How you can become a Professional Inviter Tim Sales teaches a three-part formula: invite, present, train. Of these, by far the most critical is inviting. You can have tools and other people do the presenting and training for you – but inviting? That part’s up to you; that’s what you’ve got to get good at. What gives Tim the right to be telling you all of this? He’s truly a been-there, done-that seven-figure income earner who’s not only done it once (after all, he could have been lucky, right?), but then started all over and did it again. From there, Tim has become internationally recognized as a speaker, trainer and author— and most famously, as the creator of the enormously successful “Brilliant Compensation” program, which has millions of copies in circulation. There are two things I admire most about Tim. First is his commitment to people and to doing whatever it takes to help them learn how to do this business right. And the second; NULL Tim is such a no-BS guy: he will not allow the people he trains to have anything in front of them except something he’s proven works in the field again and again and again. Tim is ex-military, an underwater bomb squad guy, so there is nothing wishy-washy or unsure about him; yet I’ve heard him do things on one of his recorded live cold calls that spoke with such humanity, it touched my heart. I asked him to talk about that call, because it shows how powerful and at the same time how human and caring his approach is. Tim, will you describe the genesis of this three-part formula? It came purely from experience: it was something I needed to do to make the business simple for me. When you first enter this business, it’s daunting to look at all the information available and try to figure out what you actually need to do. The first thing I did was observe the typical opportunity meeting and typical training meeting. In the training meeting, they covered the product, the comp plan, what you must do, what you must never do, how to have posture… all these different categories of data were flying at me. I quickly saw how easy it is to get focused on things that don’t necessarily make a difference in your ability to build a business! So, I broke it down into three basic categories: 1) invite someone to look at the business; 2) present it to them; 3) then show those who are interested how you did the first two steps. Once I had that simple foundation, I could put my attention on the right thing first. What this also shows you is that if you don’t focus on inviting first, then you’re getting off track. How so? Here’s what often happens: let’s say I just sponsored you into the business, and I start teaching you all about the compensation plan. But the compensation plan is not something you are ever going to need— unless you can already invite! Inviting is the first step of the process: it’s the most important step, and the first thing that everyone in this business needs to know. Here’s something else this formula shows: you can be terrible at presenting and training and still make it in this business! Why? Because if you can invite well, then you can put those people you’ve invited in front of good presenters or good presentation tools, such as videos, audios and Web sites; but if you can’t invite well, then you’re going to have a tough time getting anywhere in this business. Let’s go back to the step that comes before inviting: what do you do to connect to people, so that you can do the inviting? Prospects can come from all sorts of sources. There are people you know, referrals from people you know, direct mail, including e-mail, postcards and any other kind of outbound campaign; then there are advertisements in newspaper, radio, different media; it can be people you meet while you’re sitting on an airplane, or at a party… Do you favor any one of these? No, I don’t have a favorite. I like to be effective at all of them. If someone comes into my business and is reluctant to approach his warm list, I want to be able to teach that person how to do the cold market— which means I need to be able to do any one of these things myself. Tim, what’s your opinion of the directive to “Go tell your family and friends”— the pure warm-market approach we’ve been doing for 50 years? The philosophy itself is very accurate— but the method through which we typically go at it has degraded our reputation as an industry. Networking in the truest sense is what the very top businesses actually do. It’s what all businesses did, across the boards, prior to about the mid 1800s, when advertising began. Before that, we were all professional networkers. That’s all we did. Then in 1850, the first public advertisement came out: the tobacco industry created a portrait of a man with an American flag draped around him, looking at a cigarette with a smile on his face. That was the first real ad, and in the century and a half since then, advertising has pretty much taken over as the medium through which to communicate business to masses of people. But even today, when you look at the top echelons in any business, that kind of pre-1850 networking is still what occurs. If one company wants to buy another company, they don’t put out an ad: it’s all done through networking. The top people sit down for lunch and have an exploratory conversation: “You have a business; I have a business, what’s the possibility of us taking our assets and combining them together…?” This is professional networking at its