68: Selling YOU Without Showboating... - a podcast by Steve Larsen: Automated Downline Recruiting

Steve Larsen: Hey, what's going on everyone? It's Steve Larsen and you're listening to the completely epic, totally conceited and amazing episode of Secret MLM Hacks Radio.
Here's the real mystery. How do real MLM-ers like us [inaudible 00:00:13] cheat and only bug family members and friends? Want to grow a profitable home business? How do we recruit A players into our down lines and create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio.
What's up, guys? Please know that I'm joking, but honestly, this is amazing stuff. What I want to do today is I want to you guys through. A few days ago, I was thinking through where I am in my own business, my down line, and I just thought to myself, "I wonder what's the biggest people have been able to go do because of this podcast or what I'm teaching or the course? What is that?" Anyway, I decided that I would reach out to all these people and I would ask them, "What's the thing?" I got back some crazy responses. I had no idea. What's the biggest you guys have taken away? What's the biggest thing you've learned? Tell me what's the result from which you've learned. The learning part, I love being able to see people understand stuff and get epiphanies and things like that, but it's learning for a purpose, which is to make more cash, to get more people in the down line. I know that and I'm aware of that, I'm cognizant of that, and that's honestly, one of the biggest bars of success that I care about.
When we're off and we're selling, I want you to think about it this way. I build a lot of sales funnels for a lot of people, for myself. Anyways, large individuals, school, you'd all know the names if I said. Anyway, I don't know if I'm allowed to. It's been fun going through and doing this. There's this really interesting thing that happens. I want you to think about your MLM's product. Can you sell your MLM's product? Yeah. Can you sell your MLM's opportunity? Right, I'm sure. Yeah, absolutely. What happens, though ... Let's say you're standing with a friend, someone that you would love, or someone that you just met, but somebody that you would like to be inside the opportunity. What happens when another person walks up and just talks up like crazy to MLM, like, "This is amazing. Oh, my gosh. This is incredible. It completely changed my life." They do that in front of someone who's not in the MLM. You'd be like, "Duh. Steven, of course, the guy is going to freak out and be amazed and be like, 'This is amazing. There really is something to this.'"
There's this third party validation that's going on that matters like crazy. I remember there was a ... It's going to make me sound really conceited. There was this time, there was this event going on at Click Funnels HQ, and I had been publishing a lot. We were able to go and help a whole bunch of people. It was a lot of fun. I walked in the door, there was a bunch of people that turned around, like, "Oh, my gosh. It's Steve Larsen." They'd come up and they start taking pictures and things like that. This guy walks up and he goes, "What are you, some kind of celebrity or something?" I was like, "No, I wouldn't say that. I'm not trying to be. I really like what I do and I talk about it." Some guy next to him was like, "This is Steve Larsen. Oh, my gosh. Really incredible." Crazy. To an awkward amount. I was like, "Okay. Thank you." [inaudible 00:03:37]
What happened to that guy? I feel really awkward that I just said that story. Think about it with you. Is somebody going to walk up and be like, "Oh, my gosh," whatever your name is, "You're amazing. You're incredible." I'm just trying to be real here and open and honest with you. Are there other people who will, right now, walk up when they see you and be like, "It's you in the flesh. Oh, my gosh"? I don't care what you think about him, but if the president of the United States was to walk in your house, you would go (gasps), "Wow." That awe feeling. "Wow." Have that feeling of (gasps). That feeling, that internal reaction to what is going on. Will somebody else have that reaction when you walk in the room?
Guys, it is my strong, firm belief that if you want recognition in this planet, do not seek it. It is a gift that comes to those who have been actively trying to bless human societies, to bless the human race, to bless people or prospective customers, buyers. Does that make sense? People who are actually delivering real value. Don't go out and ... Guys. If anyone goes and rents cars that are fancy and takes pictures in front of them for the social media profile, I'm going to slap you. I am so against that. Be real, be ethical, be honest. When people think about your MLM, when people this about your opportunity, do they have the reaction of (gasps), "Wow. Oh, my gosh. That's amazing. Whoa"? That honor feeling. Do they have that? If they don't, it's okay. Just be honest about it. Is that there? If it's not, that's okay. If it is there, that's great. Identify why. Turn that up. That's part of what makes you talkable.
