This guest-post came to us as a response to our first post on ACN. If you would like to put together a whole post instead of just commenting below, please send us your post to [email protected]. We are open to any and all points of view.
I would like to begin this post by first refuting some of the statements made in the first ACN post on this site and some that have been made in the comments. Then I would like to shed more light on some of the reasons why ACN is viewed as a scam and how we might go about fixing this.
I have been with ACN for the past four years and am currently in the position of Team Coordinator. I still have my day job, but the extra income from ACN has provided me and my down-line with greatly expanded lifestyle and a far more secure retirement plan.
If you want to make ACN work for you, you should treat it like a real business, that is really all it comes down to.
Refuting the Comments and Content of the Previous Post
Firstly, a pyramid scheme requires that all the income be generated from people putting money into a pot and having it float to the surface. In ACN there is legitimately a ton of money made from the actual sale of services. Take the video phone for example. This is nothing more than an IP phone with a webcam attached and some basic software that can detect when it is connected to another video phone. If you do a little googling you will find that you can get a Forwarding (or virtual) phone number for about $8 a month. I would assume that ACN can get them even cheaper by buying in bulk. Even if it is primarily the reps who use ACN video phones, there is a phenomenal amount of revenue being generated here that absolutely finds it’s way back into the pockets of the reps who have sold this service.
The recruiting process does not have to be a “strange” as it is made to sound in the last post. In my experience it only becomes this way when people are recruited who really don’t belong in ACN. When I show friends the business I make sure that they honestly want to have a look at a network marketing business. In the beginning I tried to use the method of not telling anyone what the business was until they could hear it from my up-line, but I can honestly say this did not result in a single successful enrollment. If you are going to sign people up under you, you really have to be able to show them the reasons for yourself – If you are not willing or ready to do this, then spend some time getting to this point. If you resort to keeping secrets and having your up-line present a network marketing opportunity that most of your audience was hoping not to hear.. you will often be met with resentment. How can you blame them? If you want to enter into a business partnership with someone you need to start with a basis of honesty and integrity, not secrecy and off-loaded responsibility. Like I said above, if you want to be successful in ACN, then treat it like a real business, nothing else. (Please Note: I am not saying that it is impossible to make money by just sitting back and having your up-line present the opportunity – I’m just saying that it is not the best way, and that it is one of the primary reasons why so many people see this and other network marketing companies as scams.) In the beginning it can be quite difficult to present the opportunity on your own, but I strongly believe that by presenting to your friends on your own, anything you lack in experience you will more than make up for in sincerity. Explain the business yourself and show your reps your personal reasons for doing the business. This means you will probably not be able to start recruiting on your second day in the business. Who Cares? This isn’t a get rich sprint. Put in the time, do it right and you will be rewarded accordingly.
Many of the comments on the previous post state that because reps are unwilling to show their prospects their checks, that we must be lying when we say we make good money. Where I live it is against to law to show prospects your checks. Simple as that! I’m not sure this is the best law… It seems these days that showing others that I truly do make good money could stop a lot of the negative feelings toward ACN. So many people seem to feel that it is impossible to make money in ACN, I assure you this is not the case – it’s just a lot easier to take someone seriously when they say “I hate ACN, I made no money” than when they say “I love ACN, I make lots of money… I just can’t tell or show you exactly how much…” I think we all need to explain this law to reps up front and stop the rumor that because we don’t show off our checks, we must not make any money.
Why ACN Is Seen by so Many as a Scam
There are a few reasons why many people think ACN is a scam. It is my hope that we can start to shift this opinion by adopting a few new philosophies and changing our mindset. To all my fellow reps who include the portion of the pitch on Mindset – please read the below statements and see if you incorporate them into your presentations. I have started to make some changes to my powerpoint and hope to post it here for you within the next few weeks.
Donald Trump: The fact that we have Donald trump endorsing us does feel pretty satisfyinh. But for new recruits it has been my overwhelming experience that they are not sold by this. I will admit that when the first ACN DVD featuring Trump came out I was flying. I tried to sell everyone and anyone using the statement that if a billionaire like Donald Trump was supporting our business, then how could anyone say it wasn’t a great opportunity. My team and I got carried away saying that if people didn’t see the light after trump’s message, then these people weren’t worth recruiting anyway. I have since realized that this is a very immature attitude. I have now recruited many very successful reps who were boarder-line disgusted by the Trump endorsement. At the end of the day, trump was paid to advertise our business – simple as that. The type of people who will be convinced by that are not serious business people. Like I said earlier, it doesn’t mean you can’t make money by recruiting this type of person, but largely speaking they will not do well and they will quickly come to resent the business and spread negative rumors about it. Look at the comments in the previous post – I think it’s safe to say that the number of people who resent this business is becoming a legitimate problem, we should seriously consider changing our recruiting techniques in order to curb this opinion. One way of doing this is by acknowledging Trump is our paid endorser. We can have fun with our teams and enjoy the exceptional training that Trump has given us, but telling prospects that they should sign up because trump endorses ACN has brought far more hostility to me than it has success.
The over-emotionalizing of the training sessions. In my city we have had Saturday morning sessions for the past 4 years. I have watched them go from about 30 people a week to 300 people a week. In the beginning these sessions really focused on how to succeed at the business. We spent time talking about how to find a good team and how to build a strategy to move up through the ranks. Nowadays they focus almost entirely on appealing to people’s emotions in order to get them to sign up. RVPs in my city tell story after story about how ACN lifted them from abject poverty into a world of riches. For many this is actually the exact truth, and I do not hold it against them that they enjoying telling their personal experiences. From a profitability perspective it is almost impossible to refute this tactic. We have never had so many new people signing up as we do today. I have watched some of my own prospects see these emotional demonstrations and be stirred enough to sign up later that day. The reason I am suggesting we get off the emotional kick for a while is that it is giving us a reputation that is seriously affecting the way non-reps view our business. The emotional sell largely does not convince the type of people who are going to prosper in this business. This isn’t because they aren’t capable of succeeding; it is simply because they signed up without considering the full requirements for being successful in the business. They see the emotional spectacle and are swept away into signing the forms. When they snap out of it and realize what it takes to make money, they feel like they were ripped off and lied to about the business (invariably it is too late for them to get their money back…) Selling ACN on an emotional basis breeds resentment among those who sign up for purely emotion-driven reasons. If we want to stop all the “scam slander” that we are dealing with these days, I think it’s important to be honest about what it takes to be successful. This is a business, it should not be sold by telling stories and promising riches. Let’s get back to the facts – this is a highly profitable opportunity if you are willing to work! Let’s show our prospects what it takes, and teach our recruits how to execute.
That’s it for now – I plan to do a follow up post in the coming weeks. Please leave your feedback in the comments section below and I will try to respond or incorporate your advice into my next post. Let’s put in some effort and get this “Scam” title off of our perfectly legitimate and highly profitable businesses!
Sincerely,
Curtis
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