Which came first; the chicken or the egg? For network marketers, there is a famous variation of the question which has been debated for decades, but has never been satisfactorily resolved. If you have been in the industry for any length of time, you have been asked it by your downline. If you are new, it may have recently been muttered from your very own lips with your the answer so fleeting and floating in limbo, your need for fulfillment clearly going unquenched.

"Do I lead with the product or with the opportunity?"

When I got into the industry, I was in search of a system. Once I had one, that's what I marketed. I really didn't care what the product was, so long as it was bona fide and had high-value appeal. I knew that even a pay plan that pays out 99 percent in commissions is useless - if no one buys into it.

In the late 90's, I tested a variety of tools, both product- and opportunity-focused, and ultimately found great success with a compelling health-related audio recording. The recording drilled home the benefits of taking liquid mineral supplements my company's specific product met the need perfectly.

The product was the focus, and I can't begin to tell you how many people have come to me and said, "Can you tell me how to do 'product-based marketing' or 'consumer-based marketing'?" What the heck does that mean? Everything is product-based. Everything is consumer-based. They are missing the obvious.

Those customers who wanted the product as a result of listening to the recording, bought the product. The people who saw an opportunity based on the way the product was being offered through my system, bought the system. A natural progression led them to join my specific opportunity - because it was part of the system.

I didn't do product-based marketing. I didn't do opportunity-based marketing. I did system-based marketing.

Have Your Cake and Eat It, Too

Imagine this:

Your company issues you, for a ridiculously low fee (compared to the hundreds-of-thousands it would cost you to do it yourself), two professionally designed Web sites. Guess what they represent? That's right: the product, and the opportunity.

If what you really want to do is aggressively build a customer base of loyal product users, why taint their product experience with dollar signs and business opportunity language during your Web presentation?

Conversely (on the other site), someone who is looking for a way to make some serious money won't hit a wall of weight-loss, makeup, or vitamin-C Web pages to turn them off. You can advertise with opportunity-heavy copy, driving those prospects to the opportunity-focused site, while simultaneously marketing your flagship product and driving those prospects through the site designed for them.

The goal is to have everyone ultimately meet in the middle, both categories of prospects entering through portals specific to their interests and each in time realizing that they have been drawn by your system. You will stand atop a machine pulling them in from all directions, no matter what they may have thought attracted them in the first place, leading them all to the core: a replicating dot.com system that they can then call their own.

If your company hasn't yet embraced this way of thinking, they will. In the meantime, there is always the generic route. There are some scalding generic presentations coming out in the near future that, like the direct mail marketing I used to do, market nothing specific and yet call people to action, evoking a powerful desire to learn more and a support mechanism that they can easily plug into. Of course, now that your system has greeted them at the door, you are there, beaming with confidence and obvious efficacy, assuring them that your product and opportunity offer the best vehicle available. Sometimes, you will see people sign up without even knowing what the product is - they are that impressed.

And that is my point. An effective network marketer is a specialist in the distribution of products and the expansion of those distribution channels. We must do both well to make it. Therefore, it is logical to create systems that methodically increase the sale of products while also increasing the base of distributors to sell the products.

It is vital to have both gears of the mechanism well oiled and fine tuned. Once we have mastered the cycle, we have created a product delivery mechanism that can move additional products and expand our market share. The Internet has opened up a gold mine of opportunity to automate and simplify this process. Take advantage, and remember what business you are in.

"So... should I sell the product or the opportunity?" Yes! Lead with the system!