You cannot talk somebody into joining your MLM. If you can, they may not be the right person to get in. Very hard to get those kinds of ... The best kinds of people I like to go recruit are the people that are hard to recruit because they're busy individuals. They have so much going on already. That is the best person on planet Earth for me to go get because they're active individuals. I don't have to hold a cattle prod to their back to get them to do anything. In order to create that feeling about what you do, who you are, your reputation, and again, I'm trying to let you know use this for good. Don't be a schmuck about it. I know that everyone listening ... By the way, we're getting 150 downloads a day on this podcast. I did not know that until I just looked at it. Really cool. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate that. I am actively trying to change the MLM industry and thanks for joining me on this journey.
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know I don't care what MLM you're in, when people either hear about it or they learn your opportunity, or they are for the first time, seeing your product, how do you create the feeling of (gasps), "Wow"? It will not be by you talking about you. That's the fastest way to feel and look and be and be perceived as conceited and a self-righteous snob. An element of credibility is still needed. How do you do that? Here's one of the easiest ways to do it.
I remember I was building a funnel for this lady. She was from Australia, but she used to live in Africa. They escaped Africa. Really interesting story. I don't know if I should tell all of it because there's actually some really scary elements to it. They literally ran. There was actual gunshots. It was actually a pretty scary story. She ran. They got out of Africa where they were living and they moved over to Australia. When they were in Australia, she had to go through the incredible, ridiculous mound of paperwork that it took in order to get a visa to be in Australia. I don't know if they ran straight to Australia, but eventually, they went to do their paperwork, they got over there. She became an expert at this process. She was able to drastically and severely lower the pain needed for someone to get into Australia. We were making this funnel where in three steps, you could get a visa to Australia. She was very, very good at it. She was an expert at it.
She helped a whole lot of people get in. She had all of these case studies and testimonials of people that she had helped, people who were saying, "I needed to get a visa quickly," or "I needed this," or "I needed that." The process is years for some people. What we did not do is make a video with her saying how amazing she is. That doesn't sell anybody. It just lets the world know what you think about yourself. When I have people apply to join my down line, I do not have a video of me saying how awesome I am. I have tons of video of other people saying how much I've been able to help them. Lots of cool success stories. Tons of other people who are like, "My gosh, this guy changed my life."
If I say it, it feels a little weird. You might be feeling right now, "Man, Steve had never talked this way." That's the reason why. If I come out and I say that, people are like, "Oh, my gosh. This guy is kind of full of himself." Even though it's important to be confident, it's important to know you're good, it's important to know when to talk about yourself, but come on, no one wants to hear that from everybody all the time. In fact, really, hardly ever. How do you do this? One of the easiest ways to do this is just go gather cool testimonials and stories about what you've been able to do for other people in their life and use that as your sales message. If at all, just include it with the sales message that you have to sell your opportunity, to sell the product.
If your MLM has loaded you up with testimonials, it works if they're generic ones that came from the MLM. If you can get them about you, if you can get them about how cool it is to be on your team, oh, my gosh, that is so powerful because now you're not the only one selling. The burden is spread. It's no longer just on your back to say, "Look how cool I am. Yeah. I do know what I'm doing. This team is really cool." Now you have a whole bunch of people that are like, "Oh, my gosh. This is incredible. This has been life changing. It has changed everything for me. Thank you so much. This is incredible." Does that make sense?
There's good testimonials and there's bad testimonials. Not all testimonials are created equal. Bad testimonials are when someone's standing there and they're like, "Hey. I didn't know if I should come to this even or join this down line. I'm so glad I did. If you think that you want to do this, you should." That's a stupid testimonial, okay? Those are dumb. The way to make good testimonials is, we have to understand the backstory of the individual who is talking. Otherwise, we do not relate to what they they are saying. I like to use something called an epiphany bridge script. I literally will hand that script to the person who's giving the testimonial and I'll say, "Answer the questions for this script. What's your backstory? What kind of desires did you have internally about you? What were the desire you had externally? What did you want to go accomplish or get or see have happen? What kind of objections did you have? What were the unexpected walls? When you got over those walls, what was the new plan? Now that you got over the wall, what's the brand new plan?"
Then next after that it's like, "What conflict did you hit again, the unexpected thing that happened?" When we know what those stories ... Then what did you accomplish at the end? When you know what that backstory is to the individual, that is the testimonial. That is so much powerful. Go find a Hollywood movie that does not have that script in it. What's fascinating is when you get people to do that, they will connect on an emotional level. What's happening inside the prospect's head, what's happening inside their head is they are saying, "Oh, my gosh. I relate to this person. Now Steve is not just trying to sell me on why I should join his down line. This lady, this person, this guy, they are ... Huh. I totally thought the same thing. I totally had the same kind of conflict, the same unexpected thing. I was similar to that."
