was ‘that guy’ still from my prior venture, remember. I had burned a lot of bridges trying to convince people to join my business. I had new friends though and started to get some growth. I was not afraid to work hard as long as some day I would not have to any more. And either way, I wanted the service and so did many of the people I talked to.
I did run out of people to talk to though.
I then asked…”what now” to my upline. I worked with the closest person who was already successful that would help me. I wasn’t about to give up on this one. My mentor said I could do what they were doing. There was a source of leads I could buy with names and phone numbers and call them on the phone.
Interesting. I could branch out to other states and meet people I would have never met before who showed an interest in working from home. If you have ever done this, you soon find out it is not easy. Many were unsure how they even got on that phone list. Some were angry. I wasn’t surprised as I hate phone solicitation myself. I honestly thought these were all people who were looking and just hadn’t found the right company or opportunity for them yet.
Maybe 1 or 2 people would listen out of 100, and some of them did get started. Usually the ones who already knew what network marketing was, but some who were new as well. I’m pretty sure this was one of the reasons leading to no call lists and double opt-in requirements for email lists later.
There was a LOT of convincing/selling involved. And I soon learned that those you convince to join you…you had to convince to do every step anyway. There were lots of free loaders who wanted you to build it for them too.
I had to answer all the questions, do the training, hold meetings, go to events, etc. When you realize that everything depends upon you, then you are not able to duplicate and will never gain the freedom you were in this for in the first place.
Granted, this time I was more successful…
I still wasn’t able to quit my job or anything though.
One key take-away was that the tools and the Internet started making it a bit easier to meet people you don’t know and even find good people. But, it weighed on me when I figured out that I had created a second job for myself. And I was quickly getting burned out with all of the constant rejection.
It was great having a single presentation, but got very expensive to send the DVD all over the country, most of which you would not get back and went unwatched in the home you sent it to.
We had a lot of great trips, met some really great people and learned a lot. Then team leaders started moving to other companies, ownership changed in our company and I had personal issues to deal with, so I stopped building.
This time, though I had actually built up a residual income.
Even ten years later, I still have money coming in every month from that company.
It was better, and I wanted more residual income, but without the reliance upon me doing everything. I just could not figure out why some people could create a large business while other, like me, never got past the point where it would grow on its own. It wasn’t until later that I figured out what I had done wrong.
In the end, I had to chalk it up as another great learning experience as I dealt with the issues going on in my personal life:
- It is possible to make a residual income online.
- The “old way” of building a network marketing business, face to face and selling/convincing still doesn’t work even using technology to reach more and speed it up.
- It is better to “sort rather than convince” to avoid rejection.
- Buying Leads is not a great way to build your business…you should know the source of those leads (many were not people looking for something, they were being “tricked” into leaving their data to get something else they wanted) and gather your own leads.
- You should not be the person who can answer all of the questions…even if you know the answers. Otherwise the business relies upon you and worse yet, others think they need to be able to do that as well to be in the business.
Continue on my journey in the next article where I finally figure it out (with help):