Learn the Basics And Become Effective in Network Marketing

When you understand the basics of prospecting, you will find prospecting will become much easier for you. You can learn these basics and become effective in your prospecting. However, your success in prospecting will not be instant. You will be challenged. You will fall down and get scrapes and bruises. You might even wimp out on prospecting before you even start.

I hope that you are truly serious about building your business that you make a commitment to yourself and your business to learn these basics of prospecting and implement them in your action plan (you do have an action plan don't you). Prospecting can be fun. When prospecting becomes fun, you become effective in prospecting. But if you make it a task you don't want to do, procrastination will take over your mind and you will find yourself frustrated because your business will not be growing.

Despite the various rumors in network marketing, you do have to sell. Part of the selling process is prospecting. In fact, prospecting is the most important step you MUST take in the sales cycle. Without prospecting, you will not have presentations. Without presentations, you will not have people join you in business. Guess you see my point (or I hope you do)! With no one in your downline, you have no business and therefore make no money!

TIP -- Prospecting is your first step toward building your business.

I know, prospecting stinks. I hate prospecting. But let me ask you a question! If you don't prospect for your business, who will Your upline Face the facts! Your upline will never build your business for you. You must take a proactive approach to building your business and that proactive approach begins with prospecting.

What I am about to teach you are the basics you must learn and implement in your prospecting. Understanding these basics will help you to become a better prospector when you implement the basics. Realize you will not be instantly a success at prospecting. Effective prospecting does take time, effort, and a bit of patience.

TIP -- If you are not getting the results you want, get coaching from your upline or a professional coach.

1. It's Not About a Magic Formula - It's About Relationships

Getting leads and contacting the leads is not magic. People will not magically jump in your business. When you start prospecting, it is very important to realize you will not have people instantly jump into your business just because you contacted them. There is no magic. There are no magic formulas for prospecting and recruiting success.

Remember that network marketing is about building relationships. Building relationships takes time, effort, and patience. Relationship building begins with prospecting. Before someone will join your business, the person wants to know you are someone they can trust. I am not saying to become their long lost buddy and best friend when you prospect. You should, however, show a genuine concern.

Prospecting is about planting seeds. Just as in farming, to grow a crop you must plant seeds. You must nurture and water those seeds. Some seeds grow but many do not. The same is true in prospecting. When you plant seeds in your prospecting, you will be letting others know who you are and what you do. The key is to focus on the prospect and what they want.

TIP -- People buy for their reasons, not yours!

2. Prospecting vs. Selling!

Prospecting is the starting point in the selling cycle. Most people tend to confuse prospecting with selling, but there is a difference. When you understand the difference between prospecting and selling, you will find it a whole lot easier to prospect. I learned the difference between prospecting and selling from a book, prospecting Your Way to Sales Success by Bill Good. I will share a brief explanation for you but if you want a more in-depth study on prospecting, get Bill's book (well worth the cost of the book).

Prospecting is defined as the 'act of searching for something of value!' In prospecting, your goal is to disqualify non-buyers. You are sorting and searching for those who have an interest in what you are offering. With prospecting, you will take many no's. It is a game of numbers, a sorting process.

Selling on the other hand is what you do after you have done the prospecting. When you find that prospect who is qualified and is interested in taking a closer look, you sell to help the prospect make an informed decision. Selling takes more in the area of handling objects and does not take a no easily.

Most people confuse prospecting with selling and try to do the selling in the prospecting phase. This only leads to rejection and frustration. If you are having trouble at this point seeing the difference between reread the above two paragraphs a couple times. If you still have trouble understanding the difference get with your upline and get coaching.

3. Make a Commitment and Start with a Plan

Success in building a network marketing business never begins without your commitment. This commitment is to yourself and your business. You must make a commitment to do what it takes to learn the basics of prospecting and to do prospecting consistently.

Start with a plan of action. I like to use a 90 day plan for prospecting (working from a newly revised plan every 90 days). My plan gives a strong focus on prospecting in the first 90 days of starting the business. Then tapers to a consistent steady flow of prospecting thereafter. The focus of the plan is to have a consistent flow of prospects in all stages of the selling cycle.

In the prospecting part of the plan, you should make certain you understand your objective in prospecting. Keep in mind the difference between prospecting and selling. Your objective should be to qualify the prospect and to point them to the next step of getting information.

TIP -- Paste an index card in front of you when you make prospecting calls. The card should read, What is Your Objective Don't Try to Sell When Prospecting! Keep in Mind Your Objective!!

Your plan should also include details of your time to prospect. Schedule your prospecting time and make sure you are there to get the job done. If you had a part time job and were scheduled to work, but you failed to show up to work,... you would get fired. Treat your prospecting schedule the same way. You NEED to get the prospecting done if you are serious about building a business. If you need a little push to get you going, schedule time to do 3-way prospecting with your upline (or better yet, schedule the time to prospect with your downline).

