People don’t want to be sold to—but they will respond to someone who understands them as they think they are or as they wish they were.
According to Michael Kiely, one of the keys to effectively engaging customers is to understand them. People don’t want to be sold to—but they will respond to someone who understands them as they think they are or as they wish they were*. This is one of the strengths of network marketing; we already have a person to person marketing strategy (you talking to your prospects). You will probably know a lot about the person you are talking to before attempting to solve their problems; a lot more than an advertising agency will ever know.
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Perhaps, like me, you’ve heard of this sentiment before—the idea that you need to get to know people and help them find ways to solve their problems, rather than talk about YOUR business, YOUR product, YOU, YOU, YOU. But how do you do this and, ultimately, how do you still maintain the income you need from people signing up and buying products?
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There is no simple answer and there may be many ways of implementing the above approach, but here are some things for you to think about:
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- How much effort do you put into developing your interpersonal skills and communication skills?
- Do you make a conscious effort to focus on the person you are talking to, instead of focusing on yourself and your goals for the conversation?
- Are you prepared to abandon your first thoughts about someone being a good prospect in favour of merely being a good friend/relative? There’s no point pushing someone who isn’t a good prospect, however if you just be yourself and be real, then they may have some referrals for you.
- How much time are you willing to invest in people? This applies to prospects AND to your new sign-ups because in MLM, the need to develop the relationship only increases after the sale is made. Likewise, your responsibilities as a trainer continue indefinitely, or at least until the point where that person is able to duplicate your activities effectively.
The point is, selling to people by talking about yourself is a sure route to failure, especially in today’s information and sales-pitch saturated environment. Although it may seem more roundabout—spending more time just getting to know people—in the long run, this approach will reward you with more sign-ups and sales anyway.
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As a distributor in the MLM industry, you absolutely must learn to time your sales pitch. Timing is everything, a concept that Ken Rolfsness teaches in his Show Me The Money and SWAT systems. If you rush in, trying to be upfront and honest about your motives, people will usually be turned off your business opportunity faster than you can say Tahitian Noni.
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There are several things you can do instead. Spend time getting to know your prospects, if you don’t already, then spend more time listening to their needs and desires. When the time is right, give them more information, such as a DVD, brochure, booklet or web address to look up. After their interest has been peaked, invite them to an opportunity presentation.
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An opportunity presentation is a seminar or discussion offered by yourself or leaders that outlines the marketability of TAHITIAN NONI™ Juice and the money-making potential of the TNI compensation plan. You can find them on our monthly webinars and anywhere in Australia and New Zealand that team leaders are meeting. If there isn’t a meeting near you and your most active upline leaders don’t live nearby, it may be time for you to step up to the plate.
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We are in a leadership business—success only comes to those in MLM who are prepared to duplicate themselves by training others to train others to train others, etc. Lead by example—when somebody sees your success in business and/or health, perhaps they will even ask you what your secret is. In this idealised situation, you are then being invited to share your secrets to success, a far better scenario than trying to shove your offer down someone else’s throat. There may be some people who respond to throat-shoving, out of pity for you or gullibility, but they aren’t usually the most effective business builders themselves. Do yourself and them a favour by not pushing an opportunity on an inappropriate prospect.
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Better yet, don’t treat every person you meet like a prospect—choose your prospects wisely (this is often called “qualifying”). Consider the following relationship map for Person A.
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It will not take Person A long to decide or determine which of her family, friends and work colleagues are prospects and which are not. She already knows them well, especially her family and friends, so she can think about each of them, in turn, as business prospects and product prospects and rule out those who absolutely do not qualify. She can even do this for some of the other people she knows, such as her hairdresser, acquaintances from past education, social groups, churches and workplaces.
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After applying prospect qualification to Person A’s relationship map, it could now look like this:
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Person A can now take steps to approach the potential product buyers to see if they want to try Tahitian Noni products, by giving them a Home Catalogue, some free information, website links etc. She can also start to get in contact with the business prospects to catch up and see what they’re up to, what their needs are, whether they are looking for a business opportunity or not. Even if not, perhaps they could be convinced of the value of having a team and a leader to help them develop their business and marketing skills. Most people start out by running their TNI business alongside their full time job or other business activities. She would approach this as slowly as necessary, over several social occasions spanning anything from a week to a year.
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Person A will approach the question mark people a little differently because she doesn’t know them as well and was unable to decide whether they were a prospect or not. Some of those in the ‘Other’ category may even be strangers, such as people using the Internet who stumble across her website. She will need to spend even more time with these people so that she is able to demonstrate her genuine interest in their lives and qualify/disqualify them.
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Eventually, Person A’s relationship/prospect map may look more like the below, but it is important to consider that as long as you are developing yourself and training your downline to do what you do, you may only need three to five business builders on your team to be successful.
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The ultimate aim is to provide value, personal development and opportunities for the business prospect, not to sign them on Case AutoShip. If your aim with business prospects is simply to sign them up, chances are you will not provide the ongoing training they need to stay committed. This isn’t going to help you or them.
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Learn to identify your prospects and find out how they think of themselves or how they would like to think of themselves. For example, if person A’s friend, who still lives off his parents, likes to think of himself as somebody living outside of societies’ norms—bucking the system, so to speak—perhaps he would respond to a book like Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki, which teaches that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer as a result of people following the norms of education and employment (getting stuck in the “rat race”) and not developing their financial IQ. Identifying that person’s self-image or idealised/fantasy self-image will help you determine their needs.
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Once you know this, you can relate better to them and provide appropriate information at the right time. Combined with your own personal development, you can then provide the training that will attract them to join you. This is crucial for a Tahitian Noni business to succeed because self-development, leadership and training others is the backbone of any successful MLM organisation.
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You don’t need a huge system to do it either. All you really need is a regular meeting (even an online meeting) with your five key business builders, which they then go and duplicate with their own team. Together, you can achieve your dreams.
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* Kiely, Michael ‘Three stages of marketing to real people’, Marketing magazine Oct 2009 p. 59
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The theme of the 2010 International Leadership Conference has been revealed! Our theme guides the message of our convention, and we are all very excited about the theme of ILC 2010. It is one word: Shine.
