by Dr. Jeffrey Lant

How many people do you recruit into your MLM organization every day? Well, the average MLM independent distributor only recruits between 2-3 people into his/her organization the entire time he/she is in it! I recruit that many people every single hour, day in day out!

What is the miracle that makes this happen? The magic word is "co-op" -- and you should pay close attention to what I'm talking about since the ramifications are enormous in terms of your organizational -- and pay-check -- growth.

For many years now, I've been proprietor of America's largest card deck, the quarterly 100,000 circulation Sales & Marketing SuccessDek. As such I've been in a wonderful position to learn about how this medium works and to experiment with methods to boost your return on card deck investment. I'm now prepared to share these with you.

Using & Understanding Leverage To Build Your MLM Organization

Most independent distributors continue to recruit in a positively primitive fashion. They sign up for their "opportunity," buy some of the company's overpriced sales materials and then try to peddle the product through "warm marketing," by recruiting their relatives, friends, and neighbors. This is daft. At best this makes for the world's slowest growth; at worst, it makes for a lot of irritation towards you on the part of people you care about and a lot of personal frustration that you're not doing better, faster. Hardly an ideal situation.

Now, I'm not opposed to using a little warm marketing -- as soon as your opportunity is working properly. When you love the products and start making money from the company, you'd be selfish not to share the benefits with the people you care about. Why, I made sure my own sainted mother got into both my recommended network marketing opportunities as soon as I was confident they'd work for her. BUT NOT UNTIL.

But, face it, warm marketing, even under the best of circumstances, is distinctly limited in what it can accomplish. Even the best connected person, is going to run out of immediate prospect leads. And that's why you've got to master the ins and outs of co-op advertising right from the start.

Besides, once you do, you're benefitting from a crucial success element, leveraging. That is, you're using other people's money to purchase the co-ops, and you're benefitting from all the leads closed therefrom into your organization. What could be smarter? And when you want really astronomical growth, you'll do more and still more co-ops, the shrewdest situation of all.

Getting Smart About Card Deck Co-Op Advertising, First Steps

The first thing you've got to do to profit from card deck co-op advertising is resolve to study the subject to know everything you can about it and how to profit from it. This isn't as easy as it sounds, because precious little has been written about card decks. Indeed, the detailed pages I put in my recent book NO MORE COLD CALLS was the first time this kind of information, to my knowledge, appeared in readily accessible book form. (This giant 675 page book, subtitled 'The Complete Guide To Generating -- And Closing -- All The Prospects You Need To Become A Multi-Millionaire By Selling Your Service' is available for $45.95 postpaid.)

The objective of your card deck card is to generate the maximum number of qualified prospect leads. You do this by creating card copy based on these essential elements:

## open with your major benefit and any offer you may make for immediate response

## include phone, fax and (if available) 800-number

## follow with second most important benefit of joining your opportunity

## then third

## fourth, etc.

On the reverse side of the card, again provide a phone number for immediate response. Reiterate the major benefit and ask for (clearly printed) respondent name, address, phone, and fax. Note: leads without a phone number are of distinctly inferior value.

Note: writing successful card deck cards is something of a minor art form. To see samples of such cards, call me at (617) 547-6372, and I'll be happy to send you my next deck issue. To write your own card, use my 480-page book CASH COPY: HOW TO OFFER YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES SO YOUR PROSPECTS BUY THEM... NOW. $39.50 postpaid. Or, to have one of my professional copywriters do your card for you, call me direct.)

Moving Into Co-Ops

If you've just joined an MLM opportunity or haven't yet recruited anyone, the first time you go into card deck co-ops is going to be the trickiest. Either you've got to co-op with your upline, or you're going to have to purchase the cards yourself. There are pros and cons to each alternative.

Co-oping with your upline sponsor makes sense if you don't have enough people in your own group to buy the card. Keep in mind that you don't want to do this again, because many of the cards will go to people who are not in your organization; that's good for your upline sponsor, but not good for you. However, to get started, make this deal with your sponsor if you can. Note: to my amazement, many sponsors are completely uninterested in helping their downline members get leads. This is ridiculous! One of the prime jobs of all sponsors is to ensure that the members of their organization have a steady supply of prospect leads. A sponsor who doesn't help ensure this supply is either a masochist or an idiot; either way, someone to avoid.

