HOW TO DEVELOP A MONEY-MAKING DEALER PROGRAM OVER THE INTERNET!
by Dr. Jeffrey Lant
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Do any of these conditions apply to you?
1. You're the prime source of any product.
2. You already have dealers/independent distributors who sell your product/s, and want more.
3. You want to develop a dealer program.
4. You're interested in establishing lucrative new markets in the United States and worldwide.
5) You want to be able to give your dealers all your marketing materials so that all they have to do is add
their dealer I.D. number and personal follow up information.
If this is you, it's time for you to start developing your dealer program via the Internet.
A Little Background
The Internet is the hottest communications medium ever created. Even its most optimistic supporters didn't
predict its astonishing growth. Over 60,000,000 people worldwide now have access. Within 5 years it'll be
over a billion, maybe two. Every smart business person is scrambling to discover how to benefit from this
truly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. People who are the prime sources of products and can sell these
products through dealers ought to be scrambling fastest of all.
How The Internet Benefits You When You're The Prime Source
As anyone knows who's the prime source of any product -- whether that product is nutritional,
informational, fitness, whatever -- you make money by recruiting dealers and profiting from a percentage
of what they sell. The more dealers you've got, the more money you make. Problem is, up until now it's
been both expensive and time-consuming to deal with dealers. It's expensive to create a dealer package,
expensive to keep it up to date, and expensive to train your dealers.
Because of these limitations, many companies simply recruit dealers and pretty much leave them on their
own, which is no good to anyone. In this situation, the outcome's obvious: dealers founder and drop out,
everybody loses. Well, with the Internet things are different.
The Two Key Components Of Your Internet-Based Dealer Program
For an Internet-based dealer program to work you must have two components: dealer-centered training
materials and absolutely complete client-centered marketing communications into which the dealer need
only insert his company i.d. and personal follow up information. Let's look at each component in turn.
-- Dealer-Centered Training Materials
Recruiting dealers is never enough. Training them to be successful is essential. By this standard most
people with dealer programs fail. They don't the kinds of step-by-step instructions that dealers need to
succeed. One reason they don't, of course, is the shear expense and bother of doing so. The old "sink or
swim" methods employed by most companies (including virtually every network marketing company in
existence) don't work, but from the company's standpoint they're less bother.
Not least, when your distributor training materials are all paper-based, it's troublesome keeping them up to
date. Whenever you want to say something new, you've got to go through all the expense and bother of
updating, which automatically ages what you're already using. Bummer.
On the Internet, you still have to keep materials up-to-date, but you don't have the draining expense. Now
when you want to change something, assuming you've got your own domain or web site, you do it,
whenever you want to do it. There's absolutely no excuse (like "we've got 10,000 copies of that stuff left")
preventing you from taking immediate action.
The real question becomes, then, what should be in your dealer materials? To be complete, dealer training
materials should include step-by-step instructions on
. generating prospect leads
. dealing with these leads by phone, fax, e-mail, snail mail
. what objections dealers might hear and what should be said in response to each one of them
. following up prospect leads, and
. working with both customers and any other dealers/independent distributors they may recruit.
In other words, your training materials must give the dealer everthing he needs to know to represent your
company and must provide sensible details on how to build a profitable business.
You must think through the kinds of characteristic situations the dealer will encounter... and give your best
information on how to deal with them.
Remember, what's great about the Internet is that everything your dealers need to know can be included in
your dealer training package... which, remember, can be updated instantaneously as things develop.
Note: The place where you post your dealer training materials should not be austere or forbidding, but
rather a kind of cyber clubhouse. Here's where you should also post
. tips that successful dealers are using.
. dealer profiles. People like to read about other people, who they are, how they got here.
. competitor information. Your company doesn't exist in a vacuum. What are your competitors doing and
what can you learn from them?
The idea is to encourage people to come back often, to keep learning, and to keep sharing so that other
dealers benefit!
