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ally so certain of it that I recently started my own direct sales and networking company.

So let’s get back to the first question: Why won’t people listen to you anymore?

I believe there are two reasons people ignore us. Both have to do with the actual words and phrases people use when making their presentations, long or short, formally in a meeting or informally in the elevator.

1.For presenting the business. The use of certain words meant to impress the listener, but which turn off the good ones and attract the weak ones.

2.For the product. The use of words meant to impress the listener, but which in fact result in the familiar eyes-glazing-over scene, and you know the rest.

Let’s take them in turn.

PRESENTING THE BUSINESS

There are five things people throughout network marketing land say in their meetings that tend to shut down all good people—because those people know better. Here they are.

1.It’s easy. Anyone can do it.

2.You can make big money almost immediately in this business.

3.Everyone will want this product/service. It sells itself.

4.Ours is the best deal/company/pay plan/management in the history of the world/out there.

5.All you have to do is talk to people you know.

These five statements are intended to impress someone with the ease with which one can become successful. And perhaps they’re meant to give the listener some encouragement and a can-do attitude so they’ll say yes. However, each one is either false or ignorant, and anyone who has had any business experience, including anyone who has spent a day doing network marketing, knows it.

Ask yourself these very five questions, as you remember your own past one to nine years in the business.

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Has it really been easy? Is it easy today? Have you found that “anyone” can do it?

Did you make big money immediately?

Did the products/services really sell themselves?

Is it really the best company for everyone? Or maybe just for someone with your values? (Compare those who prefer the adventure of a start-up to someone who prefers a more conservative, established company.)

And last, have you found any truth to the fifth statement—that all you have to do to become a success is talk to people you know?

Many people have told me that going to people they know has been the very worst thing they ever did—for their network marketing career and their personal relationships. (No place to go for Christmas dinner.) Bottom line, I think we all know none of these promises are true. But my students, who agreed, they told me they said those things because they didn’t know what else to say—and that anyway, that’s what their upline said and told them to say.

That is a big problem, because here’s who these five promises do attract: the desperados—those who are hoping for a quick financial or personal fix. Since there is no business without obstacles, they drop out at the first sign of trouble, adding to the dropout statistics that make us look so bad to some people.

Now ask yourself this question: Whose fault was it that they dropped out, as so many seem to do? Shall we blame the recruit who’s “just lazy” and not committed or can’t see the big picture? Or might it be the pitch itself that draws in precisely the kinds of people who can be goaded into thinking it will be a piece of cake to succeed? Could that be the reason that the dropout rate is so high? That we’re unwittingly asking for entirely the wrong ones with the “five worst things” programming?

I, for one, vote to stamp out the constant and pathetic repeating of the “Five Worst Things to Say to a Good Prospect” from all company literature and trainings, in meeting rooms, and on leader-led telephone conference calls around the country. Read: Let’s stop attracting the wrong people to our profession. It is not easy, and not everyone can do it. Do you think that’s how Google and Apple and Microsoft attract their people? By advertising that their job opportunities are easy and for anyone? No wonder the dropout rates are so unbelievably high in our field. We’re attracting mostly wrong ones with our recruiting verbiage.

Why not start asking for the best ones, and have fewer of them? In this case, less may indeed be more. Wouldn’t fewer people drop out if they were more qualified in the first place, because we start asking for people who know it is not easy to succeed in a business of one’s own? People who stop asking “How fast can I make money?” and instead ask: “What does it take to become successful in this business?”

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PRESENTING THE PRODUCT

Do you represent a product line that you love madly? And you can’t figure out why, when you present or describe your products, the other person’s eyes glaze over, or they suddenly have to go now? I cataloged hundreds of scripts and phrases that people told me they were using to describe their products— nutritionals, personal care, and home cleaning products, Internet and telecom services, skin care lines, candles—you name it, I got samples. After thousands of hours of discussion and review of these, I noticed that there were certain characteristics of the language they used that caused listeners everywhere to turn off—including the very people who used them, when someone presented the same words to them.

There’s something about the way a seller talks, and everyone reacts pretty much the same way. I noticed three characteristics of what I now call “seller talk.” It’s immediately recognizable to anyone who hears it. When I ask my students, “Can you tell when a seller starts talking?” they all say “Yes!” And when I ask if they tend to go toward that person or away from them, they all cry out, “Away!” But what if you didn’t know you were sounding like a seller?

Here are the three dead giveaways that tip off the listener that the speaker is a seller. Most of them represent language that is again meant to impress the listener. Only it has the opposite effect, as my students have learned over many years of getting all those glazed eyes and “What’s for lunch?” comments.

