Top 7 Reasons to Host a Meetup Group
If you want to meet local, targeted leads for your business without spending thousands per month on Facebook Ads or SEO, Meetup.com might be your answer. If you aren’t sure what Meetup.com is… you can read about it by clicking here. If you already have a rough idea what Meetup is all about, then check out my Top 7 Reasons to Host a Meetup Group:
1. Leverage
The first reason that you should consider becoming a Meetup Organizer is Leverage. There are 3 ways that Meetup gives you great leverage:
A. Meetup’s Existing Database
When you create your own Meetup group, you get to leverage the existing database. Every time a new MEMBER creates a new account on Meetup, they are asked to select their interests; so Meetup knows a lot about its members. Meetup refers to these interests as “tags”. When you create your Meetup group, you get to select which “tags” you want your group to be about. Said another way, you get to tell Meetup which of its members they should invite to your group, and which members they should not invite. What this means is that there is ALREADY a big pool of people on Meetup that are looking for what you have to offer… and they have given Meetup permission to email them as soon as your group is created!
B. SEO
Because of Meetup’s size (27,610,000 members) it ranks really well on google. Have you ever put someone’s name into google and a facebook profile pops up? Same thing happens with Meetup. When you search for “Edmonton Cashflow” or “Cashflow Club” in my city, the number one search result is my meetup group. It would literally cost me thousands of dollars a month to stay at the top of google on my own. With Meetup it happens for free… and being an organizer is only $20/mo. a
C. Prospecting In Bunches
When you host a meetup event, you are leading a GROUP of people. That means that you can prospect multiple people all at once. It also reduces your risk of wasting a bunch of time on an unqualified prospect. If you have ever had a 60 minute coffee meeting a tire-kicker you know what I am talking about.
You also get massive leverage because of “targeting” and “positioning”… but those are their own topics so we will touch on those in a minute.
2. Build Massive Goodwill
Another great reason to host a Meetup group is that it allows you to build rapport and massive goodwill with your prospects, rather than just trying to pitch them something. By leading with value and giving before taking, you will get better conversion rates, more customers, and more business partners. Leading with value also makes you 1 million times cooler than everyone else who is trying to recruit your prospect.Second of all, building massive goodwill just makes sense. Think about it… of everyone you prospect, you are going to get far more “no’s” than “yes’s”. If you are inconsiderate, pushy, or uncool to them… they aren’t going to want to join you in the future. If you build massive goodwill people will always take your call and will be excited to hear from you. You will be the exact opposite of the networker who ONLY calls when they have a new deal they want you to join.
Second of all, building massive goodwill just makes sense. Think about it… of everyone you prospect, you are going to get far more “no’s” than “yes’s”. If you are inconsiderate, pushy, or uncool to them… they aren’t going to want to join you in the future. If you build massive goodwill people will always take your call and will be excited to hear from you. You will be the exact opposite of the networker who ONLY calls when they have a new deal they want you to join.
Have a dream prospect you would love to recruit who is “not open” to other things right now? Rather than insulting them by relentlessly trying to recruit them, just keep adding value to them through your meetup group. When the time comes where something changes and they are ready to do something new, you will be the first person they talk to (and if they never change opportunities, you got to be friends and add value to their lives… without it taking any extra time out of your day).
3. Positioning
My ABSOLUTE FAVORITE part about hosting a Meetup group is the positioning it gives me. For the longest time I didn’t have a word to describe the FEELING I get from hosting a group. People just treat me differently when I meet them through my meetup group. They gave me respect. They are excited to meet me. They are happy when I call. They show so much gratitude for everything I do for them… even the little things.
They don’t know me as Jimmie the bartender. They don’t know me as Jimmie the high school friend. They don’t know Jimmie the coworker. They don’t know me as Jimmie the network marketer. They only know me as “Jimmie the cashflow club leader”. They treat me like someone who is looking out for them and trying to help them… not someone who is trying to sell them something; because helping them is actually my agenda. I can’t explain this one… you just have to experience it. Once you know what it feels like to be positioned as a teacher and a trusted authority, you will never want to be treated any other way.