If you cannot interest your upline in doing something sensible to assist both you and himself, then bite the bullet and purchase the cards personally. Resolve to do this once and only once. Remember, when you're new to an opportunity and relatively inexperienced, you may well have to do things that even six months later would be inconceivable. Well, do them now, so you can stop doing them as soon as possible!

Note: in my deck we make it easy for new people to get started in card decks by offering a "split run," that is 50,000 cards, instead of the full run of 100,000. The price is currently $700 for 50,000 two-color cards. This policy (which my card-deck competitors haven't seen the point of emulating) has made it possible for hundreds of "little guys" to participate in card decks and enjoy their benefits.

Selling Shares

There's no mystery about how to price the shares for your co-ops. Take the price of the deck (my deck, the lowest priced in the industry at $1299 for 100,000 cards will serve as an example), and divide by the number of people you want to participate. Make sure to give yourself a free share as your immediate payment for getting the co-op together. I recommend attempting to sell 10 shares per co-op. Thus, the cost for participating in a co-op in my card deck would be $130.

People will be sure to ask you how many leads they can expect. My rule of thumb is that a deck card will produce about 1/2 of 1% return, or approximately 500 leads. Thus, each person in the co-op (remember there are actually 11 shares, counting your free one) will get approximately 45 leads. This number may well be conservative depending on the availability of an 800 number, a good offer, and strong client-centered benefit copy. But, to be conservative, figure 45 leads per person.

When To Sell Shares If You Have No One In Your Organization

If you're new to MLM or have no one in your organization and your upline won't assist you, start selling shares as you recruit people into your company.

No doubt at present you pretty much limit your sales presentation to the company's products and other company-centered information. This is fine as far as it goes, but it's not so smart for the development of your organization. If you want your group to grow fast (and, believe me, you do!), then don't just pitch the company and its benefits, pitch the system for developing your organization. Thus, make it clear that there's no point in getting into the company unless the prospect also gives serious consideration to securing a constant supply of prospect leads both for himself and for all the people he recruits. Reread that sentence. It's crucial for your success.

Note: if a person has no regular lead sources but won't join your lead-generating card deck co-ops, chances are he's not going to be a very productive member of your team. What happens to these people is that they pitch their sales materials at friends, family and neighbors in the usual way and when they've run through them with the predictable meagre results, they go inactive and ultimately drop out of your opportunity. What keeps people in and active is a regularly growing organization, and to achieve this success means commanding regular prospect lead sources. Thus, make sure that you enroll your new recruits in your prospect lead program at the same time as you enroll them in the opportunity itself.

Assessing Your Prospect Leads

When you advertise in card decks, just when you get your leads is easy to determine. About 5-8 days after the deck mails, you'll get your first phone and fax responses. We occasionally get them our first leads in just three days! Anyway, from that time the number of leads increases quickly until about 2 1/2 to 3 weeks after the deck mails, when the number of leads starts to fall.

During the time the leads are coming in, you're going to be busy, busy. The first thing you've got to do is assess the leads you've got. As one of the animals in Orwell's "Animal Farm" might have said, "All leads are equal, but some leads are more equal than others." In other words, there are prospect leads, and prospect leads.

Here in my Cambridge office, card deck prospect leads arrive daily by fax, mail and, occasionally, by courier service! My first job is to sort through them and see which are worth working on. Because of the importance of this lead assessment, I do it myself, and I do it early in the day. I dispose of leads that are:

## without phone numbers. A lead without a phone number is valueless.

## scribbled or difficult to read. I'm not a mind reader, and I resent being turned into one by someone who wants our information but is just too slothful to give us what we need to provide it.

## from prisoners. Prisoners love mail. They're also not opportunity prospects. They usually disguise their 7-10 digit identification number as part of the address. You'll also learn to distinguish cities that maintain prisoners. Too, post cards from prisoners are often (but not always) identified as such by prison authorities.

Get the drift? You've got to assess.

When you do this, you're going to dispose of a percentage of your cards. And a good thing, too; there's no point in frustrating your independent distributors by giving them leads that don't work. Hint to MLM lead-generating services: you need to do the same thing with the leads you get. Companies like Ad-Net, Pro-Step, etc. continue to send leads without phone numbers. This is ridiculous and should be vigorously opposed.

Distributing Your Prospect Leads

Once you've decided which leads are reasonably good, distribute them -- that day.

