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You are on this page because you're looking for information regarding the Forever Living Products opportunity. This is from first-hand experience of setting up and following the system. Having been made redundant in May 2010, I was finding it difficult to find work my my field in the South West of England. I put my CV on the various websites and actively pursued opportunities. One day I had a call from a FLP Independent Distributor. He'd found my CV on one of those websites. It didn't ring alarm bells but should have. I'll expand on that in a while. I went to meet him and sat through the presentation and asked lots of questions. All were answered satisfactorily. It would cost £199.75 for my business in a box and my upline would mentor and tutor me constantly. I went away and researched the company and checked for scams. The truth is, it is a bona fide business. After more questions, I bought the box (from my redundancy package) and studied its contents. There's an array of products, leaflets, books and stationery. How incredibly different from my life as an IT Manager. What You Need to Achieve This all seemed pretty straightforward and simple. How hard can it be? I've been in business for over 30 years and negotiated some major contracts with blue chip companies.
Many people DO make a living from this. How?
People who enter this have a natural ability to sell in this particular market. You will be told it not a sales role, but it most certainly is. They also have a HUGE network of people socially and otherwise (or at least use to have).
I can do this . . . . .
So, with my upline's mentoring, I set about producing a list of everyone I can ever remember having contact with. I drew up an initial list of 120 people. This expanded later to well over 300 people. Out of these, I had contact details of some 60 or so. Its now time to phone them all up and get them to join the business as this is the "way out" and the path to financial Nirvana. You have to be absolutely regimented and follow the system of scripts for this to work - lots of sales techniques needed here - like giving them the option of only two days/times to meet. I learned to do this. I learned many techniques from the intense level of training that is necessary. Not all of this is free.
Now, this takes a huge amount of effort to make those calls and to note who you've left messages with and so on. It also takes a huge amount of effort to find those people you don't have contact details for. Remember - you've not earned anything at this point. But you are racking up phone call costs. Note here - the above is called your warm market. I got six people (out of 60) to say that they'd come and meet to find out about the opportunity. With my upline we went to a hotel and waited. Out of those six, only one turned up. He actually joined and I got my £40!
Developing Regular Customers
At the same time, I let people know what I was doing. I also went door to door (cold calling) with a load of leaflets that I'd made up and printed (half a day to do this plus the cost of quality paper and printer ink and to cut them all up). I'd only earned £40. But the costs are still rising. I visited some 200 houses in my neighbourhood over 3 days. I spoke to people about my new business and handed out invitations. I had two product launches over two days and 12 people turned up. 2 placed orders though (people I knew) to the tune of £250. Brilliant! Its a start. As an independent distributor, I get 30% discount and so I've made a profit! Except I haven't. Those costs are mounting up. In addition I've bought business cards, promotional material and presentation/packaging material.
Hang on in there . . . .
Others are doing it and have developed teams. I went to the regular meetings (fuel costs and still hardly any turnover) and quiz them. I'm getting the same answers. There's something missing. I'm following the system. I've called another 30 people who don't want to know. My list of people has run out. Now what? My upline says I need more people and here's how to go about it - Advertise. I set up my website (and spend money on Google AdWords promotion), I advertise on the internet classified sites, I talk to everyone I meet, I put cards in shop windows. Some response but not in my local area where I can meet and mentor people. Of course, there's time and cost to advertising but I haven't made sufficient money to cover it. I'm dipping into my redundancy money now and selling my beloved car. Two more suggestions are provided by my upline. Search for CVs on the internet (from whence this all started). This can cost from £200 to £600 PER MONTH. This is your Cold Market. Its a non-starter for me. Second suggestion is to use charity cards. £1 a go with a prize for the lucky winner of product. So I approach shops and businesses. They already do charities and can't take on any more. The idea behind the card is to collect names and contact details and then phone them all up to sell product and/or the opportunity. No luck here. My upline suggests going door to door. I need to collect 50 names per card. I have three cards. More time traipsing round my neighbourhood. How many houses will I need to visit? Just can't bring myself to do this anymore. FLP actually specifies you MUST NOT go door to door. There are also laws relating to this in terms of legitimate ID. So much for the advice.
Meanwhile, an old colleague found me on LinkedIn and asked what I was doing. Once she knew, she was interested and joined. Another £40, thank you. I went mentoring her (with my upline) for a couple of weeks, but she is sales orientated anyway. After which she suddenly pulled out. As did my first team member. I got repeat orders from my two customers (though smaller orders) and a small order from a third.
My upline provided me with a few CVs. I started calling these people. Only one agreed to meet out of 40 CVs. After the presentation, he decided it wasn't for him. I followed up calls to my warm market. They were starting to ignore me. I was in danger of having no friends left. It is suggested that you recommend product to people, like you would a restaraunt, movie or anything else you have a passion for and believe in. At a social gathering, I did this. People were now getting sick of it. One comment was that it just wasn't me. That's not what I'd normally talk to people about. It was boring and dull, this was a social event not a sales pitch.
My three customers decided they didn't want to place any more orders.
All that was the final nail in the coffin for me.
Conclusion
What I have gained from this is that you do need to be a particular type of person to be able to sell the product and/or opportunity in this market. You also need to have a network of particular types of people that are receptive to the products and/or opportunity. You need capital to advertise to find more of the receptive type of people. You need capital for product drops (whereby the potential customer can try product prior to purchase). Whilst this is normal business practice, the level of this is not explained until you have made an investment and want (need) a return on it.
If you feel you have that, then you may well make a success of the business. I don't have the above and nor am I willing to speculate my own money on something that I cannot spend every waking minute talking about. If you decide that you have the above criterea, you must treat it as a serious business. You must be able to handle a huge level of rejection and you must be willing to lose some friends on the way. You will gain some friends in the business though. Until you don't do it anymore. My upline dropped me like a hot stone the moment I declared I wasn't making 4CC per month. He wanted to know why I wouldn't do it. Simply, I didn't want to spend my money on a product I didn't want nor have a need for and, nor did my "customers". If you can get over that hurdle, it may just be for you.
I wish you every success but it most certainly isn't for everyone. Those already successful in the business don't, won't or can't see that not everyone wishes to be this way.
Fortunately, I am tenacious in other ways and have become director of my own limited company in the technology domain from whence I came. This is a subject I am fully conversant with. As for residual incomes (pension if you like) that can be attained from MLM business, I will be doing the same with affiliate marketing and software licencing long after I'm retired.
This website is for sale at £750 for a prime foreverpartners domain name and the promotions behind it. The site can be edited in anyway you would like included in the sale price.
Brent Westbrook brentw1110@yahoo.co.uk
01626 775058 or 07773 625982 |
 Independent Distributor for Forever Living Products (UK) Ltd |
