About Jim Hickey
I am both an educator and person who has been involved with marketing and various home-based businesses for the last 30 years. After starting to work in the retail industry in the early 1970’s, my interest in the relationship between marketing and sales has continued to grow. Even thinking back to my early days of retail, I found myself using what now might be referred to as attraction marketing methods (something I also refer to as value-based marketing) by:
-
establishing my position as an expert by helping educate the customer,
-
identifying their need (problem), and
- finding a solution that met (or often exceeded) their expectations.
How were the fruits of this effort realized? Not only was the sale consummated but the real reward came when the customer referred their friends and the rewards continued to grow (the end of Phase One).
Phase Two of my network marketing experience came years later when getting involved in the home-based direct sales industry. On more than one occasion, I was introduced to products and compensation plans that more than piqued my interest. Just like many of my peers, I dove in full of energy and excitement using all the traditional methods of warm list prospecting and cold calling then running into the proverbial “brick wall” just as many of my (over 90%) cohorts did. Even with the frustration of facing apparent failure, I never failed to believe in the promise of many of these legitimate home business opportunities. If given a method to separate the “chaff” (uninterested prospects) from the “wheat” (the truly interested, like-minded prospects);it appeared that the sky could have been the limit.
Regretfully, this was during the early days of the internet and the concept of large-scale attraction marketing was a mere glimmer in someone’s eye. As the internet continued to grow and mature into the Web 2.0 generation and the social networking boom, the transition to Phase Three was launched and so was the basis for this blog site.