4. Sustainable Motivation

Prospecting is challenging. You will fall down, scrape your knees, skin your elbows, and feel awkward. But isn't that the way it was when you were learning to walk. Prospecting is a skill you can learn. But you must develop a sustainable motivation to keep you moving forward regardless of the obstacles you encounter.

Sustainable motivation is your internal motivation (like the Energizer battery) that keeps you going and going and going. Even when you face the biggest adversities, you will find your sustainable motivation will pick you up and keep you moving forward. Too many people have not conditioned themselves to have sustainable motivation, so when they get a 'no' from a prospect. They hang up the phone and head off to the refrigerator or the couch... not finishing what they started.

Prospecting is the only action which will build your business. Without prospecting, you will not have a business. You will never build character, nor will you truly develop as a leader. In fact, doing prospecting calls will build your confidence which feeds your internal sustainable motivation level.

I remember a couple years a go when I would make a call, take a break, make a call, take a break, then quit for the night. No wonder I recruiter only one person every other month (barely and with luck). As I discovered the secret of sustainable motivation, and became aware of my own internal battery, I started to improve my motivational level.

Spend a minimum of 10 minutes a day listening and or reading something uplifting and positive. You will find consistently working on improving your sustainable motivation will give you that internal drive to help you when the going gets tough. If you are just starting out in the business, hang in there, because you will develop the sustainable motivation over time.

As you prospect, be enthusiastic, but don't be a hype maniac. Prospects hate hype. Even if you can get a prospect to join you based on hype, you will find that external motivation will quickly disappear within a very short time with the prospect. That external motivation is, in my opinion, one of the reasons most people get in the business then do nothing. It was too emotional of a decision.

While people do make a decision based on emotion, you are better off recruiting based on a solid informed decision versus hype. You can still lead the prospect toward an understanding of 'why' they need to get started in the business, and it still would be an emotional decision, but without the hype the decision becomes the prospects and not yours. This will help improve your attrition rate (the turn-over in your business). As an example, one you recruited on a solid informed decision will stick around the business 2-3 months longer than one recruited through hyped up techniques.

Consistency is essential in your prospecting. Prospecting the third Wednesday every other month for 10 minutes will not cut it. You MUST recruit 5 to 8 hours every week consistently. If you stop prospecting, you must start over to get the flow going again. It takes a good 3 months of consistent prospecting to reach break out in your prospecting effort. This is where you would have a steady flow of interested hot prospects.

TIP -- You will never have a steady flow of interested hot prospect if you don not prospect consistently.

You MUST be Persistent in your prospecting efforts. Don't give up and don't give in to the negative and non-interested prospects. Getting disconnected numbers, fax numbers, voice mail recordings, wrong numbers, etc. Happens even to the best of us. You will experience up and down prospecting sessions. It is very important to stay persistent and don't let a little action which didn't exactly go your way keep you from moving forward.

IMPORTANT NOTE Do NOT dwell on the negative or what went wrong. Treat the failures or challenges as a springboard toward your success. Everyone who has become successful in building a network marketing business experiences up and down challenges in their business. It is a part of business.

Patience!! Patience!! Patience!! You heard the saying, Rome wasn't built in a day! Well, in network marketing, there is no such thing as get rich overnight. In network marketing, fortunes are made but it does take time and effort... plus a whole lot of patience.

If you become impatient in your prospecting, you will find your prospects will quickly pick-up on that impatience. Only when you are calm, collective, and show patience will you find people beginning to be attracted to doing business with you. This is what I call posture. The posture you have with prospects is something which takes time to develop. It takes practice and once again... patience to develop.

5. To script or not to script, that is the question!

The last thing you want to do in prospecting is to sound like you are reading a canned script. Most people use a script and try to read the script exactly but forget to put their own personality into the script they are reading. Reading a script can get you poor results unless you do one thing. That one thing is a learned skill and takes a bit of practice. The one thing you can learn is to make your script sound natural for you.

Even though I have had great success in prospecting and building my network marketing business, I have made it a habit to always have my script in front of me. I have used the script to a point where it has become natural for me. I don't sound like I am reading a script and for the most part I don't. However, if I get a prospect who takes me out of the direction I normally go in asking questions, I use the script to let me know what points I still need to cover with the prospect.

A script is a great tool to help keep you on track. A script works as an outline and will help you to make certain you remember to qualify your prospect. Using a script as a guideline will help you to appear more professional because you will less likely to turn toward hype in trying to think what to say. Whether you use a script or not is totally up to you. My recommendation is you use a script till you reach the results you desire (my opinion is you will always use a script if you want consistent success). Use the script as a guideline.

6. Qualify the prospect.

Qualifying is the most critical part of your call in regards to whether you sell to only hot prospects or not. It’s something only you can do. No one can truly qualify a lead for you. Remember prospecting is part of the sales cycle but you should not sell during the prospecting phase. You are mainly disqualifying prospects through a process of asking qualifying questions.

