Do you struggle with prospecting?
Are you stuck and can’t get over your fear of rejection or just fear of talking to people in general?
Good News! You’re not alone and you do have some options.
In the last post, I talked about Lead Generation and the many ways you can build your “list”. In this post, let’s focus on “active” prospecting, or warm vs. cold market prospecting where you are initiating the conversation.
Warm Market
As I mentioned before, the standard, old school way of building your home business has always been: talk to your friends and family. It’s free, it’s fast and for some…it actually DOES work. If nothing else they’re a great place to practice and hopefully gain some loyal customers. If they’re joining you in your business, it could be because of something called recruiting differentiation.
Recruiting Differentiation
Your warm market knows you as, well…YOU. With the people that know you, you bring your past with you when you approach them. This could be good or bad, depending on what that is.
If your warm market knows you as the really successful business person, than they will be open to your “money message”. If you have not been, in fact, you’re the person that has been in 20 of these “things”, they will be burnt to your money message and no matter what you are offering, they are NOT LISTENING…EVER.
So how do you get over this? A great approach goes like this: “Hey I’m doing this business and I really don’t think the business is for you, but you might enjoy the product/service. Would you be open to trying that with me?” Why could this work? Everyone you know does buy things, every day right? If they know you and you’ve generally be a good friend/family member, they should be open to helping you out at least with this part.
Rewarded or Punished
There is a saying in our business though, that goes like this: “You will either be rewarded or punished for your past when you enter network marketing”. What this means is, if you’ve been a great person to people, had integrity, helped out, etc, people will most likely return the favor. If you haven’t, then you may have an uphill climb to earn back their trust to even get their business on the product/service. As you’re working on that, you can always go to the cold market…
Here’s another post on Prospecting and Closing
Cold Market
I love the cold market! They don’t know your past so your posture can be completely different. In the cold market, you want to “next faster”. That means you want to very quickly qualify or DISQUALIFY the prospect and move on.
You’re simply looking for people who are OPEN to a side project if it didn’t interfere with what they currently do (that was a script for you right there by the way :)) In the cold market you’re in the driver’s seat and the best closers are the ones that are asking good questions of the prospect and then LISTENING to the answers.
The one asking the questions is the one winning…
Here are some good ones for after they’ve watched your presentation:
“What did you like about what you saw?” – you’d be amazed at the answers you get here. Sometimes they start talking about their objections, not what they liked.
You can then ask “so was that what you LIKED about what you saw?” to bring them back to the original question. You want to know what’s in their head, in THEIR words, not yours. Then you know which way to go. If they say “nothing”, you can say “then why did you watch? what were you hoping for?” sometimes this will help them open up and tell you what’s really in their head.
Don’t ever convince! In the cold market, they need to be convincing YOU why they are a fit for your team and your time. Don’t let them take your power.
If they ask “so how much is it to join?” before they even watch a presentation, you respond with “Maybe nothing, because it may not be a fit for you. The presentation will show me but I’m leaning towards that it won’t be a fit though.”
If all their answers are positive, finish with “It sounds like you’re ready to join.” If they’re not, they’ll let you know, but assume the close. And then KNOW WHAT TO DO NEXT to sign them up. Sometimes a form of self sabotage happens at this point with new reps because they are unclear about the next steps after the prospect signs up. Make sure you know what they are for your company, then lead your new rep through that process. This shows huge posture!
Did you enjoy this post? Do you know someone who struggles with prospecting, recruiting and closing? Feel free to share and comment below!
Here’s to ALL of us talking to more people and exploding our network marketing businesses this year!
Elizabeth
469-224-7898
elizabeth@elizabetholiva.com
P.S.: Need more help on this subject? Here’s a great FREE training on prospecting and closing for ya!
