In every problem there is an opportunity for a great marketer to make money. This technique uses a joint venture between you and a small merchant in a shopping mall. As usual, the first thing we must consider is that our small merchant is thinking: “What’s in it for me?”

Imagine you are a small merchant at a large shopping mall. Your advertising budget is limited. You don’t have the capital needed for a large pull-through media campaign to get shoppers to your door. Worse yet, as a small merchant, you have the least desirable location in the mall for walk-by traffic. So, you sit in your empty store, count your expenses, and wonder how you are going to pay next month’s rent.

One day a very interesting, professional marketer stops by your store to visit. This professional marketer asks you:  “Would you like to have more prospects come into your store, stay for 20 minutes or longer, and capture their goodwill forever?” You reply, “Sure. What a dumb question. I’d love to have those kinds of prospects, but what’s the catch? How much is this going to cost me?”

The professional marketer replies, “Nothing. I’ll take care of the expenses. All you have to do is to give the satisfied prospect/customer one of my brochures and audio CDs when they leave, okay?”

How would you feel about that proposition? Great! It’s definitely a winning deal for you, the small merchant. Now we have a winning proposition that we can offer the small merchant. Not every merchant will accept this proposal. In fact, most will refuse because they:

• are skeptical,
• have never done business differently before, so why change now,
• don’t trust you,
• can’t see any hope of changing their fate,
• don’t think anything will work,
• are negative and just waiting to fail, and any success would just prolong their agony.

However, eventually some brilliant merchant will say:

“Hey, sounds good to me. I don’t have anything to lose and everything to gain, so let’s get started. What should we do first?”

This is the kind of merchant you’ll want to work with.

The secret plan unveils.

Again, the first thing we must consider in our marketing campaign is the prospect. Our typical mall shopper must have some needs or desires that we can fulfill. There must be something we can do to solve an unrecognized problem, right? If we locate the problem, and if it’s a big problem, our solution will literally draw prospects to us like a magnet. Remember, our prospect is also asking, “What’s in it for me?” And that question gives us the key to our marketing plan.

Here is our plan. We look up and down the aisles in the shopping mall. Sure there are lots of busy shoppers walking up and down the aisles while window shopping, but that's not where we are focusing now. We are looking at the floor. Are the floors carpeted with lots of foam padding? Or, are they the hardest floors known to mankind? The floors are brutally hard. Now, look at the shoppers’ feet. Are they wearing the most comfortable, cushioned walking shoes? Or, are they wearing sleek, fashionable shoes that are foot-torture devices? Most shoppers would rather look good instead of feel good. They wear uncomfortable shoes, walk on an uncomfortable surface and after one hour, their feet hurt, their legs hurt, their whole bodies hurt.

Have we identified an unmistakable, crying need? A problem begging to be solved?

Yes! And it is an inexpensive and easy problem to solve. We go to our new friend, the small merchant, and say: “Do you have about ten square feet of space that I can use to draw more prospects into your business?” The small merchant says: “Sure, I can make room. My store is never crowded anyway.” Now you bring in your prospect-attracting equipment. Your total investment consists of: One vibrating recliner chair (about $300) One coffee maker (about $20) One hot tea maker (about $20) A window sign. That’s it. Your window sign might say something like this:

Feet hurt? Tired? Come inside, put up your feet, and relax. Free 20-minute break on our vibrating lounge chair. Complimentary coffee or tea.

What will happen? A lot. At first, a few people will try the 20-minute break. Most of the other shoppers:

• won’t know about it because of the poor mall location,
• won’t try it because they think there might be a “catch,”
• won’t try it because they want to hear from other people who have taken advantage of your offer first.

Well, once a few of the brave shoppers try the 20-minute complimentary break and find out there was no “catch”, high-pressure selling, or other obvious and overbearing salesmanship, the word will spread like a wild forest fire.

Professional shoppers relish telling their friends about the great deals and services that they discover. That's network marketing, isn't it? Recommending and promoting what you like.

Don't you and I tell our friends about some great personal experience that they can experience too? Of course. Sharing great deals or great discoveries is as natural as breathing. In fact, we can't help it! We just have to tell somebody about our latest great experience. As the word-of-mouth advertising spreads from the first few customers at the store, more and more sore-footed shoppers come into the merchant's store for relief. Soon, your vibrating massage chair will be fully booked. That means three more prospects will come through the small merchant’s door every hour. In a ten-hour day, that’s 30 more prospects through the door, and this promotion didn’t cost the merchant any money. What do we know about these new prospects?

First, some of them are freeloaders, the type of people who look for free samples and services. They’ll take advantage of the vibrating chair and the free drinks. But what did this cost you? About five cents worth of electricity and a cup of hot tea. Basically, nothing. However, freeloaders love to brag about all the deals that they discover. You’ve just purchased some loud-mouthed word-of-mouth advertising since these people will tell the world about your service.

Second, some of the more courteous prospects will browse around the store and purchase nothing. They won’t need anything from the store that day, but they will know where to go in the future when they need an item that the store carries. If there is a waiting period for a turn in the chair, some of these prospects will browse around along enough to memorize the complete inventory of the store.

Third, some of the prospects will buy items from the store. Maybe they never have entered the store before. Or maybe they just want to buy something as their way of saying “Thank you” for the complimentary 20-minute relaxing break. A few of these people may become repeat customers and also tell their friends about the items in the store.

It's all a matter of exposure.

If no one knows what’s in the store, if no one ever enters the store, it won’t matter how good the merchandise is or how great the prices are. The small merchant will be broke.

What you have accomplished is a way for the small merchant to get exposure without spending large sums of money. You made the whole process free for the lucky store owner.

Well, now we know what’s in it for the small merchant. But what’s in it for you, the network marketing distributor who provided the vibrating recliner chair and the drinks?

