Working With People
Have you ever noticed that Successful people in Network Marketing make the effort to understand what really makes people tick … what motivates them … why do they make the choices they make?
I learned about the types of people and what motivates from a mentor of mine. Here’s what he taught me:
400 years before Jesus Christ, the Greek physician and philosopher Hippocrates wrote about the four basic personality types.
In 1921, Dr. Carl Jung wrote the most detailed book ever on this subject. He called the 4 personality types Feeler, Sensor, Thinker, and Intuitive. Florence Littauer later named them Phlegmatic, Sanguine, Melancholy, and Choleric.
Others have written books and recorded audiotapes on the subject. However, if you read some of these you soon discover (if you don’t fall asleep first) that it just doesn’t sink in. My mentor teaches a way to simplify this powerful information so that common mortals can remember and use it. He says: People fall asleep when you say "phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholy and choleric". But they understand colors.
Here’s a brief summary of his approach:
Yellows
Yellows make up 35% of the population. They are nurses, schoolteachers, UN workers … the nurturers. They give from the heart. They don't have time for themselves, because they give to everybody. Yellows have built some of the largest organizations in network marketing ... WHEN they have the belief they can do it.
How to Sponsor a Yellow
To color your way to the top, you need to learn to be a chameleon. Yellows don't want to be sold. They don't like pushy, aggressive salespeople. When you talk with a Yellow, become a Yellow. Slow the pace. Contain your excitement. Lower the volume. Yellows see excitement as hype, you trying to sell them. Don’t tell a Yellow about making $10,000 a month, because they’ll turn right off. Instead, visit with them. Skip the business. Talk about their family, their kids, their vacation. Yellows cannot work in stair step breakaway-type compensation plans. They have to be in a plan where you can put people under people and people under people. They’re best in any kind of “infinity” plan that pays them to work deep, deep, deep.
They’ll never be happy in a unilevel or a stair step breakaway plan where you put 5 people on your front line, until you hit a certain volume amount, and then you put another 5 people on your front line, etc.
Success in this plan requires all your time spent on massive first level recruiting. This doesn't work for Yellows.
MLM industry stats show the average network marketer only ever sponsors 2.7 people. So if your Yellow sponsors 3 people ... if they have to go 5 wide, then they haven't done anything. But at 2 wide, then they can put 1 of their 3 underneath somebody. And other average people can sponsor 3. Now you've got some spillover. And then here and there you get a serious business-builder who sponsors 8 or 10 people a month, and you get more spillover. When more people work together, you get more synergy. So THAT compensation plan works great with the Yellows.
Blues
BLUE’s “just wanna have fun.” They're 15% of the population. They're always in a sales business of some kind. They jump from program to program to program, looking for fun. These are the planet’s most creative people. A Blue sees the big picture instantly. They don't need or want all the details. Blues can eat an elephant, but not at one meal.
How to Sponsor a Blue
They're same as the Yellows as far as the comp plan. In the same comp plan, they can go deep, to create massive spillover and a lot of stuff happening quickly for them. That gets them excited, and they’ll stay in the business. With a Blue, talk excited, get excited. Talk about going scuba diving, sky diving, having fun, fun, fun. That's what they want. "Hey, when you meet me at the airport, I'll be wearing a Hawaiian shirt. You'll know me. I'll have a big, funny hat on." That's what they want to talk about. They’ll talk about vacations & family, but most of all they want to talk about fun things to do.
Greens
Greens are 35% of the population. They're the analytical people. They analyze it to death. They've missed millions of dollars in opportunities because they analyzed it too long. Greens can take Blue's idea to the next level. They work well in any type of complicated compensation plan. They like to figure out the Super Star Space Commander bonus that's paid out on the 3rd, 9th, & 12th levels, every other full moon.