Now what happens, they reach out to that person. I don't care if that testimonial of that person, I don't care if that person brings them into the down line. It still helps me. Why would I care about that? It makes me sellable without me selling myself. If you don't have testimonials and you've been walking around, talking to people, and lets say did you have the ones from your MLM, that's fine, that's great, but they are nowhere near the amount of power as to when you get someone else to say them. "Oh, man, I joined Steve's team. I got the product of the MLM Steven's in. Incredible. It was amazing. So cool. I had serious pain here or I really wanted this to happen," and they go into the internal and the external desires. They go through the different walls and they go through the different conflicts that happened.
Then they're like, "Dang." I have a whole string of those kinds of videos and I have it next to the application that I make people fill out when they want to join my down line. It's part of the process I have them go through. They're real testimonials. Those are my friends now and they're people that I get to work and hang out with. That's all I'm trying to say. If you want to turn up the sexy on what you're doing, if you want to turn up the sexy, go get testimonials. One of the things, just because I am a script writer, when I say that to you, you're probably now convinced that ... I'm trying to back track. We're going to exit Steven doing a podcast right now and enter my mind of where I'm going right now.
I just showed you a new opportunity. I showed you a new way to get sales in. What I know happens now is there a knee jerk objection. Something that inherently pops into your head as to why that's not true, or why that won't work for you. The first one, I imagine, you're saying to yourself when I say, "Go get testimonials," is you're like, "I don't have anyone to give testimonials for me." I guarantee someone who's listening right now said that to themselves. "I don't have anyone to ask. I must need a team in order for this to work for me." That's the objection most likely going through your head for a lot of people. To that, my counter, is to say, if you don't have someone who you can go get testimonials from, the next thing that you go do is you go get people who at least know who you are and you ask the question, "What's it like to work with me?" You get those people to answer, preferably on a video. If it's just with them holding their iPhone, preferably on a video, though, and they answer the question, "What's it like to work Steve? What's it like to work with you?"
The next question that I know that most likely is going to be a knee jerk reaction to that is, "I'm not good enough anyway. I'm not actually good enough ... I haven't done anything for anybody yet. Crap. I'm realizing that I don't know that anyone could give me a testimonial." That's another ... We're exiting the podcast episode, going into Steve's mind as he's starting to look around and say ... As I say this to you, most likely the large majority of you are going to say X, Y, and Z. In that scenario, if you're like, "I don't know if anyone could actually give me a testimonial," my gosh, guys, then go find somebody that you can do some for. I don't care if you do it for free. That's actually how I started in a lot of this game. I found somebody, I looked at their business, I looked at their stuff, I looked at the scenario and I was like, "You know what? With this kind of scenario, I could blow that person up" and I did, and I recorded the story. It's the story that launched me.
You got to find a way to get the story. Exit the podcast episode right now, go back to Steven in his own internal conversation which can be a scary place. He's saying to himself, I know that when I go get testimonials, other people are going to say, "I don't have camera equipment. What kind of time is this going to take? I don't know that I have the resources to go get something like a testimonial. I don't know how to do video. I don't know how to put this stuff together." Go back into the episode, and now I've got something to say to that. I'm trying to help you guys see it doesn't matter what you're saying. Any new idea that you seed inside somebody's head, whether you're selling them on your MLM, you're selling them on your product, you have to be prepared and look forward and have foresight for the objections they will most likely have, and have a counter to it.
I guarantee you listening to this right now, most of you are probably listening to it on your phone. It actually is more authentic a lot of times, and it actually sells a little better, and actually a lot of times it'll make you more believable when the people are using their own iPhones and sending you the video. That's it. I'm sure there's free software where you can drop a series of your videos, or just put your videos ... Anyway. Put them on YouTube. When someone's like, "I'm thinking about it," be like, "Oh, yeah, cool. Let me send you a few videos real quick so you know what this team is about." It's just the video testimonials of people who are basically selling you without selling you. Selling your opportunity without selling your opportunity. Selling your product without selling the product.
It's one of the most powerful ways where it's not such a rigid script. It does help if you follow the format I was just saying. It's not such a rigid script, though. Having them says, "Look, other people have basically proven that I'm not a schmuck." That's basically it. If you can get that to happen, if you're not the one saying it, of course ... If I go ask a car salesman, "I don't know if I should get another car," what are they going to say? "Oh, yeah, you should totally get another car." That's why you're not believable when you say those kinds of things about yourself. "I've done this and I've spoken here and I'm on Forbes and [inaudible 00:17:40]." It comes across very conceited and it's not believable. The way to get around it and the way to sell people without selling, one of the easiest ways is to gather tons of testimonials.
