Major University Reveals What Distributors Want Online

By Steve Ostermiller
July 17, 2003

This past spring, students from Brigham Young University (BYU) — a NCAA Division 1 university — surveyed both local and national network marketers from various companies, including Mary Kay and Tupperware*, to find out what exactly distributors look for in building their business online.

What BYU found pulses strongly to the heart of what makes network marketing tick: building relationships.

Here are just a few key extractions from BYU's research (phrased in the words of those who answered the surveys):

• The ability to customize our personal website is key in building our business, since network marketing is a business that revolves around relationship building.
• Personal websites are most valuable for non-ordering related activities, such as maintaining and building relationships.
• Currently unavailable, we need the ability to give real-time presentations online about our business opportunity.

Delivering What Distributors Really Want

Most technology and "dot-com" companies will throw hot air your way about the necessity to sell your products online. We've wasted our time doing this in the past as well. It's important, yes. But it's a given. I don't need to convince you of that.

Somewhat less obvious, the emphasis these distributors place on using the Web to build relationships online should speak loud and clear to you. We've always made it a part of our pitch to companies like yours, but these distributors have helped us see that we've underestimated the power of the Internet in building relationships with prospects and customers, as well as building a sense of community amongst themselves.

"Respondents feel that having the ability to create PowerPoint-type presentations online, using a prospecting coach, and having a program to [manage] upline/downline reports would be very useful in running their business," the research reports. "However, respondents did not feel notifications to cell phones would be useful to their business."

Sometimes we get so concerned with chasing the newest "cool" features, like cell phone notifications for orders placed through your site, that we miss the mark of delivering the tools that really do produce results in business growth and bottom line. Less than 30% of the respondents expressed interest in cell phone notifications, while over 50% of all respondents expressed interest in the other business-building features listed above.

Consider the importance of building relationships with your own distributors. It's crucial, right? Well, the study reports that "the most favorite tool . . . was information tools." This received the majority (37%) of the votes. "Respondents loved the information that was provided on [their] websites, they thought it was extremely important that they were able to get the vital information in an easy, reliable and quick way."

Have you developed an effective and efficient online system for giving your distributors the information and training they need?

The Most Successful Failure Ever

While reading in Inc. Magazine this week, I found an interesting point of view about the importance of the Internet. We hear things like this from time to time, but this one-liner really hit home to me. I share it here to remind us all of the integral role the Internet will ever play in all our business transactions, both personal and financial:


I hope this article has sparked your thoughts in refining your current strategy to foster and nurture relationship and community building among your distributors, prospects and customers. Ask yourself four questions:

1. Do you provide a presentation tool for distributors to present the business opportunity online?
2. Where do your distributors go to share ideas and help motivate each other via the Web?
3. Are you allowing your distributors to customize their personal prospecting and/or sales websites to the degree that they can effectively present a personalized, "high-touch" image to your potential recruits and customers?
4. How about the channels you use to communicate with your distributors directly?

The bottom line? Don't be fooled into thinking that selling online is all the strategy you need. Give your distributors tools to become network marketing professionals — and even superstars — by helping them build the invaluable relationships they need to grow their business, and ultimately yours!

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* Distributors from Reliv International, Synergy Worldwide, Tupperware, New Vision and Mary Kay participated in the study. Details on the study conducted by BYU can be obtained by calling or writing the BYU Marriott School of Management library.
** "Do One Thing Right," Robert X. Cringeley, Inc. Magazine, June 2003, p. 59

—Mary Rutherford (Sr. Team Leader) complementing New Vision
shortly after the launch of their ARRAY system