Don’t sell, build relationships. That’s what we always hear about network marketing. It has been repeated a thousand times over by network marketing experts. And yes, as professional network marketers, we are called upon to honestly recognize and genuinely practice the value of building relationships as a way of life.
And yet, selling is integral to marketing. We should lay much emphasis, in fact, on the selling. We need to sell. It’s called for because it’s where the money comes in. It’s our way to make a living, and if we don’t make a sale, and carry on selling after a sale, then we lose the point of why we’re in marketing and why we’re making the effort to build relationships with those who are in business with us. So, selling is ever present in the network marketing equation. Yes, it is put aside somewhere in the back of our minds as we build relationships with potential leads because we don’t need to be too obvious, but it is our primary intention and fixed objective to close the deal. If we don’t get the selling part accomplished at some point with one prospect, we move on to the next prospect and play the process once again —why? — because we need to sell.
We hate to admit it, and it is laughable, but it is with the selling part that network marketing has earned it’s unsavory reputation. We hear it being said about network marketers being two-faced, smooth-tongued, phony, scheming, and disreputable — and it’s for the reason that people have been traumatized of being duped, manipulated and lied to. Although we truly build relationships from the bottom of our heart, yet we are regarded with suspicion — alleged that we’re forced to suck up because we need the other person to make the sale. Those are pretty blunt assumptions but, hey, can we really blame the public for being cynical when alongside the legit businesses, there are the illegal MLM scams and the unlawful pyramid schemes?
Let’s just keep it real, we are notoriously branded thanks to it’s ill-repute. It is the usual first impression about the network 
marketing profession. We hear plenty of customer feedback about being manipulated and sold some crummy product, or being misled because of some false advertising, or ripped off because of some fabricated income report. Let’s blame it on the unprofessional, or the amateur, or the untrained, or the inexperienced, or the incompetent, or maybe they’re just downright rude salespeople. But it’s hustlers like these who give network marketing a bad name. Nonetheless, we also see their point: they need to sell, they need to make a living, they need to make money …they just do it by means of offensive in-your-face and thick-skinned money-hungry selling.
So now, let us be true to ourselves, when all is said and done, it is and will always be about the money. Selling is equal to marketing. But to add to the equation of selling and the resulting money, network marketing is also about giving. Sounds too cliché, but no, selling and giving really do go hand in hand with network marketing. It is because we build relationships in network marketing that we are obliged to be giving. It is the giving part which renders to the selling part the human aspect in network marketing. Giving is the reason, the excuse, and the justification for successful selling.
For the true and the legit network marketing businesses, that’s the whole idea behind building relationships. Giving is about working together with people. Giving is sharing helpful content. Giving is providing expert responses to questions. Giving is awarding a free offer or holding a contest as an additional benefit to customer loyalty. Giving is training, coaching, counseling your membership base. Giving is all about treating people right in this people business. It is about imparting due respect and garnering respect, passing on trust and gaining trust in return, offering your loyalty and acquiring their loyalty in due time, to be granted the right to do business with them and then taking that right as the opportunity to sell.
Selling is supplementary; it’s an add-on, an accompanying extra, an additional benefit to all that you are giving. Money-making is consequential, a tangible bonus to your efforts in building relationships.
Network marketing is effective money-making because there is giving as well as selling. If the rules are played right, everybody can be really happy. Because whatever sale is made at the end of the day, you’re indebted because someone gave you something and at the same time you’re gratified because you gave someone something. I’ll say network marketing is out-and-out giving and just sort of selling. There is a great deal more to give than to sell. How? First of all, you’re selling a product, there in itself is giving as you’re supplying to a person’s need for something. In addition to that, you’re also giving an income opportunity — that’s equivalent to giving an advantage to someone who is disadvantaged in life. How can anyone question the authenticity of that?
All the giving is what makes network marketing so reputable, so highly-regarded, so honest. Giving + Selling = Network Marketing. Hey, maybe it’s an equation that’s on a par with the mechanical equation of kinetic energy. Yeah, go figure. Main thing: the giving plus the selling should be your fundamental guiding principle in network marketing, just as indispensable as the principle of kinetic energy is to the law of physics and to the law of life.
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