Reflections on Attraction and Relationship Marketing

Reading Ann Sieg’s “7 Great Lies of Network Marketing” and “Renegade Network Marketer” triggered a period of reflection regarding my personal evolution as a marketer reaching back more than 30 years into the past. My early days in the sales and marketing arena were spent as an associate and buyer in an outdoor sports retail store up in New England.

Starting early in attraction and relationship marketing ..

Even at that time my approach to retail sales and marketing revolved around a “value-based” approach that often confused the store owner. Unlike a few of my colleagues that used high pressure tactics to increase their sales usually without developing an ongoing relationship with the customer, my approach centered on first learning what the customer needed, finding the solution to fulfill that need and often educating them to better use the product they ended up buying. The advantage to this approach … it developed a positive relationship with the customer where they ultimately became long-lasting, repeat clients that ended up spending far more money than the one-off large sales of the high pressure associates.  This is the heart of attraction and relationship marketing ……

Hiding the attraction and rise of traditional networking …

Several years later I was introduced to and became a distributor in a couple of network marketing/MLM organizations with great products, a decent compensation plan but a sales/marketing system based on the old traditional cold and warm prospecting techniques found in those opportunities. Though I remained highly enthusiastic and followed the guidance of my uplines in trying to build a business, the end result was the same as 95% of MLM distributors …. I ultimately quit.

The reason why independent of the great product line and comp plan, when push came to shove there is only so much rejection that most of us can take. There were far too many “No’s” to get to the few “Yes” responses and the financial burden took its toll. The old school network marketers had no idea what attraction and relationship marketing were never mind using those techniques.

The most frustrating part was I knew that if only there was a way to find a set of like-minded prospects, the businesses would have likely been a success. Trouble was, the internet was relatively new and the internet network marketing plans that are virtually exploding today just were just a glimmer in people’s eyes.

The re-awakening …..

In actuality, Ann’s books did far more than trigger this period of reflection, it validated all of my earliest philosophies on sales and marketing; both during my successful days in retail and not-so successful early ventures in direct sales and marketing. For that reason alone, I highly recommend both the “7 Great Lies…” and “Renegade Network Marketer” for aspiring attraction marketers and home-based business owners.

Where “Renegade Network Marketer” helps to clearly define the new network marketing model and allow me to realize my enduring belief in attraction marketing principles to build relationships, it primarily identifies what needs to be done. How do you move forward and learn the way to implement the new model on the web? Investigate methods to actuate attraction and relationship marketing and Web 2.0 social networking tools by visiting sites like “Renegade University” by Mike Klingler and Mike Dillard “Building on a Budget” for starts!