One of the more important criteria necessary to your success building a solid Network Marketing business is Unique Products and unique means different things to different people. Many Networkers will say that a product is unique as long as it isn’t already being sold on the market, or if the product is one of a kind, or if you can fill a niche and create an income from that. But what does unique really mean and how will that criteria help you create a substantial and progressively growing residual income? There are actually three different areas to consider. Three criteria necessary to consider a product line as unique… And all three must be present. Products must serve multiple different categories. This means not one-dimensional and therefore giving a wider range of possible customers. For example if the product line is nutritional only, you’re losing customers based on only half the population is interested in nutritionals. Now while half the population is a good thing, having multiple products that are attractive to the WHOLE population is much better. Companies that offer a broad spectrum of products that actually fall in to multiple industries (such as Personal Hygiene, Beauty, Household, Nutrition, etc), have a greater opportunity to gain customers, since most people agree that shopping from one ‘Store’ is easier and preferable to multiple stores or companies. Also, since the above-mentioned industries are each multiple-billion dollar industries, the income potential for the individual involved in more than one of them will increase accordingly. Products must be unique enough to have patents on them. Many companies, especially nutritional companies, are just ‘me-too’ companies. They figure that just making the product seem unique will be enough. So they change the flavor, or the color, or the bottle, or the so-called prime ingredient, then re-name it and call it Unique. Cool. The problem with that is there are now a bunch of other companies marketing a very similar product with no uniqueness and no patenting ability since all they did was change how the product appears. To own a patent, a product must go through clinical trials and produce a desired result that NO OTHER product does. If there is no patent then the product really is nothing more than a copy-cat, something just thrown into a bottle, a jar, or a packet. That’s why in the nutritional industry for example, a person can walk into any store and buy all kinds of items that have trace amounts of healthful elements. In a patented product, those elements are profoundly present and effective. But in a ‘me-too’ product, the effects of healthful elements (eg. garlic or gucosamine), are more often than not, minimized or even neutralized due to mass production ingredients and inability to use the patented formula of the original recipe. So be aware of copy-cat products. They can produce some excitement out of the gate, and if the MLM company is managed extremely well, may even last a few years. But once the initial hype has run its course, people will realize that these products are just like all the others. Products have to serve the masses. This is crucial! Many one-dimensional companies are faced with this problem: You the distributor have to SELL or convince the prospect that they NEED this product… and so do all your potential down lines! Most single-product companies have products that prospects at this time in their lives simply do not use! So the first thing a distributor needs to do is convince the prospect they NEED the item in question. All kinds of issues come up from that. Good salespeople are hard to find for one thing. And since most people hate to sell or just plain suck at it, how in the world will a substantial and progressively growing residual income ever be achieved when all of your future customers must come through the efforts of people who can not or will not sell? The MLM industry is not about sales (believe it or not). To be successful here, you need to be able to help people. That’s it. Help people find solutions to their problems. When you do that, people will want to buy from you and get involved with you. Now the best way to help someone is to show him or her a product that they already use, but has the uniqueness already mentioned in the first two points. So basically, all the prospect has to do now, in order to take advantage of your offer or your company, is switch stores. I mean, they’re already buying similar products from somewhere else – albeit inferior ‘me-too’ products – right? So if you can help them by either saving them money or increasing the effectiveness of the products (or both), you will gain a new customer. If every single person you meet or know or who visits your website, is already using similar products to what your company is offering, then they are a potential new customer when you meet the above criteria. Add in the moneymaking aspect (since stores like Wal-Mart or Costco or Safeway or all other retail stores they currently buy from don't pay them to shop there), you also have a much greater potential of a substantial long-term business. Written by Karl Airey Net Mentoring Inc. www.topdogteam.com
