42: Curing Downline Overwhelm... - a podcast by Steve Larsen: Automated Downline Recruiting

What's up guys. Hey. Hope these days going fantastic, and you're killing it, and you woke up smiling. If not, I invite you to do so. It's amazing what it does for your day. Hey, so ... Hey. When, I first joined ... It was the very first MLM I ever joined, and I got into. I ran into a problem really, really soon and imagine that you've probably run into this too, at some point in your MLM career, if you're still in one. What's funny is I actually learned that a lot of people who are listening to this right now, are not in MLM. They're just looking for one. I didn't know that. How you guys doing? Anyway, great to have you.
Anyway, so the first time I ever joined an MLM, I ran into this issue, where I was excited to be a part of it, and I was running. I was literally going door-to-door down Main Street. I was trying to recruit friends and family. I was doing ... You know what I mean? I had not learned a lot of things that I know now, where I actually am ... I treat it very differently now. I actually value. I actually put stuff out there. I actually qualify leads. I auto close. I've got a lot of tools and stuff like that for my down line. The whole purpose, again of this podcast is to help show you what I do, so you can do it in your own business. I don't care whatever it is you're in.
As long as you love it, great. That's awesome. Go kill it and crush it. That's great. The other purpose of this podcast is to go through and show you, kind of documents the journey of me creating this next product for the MLM industry. There's no talk of me trying to recruit you. You won't even know the name of the MLM that I'm in. It's literally just to help you see how someone like me ... I have a heavy, very strong internet marketing background. I was the ... I still am, the right hand funnel builder to Russel Brunson at ClickFunnels. Sat right next to him for about two years. I'm about to leave that job, in about four weeks here, which makes me a little bit nervous, but I'm excited to do it. I'm literally leaving to do this full-time. If that's any kind of testament that what I'm trying to teach you, works.
I have two kids. I have four year old and two year old, and a pregnant wife. I would not leave my job, if it was not actually being successful. Okay? Please know that what I'm teaching you guys throughout this entire podcast, and especially in the course I have coming up, works. It's real. It happens. You guys are living testaments of it right now, also, that ... Anyway. Anyway. Moving on.
The first time I joined an MLM, I ran into a problem quickly, which was, after I had ... You know, I was doing it the old school way. I made the list of the friends and family. I called a bunch of people. I annoyed lot of people. I went through and I was going door-to-door. I was hustling. I still did it the best that I could. The problem was, when somebody else finally joined my down line, I didn't know what to do with them. Right?
They were just sitting there, and it was like, "What do we do now?" I'm like, "Oh crap. Uh. Sorry for sounding like a broken record, but I'm about to tell you the same thing my upline told me to do. Go bug your family members and friends. Go hustle like crazy. Go the next thing, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I just started regurgitating all the stuff that I was hearing. Does it work? Yeah. Yeah, it works. It's effective. It's not very efficient though. You know what I mean? It'll work. It's a terrible experience though, and I ruined a lot of relationships with it. You know what I mean? Anyway, that was part of the issue that I was running into with the whole thing. I didn't know what to do with them, after they joined my down line.
I was on this call once. I'm not sure if you guys know who Stu McLaren is. Stu Mclaren's a very amazing guy. He makes millions of dollars every year, running membership sites. Amazing value, but he only spends a couple week a year actually building them. The rest of it's all on auto pilot. Amazing stuff. It's the world I come from. Built a lot of membership sites in my day. And so, one of the things that he teaches in one of his courses, is this concept that ... Have you guys ever bought a product before? You've bought the product. You get it and you realize ... You what, there actually is a better example.
Christmas is right around the corner. Right? Christmas is right around the corner. Let's say you buy a toy for a kid, and you get this toy and you have to assemble it when you get it. You open up those instructions and the first thing you notice is, it's not a simple set up. Right? You kind of get completely overwhelmed by the amount of steps that it's now told you to do. Let's say you have done this for a kid. Fine. Whatever. A piece of furniture. Let's say you go buy a piece of furniture, and you're like, "Oh my gosh. I'm gonna spend the next two or three hours of my life building this thing. I had no idea." You know what I mean? It's that feeling, you like, "Oh crap. There's that much stuff to do? Oh jeez. Oh, uh. Gosh dang it. I didn't want to go through this today." You know what I mean? That's kind of the feeling you get. It's the feeling of pure overwhelm.
Well, what's funny is that it's been learned, it's been noted that the number one reason why people will refund from memberships sites, is become of overwhelm. There's just too much stuff. There's not enough places to go. There's not enough ... I'm sorry, there's too many places to go. There's too many things to do. There's too many options. There's total overwhelm and the person just wants to get out. A confused mind is always a no. Right? The answers always no for a confused mind.
A lot of times that ends up happening, when you join an MLM, or when one of your people joins a MLM. When you recruit somebody, the tendency is just to barf all over him. Here's the comp plan. Here's all the specs to the product. Here's how we're selling it in the script behind it. Here's your duplicated website. Here's the events coming up. Here's all the books coming up. Here's what the president has said about x, y, and z. Here's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You go and you barf all over these people. Total overwhelm. No idea where to start and it makes someone want to quit.