How To Sponsor A Green
Greens believe they're the smartest people on the planet. With a Green ... in 2-3 minutes, you'll know you have a Green. They want ALL the details. You are NOT going to sell them. Don’t even try. They have to sell themselves. They'll go to the web site, they'll listen to the conference call. Then they'll go to the next website and the next link. If you have 27 links on your website, they'll go to every one. They'll read all the testimonials, all the articles, etc. Enunciate all your words correctly for a Green. Don't speak too fast. Don't speak too slowly. Be upfront. Give them all the information. Answer all their questions. Give them more websites to go to. If you call in the meantime to answer questions, they'll be abrupt. They see that as you being pushy. Let Greens analyze the information at THEIR pace. In a week or 2 or 3, they’ll call back for more information or ready to start. They’ve sold themselves; decided this is the perfect business. Greens want to feed a Blue the elephant in one meal. And that's the way the Green will build the business.
Reds
Reds are 15% of the population. They are money-motivated, money-focused. Don't bother talking to them about your family or your vacation. They don't care. They know if you get married, you're supposed to have kids. If you have kids, you're supposed to go on vacation. End of story. Don't want to talk about it.
How To Sponsor A Red
They want to talk about the money, the money, the money.
Reds do well in a stair step breakaway compensation plan, because they think network marketing is a sales business. For them, it's sell, sell, sell. In a stair step plan, they can put 5 people on their front line. If only one produces, they never go back and put somebody underneath them. They're just looking for producers, somebody who will build, build, build. The Red knows that once that first productive person in the first group of 5 hits $50,001 volume, they'll then break away. And the Red's override drops from 15% to 5%, because the other 10% goes to the person who built it. That's fine for the Red, because they understand their job is to find another Red and keep getting those 5% retentions. For them, it's a sales business.
Reds are the corporate CEOs, the "get-the-job-done" people, the ones everyone in network marketing is looking for.
But it's a fallacy. Reds are just 15% of the population, and they are absolutely not coachable. They have the biggest egos. They order people around. It works in corporate America, but not in network marketing. When a Red demands that people get on conference calls, he drives his people away. On the other hand, Reds are well-connected. You want to sponsor Reds because they’ll put you in contact with powerful people. They know business owners, governors, leaders, etc. So target Reds. But don't dare think you're going to coach them or mentor them or tell them what to do, because it's NOT going to happen. Let them do it themselves. You really have no choice, anyway.
But network marketing is NOT a sales business. It's a teaching and mentoring business.
Me mentor taught me that when you find people massively successful in a stair step breakaway type comp plan, they are the Reds, the salespeople. But with that type plan, retention is very low. If they recruit 100 people in a year, they've got just a handful left by the end of the year. But with a Yellow, if they get 100 people in the business, they'll teach & mentor. They’ll work down deep in the organization and they may have 60 or 70 still active after a year.
Opportunity Has VERY Long Legs
An observation here is that 85% of the population (Blues, Greens & Yellows) either work best or work very well with network marketing compensation plans that pay down deep or to infinity. Reds (15%) are much better with unilevel (unlimited width) plans.
Decide for yourself, but it’s always good to have the percentages as much in your favor as possible.
LISTEN to people! And wonderful things seem to happen when you actually listen. Everyone is a blend of all these colors. Personally, I’m 10% Blue, 10% Red, 30% Green, & 50% Yellow. But I’ve learned to be a chameleon to deal with people. Used to be when I came across a Green (35% of the population, remember?), I saw someone who took forever to make a decision. They’d analyze it to death.
They drove me crazy. So I'd forget about them. But look at this ... I was losing 35% of my prospects! And when a Green joins, they never quit. They're not like the Blues. You can put a Blue in the business tonight, but they'll never do anything. They'll never even activate their business. They'll just join, because they thought it would be fun. But the Blues, again, will put you in contact with a lot of good people. So the biggest secret for me was learning that network marketing is not a sales business.
It's a teaching & mentoring business. No wonder the Yellows & the Greens are so good at MLM. AND they make up 70% of the population! So let the Yellows & the Greens know that it's not their fault. The cards have been stacked against them in network marketing. And the Reds have been telling everybody the whole time that it's a sales business. Sell, sell, sell.
Network Marketing has NOTHING to do with selling. It has EVERYTHING to do with teaching, training, coaching, and mentoring people.
To YOUR Success!