subject: MLM Training – Evaluating a Company's Product Offering [print this page] MLM Training Evaluating a Company's Product Offering
A network marketing company's product offering will play a significant role in your success. Companies that offer unique products make your job a lot easier when using a product focused approach. It can be an advantage for a company to offer a large variety of products but this can also be a disadvantage. Here are three areas to consider when evaluating a company's product offering.
The first is their flagship product. Many network marketing companies have one or two premium products that they usually lead with. If at all possible, these products should be unique in the marketplace. One thing you can look for is to see if there are any patents registered or pending for that product. This will tell you if they really are offering a unique product or simply just positioning it that way. Ideally their main product is a consumable product that can be purchased for an amount that is about the same as the monthly minimum purchase requirement. This allows you to set up a simple Autoship that will cover your minimum purchases and allow you to get just enough product to use up before the next order cycle. This way you won't end up with a huge stockpile of product. If you are trying to encourage other people to try it then either provide some of your supply or sign them up as an Autoship customer. This will generally benefit your business more than simply selling product to them.
A large number of different products offered by a network marketing company can either be seen as a positive or negative depending on your point of view. The commonly accepted view is that more products is better so that when a prospect is not interested in a particular product you have something else to offer them. The problem is that when you have a large product offering, it's unlikely that many of the products have unique features. This means that it has to compete with every other similar product on price. Often times it is better if the company only offers one or two unique products. This allows them to position themselves as a leader in that market and promote their product more effectively. It also gives you a better angle as a distributor as you only need to present the unique benefits of the product to your prospects. Since you are the only supplier of this product, you don't need to worry about alternative avenues for them to purchase it and the price point is much less of an issue.
Having a limited product line also makes it much easier for distributors to learn about the product and gain the knowledge they need to speak intelligently about it. In cases where you are using a product focused presentation to generate leads, this is very important. If you are using a business opportunity approach to recruiting then it is not really relevant whether the company has one product or one hundred products. The person will be joining because of the team and the opportunity, not because of the product.
