It wouldn’t be a healthy Friday without Cinco Bala. This week's top 5 lessons, hacks and quotes I’ve been pondering, applying and battling.

 

For those of you who are new, this is a concept I took from Tim Ferriss. (This is just focused on MLM and online marketing) If you don’t subscribe to his newsletter. You should do it.

 

Lesson in Online Marketing: Good is good - It continually baffles my mind how often people get sucked into the minutiae of a subject rather than the end goal.

 

Case in point - Length of marketing messages.

 

I get CONSTANT questions about how long a marketing message should be. Be it a video sales letter, webinar, Facebook ad or content video. My answer? Short is NOT good. Long is NOT good. Good is good.

 

I know the question comes from good intentions. They want to be effective and they’ve probably heard from all kinds of “gurus” that their videos should be 3-5 minutes long (or whatever), Webinars should be no more than 90 minutes including the pitch and sales letters should be able to be read within 3 minutes.

 

All a bunch of C-R-A-P.

 

NOTHING could be further from the truth.

 

With few exceptions, effectiveness has nothing to do with length.

 

Some of THE MOST successful sales pieces IN HISTORY are 40+ pages long. Some entire books are sales letters. I know a guy who did $10MM+ in sales in 9 days with a NINE HOUR sales presentation.

 

In contrast, some HIGHLY effective funnels (see free + shipping) have sales messages that last a total of 10 minutes or less (including upsells) and produce $100’s per visitor in some cases.

 

Bottom line is, if there’s ONE THING you should POUND OUT OF YOUR HEAD right now about marketing. It’s that the MESSAGING IS WHAT MATTERS.

 

Not the length.

 

People sit through James Cameron’s 3 hour + movies because his MESSAGE is compelling. People sat through the latest Avengers movie for 3 + hours because it was EXCITING.

 

Yet people hated the latest Justice League movie because the story sucked. Why? A genius executive at WB forced the producers to cut nearly 1 hour of the movie out to keep it under 2 hours. Why?

 

He had some insane notion that people only would sit through the movie if it was less than 2 hours long. By the way, WB (owner of DCEU) is getting demolished by Disney (owner of the MCU).

 

Focus on telling your story to the right audience with the right offer and the rest will take care of itself. Stop majoring on the minors and major on the majors.

 

Lesson in Network Marketing: Leadership is Not Dead - Leadership used to be the only way to grow a network marketing business. Today you can grow a pretty sizable team if you’re just a good marketer. However, that team will not stick around if you’re not a good leader. If they do stick, it’ll be because your upline is good…

 

Even if someone is making a lot of money downline, it’s a time bomb. Money motivation is the most ineffective thing imaginable to keep someone long term.

 

People stay because you serve them, have a relationship with them, you add value to other parts of their life besides money and because they believe their life is better with YOU in it.

 

Amateurs think leadership is either ruthless or extremely soft. It’s not. Leadership is gray, liquid and sometimes hard to grasp. You’re dealing with people here. So if you’re pushover, don’t expect anyone to follow you. People pleaser? Same thing.

 

Militaristic tyrant? They’ll be gone about as soon as you enroll them.

 

A velvet covered brick is the best description of a leader I’ve ever heard. You’re rock solid on your morals, beliefs and internal compass. Unwilling to compromise. But you never lead with the brick, you lead with the velvet.

 

I want to do the work once and get paid forever. The only way you do that is if your team sticks.

 

Bonus Lesson in Network Marketing: Sandwich - My first mentor, Mark taught me to never correct someone without first edifying something (anything) they’re doing well and ending with a positive affirmation about the future.

 

Bad correction = “You made a mistake, this is how you fix it.”

 

Good correction = “Hey John, I am so proud of you for [insert good thing], you’re so good at it. But you made a mistake in XYZ area. I know it’s not like you to do that, it was just a mistake, next time, you could do ABC instead. By the way, I am so excited about your future man. If you just keep doing what you’re doing and pepper in ABC instead of XYZ, wow, things are going to blow up!”

 

If you sandwich your communication you can actually help people around you grow and they’ll love you for it, rather than resent you.

 

Plus, if they resent you, they won’t apply your coaching, no matter how right you are.

 

Remember, in order to serve people, you must have influence. To have influence, they must respect you. Don’t lose their respect for something you can learn in a $7 communication book.

 

Recommended resources - Bringing out the best in people and How to win friends and influence people.