Today’s consumer is a rather more savvy species when it comes to the sales pitch. The faintest whiff of a sales pitch, and they will block you out. The fact that nobody likes to be sold to or pitched is evidenced with the spam filters and pop-up blockers that serve to protect the savvy consumer from having to endure the constant bombardment of sales pitches that would otherwise be there.
Despite this, Network Marketers the world over are learning a hard lesson in failure due to their antiquated techniques. The fact is, that nobody likes to be sold to, but most love to buy and it is this simple point that many are overlooking. If someone is not ready to buy, you will not be able to sell to them. It is like trying to tell a vegetarian how lovely and juicy the steak is.
Pitching to your friends and family does not work.
Pitching to all your work colleagues does not work.
Cold calling purchase lists of leads does not work.
And, despite the fact that you’re perhaps using the new messaging feature of Facebook, pitching all your Facebook ‘friends’ does not work either!
Are you starting to get the message? If you’re in Network Marketing, then pitching does not work, and today’s consumer will not tolerate it.
But if selling your fantastic business opportunity will not work, then how else are you going to let anybody know about it? Surely, it’s a numbers game and the more you pitch it, the more likely you will come across someone that will say ‘yes’? WRONG!
I have worked in sales and marketing for the last fifteen years, and happen to know a thing or two about sales. Yes, even today, there are still sales managers telling their salesmen that they need to get on the phone and make more ‘cold calls’ or ‘dial for dollars’. But cold prospecting in network marketing DOES NOT WORK!
So how are you supposed to get leads, and how do the top earners in network marketing get theirs? Well as you’re probably guessed, the top earners do not go prospecting for their leads. They are using the latest techniques to ATTRACT PROSPECTS TO THEM, rather than pitching their opportunity to everyone they come into contact with.
Let’s take a look at the differences between some of the old school techniques of network ‘prospecting’ and those of the modern network marketing ‘top earner’:
PROSPECTOR: After buying either a genealogy list or a ‘pre-qualified’ lead list from some lead generation company, our network prospector tries to pitch the ‘business opportunity’ by calling everyone on the list, in the vain hope that there will be a few people on the list who will be interested.
TOP EARNER: Emails, information on websites and blogs are the methods used to attract a targeted audience of readers who have already built up an interest in a network marketing business opportunity.
PROSPECTOR: Building ‘rapport’ consists of saying ‘hello’ and asking how the other person is. Long-term relationships are not part of this guy’s vocabulary. If a prospect isn’t interested and can’t be signed up immediately, then there are ‘plenty more fish in the sea’ and it’s on to the next one.
TOP EARNER: The top earner understands the importance of building a relationship based on trust with prospects. A course of educating the prospect is undertaken using automation such as email auto-responders to ‘drip-feed’ valuable information and educate the prospect whilst at the same time providing value and building trust. This is done without expecting anything in return, and will usually result in a future ‘sale’ on the prospect’s terms and timescale.
PROSPECTOR: Using the latest ‘sales techniques’, our prospector sees objections as ‘buying signals’ and attempts to overcome these objections in order to make that sale.
TOP EARNER: Using a consultative approach with prospects, our top earner will provide value upfront through education, tips and techniques that prospects will find valuable, thereby establishing a relationship based on trust and credibility.
PROSPECTOR: Spends many an evening ‘presenting the opportunity’ to largely unqualified and usually uninterested prospects, who if they even show, will have to sit through a lengthy presentation on the company, the products and finally the opportunity including the compensation plan.
TOP EARNER: When the opportunity needs to be presented, top-earners will use pre-recorded webinars that can be accessed by INTERESTED prospects who have decided to opt-in to gain access to the webinar.
PROSPECTOR: The prospector has perhaps heard that rapport should be built with the prospect before launching into a sales pitch, and decides that using Facebook or some other social networking site would be a good move. Surely, connecting as ‘friends’ on Facebook constitutes building rapport doesn’t it? The prospector then goes straight for the jugular and tells their ‘friend’ all about the business opportunity. Interested? No? Conversation ends.
TOP EARNER: A genuine relationship is built up with prospects. Articles, blogs and videos that provide valuable information that will assist prospects in building their business are published. For the top earner, this also serves to position the themselves as a leader and puts them in the position where prospects will come to them when they are ready.
If you recognised yourself in any of the ‘prospector’ traits above, then you now have the opportunity to utilise the power of the latest attraction marketing techniques. You can now stop pitching your opportunity to everyone you meet, stop buying lead lists and stop cold calling genealogy lists. You now know how to position yourself as a trusted and credible leader in the community, and also boost the number of leads and prospects who will naturally be attracted to you.
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