Exposure.

Just like the small merchant, we need exposure for our business too. And, just like the small merchant, not every prospect we expose our products and services to will be qualified. We’ll get our share of freeloaders and sample collectors too. That’s life. That will always happen when you aggressively look for new prospects. However, the good news is that we will have a captive audience (the prospect won't want to leave the vibrating massage chair) that feels good about us. And that's a great start to a long-term relationship and future customer or distributor. When was the last time you had 30 prospects in a chair who listened to you... in one day?

What else can we can add to make our massage chair marketing campaign more productive? Product usage.

We’d be unbelievably lucky if our product was an herbal relaxing tea. The prospects could enjoy the tea, see the results in 20 minutes (okay, maybe part of the relaxing was from the vibrating chair), order the product, and instantly decide to become a distributor. Aaahh, the perfect life. While life’s not perfect, there are some other products that would easily complement the prospects’ 20-minute visit. For instance:

• an herbal energizer drink or tablet that rejuvenated the prospect after 20 minutes
• a food bar or cookie that took away the hunger pains
• a moisturizing lotion or cream that absorbed into the skin
• a water filter that made the coffee and tea taste better
• an educational or instructional audio CD
• a DVD that educated the prospect.

Let's not stop with the obvious products. If you sold a pre-paid telephone long distance service, you could have the prospect make a free long distance telephone call while relaxing in the massage chair. If you sold a car cleaning product, you could offer to clean the prospect's car for free or for a nominal cost. Now your prospect is really bonding with you. Your service is making the type of impression you want.

Is this type of service expensive?

No! It's much cheaper than placing expensive advertising or paying postage and printing for a mailing campaign. You are finding good prospects, right now, who feel great about you and will feel great about your product or service.

Does your product or service benefit from sampling?

Maybe the prospect can take home a seven-day supply of vitamins, skin care, diet tablets, sports drinks, laundry cleaner, pre-paid long distance or cookies. Most distributors give free samples to cold prospects. The results are usually disappointing. However, now you are giving samples to prospects who feel good about you. They have a relationship with you or the small merchant. Your results should improve dramatically. Hmmm, just a thought. If you couldn't invest a lot of time on this project, wouldn't this project be a great place for a new distributor to get started? A great place to make contacts, locate prospects, make presentations and start to sponsor their first distributors?

What about cold, commercialized demonstrations?

You can ruin the goodwill of the prospect by being too commercialized. Yet some people have the type of personality where they can give a facial, demonstrate an appliance, and actually sell to the prospects without offending them. If you or someone you know has this special gift, take advantage of it. If you don’t have this gift, don’t ruin the goodwill of the prospect or the store owner.

Can our Survey Technique pay off big here?

Yes! Most Fortune Now subscribers are familiar with the survey technique. It’s a great way to pre-sell and pre-qualify a prospect and improve the relationship at the same time. The free offer or report further strengthens the bond with your prospect.

Advertise your generosity.

Maybe you can have a small sign that says:

The massage chair and refreshments have been generously donated by ABC, Inc. If you'd like a free sample of the X5 miracle product, call xxx-xxxx

Or, maybe the small merchant can hand the prospect a card that says the same thing when the prospect leaves the store. Use your imagination on how you can promote yourself to some friendly, relaxed prospects.

Do you have a prospecting or pre-approach package?

Maybe you can explain your product, service or business with a simple CD and brochure. Have these prospecting or pre-approach packs available for interested prospects.

Check the lease agreement of the small merchant.

Maybe the small merchant can expand his business to include renting the vibrating recliner to prospects for $5 per 20-minute session. Hmmm, that’s $15 an hour... ten hours in a day... $150 a day potential... 30 days in a month, and... $4,500 PER CHAIR!!!! Maybe you can joint venture with the store owner, split the profits, and invest a few thousand dollars extra each month into mutual funds, real estate, luxury cruising, lottery gambling, or just having fun.

This is only a start.

Use your lateral thinking to expand these basic starter ideas to come up with a plan that’s just right for you. And by lateral thinking, we mean... don’t limit the possibilities or ways of looking at possible other uses for this idea. For example, if you have a booth at a trade fair, couldn’t you use this idea to capture hot prospects for a 20-minute presentation? Wouldn’t almost every trade show attendee have sore feet? If you have an exhibition booth at an MLM trade show or at a county fair, check to see if you can get access to an electrical outlet for your chair and coffee maker. If you can’t, think laterally. There are plenty of rollers and massagers that operate without electricity. If you don't want to ship a heavy massaging chair to your next trade show exhibition, consider purchasing an inexpensive massage chair near the trade show. An inexpensive model, including delivery, would only be about $300. Then, use the massage chair as the grand prize for your drawing. Lots of prospects will stop, visit, and leave their business cards with you so that they will have a chance to win your grand prize. Don’t let obstacles hold you back. Just go around them, over them, under them or blast them away. Great marketers always find a way.

Take your thinking outside of the shopping mall.

Couldn’t you also set up the massage chair at the finish line of a marathon or long distance race? Not for the runners, they are fit and in great shape.

You want the chair for the out-of-shape spectators who get tired standing around and waiting for their co-workers to finish the marathon.

Or take your thinking beyond a massage chair.

My wife gave me a FootSoother (a vibrating foot massager that includes Shiatsu massagers). The FootSoother only weighs ten pounds and costs about $250. It's portable, just plug it into any electrical outlet. You could take it anywhere you wanted to attract prospects. But wait, we're only solving the first problem we observed hard floors that hurt prospects' feet. We've only just begun to explore the problems our prospects experience. And our prospects have lots of problems... and that's great! In every problem there is an opportunity for a great marketer to make money. Rejoice in problems because they give you an opportunity to provide a solution... and make a profit.