-- Client-Centered Marketing Communications
The other key component of your dealer program is the client-centered marketing communications, the
materials that the buyers will see. These must obviously be made as enticing as possible. That means
including
. an offer
. benefits
. testimonials
. complete order information.
Your job as prime source is to create the most client-centered and motivating marketing package possible,
to make it as simple as possible for the dealer to use, and to keep all materials absolutely up-to-date.
A motivating client-centered marketing package must include
. an offer. What have you got that is designed to motivate faster prospect response? When you're on the
Internet, or anywhere else, you're in a situation of cut-throat competition for limited bucks. Client-centered
offers are what help your buyers decide to take action now to acquire what you're offering, as opposed to
what someone else is offering. Offers can include
. more product for the price
. special price
. some value the customer gets by acting now that she won't get by waiting, etc.
The point of an offer is to stimulate faster response, which is just what both you and the dealer want. One
way of stimulating this kind of fast response is to date an offer, "Sale ends Thursday." Unfortunately, this
doesn't work well on the Internet. People simply forget to change the dates and the minute an offer has
expired, it must be removed. Otherwise, it dates your material and actually becomes a detriment. Thus,
instead of using a date, use some other limiting factor like, "First 25 people receive...."
Note: provide your dealers with new offers from time to time. If you and your dealers are going to succeed
in marketing, on and off the Web, you must succeed in the offer game. Offers must always be perceived as
offering value that will, however, be gone soon; certain-to-be-gone value stimulates faster prospect
response. However, if offers are perceived as old hat, or if they never change, they actually undercut your
marketing effectiveness.
. benefits. People buy because of benefits. They buy NOW because of offers. You must have both. Benefits
are what people get from your company. Dealers are people who offer other people client-centered benefits.
Thus, you must first brainstorm all the benefits that you offer. Then you must put them in priority order.
Which is the most important benefit you offer, the second most important, etc?
The key to benefits is to make them specific and credible. Here much marketing fails, usually because the
"marketers" don't actually know much about the specific benefits their products deliver. I have now dealt
with literally thousands of businesses in my consulting career, and I can assure you that one of the most
astonishing things I find is how little people actually know about their own products, about the benefits
these products deliver.
To succeed in marketing, wherever you want to market, you must really know your product and must be
ABSOLUTELY CLEAR on the benefits it delivers.
Once you've got these benefits, hammer them home in a series of sentences beginning "You get..." "You" is
the prospect. "Get" is what that prospect wants.
The Internet is ideal for giving you the space you need to hit the prospect with every conceivable benefit.
The idea, however, is not to throw just anything at the prospect, but to enable you to present every benefit
about what you and your dealers are selling. If this takes two screens, three screens, so be it. So long as
everything you provide is client-centered fact and not just fluffy hyperbole.
-- Client-Centered Testimonials
Your prospects want to know what they get for acting NOW (that extra motivating offer)... they want to
know all the benefits they get by using your product... and they want to know what benefits people just like
them have gotten, or are currently getting, from USING the product.
Everybody knows the effectiveness of word-of-mouth advertising. Businesses that offer value succeed to a
significant degree because of satisfied people telling other people about the value they have gotten and
which the new prospects will get by using the product in question.
Client-centered testimonials will work for you because they use the words of real people, the benefits
received by real people, to stimulate prompt purchase.
Thus, testimonials must be composed of
. real benefits received
. how long it took to get these benefits
. how much it cost to get these benefits
. how these benefits compare to other benefits (or lack of same) the client may have received when using
other products, and . an attribution to a real person.
In other other words, "Here's what I got. Here's what it took to get it. Look how much better off I am!"
How many testimonials should you include? Well, one good rule of thumb is to include a testimonial for
every product benefit you're presenting.
Other Helpful Marketing Communications For Your Dealer
Your dealer marketing materials can be enhanced by also including
. complete product description
. commonly asked questions and answers
. tips for more effective product use.
Let's look at each.