What Stu Mclaren teaches as the way around us, is something called a success path. Okay? A success path. These success paths are genius. I use them in my own MLM recruiting now. Their amazing. Okay? When somebody joins my MLM, what I do is I think through the success path that I want that individual to go down, meaning, what's that number one? All right, well, we should probably have learned about the product a little bit more. Watch this video. That's it. Don't think about anything else.
I'm not out to tell you about the [inaudible 00:07:08] plan even more. I'm not about to tell you about all the 12 million events coming up. I'm not about to tell you about the stuff that's going on, and have you re-introduce the 1400 of my upline people. You know what I mean? Just watch that one video. That's it. What else? Don't worry about it. Did you watch the video? Nope. Then, watch that video. That's all. I write it out. I put stuff down, so that they understand what is expected of them, in order to be successful. Right? Both from a business standpoint and a recruiting standpoint and a sales standpoint. I just, I figured it out. I do through. I just simplify it.
Okay. Here's all this crap. Let's put it into an organized manner that you can actually digest it, and that it's not gonna stress you out like crazy. That's what I've been building this last little bit here is ... I've built a lot of members areas on the internet. It's one of my specialties, really enjoy doing it actually. I thought, how cool would it be .. This is something I just barely started doing right now, as far as the members area form.
It's a dedicated members are that's just for my down line. Not just for the tier that's directly under me. I'm totally fine if it's like, they bring in the tier under them, and they bring the tier under them, they bring the tier under ... It's still all essentially my down line. Why would I not want them all to have a success path, to have training on how to sell each specific product, to have training on all the leads and things you can do out there that's all automated. You know what I mean? Why would I not want everybody to have that?
What I've been doing and building, is putting together a members ... When they join, you know I give 'em the option to have the entire members are to themselves too, to duplicate it that way. It's legitimate true duplication, because I know I can build it awesome. That's my actually job, which I'm about to leave soon. Once I build it, I can comb the thing over to 'em. Now they have it for their down line. You know, or they can just give access to the current one too. I'm completely fine with that. Anyways, all I'm trying to do is, I'm trying to just illustrate the fact that, one of the reasons ...
This is the case that I'm posing, which is that I really believe that, one of the major reasons why somebody will not join your down line, or when they do join it, then they do nothing, is just sheer overwhelm. They have no idea what to do next. They have no idea what to start on next. There's a lot of information, which is great. There's so much information, that it's completely overwhelming and they just don't know what to do.
Create a success path. What is the first logical thing you would have any person who joins your MLM do? I can't answer that for you. That's up to you. Okay? I've answered it for myself, and my team. We're putting those things even more together. I go and I survey people and I say, "Hey. What are you struggling with? How can I help?" We do live calls frequently. We go through a lot of cool trainings. We go ... You know, and we ... The upline is not their only support. The content from the MLM, you know, the corporate MLM is not their only piece of guidance. It's not their only source of training. It's not their only source of, here's how you actually sell. They're getting it from me too. Right? Actually, way more in-depth, than my MLM provides. Right? And so, anyways, that's what I'm super stoked about.
I'm very, very pumped to get this piece done here. I've created a lot of "success paths." This is the most in-depth one for an MLM, my MLM down line that I've ever built. Excited to have it. Excuse me. Anyway, super pumped to be able to send that our to 'em. I think what it's gonna do is it's gonna help keep believability. This whole games about beliefs, right? Someone joins your down line, because they believe that it's possible for them to be successful, which is great. They're right. They should. They need to have that belief otherwise why are they do anything. All right?
The belief can get killed when they realize that they've got to ... When they feel like they don't just have to read the owners manual alone, but they also feel like they gotta write the thing. You know what I mean? When it's that much stuff. I actually feel like it's actually been preserving some belief patterns, has actually created more, not just of a path that had to be successful, but just like, overall peace. You know, overall well-being.
What's neat about it too is it's trained people where to go to get information and they collaborate amongst themselves now. It actually helped duplicate me, and slightly removed me. Not that I'm trying to be removed, but it's mainly that I'm no longer the bottleneck. You know, cause the trainings there. The stuff that I said is there. It's all in there. The success path is there.
They know the path from A to Z, how to actually be successful with this thing. Because I'm being transparent about how I'm being successful with it. I'm showing 'em exactly what to do. You know what I mean? It's hand holding at the coolest, but without me having to actually do it, because it's all done through videos and you know, PDFs and ... You know what I mean? All of these different things. Anyway, start thinking through the major sticking points of your down line.
Again, I pose the belief that part of that is just straight, sheer overwhelm. If you can't figure out what those pieces are either, just ask your upline. "Hey. What are the things that the people who joined, actually with the first." And then you start thinking through what that success path looks like. What it is that the person is actually asked to go through.
Here's an example. You can be like, "Here's what the first 30 days of your life here looks like." I know a lot of MLM's have that, but from corporate they have that. It's so much more powerful if you, the leader gives that to the down line. Hey. Welcome to the team. This is a legitimate team. I'm not just saying it, cause that's what we we're told to call it. This is an actually team, meaning, here is an actual success path we found. It actually made us successful with it. Here's how it's duplicatable, and you know. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
If it comes from you, versus just corporate ... Corporate probably has something like that, but if it comes from you also, it's gonna be a lot more powerful and it's gonna go a lot further. Anyways guys, hopefully that's helpful. Go create the success path. Fight overwhelm and I'll talk to you later. Bye.
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