You CAN approach new contacts with something they’ll want. Think you’re good at adding value to the people you’re talking to about your opportunity? Prove it! Take this quick test to determine how skilled you are at representing the value of being involved in the network marketing (NM) industry. After you’ve finished the test, we’ll compare answers and look at how to use the data to improve your overall value proposition when working on attracting new team members. Are you ready? Let’s go!
On a blank sheet of paper, write down all of the benefits that you have received personally, or seen other people receive as a result of being involved in NM.
Go! If you even try reading on without doing this exercise, you’ll not get a sense of where you need to personally improve, so go back and write out your list now. It’s that important. NULL
I personally took about 20-30 minutes going through this exercise, as one idea bounced into another, but you can take as long as you like. One thing you should note, though, is how quickly the ideas come out. How many did you have in the first 5-10 minutes? In total? I came up with 19.5 benefits. More on the “half” later. Fans of this magazine are probably familiar with the late, great John Kalench. In his book, Being the Best You Can Be in MLM, he described 4 areas you need to have a rock solid belief system and knowledge in, and one of them was in the network marketing industry as a whole. These answers fall into that category.
Each one of these is a tool in your box to get someone to show you why they need and want to be on your team.
Anyone that’s been in the industry for even just a couple weeks has probably been told some version of the core 6 (actually 5.5) benefits. These would include: time freedom, creating a family friendly lifestyle with the finances to do more for one’s children now and in the future, improving your health (often with products, but certainly through less stress), reproductive residual income, personal development training and the tax advantages of operating a home-based business (this is the half point, since traditional business owners already get several tax advantages). Did you have some version of each of those? I hope so. Since these are basic, I’ll leave you to your upline for definitions. An important point that needs to be made is that these core 6 principles have been taught probably for over 40 years at this point in time. Anyone that has ever even remotely scratched the surface of NM has heard all of these before. As a result, they may attach negative feelings about unsuccessful or unpleasant past experiences with your offer when you lead with these benefits because they’ll use their old maps to determine if the opportunity is right for them today. They do this without really opening up to how NM might be more appropriate for them now than it was in the past. These are all powerful tools, but potentially need to be pulled out later in the game and used sparingly so as not to lose their impact. For my remaining 14, 3 pertain to personal interests, 5 could have implications on both the personal and business side of things, and the last 6 are really more for existing entrepreneurs. While we won’t go over each point in this article, I’d like to highlight 5 areas for discussion that are both timely and powerful. I was always taught if you have to cold call, cold call on business owners, as they’ll probably make better distributors with less effort. They’ve got a list and know what it takes to run a business. Let’s start there. Benefit 1: Formal Sales Training As a business strategist and coach, I can personally affirm there are 100,000s of small business owners that hate to sell and/or have never taken the time to get formal training. Some struggle and others are more successful, but…
the bottom line is, formal consultative sales skills training for sales neophytes is one of the easiest ways to improve a business.
While this may not happen right away in your NM career, depending on the company you are with and the abilities / background of the leadership either at the local or overall team level, the longer you are around NM, you will inevitably get exposure to formal selling techniques. This usually includes the use of qualifying questions, understanding the decision-making process and creative ways of asking for the order. Make it a point to start asking your leadership for this type of training, if they’ll give it to you. If not, decide that you are going to be responsible for your success and get some outside help in the form of books or personal training. (Yes. We offer this type of training and will gladly work with you.) Benefit 2: New Customers I am always encouraging my clients that sell B2B or B2C to find a NM company they like that has local meetings, join and start attending on a weekly basis. I remember one of the local leaders when I was in a company in FL had a restaurant (before they were able to sell it, thanks to NM) that got a ton of business from people that got to know them through seeing them at the weekly meetings and hearing their story, myself included. The business owner doesn’t even need to become a leader to get the publicity. All they have to do is stand up and give a testimonial about how the product helped them in the course of their traditional business and wham! Free commercial to people that are actually interested in hearing about who you are and what you do. The bigger your local meetings, the easier it should be to attract business owners. Make sure you remind the person to volunteer their testimonial for maximum exposure. The next two benefits can be directed toward business owners, but also carry more personal benefits as well, so they have wider application. Benefit 3: Social Media / Internet Marketing Training As a trainer and copywriter that works in this space, I can tell you clients pay me well to personally teach them about the Internet and help them with their social media platforms. Chances are, your upline leaders have made some sizable investments to bring themselves up to speed in these areas, as it is one of the least expensive, fastest ways to generate new contacts to introduce to your opportunity today. The difference is that your leaders will often pass this information along to you for an investment of your time to come and learn, since your success is their success. Alternately, they’ll put you in front of the better trainers so you don’t have to try to figure out where to get the information on your own, which alone could save you a lot of time and money. We’re going to review how to use this powerful new trend more shortly. Benefit 4: Masterminding with People in Your Field The concept of the mastermind is so powerful that Napoleon Hill dedicated a whole chapter of his Think and Grow Rich to the topic.
One of the best ways to get someone to take a closer look at the opportunity, again with an emphasis on the business owner, is to get them talking to someone that does what they do to show them how they can make the program work in their traditional business and/or just to discuss industry trends.
Since most businesses are regionalized, it’s very easy to get professionals in one region of the country to share with someone local, especially if they have a vested interest in that person coming on to the team. (Have you ever called on local people that match the corporate or business experience of the people in your leadership to put them on a 3-way call? This tip alone could be a huge boost to your team!) The final benefit is something every person craves. It’s a powerful motivator that many people never get enough of from an early age. Many people will push well beyond their current perceived limits for this benefit. When you f
ind the ones strongly motivated by this, make sure you give it in ample portions. Benefit 5: Recognition Depending on the survey you read, money is usually the number 3-5 reason that people stay in a job.
Always above that is recognition.
There are so many people that work hard and never get even a pat on the back. Recognition is obviously a big part of NM in general, as the success stories help other see what’s possible. If the person you’re talking to feels unappreciated, this could be just the thing they need to hear to take a closer look.
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