Attraction Marketing Blueprint: A Delicious Analogy

Monday night, I was checking out a network marketing forum that I occasionally go to, and there was a guy on there who had recently picked up Mike Dillard’s book, Magnetic Sponsoring, but was having some difficulty with what exactly the broad concept of attraction marketing really means. It’s something that, as a broad concept, is pretty easy to comprehend but in case you may be having some difficulty with it (or if you’ve never heard of attraction marketing before), here’s a simple and quick analogy that you can use to explain it to your team (not to be confused with B.A. Baracus and crew).

Imagine for a second that you just moved into a new house in across the country from where you currently reside. While you are hanging up some pictures, you hear a knock at the front door. When you open the door, you see a tall man standing there, with a big smile on his face, who introduces himself as your next door neighbor, Jack. After some of small talk about where you moved from, Jack welcomes you to the neighborhood and hands you a little housewarming gift – a container of best smelling BBQ you’ve ever seen.

Hey, I live in Texas so I couldn’t say it was a cricket paddle or something like that.

A few days later, you’re in your back yard trying to fire up the old gas grill you've had forever when you notice Jack is grilling up a storm from across the fence. It looks and smells amazing. Jack gives you a friendly wave and asks what you’re going to be cooking, so you tell him you got some pre-marinated steaks from the butcher because you can’t grill like he does. Jack laughs and says he has a brochure in his house: “5 Amazing Spice Rub Recipes That Will Make You A BBQ Champion” that you need to read. He gives you the pamphlet and you go back your pre-packaged cookout. Within a month, your family is complementing you on your newly acquired grilling skills.

Is it weird that I'm starting to get hungry?

Occasionally you notice that Jack is always throwing out a amazing "master tip" or "secret" on something related to grilling and BBQ, and you’ve also noticed some of your neighbors approaching Jack with their grilling questions, so in the back of your mind you start to think of Jack as the neighborhood “expert” on grilling.

The time comes when you’re ready to get rid of your old rusty propane grill, and you decide that you want to buy a grill that will take your new BBQ skills to the next level. The only thing is that you’re not exactly sure what to get and where to get it from since you’re new to the area. That's when the little voice in the back of your head says, “talk to Jack.”

So you find yourself doing what you’ve seen many of your equally clueless have done and you go next door to Jack’s house hoping he can give you a good referral.

“Hey Jack, I’m looking to pick up a high quality grill like you have, and I was hoping that that you could give me an idea of where to go?” Jack smiles at you and says, “Sure.” He reaches into his shirt pocket, pulls out a red business card and hands it to you.

What do you think the business card says? To your shock and amazement, the card reads, “Jack’s Grilling Supply”.

Do you see what Jack did here? Jack has been practicing attraction marketing from the very beginning:

* The BBQ as a housewarming gift
* The pamphlet
* The free advice
* Teaching his neighbors to establish himself as an expert

Jack embodied the basic ideas that are shared in Magnetic Sponsoring, and he isn’t even a network marketer!

What if Jack had prospected you the very first day trying to tell you about his grilling supply store? My guess is that you would not have ever done business with him if had he tried to sell you on his store you from the start, or at least the relationship with Jack would likely have not have been the same.

Would you say that’s accurate?

The whole idea behind attraction marketing is to give real value to a qualified group of individuals over a period of time. When you can secure your status as an expert in your “neighborhood” (Your Blog, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) by giving valuable content to your audience and allow a little bit of time to work for you, you will eventually standout in the mind of your audience as a valued expert. Once you have the PRINCIPLE mastered, it doesn’t matter what exact method you use to share your expertise to your audience.