Is Personal Branding important when you are building a multi level marketing / network marketing business in Malaysia?
In this article, I will answer the above question.
Hello, my name is Mommy Lynn and I am based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
My professional background was in Human Resource (HR).
Previously, I worked as a HR Manager for a manufacturing firm based in Kuala Lumpur.
However, I resigned from the position when I got married to my husband back in 2009.
From then on, I was a full time housewife and then a full time mom.
In March 2018, I decided to start a MLM business.
Reason being, I was unable to get back into employment because I had more than 7 years gap of not working.
In order to make ends meet for my family, I had to start a home based business and MLM was a good option.
There were ups and down in my MLM business journey but I managed to make it work.
My husband is well versed in internet marketing and he helped in the aspect of generating leads for my network marketing business.
One thing that I’ve learnt in my journey of building a network marketing business is the importance of building a personal brand.
Standing out from the crowd
Do you know how many direct selling companies are in operation in Malaysia?
There are thousand of direct selling companies operating in Malaysia.
Some has license to operate a direct sale business in the country.
Many more do not have license and are illegal.
The well-capitalised legal direct sales companies are member of the Direct Selling Association of Malaysia (DSAM).
The last I counted, there were more than 125 companies who are a member of DSAM.
Each of the DSAM member would have tens of thousands of distributors.
What I am trying to say is there are a lot of MLM distributors in Malaysia.
How do you stand out from the crowd?
One way of doing so is by creating a strong “Personal Branding” for your MLM business.
Yes, similar to companies create brands to help people recognise and trust them, professional network marketers can do the exact same thing.
Why you need Personal Branding
As a professional network marketer, your income relies on other people believing what you say.
If the people around you do not believe you, it is unlikely you will be able to recruit anyone into your business.
If you can’t recruit, you are just another struggling direct seller in the industry.
The company you’ve partnered with might have a great product, but if you don’t have trust, you will not be able to sell any product.
If you cannot sell or move product, you don’t have a business.
You need to give your prospect and the people around you a reason to believe in YOU as the business, not the product or the company.
You need to create trust and credibility.
A strong and credible personal brand can help to establish you as an authority.
It does not really matter what product you are selling.
If the product is good, people will buy it once or twice.
Selling product only is not going to generate much profit.
What you want is to leverage on the concept of “people franchising” in a MLM business.
You want to duplicate yourself.
If other words, you want to find other people to do what you are doing.
You can recruit people to be part of your team.
What should you do to create a personal brand in MLM?
What are the qualities and characteristics that will help you to connect with people, build trust and influence them to join your team?
Here are 3 things for you to consider.
1. Your personal brand should be relevant to your target audience.
Who are your target demographic?
If the product of your business is make up and skin care, then you should focus your personal branding towards women.
Who are the women in your audience and what do they need?
Create an avatar of the ideal person you want to reach.
2. Your personal brand should be based on who you are.
In the age of social media, how you portray yourself online has to be thought out carefully.
It is not simply about being yourself.
To create a personal brand in network marketing, you have to merge your personality with your MLM business and come out with a brand that is appealing to your target audience.
3. Remember, your brand is always on display.
If you have a Facebook profile or Instagram account that you use for your business, you have to be mindful of what you post, like or share.
Your online activities should be consistant with your personal brand voice.
Developing your personal brand
How do you develop your personal brand?
In the following section, I will share some tips.
To develop your personal brand, the most important is “consistensy”.
If you are projecting yourself as a certain type of person, it will be disturbing if you were to do things that is not consistent with your brand you’ve created.
If you are a family oriented woman, the content you publish should be family oriented.
If you were to publish a picture of yourself drinking and partying, that is not consistent with your personal brand and will confuse your audience.
Next, to develop your personal brand, you can make yourself valuable to your target audience.
If you are selling health supplement, then it is important for people to see you as an expert in the area of health supplementation.
To offer value to your audience, you would have to invest time and effort to educate yourself in your field.
You have to read or attend courses to increase your knowledge.
With all the knowledge that you’ve gained, determine which information and topics that are most helpful to your target audience.
What you are trying to do is to educate them about what you’ve learned.
You should also share information from others that your target audience might find interesting or useful.
What does all of this do?
First and foremost it turns you into an authority.
When you educate and share your knowledge in your field of expertise, you are seen as a Key Opinion Leader (KOL).
By doing so, you are building your personal brand and demonstrating your worth to your audience.
When you are providing useful information, you show people who are interested in your product or your business opportunity that you know your stuff.
When you are positioning yourself as an authority or KOL, people will more likely to trust and believe you.
More effective follow-up
When you’ve developed a strong personal brand, you will move from being a “hunter” to a “hunted”.
Let me explain.
When you are building a multi level marketing (MLM) business, you’ll know what the fortune is in the follow up.
However…NOTHING could be further from the truth.
Now, I know what you’re thinking…
“But Lynn, you never know when your prospect will be ready to buy or join, so you’ve got to follow-up closely!”
But here’s the problem with this approach.
Chasing after your prospects makes you look desperate.
Basically, you’re giving up your power and giving it to them.
Which, as you might have guessed, is not a good position.
If you want to be viewed as an authority or leader, do not project yourself as a desperate person.
Leaders don’t chase people.
They’re the ones who get chased by people.
There is a big difference.
This is the difference between asking people to join you versus having them approach you first, desperately asking to work with you.
As you’d imagine, most network marketers are in the first group.
They’re constantly hounding their prospects, hoping and praying they’ll join.
I know, because that used to be me.
Needless to say, that’s a recipe for frustration and burn out.
Luckily there’s a better way.
With a little shift in your approach by first creating a strong personal branding is how you position yourself and have people eagerly reaching out to you.
Asking how they can buy your products and join your team.
When you go from being the “hunter” to being the “hunted”, building a network marketing business becomes a LOT more fun, exciting, and, most importantly, way more profitable.
Thank you for reading this article and I hope it has been helpful for you.
Have you been in the network marketing industry?
Would like to re-start your MLM business again?
If you do, please click on the link below to contact me on WhatsApp and we can have a discussion on how we can work together.
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