1.Generalities. General, vague nondescript words that speak to no one in particular. If you use words that speak to no one in particular, who will respond? For example, in response to the question that so many people in our profession dread, “What do you do?,” we hear responses like:

I’m in the wellness business.

I help people get financial independence.

I do telecommunications.

Ask yourself, if you heard any of those, would your ears perk up or not? Would you lean in closer wondering what they did?

2.Technobabble. Jargon, technical terms, scientific names, names of the products, the name of the company, names of diseases, and so on. Technobabble is any words a 13-year-old would not understand. For example, say someone asks you the question, “What do you do?” Say this response out loud. It’s one of many I got in my script

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classes. “Oh, I’m a wellness consultant. I market unique, patented nutraceuticals.”

Or, “I have my own home-based business, and I educate people on how they can protect and build their immune systems with glyconutritionals. These are the same nutrients as in mothers’ breast milk, but we don’t get them so now we have autoimmune diseases on the rise and . . .”

Or, “I do ABC Company, the greatest company in the history of the world.”

What normal consumer would have the vaguest idea of what these three people are talking about? And why would they care? Their words are total jargon and technobabble—to the listener. Remember, you’re talking to a normal consumer person—someone who has not learned any of the jargon you had to learn when you signed up. Were you saying any words like those above before you got trained by your company? Would you respond to someone who spoke to you this way if you asked them what they did? Would you really want to find out more?

3. Hype. There are three kinds: promises, chest-beating, and screaming.

Promises. Those are the usual promises about something good about to happen to the prospect in the future. For example, you will lose weight with this product. You’ll get rid of X with this product. This will save you money . . .

Question 1: Can you really predict the future for someone

else?

Question 2: Who else makes these promises about their products? Hmm. So, how will you distinguish yourself if you sound just like everyone else they hear?

Chest-beating. “This is the most wonderful, the greatest, the most fine and fabulous product out there.” These comments, when made by a seller, are suspect, are they not? Do you believe everything advertisers tell you on TV, radio, Internet, or newspapers? Claims made by people who sell stuff are suspect, aren’t they? It’s not about truth, but perception. If the seller is saying it, can it really all be believed? Respect your audience. They’re just as smart as you. Why expect to influence someone else with words that you wouldn’t believe yourself, if you heard them from another seller?

Screaming. Overstating and exaggerations. For example, “Earn $3,000 to $5,000 per month!! Easy!! We do the selling for you!!” This is the BEST BAR NONE weight loss product ever

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invented!!!!!” On web sites, screaming appears as TOO MANY WORDS IN CAPITAL LETTERS, red type, and lots of fonts and exclamation points.

According to Strunk and White, the bible of writing style: “When you overstate, readers will be instantly on guard, and everything that has preceded your overstatement as well as everything that follows it will be suspect in their minds because they have lost confidence in your judgment or your poise.”2

So now what? If you take out all the words in your product presentation that are any kind of seller talk, what’s left? What could you say instead?

Well, how about telling a story? A real one? Like your own? Instead of trying to impress someone by repeating the clichés or technobabble you’ve heard, what if you tell your personal, authentic product story? The assumption behind this strategy is this: There are others out there who will want the product for the same reasons you did. After all, aren’t there people who might want a product that could maybe do for them what it has for you? Someone who feels the same way you do about wanting to, say, lose weight without surgery? Or who wants to get rid of those irksome little aches and pains—but without drugs? What about reaching out to them? You know, like-minded people?

Telling your product (or service) story can be accomplished here with a simplified two-step process. The formula is laid out in detail in my new book

If My Product’s So Great, How Come I Can’t Sell It?3

First, go to the remembering room of your mind. (not the impressing room—the remembering room.) Complete this sentence: Before I started using this product, I was someone who . . .

Put a couple of very specific “befores,” such as: “Before I started using this product, I was someone who had achy knees when I went up and down stairs. Eight months ago I fell down the steps and hurt my knee. And ever since I had to have therapy because it hurt so bad. My doctor gave me some drugs, which helped, but they gave me stomach problems and I was worried about other side effects.”

Then the formula adds a phrase like this: “Then I tried this [other] product, and after [time period—not to exaggerate] I noticed that . . .”

So for example, here’s how this student’s remembering room script ended up: “Before I started using this product, I was someone who had achy knees when I went up and down stairs. Eight months ago I fell down the steps

2William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, The Elements of Style, 4th edition (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 2000), 73.

3Kim Klaver’s new book is available at http://whowho911.com or [phone].