My policy is simple: if a prospect faxes in a decent lead, I fax it to a distributor, if possible a distributor from the same general area as the lead hails from. If leads are mailed to me, I mail them out. Now, I receive my leads at the post office early in the morning, and I have them distributed by the 10:30 a.m. post the same day. This ensures that my distributors, wherever they're located, get them no more than 4 days (if on the West Coast) after I do. Do you do this, or do you sit on them?

Along with the leads I send a brief tip sheet on how to get the best use from the lead:

## Call them. The best qualified leads are called. Call and tell the lead what you've got and ask them if they have the time, money and desire to make a success from an opportunity. If they don't look promising, don't send anything. Remember, you're not in the information-sending business. Only prospects who look like good bets deserve your consideration.

## Make sure to send company information promptly.

## Follow up promptly and answer questions.

## Have company phone number and contact person at hand during these follow-up calls so you and your prospect can get the technical assistance you need to close the deal.

## If the prospect isn't ready to sign up now, ask why. Find out whether the objections are real and deal with them now if you can. If the objections seem spurious, end the conversation politely and go on to the next prospect. DON'T DEAL WITH TIME-WASTERS!~!!

## If prospects are ready to sign up now, sign them up -- but don't just enroll them in the company, enroll them in your next card-deck co-op, too. RIGHT ON THE SPOT! Remember, independent distributors without regular prospect lead sources are independent distributors who are not going to be much good to you or your organization's growth.

Co-ops On Co-ops On Co-ops

Right now in any given year I run millions and millions and millions of card-deck cards... and I don't pay a dime for any of them. Without boasting, I think I may safely say that there is no one in the entire country who runs more card-deck cards for the benefit of his MLM organizations than I do, and certainly no one who runs more at less cost! As a result, my organizations (for I work several MLM programs simultaneously) grow exponentially. Am I satisfied? CERTAINLY NOT! Even for me, there are millions more card-deck cards to be run, and even faster and greater organizational growth to achieve.

Keeping all the small details of these co-ops tidy and efficient, selling all these co-ops would, I admit, tax even my resources, but for the fact that I work with one of the shrewdest co-op organizers in the business, Robert Blackman, my colleague in several of my opportunities. I may be the strategist for the co-ops, but without question he's the master tactician. When you get big enough, I advise you to get a similarly well organized colleague who's as efficient and ambitious as Robert is. It will certainly assist your growth.

Last Words

Since I wrote my book MULTI-LEVEL MONEY, in which I discuss this co-op based lead-generating strategy, many people have successfully jumped into card-decks for the first time. It's very gratifying when they call me enthusiastically confiding that, at last, they understand how card-deck co-op leveraging works. And even more gratifying when they use my deck and the other decks into which we broker their cards (for I am, remember, a card-deck broker, too) to grow their organizations even faster.

Their success doesn't puzzle me; it's expected. What's surprising is what a small percentage of network marketers have cottoned on to the incredible power of card-deck leveraging and are using it efficiently, apparently prefering instead to continue to flog the old tried and failed device of warm marketing. This, of course, is a sure sign of madness.

One of the exciting things about the often troubling world we live in is the technology that exists right now to generate truly astronomical numbers of prospect leads and so develop huge network marketing organizations with the equally huge (and monthly growing) commission checks that follow.

So, decide. Are you going to continue with the worn out recruiting techniques of the past, that ensure the slowest and least satisfactory growth possible? Or will you join me and the relative handful of savvy network marketing distributors who have learned how to use card-decks and other people's money to create giant, lucrative organizations as fast as possible?

To profit from Dr. Jeffrey Lant's quarterly 100,000 circulation Sales & Marketing Success Deck (featuring the lowest prices in the entire industry), call (617) 547-6372. Also, use his 148 book MULTI-LEVEL MARKETING: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO GENERATING, CLOSING & WORKING WITH ALL THE PROSPECTS YOU NEED TO MAKE REAL MONEY EVERY MONTH IN NETWORK MARKETING. ($25.95 postpaid; 55-minute "Multi-Level Marketing" video $33 postpaid. $45 for the book/video combination. You may pay with MC/VISA or AMEX.) Also ask Jeffrey for information on his recommended network marketing programs, The Staff of Life with its 40 cutting-edge better health products, and The Gourmet Coffee Club, offering 13 tasty flavors and profitable access to the 100,000,000+ American coffee drinkers. To write, contact JLA Publications, P.O. Box 38-2767, Cambridge, MA 02238.

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