opportunity all the time. But Melaleuca is not an MLM company. And the kinds of social media tactics engaged in by many MLM companies have never been proven to be an effective way to build a business. Those who engage in such tactics are often unfriended or at least unfollowed by even their best friends. People who incessantly post or reference their business opportunity on social media pages not only do damage to relationships, they also do damage to the company, i.e., they “burn the fields.” We believe that social media should be used to build honest, worthwhile, and meaningful relationships. Regardless of the many gurus who tout social media as “the only way to build,” we have seen very few companies or individuals be successful with this methodology. And we have seen many companies ruined by the same process. We do not believe that using social media is a good way to “build a business.” But we do believe that social media is a wonderful way to build true, meaningful relationships that can later turn into business relationships. Our policies are built around those concepts. Best Practices Over the years, some have sought shortcuts in building their businesses. They take a passive approach and pass out business cards, post flyers, buy ads, distribute tapes or CDs, and then sit back and wait for the phone to ring. But the phone doesn’t ring and the fields burn! The same principle applies to social media. The only effective way to build a business is to proactively build relationships and approach people one-on- one. For example, when someone posts a picture at a family event and says “I’m so thankful to our company that allows me to work from home so I never miss these magic moments,” the reader feels like the post is promoting a business – especially if there are multiple posts on your feed that reference “my business” or “our company.” A more effective post in the same scenario would be to simply say you are enjoying more time with family and appreciating the magic moments, with no reference to the business or company. Then, when you privately approach your friends and contacts, they’ll be curious. They’ve seen how you’re enjoying life and are probably already wondering how you do it. But if you’ve already posted about your company or business, as soon as you approach them they’ll think you’re trying to sell them something. To help you put the principles described above into practice, we have developed list of things you can do and a list of things you cannot do.
What You Can Do 1. You can join online groups , clubs, and organizations in which you are truly interested, to enlarge your circle of friends and make contacts with people who have interests similar to your own and thereby expand your warm market. 2. On any social media site, group, or other website that specifically identifies its purpose as promoting or advertising business, financial or work-from-home opportunities (and only on such sites), where everyone in the group has voluntarily opted into the group, you can make posts regarding Melaleuca’s business opportunity and have a call to action, but you cannot mention Melaleuca’s name specifically. It is important to note that although permitted, these posts are not encouraged and have not proven to be effective. 3. You can publicly share, endorse, or tell a product experience about any one product individually. You may also make a single endorsement about a product line or group of products. These stories should be brief, concise, and include your own or another Customers’ actual, personal experiences with Melaleuca products that are positive and typical of the experiences of others with the products. You can do so through written words, photos, or videos less than 1-minute long, and can mention the specific brand names of Melaleuca products such as Renew™ or Access®. Keep in mind that any experiences you share must be consistent with Policy 33. Examples: • Show a group of Melaleuca products under your kitchen sink and say, “My home has never been safer!” • I just had a great workout! Thank goodness for the Access Bar! • If the topic of dry skin comes up in a public forum, you could post a comment based on personal experience: “Renew is the best product we have ever used for our children when it comes to skin issues.” 4. We encourage you to talk about your quality of life in a tasteful way that will make friends, and to do everything that people on social media do to build meaningful relationships. You should do this without explicitly tying your experiences to Melaleuca.
Examples: • You can post pictures of you and your car, or you in your home, or you on vacation as long as you don’t exaggerate and those pictures are in good taste and don’t appear that you are promising someone else a lavish lifestyle. For example, your car, house, etc. should appear only incidentally, not as the focus of the post. (There are ways to demonstrate that you are doing well financially, in a manner that will cause healthy curiosity as to what you do for a living. But when you flaunt it, you will turn many people off.)
Private Messages Compared to a private message, a phone call is a much more effective way of making personal contact. Your success rate will be much higher with a phone call. However, if it is impossible to reach someone by phone, you can send a private message to someone you know. Likewise, when someone expresses interest in something relating to Melaleuca that you have shared publicly online, you should contact that person privately to follow-up. Your private message can reference Melaleuca by name, reference Melaleuca’s business opportunity, or extend an invitation to talk in person, over the telephone, or via other live means of communication that is face-to-face or vocal (per Policy 22). Your private messages should mirror your real-world relationships. Be genuine. Strive to develop real relationships through your private messages. And just as you wouldn’t approach a stranger on the street and immediately start introducing Melaleuca products or the business opportunity, your first private message to someone cannot include a call to action, an invitation, or anything about a business opportunity. Rather, use your first message to develop a genuine relationship. As the recipient responds and engages in the conversation, you can begin to foster the relationship, and when appropriate, you can extend an invitation. In all cases, private messages should be one at a time. Sending a dozen private messages in a single day to 12 different individuals, for example, has close to the same effect as a public post. You can’t give that many individuals the personal attention that they deserve. Public Forum Posts Melaleuca has fundamentally different policies for public forum sites, such as Facebook Instagram, Twitter, etc. than it does for closed sites. We have watched carefully what has happened in some companies that run rampant without any policies regarding posting on public social media forums. Frankly, it’s distasteful to many people who simply want to use social media to have relationships with others and don’t want to be continually pestered with product or business opportunity advertisements. We fully realize that multilevel marketing (“MLM”) companies use social media to advertise products and pitch their business
48 WELCOME TO MELALEUCA
SIMPLE STEPS TO SUCCESS 49
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