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and hurt my knee. And ever since I had to have therapy because it hurt so bad. My doctor gave me some drugs, which helped, but they gave me stomach problems and I was worried about other side effects.

“Then I tried this new cream and rubbed it on my knee. And almost right away, I noticed the pain in my knee was almost gone. I immediately stopped the drugs and one week later I stopped the therapy. It’s been five months now and my knee feels fine. And I can exercise again like I did before I got hurt.”

That is her personal story about this particular product (her company has others) and she chose it because the change she got with it meant the most to her. This is right from her remembering room. She was not trying to impress or attract anyone else. This was all about her story.

So now, you try it. First, pick the fix or change you got that meant the most to you. Start either with the problem you had, or the fix you got—the before and after you care about. You must do that by going to your own remembering room. Stay in there. Do not go to the impressing room. That’s very easy to do and you’ll know it happened when seller talk starts coming out of your mouth.

The remembering room experience is about one thing—describing you and your before and after. You go there to remember and describe your before and after—not to impress, play to, or “get” anyone else. This will be about finding people like you, remember? So we start by describing you.

Next we’ll put your story into what I call a “first date script” format. This particular script is designed to answer the question: What do you do? (The If My Product’s So Great . . . book shows many other uses of the script.) Let’s try it. Someone asks you, “So what do you do?”

First you’ll see a 37-second first date script, then the seven-second version. You can choose when to use either. Read this out loud so your ears can hear.

You: I market a product for people who have achy knees when they go up and down stairs, like I used to. Eight months ago I fell down the steps and hurt my knee. And ever since I had to have therapy because it hurt so bad. My doctor gave me some drugs, which helped, but they gave me stomach problems and I was worried about other side effects.

So I tried this new cream and rubbed it on my knee. And almost right away, I noticed the pain in my knee was almost gone. I immediately stopped the drugs and one week later I stopped the therapy. It’s been five months now and my knee feels fine. And I can exercise again like I did before I got hurt.

Do you know anyone who might like to know about a product like that?

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Here is the seven-second version response to “What do you do?”

You: I market a product for people who have achy knees when they go up and down stairs, like I used to. Do you know anyone who might like to know about a product like that?

Go ahead and read these out loud, and see what your reaction might be if you met someone who said each one in response to your asking them “What do you do?”

The results thousands of my students have obtained with this kind of response have surprised nearly all of them. Maybe because it’s such a friendly, non-seller-talk kind of authentic response. They’ve gotten referrals from people they never dreamed would give them any. And they’ve made sales that will warm any heart.

I believe that the greatest obstacle to getting good people to listen to someone’s business or product presentation has been the urge to try to impress the other person. For the business presentations, the “Five Worst Things to Say,” while intended to impress, are perhaps the greatest turnoff to a good person, because they know better. Instead they seem to attract those who are weak and vulnerable. This, of course, adds to the drop out rate, since they’re not the right ones for our business. At least, not now.

For the product presentation, the urge to impress has led to massive use of seller talk, which everyone says they’d move away from if someone did it to them.

So there you have it. Be authentic. Respect your audience—your listener. Tell your story—your mini-movie. That’s what will connect and endear you to them.

So now you tell me: What do you do? I’m listening. . . .

Kim Klaver, aka Ms Stud, has been selling things she loves since she was eight. The little Dutch girl with broken English sold more Christmas cards door-to-door in her neighborhood in Grand Rapids, Michigan, than all her friends.

In her debut as a professional direct seller, Kim retailed more water filters than anyone in the company’s history—nearly $60,000 worth in her first month. Five years later with another product she loved, Kim achieved the highest position in the shortest time in the National Speakers Association’s history. For the next eight years, she shared her secrets with the entire network marketing industry through her books, audios, and classes. Her web site

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http://whowho911.com, with 5 million hits a month, has become the biggest in the industry.

Kim’s study of language began at MIT in 1970 where she nearly failed the introductory linguistics class. So, she wrote From Deep to Surface Structure, published by Harper & Row in 1971. It became the basic textbook for the introductory linguistics course at MIT and other U.S. universities. At Harvard in 1972, she earned a master’s degree in teaching and wrote language tests for children. Harcourt, Brace published the Bilingual Syntax Measure in 1972 and 1973.

Today she’s CEO of her own direct sales and networking company, Uptown Av, Inc. (http://uptownav.com). The company markets whole food nutritional supplements for people who want a dose of good nutrition in a capsule—people who know they don’t eat right, or health nuts who want highoctane supplements.

You can reach Kim Klaver by e-mail [e-mail] or [phone].