-- Complete Product Description
In traditional marketing, you may well limit the details of what you say because of cost. Not to worry on
the Internet. Here you should provide the most complete description imaginable of your product, including
precisely what it is, what it does, and appropriate graphics.
Be sure to include details on what makes your product superior. Consider a product comparison with other
products offered by competitors, so long as you are scrupulous about factual reporting. You don't want to
get into legal difficulties by distorting the picture!
On the Internet, there is absolutely no reason why you cannot include every single fact about your product,
so long as you make it clear that you're not just listing product features, but doing everything you can to
present the benefits that derive from these features.
-- Commonly Asked Questions & Answers
As your product's prime source, you've probably heard every single possible question about it. And, over
time, you've developed effective client-centered responses to these queries. Now's the moment to share this
information with your dealers, by creating a "Commonly Asked Questions & Answers" communication that
your dealers can present along with the rest of your material. Put questions in the order most frequently
asked. Try to limit them to between 10-15.
-- Tips For More Effective Product Use
Again, you should know how to use your product more effectively, to get the maximum value from it, to
use it in new and better ways. Develop a marketing communication designed to stimulate a user's
imagination. To keep this section fresh, keep asking users about how they used the product, and include
their (fully attributed) responses.
All The Dealer Should Do Is Add Her Dealer Number And Personal Follow-Up Information
How long should it take a dealer signing up today to post all your materials on the Internet, ready to
promote them and start making money? It should all happen today!
To start, a dealer should have to do no more than add his company I.D. number and personal follow-up
information, including phone, fax, e-mail, URL, fax-on-demand, street address, etc. If you're really client-
centered, you'll do all this, giving your dealer, within the course of the business day she signs up, the
complete package, even posting it to her web site. In other words, doing what's necessary to get the dealer
off to a good start, being truly dealer-centered!
Keep That Good Beginning Going
By this point, you will have spent a good deal of time and money creating your dealer program and getting
your dealers off to a good start. Don't blow it now! Keep things going by
. keeping all dealer training materials and the communications used by dealers to make sales up to date. Let
dealers know where they can find updates and be clear about the need to return regularly to check for them.
Make sure you are clear about when updates are made.
. providing marketing tips for your dealers. Your job as prime source is to create the best dealer materials
available... then to keep providing guidelines on how to get the best results from them.
. constantly motivating, prodding, pushing. This is always and forever your responsibility, and you must
never forget it.
Last Words
The Internet has changed the World of Work forever. Now people like you, who have had the brains and
determination to develop products and become their prime source, have the possibility to develop a
worldwide dealer program, benefiting accordingly, while never having to leave your computer keyboard.
All you've got to do to make it work is think through precisely what both your dealers and their prospects
are going to need and want to know, and provide it for them. If you do this, using the Internet effectively
every step of the way, you'll get rich. The Internet's continuing growth from millions of users to billions
ensures it.
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Dr. Jeffrey Lant is the Proprietor of the 10 Worldprofit Malls at http://www.worldprofit.com, now visited
by over 1/4 MILLION monthly visitors. You can become a Worldprofit Mall dealer, profiting from the sale
of web sites, banners, links and domains, and a JLA Book Dealer, profiting from the sale of over 200 of
Jeffrey's books and special reports. Get details on each by e-mailing webmaster@worldprofit.com, visiting
http://www.worldprofit.com/surefire, calling fax-on-demand (403) 425-6049 (document #7), or calling
(617) 547-6372. To get a web site in or link to the Worldprofit Malls, profiting from the huge traffic, get
fax-on-demand doc #1 or call (403) 425-2466. To get a free subscription to Jeffrey's quarterly 32-page
Sure-Fire Business Success Catalog, call (617) 547-6372 or write JLA Publications, P.O. Box 38-2767,
Cambridge, MA 02238. To get UNLIMITED FREE ADVERTISING for your web site, visit
http://www.worldprofit.com and click on CashQuest. Your FREE advertising starts at once!