best. That’s pure networking: contacting people you know and getting a referral. What I teach is to go back to that kind of business. So yes, write a list of the 200 (or 2000) people you know— but don’t destroy the relationship in the process! In terms of destroying relationships, are there a few common traps people fall into? Let me illustrate it this way: I created something I call the Inviting Formula. [Tim’s ‘Inviting Formula” is detailed in a PDF attachment you can download at the end of this article.] The first step is to greet the prospect: you get them to talk freely and openly to you. That’s the requirement: they must be talking freely and openly before you can move out of the greeting step. The next step is to qualify: find out what that person needs, wants or doesn’t want in life. Once they’re qualified, then and only then do you open your mouth concerning what you have. In the process of teaching this formula, I found that I could give one of my new distributors the exact scripts I use to do this, but they wouldn’t get the same results I was getting. For a trainer, this is quite a frightening thing. So, I would take the phone back and call a few people, and they would say yes to me, but no to that other person. And my training efforts began to crumble— until I started to identify what the difference was between what I was doing and what they were doing. I started to pinpoint what I call the 10 Communication Qualities: ten qualities that a person possesses if he has learned how to be a great communicator. [The 10 Communication Qualities are also in a PDF you can download at the end of this article.] Being a great communicator is not something people are born with. All you have to do is take a trip down the maternity ward and look at all the screaming babies: I dare you to try to pick out which one of them is a born communicator! You can’t … they’re all screaming. One of those communication qualities is called “Too Much Assertiveness”. To assert means to force your opinion on another. If you use too much assertiveness in communicating with your warm market, then you’ll blow a relationship. If I come on a little too strong, you step back just a little. If I come on way too strong, you hide— you see me on your caller ID and you don’t answer it! This is a behavior I’m trying to limit, minimize and even eliminate in the industry. When you say “too strong,” the first thing I think is the classic aggressive used car salesman. But there’s another kind, which is a huge pet peeve
: The careless network marketing amateur who calls up and says, ‘Hi Tim, how are you, Gosh, haven’t talked to you in a long time, how’s the wife and kids… hey, do you keep your business options open?” Absolutely— and you know why that’s too assertive? Because you didn’t get a good greeting! You didn’t get the person talking freely and openly to you before you qualified. “Do you keep your business options open…?” is a qualifying question. But if you come out with a qualifying question without having completed the greet step, it will be experienced as too assertive, and you won’t get any kind of productive response. Something I especially appreciate about your approach is that you allow that “greeting” step to take whatever time it takes- is that right? Absolutely. It can take time. I’ve done a greeting f
Downloads
Dear Friend,
I believe you have what it takes to be a successful Network Marketer. If you have the desire to succeed, then you will succeed. It doesn’t get any simpler than that.
Your attitude, above all else, is the factor that’ll determine your success in Network Marketing ... and in all other aspects of your life. To succeed, you’ve got to want to leap out of that jar.
Now this is really important, so pay attention.
I retired from active Network Marketing nearly ten years ago, but not before I had earned millions and built a downline of over 56,000 people in 26 countries. And I still continue to receive a substantial passive income from my business even though I am no longer actively involved. That ability to build passive income is one of the hallmarks of Network Marketing. Few opportunities can offer you that.
Let me add one more critical thought before I close.
When I started in Network Marketing, there was little, and I mean very little available to help a struggling Network Marketer succeed. I was simply told to make a list of all my friends and relatives and then go sell them on the idea. Sadly, that ill-conceived and unworkable strategy is still used by nearly everyone today.
I love Network Marketing, both as an industry and as a way of making an honest living through multiple streams of passive income. FirstClassMLMTools.com is yours. Use it to your advantage. I have developed tools such as Brilliant Compensation and Professional Inviter that you can use to successfully invite prospects to learn more about your business and to quickly build your downline. Both are a product of my own personal triumphs.
I also continually shop the industry, carefully selecting affordable tools I believe can be of significant value to you. I am a hard man to please, so rest assured, what you find at FirstClassMLMTools.com is the best you’ll find anywhere.
- What your downline should be duplicating – and how to get them to do it by Tim Sales - July 1, 2014
- Build MLM Part-Time by Tim Sales - October 1, 2011
- What your downline should be duplicating – and how to get them to do it by Tim Sales - February 1, 2008