4. Indoctrination
Once you have positioned yourself as a teacher and leader (rather than a salesperson) you get the benefit of “indoctrination”. Indoctrination is simply bringing people around to your way of thinking.
“If people knew what we knew, they would do what we do”.
Take out a blank piece of paper and divide it into three columns. I want you to think about your “ideal customer” or “perfect prospect” for a minute. If you are in a business, your job is simply to solve problems. So take a minute and figure out what problems your prospects have.
The first column is “what problems they THINK they have”. An easy way to figure this out is by thinking about what your prospect complains about. Often times someone will look down at their gut and say “I need to get to the gym”. So in the first column you would write “more workouts” and “better workouts”.
The second column is “blind spots”. These are the problems your customers ACTUALLY have… but they usually don’t know it. For instance, if someone wants to lose weight 80% of their results are about what they eat, and 20% is about working out. So the thing they REALLY need (but don’t always know) is proper nutrition.
The third column is “results”. If they solved the problems in the first two columns, how would their life be different? What would change? What would a normal day be for them?
The thing you want to “market” (promote, sell, talk about, ex) is column #1 and column #3. Use these in your group name, description, events. These are the things you need to talk about… because it is what the prospect is initially interested in. Rather than running around trying to convince people they should eat better just host some free workouts and watch people flock to you. Just give them what they want.
That is where indoctrination comes in. Once you have their attention, now you can start teaching them what they ACTUALLY need. You can start helping them think about the problem properly so that they can get better results.
The problem is, it is very hard to deploy indoctrination in a sales environment. Even if what you are saying is truth, and even if it’s what they need to hear, they will resist it. If you can position yourself as a teacher and as a trusted authority, then you help them see their blind spots and you can actually help them. This will lead to more sales, easier conversations, and will eliminate those ridiculous objections people keep giving you.
5. Targeting
Network Marketing. Multi-Level Marketing. Relationship Marketing. Three words that describe the same industry… and what do they all have in common?
The Word Marketing.
I have no idea how I managed to be in MLM for 10 years without ever spending any time learning about marketing. It doesn’t make any sense at all. If I would have, I would have learned about Targeting.
Targeting means talking to the people who are most likely to buy from you. If network marketing is a numbers game, why are we taught to talk to low percentage prospects? Of all the people who you could talk to in the world about your business opportunity, what do you think the chances are that the starbucks barista who just made your coffee is going to be your next top producer? If you played those odds in a casino you would go broke every time. But it’s easier for companies to teach its distributors to just “make up for it in numbers” and talk to everyone. I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel like spending my life chasing people who are probably not going to be a good fit. That just doesn’t make sense to me.
And PLEEEEEEAAASE don’t tell me to “not pre-judge people”. If you owned a traditional business would you “pre-judge” employees, or would you just hire anyone and see what happens? Are you selective about who you let babysit your children or watch your house? If so, why would you be selective in those situations and then recruit everyone who has a pulse into your business? It just doesn’t add up.
We don’t pre-judge people because we only have a few hundred people on our names list, and we think that as soon as those names are gone, we will have to be a “pitch everyone” network marketer who prospects every single person that we meet. So we protect our names list. We don’t pre-judge. We don’t cross anyone off the list. “Call them before someone else does” and “follow up until they are dead or join!” are common network marketing mantras.
Scarcity thinking.
As soon as you move to an abundance mentality, everything changes. As soon as you have a funnel that is always adding new people to your list, everything changes.
It’s no longer a game of “get everyone”. It becomes a game of finding the best. You become a talent scout. Once you make that shift, you will stop selling and start sorting.
Think of it this way. Imagine everyone you meet has a score of 1-10. A ten is someone who wants to join NOW. An 8-9 is someone who is very interested, and just has some sort of a roadblock to get past before they can start. A 6-7 has multiple objections. It’s hard to tell if they actually want to solve their problems or if they just want to complain. 0-5 aren’t going to join you. Ever.To give you a visual, I want you to imagine your list is a bag of skittles. The red skittles are your 10’s. They are ready to join NOW. The yellow skittles are 8’s and 9’s. The greens are 6’s and 7’s. The purple skittles are 0-5. So much of the training I see in the marketplace that is for network marketers is all about how to turn a green skittle into a red skittle. How to convince and sell your way into a sale.