Those of you guys who have existing down lines, go ask your down lines for testimonials about you. Ultimately, that's what people are buying. We all know that from the classic cliché and phrases, ultimately people are purchasing you, not the MLM. Get them about you and find a way to deliver them as part of your onboarding or prospecting methods, whether using sales funnels or not. Whatever. Put them on YouTube and you can use them in different areas. Put them on your own website if you have one. Transcribe them. Put them on your blog.
One of the ones I got here, which is really, really cool, super cool, I think the world of her. She's amazing. She went through and she said, "I haven't had any money success ..." Meaning in the past she was having a hard time selling stuff. She came in and she bought the Secret MLM Hacks program, and I want to share with you the results. This has been amazing. She said, "I have three girls. Oldest just turned five so they're home with me all the time and my husband is in the Army, and he's gone a lot." I'm paraphrasing pieces, personal data. You know what I mean? She said, "I'm bootstrapping this whole thing. Because of that, I went through your entire course. I took tons of notes, filled out the workbooks. Now I'm building as much as I possibly can to start getting immediate results and hopefully get things flowing quickly. I'm also trying to find other ways to bring cash in."
"Basically, I am a crazy lady who has big fat dreams of getting our family into a financial position where my husband doesn't have to work all the time and can stay a positive service for him. You taught me how to make it all possible even with my babies. I wake up early and work late. While my successes haven't been huge yet, I've learned a ton." This was pretty cool. She said, "I don't know the correct way to say it, but before taking this, one out of every five people I showed my product to bought. Since the course," and she's learned how to sell. She's learned a lot ... I'm sorry. I'm stumbling here. She's learned a lot more about marketing. She said, "At least one out of every three people is buying from me right now." That is so sweet. Anyway, super cool. She's incredible and awesome.
I'm grabbing the next one here also. It's pretty cool. She said, "Hey, Steve, one of the cool things I've gained from your course is realizing how important it is to start publishing regularly. I started a podcast right away, 10 days ago, and have started 10 episodes. After the third, I had someone reach out and tell me they were loving the information giving, and they were excited." She's now prospecting. She's getting leads already. That's why ... Oh, man. Go get it. If you are sick and tired of where you are in your MLM business, it takes a giant shock of energy, a huge shift, a massive sacrifice, something your side to go and actually make a huge difference and change what's been happening.
She said, "They had been discouraged because their MLM recently pushed home parties, and so was I. I was able to chat with her about the growing power of doing this another way, so the product. So fun to see these people are responding so quickly to my podcast. It's gradually moving up in the iTunes charts in just 10 days." Super cool, guys. Lots and lots of cool things. People are recruiting like crazy. One of the coolest ones so far, because this has just been a lot. Not just from ... It's cool when people learn stuff. I want the outcome, though. I really, really, really want the outcome for everybody. It's been happening. It's been working. One of the craziest testimonials so far has been somebody set up some of the things I was talking about on Sunday, they turned traffic on, on Monday, and they had someone in their down line on Tuesday. It was nuts. That's just one example. Obviously, an extreme example, but there's been a whole bunch of others as well.
People are recruiting. People are getting more into their down lines. It's just not fluff stuff. Stuff actually works. I just got my 225th person applying to join my down line, my personal one, let alone all the other people that I teach how to do it, too. Anyway, hopefully that was helpful to you. Go out and start thinking about how you can get your street cred and how you can document it in a cool way. What's super fun too, is ... If you're gutsy about it, call your shot and say publicly, if you're publishing regularly be like, "I'm going to go out and I'm going to do X," and publish the journey as you pursue X. Even if you don't hit X, the pursuit of that is followable. As you go, people will give you testimonials even for that. Figure out what it is that you can go do to get people who have sent you videos and have sent you testimonials.
I have a file I collect them in, so that when I need them, I can use them and it works super well. Massive way to sell without selling and very, very helpful. It's actually a whole module in the course Secret MLM Hacks. All right guys, thanks so much. Hopefully that was helpful to you and in fact, I know it will be if you do it. Thanks so much and see you on the next episode. Bye.
Hey. Thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Would you like me to teach your own down line five simple MLM recruiting tips for free? If so, go download your free MLM Masters Pack by subscribing to this podcast at secretmlmhacksradio.com.

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