Attraction Marketing (New School) Strategies versus Old School Network Marketing Strategies is similar to one boxer in the Blue corner and the other in the Red corner. Old school network marketing (blue corner) has been around for many years and has been successfully used to build some of the biggest businesses in network marketing. Big leaders in companies such as Amway and Herbalife have credited Old School strategies for their incredible success and movie star lifestyle.
There are still people using old school strategies to build a huge business in network marketing and in my opinion, there always will be. The question is not which approach out of Old school and New school is better but which one is more duplicatable, or makes more sense to you and which one makes you the most money.
In his book “Cashflow Quadrant” Robert Kiyosaki, tells a short story told to him by his “rich dad” explaining the difference between working hard or working smart. In the story two entrepreneurs each set up a separate business to supply water to a village.
The first entrepreneur carries endless buckets of water to the village while the other guy goes away for six months, and returns with a team of people. The second guy then takes a further six months to build a pipeline to take water to the village.
When the second guy with the pipeline is finally ready, he offers better quality water, more frequently and for 75% less than his competitor. Of course the second guy did very well, which ties in with the two questions Robert asks himself before considering a new business venture. These questions are responsible for making Kiyosaki rich and wealthy.
The questions are:
1) Am I building a pipeline or hauling buckets?
2) Am I working hard or working smart?
These are the types of questions you should be asking yourself if you are looking at joining a Network Marketing business or wanting to improve your existing business.
Here Are Some Examples of Hauling Buckets in A Network Marketing Business:
* Cold calling leads in your network marketing business.
* Bugging family and friends, or anyone you meet using that old school term “three foot rule”.
* All the other old school traditional network marketing techniques like letterbox drops, pushing flyers into people’s hands at the local shopping mall, pitching the check out operators in the supermarket.
Let’s face it, who wants to do all that stuff? If you’re running your business without employing some sort of system and not using leverage you are definitely hauling buckets!
New School Attraction Marketing (red corner) has come about since the birth of the internet and the information age. Attraction marketing has given network marketers an alternative way to build their business, using the pipeline system (from Kiyosaki’s story) rather than carrying buckets.
Speaking of hauling buckets, and in all fairness to Old School marketing, there is a refreshing number of Network Marketing professionals who use other methods to build their business offline. They take a much more sophisticated approach to building their business than the Old School methods.
Rather than ambushing unsuspecting prospects at shopping malls and other places, they invite individual people who have asked for information (through a friend or whatever) to a coffee shop. Or, they have a small group of interested people get together at someone’s home and show them a short video, have a coffee and a few nibbles. This kind of building a network marketing business has been around for years, in the form of parties (as Tupperware have done very successfully for many years) and meetings.
This all very relaxed, no pressure on anyone, and from all reports it’s also a lot of fun.
The idea of Attraction Marketing is to generate qualified prospects for you to speak with, by providing them with information they are seeking out. You can offer your prospects an E-book or training that they could also teach to their team, or a video training course showing them how they can create their own qualified leads.
By doing this you are offering them something of value and giving them some training to evaluate without them having to make a commitment beforehand.
Attraction Marketing is totally opposite to the old school method of attempting to “sell” to anyone within a three foot circle regardless of whether they want it or not.
Other benefits of the new school method are:
* It allows you to “attract” people to your business rather than chasing people,
* It allows you to be abundant, rather than looking desperate,
* It allows you to keep control of your business, and
* You can keep your posture even when you are new.
Before the internet existed, there was little or no opportunity for people to research the validity of your company or products. It was difficult for prospects to compare your company with hundreds of other companies so they could choose the company that felt best for them.
However, as I mentioned before it’s up to the individual which corner (attraction marketing or old school) they want to come from. Either way, remember that owning a network marketing business is supposed to be fun and not something you dread waking up to every day.
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