To give you a visual, I want you to imagine your list is a bag of skittles. The red skittles are your 10’s. They are ready to join NOW. The yellow skittles are 8’s and 9’s. The greens are 6’s and 7’s. The purple skittles are 0-5. So much of the training I see in the marketplace that is for network marketers is all about how to turn a green skittle into a red skittle. How to convince and sell your way into a sale.
Unfortunately, the sales tricks work short term. So companies keep preaching it. The problem is that the effect wears off. Eventually prospects remember they are a green skittle. Then you need to convince them to come to an event. Convince them to place an order. Convince them to make a list of names. Convince them to actually call someone. Convince them not to quit. You spend your whole career convincing and re-convincing.
Targeting means this: You let the green skittles stay green. You let the purple skittles stay purple. And you create a system that consistently puts you in the path of red skittles. For more specific examples of how you can use Meetup to create a consistent stream of very targeted prospects, you can click here to read another blog post about it.
6. Leadership
A very cool side benefit of organizing a meetup group is that it is a safe place for you to hone and grow your leadership ability. I remember my MLM mentor telling me one time to pull my team aside (like 5 people) at the break of an event and “say something inspirational”. Even though it was exactly what I had wanted to do for a long time, I was totally terrified by it. I had never led before, I had no idea what to say, and I felt totally unprepared.
Six months later I was on stage in front of a few thousand people and it was no big deal. I nailed it. You see I spent those 6 months running a meetup group. Every month I had a chance to speak. Every month I had a chance to lead. And my Meetup group was my “home turf”. I was confident and had “home field advantage”. That experience turned into a leadership and speaking skillset without me even being aware of it. Since then I have had many opportunities to lead and speak. The biggest team I have led is 5,600 people and the biggest stage I have spoken on had over 17,000 people. I haven’t always been perfect. I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. But I was confident enough to try because of the practice I put in leading my meetup group. You can too.
7. Fun
Don’t skip this one. I know. It seems basic and obvious.
I know. It seems basic and obvious. But most network marketing leaders (even great ones) DRAMATICALLY underestimate the power of fun. If you have any kind of a downline, consider this: your teammates already have a job… they don’t need a second one. As soon as your business stops being fun, everything gets harder. The losses hurt more. The wins don’t seem to matter. People get sucked into negativity and drama. All the sudden you don’t feel like doing any of the income generating activities. You spend time re-organizing your office, watching training videos, “coaching” your downline, reading… anything at all to avoid doing the actual work.
“Either find a way to make it fun, or find a way to develop discipline.”
It’s up to you.
A great advantage of organizing a meetup group is that it is a crazy amount of fun! How can I be so sure that you will have fun? It’s easy. As the organizer, you get to choose what the group is about, you get to choose who is invited, and you get to choose what events and activities happen in the group. Just create the group around something you ALREADY enjoy.
You will save time by combining your fun time and prospecting time. Meetup members will be meeting the highest and best version of you; because you will be positive and inspired. And you won’t have to convince yourself to schedule time for your business… because it will be something you are excited to do!
One last thing. Network Marketing is a lifestyle business. People are buying into YOU and your LIFESTYLE just as much as they are buying into your products and company. When your prospects sense that you aren’t enjoying your life or business, it becomes almost impossible to sign anyone up. It’s why great recruiters sometimes go on long recruiting droughts.
So keep it fun and make your prospects, your downline and yourself happy!
Next step.
If you want to deploy leverage, goodwill, positioning, indoctrination, targeting, leadership development and fun into your business, it is time to step up and become an organizer! Get more leads, more sales, more recruits and have more fun! That’s what running a business should be like! I’m hosting a webinar to show you even more details about how to create a meetup group… and how to RECRUIT from it. Click the button below to get all the webinar details. It’s free to attend:
I hope you have enjoyed the 7 Reasons To Organize a Meetup Group! Do you agree? Disagree? Of the 7 which one do you think is the most powerful. Post a comment below, I’d love to hear your thoughts!
Jimmie
