Mentoring For Free: A Review
by Mark Worthen
Published on this site: July 15th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month...
Mentoring For Free is a training program that can also be
used as a recruitment tool for network marketing distributors.
The owner is Michael Dlouhy, a 26-year veteran of the network
marketing industry. Mr. Dlouhy also gives away an e-book,
Success in 10 Steps and sells an audio CD, Colors to Success.
This review of Mentoring For Free suggests that the program
offers valuable training for network marketers provided a
few caveats are kept in mind. The advantages and disadvantages
of the program are as follows:
Advantages
- Mastermind Call - The Saturday night Mastermind
call provides an opportunity to achieve personal growth
with a group of network marketers who are, for the most
part, caring and sincere.
- Personality Types - The description of the 4 personality
types, while not unique, is a valuable heuristic, which
I found improved my ability to quickly tailor my presentation
to prospects. I'm a psychologist so I think it says a lot
that Mr. Dlouhy's description of the personality types was
so helpful.
- Compensation Plans - The overview of comp plans
and the relationship between personality types and comp
plans will help many people make a better decision when
choosing an MLM or in working their own comp plan (although
see below for the other side of the coin).
- How to Talk with Prospects - Mr. Dlouhy and others
talk with live prospects, which can be educational although
see my opinion about his practice below. The general discussions
about talking with prospects are very helpful.
- Relationship Focus - Whether you like this aspect
of the program might depend on your personality type. Thus,
because I am a "Yellow/Green," I think the focus
on building relationships is the only way to go!
Disadvantages
- Live Prospecting Calls - I realize this might be a minority
opinion but I don't like the fact that with this program
and other training programs, prospects are called while
dozens of people are secretly listening to the conversation.
I strikes me as voyeuristic and a violation of privacy.
But if you don't mind this approach, you might see this
as a big positive. Be aware that if you sign up for the
free e-book, order the CD, or try the free version of the
prospecting system that you could very well get a call from
the person whose link you clicked on, then Mr. Dlouhy will
come on the call ("I've got the author of the e-book
on the line"), and dozens of people will be listening
to everything you say.
- Policy & Procedure Bias - Mr. Dlouhy emphasizes
reading a company's Policies & Procedures (P&P),
which certainly makes good sense, and he offers advice for
identifying rules that could jeopardize a distributor's
financial success. However, it seems more than a coincidence
that the type of Policies & Procedures Mr. Dlouhy advocates
is nearly identical to the P&P of his company and he
seems to find fault with the majority of other company's
Policies & Procedures.
- Comp Plan Bias - Similar to the P&P bias,
many companies are found to have bad comp plans when reviewed
on the calls. Company names aren't mentioned but callers
sometimes have an idea of the company and it's also clear
that the company Mr. Dlouhy and at least half the participants
on the calls represents has a good comp plan.
- Not Completely Generic - If a participant to the
calls finds that his or her company's P&P or comp plan
does not fit the recommendations made on the calls, there
is a natural tendency to want to join a "good"
company with a trusted sponsor. It's also a natural tendency
for such a person to want to sign up with a leader whom
they have come to know and trust. Mr. Dlouhy is an obvious
choice for many participants since he clearly knows a lot
about network marketing and he has a charismatic personality
(I mean that in a good way).
To be fair, Mr. Dlouhy states that he will always refer
a person back to the person who invited them to Mentoring
For Free (the system uses affiliate links to track visitors
to the websites) and I have no reason to doubt him. At the
same time, people have the freedom to join the company of
their choice. Consequently, they can say, "no thanks"
to the person who invited them to Mentoring For Free and
sign up with Mr. Dlouhy's company (VitaMark). This might
be particularly true if the person who invited them on the
call is with a company that has a "negative" P&P
or comp plan in Mr. Dlouhy's opinion.
- Strong Personality - Although I found Mr. Dlouhy
to be likeable and engaging, he is a "Red/Blue"
personality type. Consequently, he dominates the calls to
some extent. He often is not very open to feedback; particularly
when participants express in a sincere, polite manner concerns
about his biases.
3 Phases
I went through three phases during my participation with
Mentoring For Free:
- Excitement at a very good educational program, which
also
looked like an ideal way to find new distributors for my
business and train them
- Disillusionment and jealousy when the above negatives
became apparent
- Respect for an ingenious viral marketing strategy that
I suspect others will emulate in the near future.
In summary, I'm glad I participated in Mentoring For Free
for a couple of months. I learned a lot and it gave me some
great marketing and training ideas for my own business. I
recommend it provided you keep the above caveats in mind.
Mark Worthen, Psy.D. is a Phi Betta Kappa graduate
of the University of Maryland's Honors Psychology program.
He earned his Doctor of Psychology degree from Baylor University
after serving as a Clinical Fellow, Department of Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School. In addition to his work as a clinical
psychologist, Dr. Worthen collects an extra paycheck every
week as an Independent Associate with USANA Health Sciences.
http://Mark.Usana.com
<http://mark.usana.com/>
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