You should qualify on interest. You should also qualify on time available to build the business. Most network marketers will be part time and a 8 to 10 hour a week commitment is necessary to effectively promote and build a business. Any time investment which is less than 8 to 10 hours a week will only result in a very slow building business.... bottom line, you want the prospect to have the time to begin earning quickly. The last part of the qualification is on money to invest in getting their business started.

While the money question is probably the hardest question to ask a prospect (especially if you have no money yourself), it helps you help the prospect make an informed decision. People want to know if your business is affordable top start. Hiding the cost will lead to mistrust and frustration between you and your prospect. I always ask if they have $500 to invest right now. You choose the amount, but keep in mind the various start up costs and don't be too conservative in your start-up figures. The prospect will appreciate and respect you for asking such a question.

7. I Got a Voice Message When I Called the Prospect. Do I leave a message

I leave a message every chance I get. Some people say don't leave a message because people will not call you back. I find about 1 out of 20 prospecting messages on voicemail I leave get a return call. I leave a message for one reason... it is a great way to plant a seed in the mind of the prospect.

Prospecting is about planting seeds about who you are and what you do. While most people will not return your call, if you leave a message a couple times and then mail a postcard, you will find the prospect will recognize your name (most of the time). When you plant the seed, you are starting the rapport building process which leads toward relationships. Isn't that what network marketing is about

Here is a simple message which I leave (I do leave different variations of my message but the main objective is to plant the seed of who I am in the mind of the prospect)

John, this is Jeff Zalewski from Pennsylvania. I received your name on a list of people who expressed an interest in a small or home-based business and I wanted to find out if you were still looking or did you find what you were looking for Give me a call at 1-800-XXX-XXXX as soon as possible as I have some very important detailed information for you about a business project I am expanding to the California Area... You may or may not be interested, but please call me. Have a great day!

TIP -- Always plant seeds when you have the opportunity to plant seeds. Seeds can be planted by phone, direct mail, or email... the choice is yours, but always remember to plant seeds everywhere you go.

8. Expectations

So many times people have higher than realistic expectations in prospecting. In prospecting, it is important to remember what your objective is - to disqualify to find those who are interested. Prospecting is very much a numbers game where you will have many more no's than you will have a yes I am interested in what you are offering.

Prospecting is really a sorting process. If you have high expectations, you may be in for a disappointment. Now don't take that the wrong way because prospecting is essential to your business growth and success. It is just that when you get someone who says no, you respect that and move on quickly. You don't have time or energy to waste on those who say no. There are plenty of prospects out there that you should not worry about those who don't want what you offer.

TIP -- Not everyone will buy from you, and in prospecting, not everyone will be interested.

Keep in mind that you are disqualifying non-qualifying buyers and planting seed in the prospecting phase. So really what kind of expectations should you have It depends on your experience. It depends on your ratios... ratios are the numbers, your numbers, of what it takes to get to someone who is interested to learn more.

It is important for you to track your progress using a daily stats worksheet (you can download a copy from the members area). Tracking your stats, you will learn exactly how many numbers you need to dial to get an interested prospect.

You can start out with national averages. Here are the national averages 1) For every three dials (a dial is when you dial a number and you either get a voice message or a live person answers) you will get one completed call (a completed call is where you talk to the person you were trying to reach). 2) For every three completed calls, you will get one person who is qualified and wants more information. 3) For every five people who want more information, you will get one new sign-up.

Now keep in mind the national average numbers will be different for you. Your numbers may be higher or lower depending on a number of variable. If you track your own stats you can forecast more precisely what it takes to build your business. get coaching from your upline if you need help with learning to track your stats or with improving your stats.

TIP -- If you don't know your stats, how can you improve them

9. Tie Into the Training and Get Coaching From Upline.

Prospecting is challenging but is a learned skill which is essential for you to learn if you truly want to succeed in your network marketing business.

Prospecting is challenging but truly is a learned skill. If you are not getting the results you want, you need coaching. Get with your upline or professional coach and get coaching. Do role playing and become a student of prospecting. Within a very short period of time you should greatly improve and be achieving your desired results from prospecting.

One of the best ways I have found to learn effective prospecting is by doing 3-way calls with my downline. Tell your downline that if they need help in seeing how to do prospecting effectively, to schedule a time with you. Then during the schedule prospecting time, you make the calls and your downline listens in. When you use this technique, you force yourself to do prospecting. This technique works well because when you teach others, you learn better yourself.

If you don't do 3-way calls, you should still get some practice in your prospecting. Practice with live calls. Schedule your call times and do your calls. Don't worry about getting everything right, just get yourself going doing prospect calls consistently. In time, you will find your prospecting skills will greatly improve.

10. Don't Forget to Follow-up.

Did you remember to follow-up with those who expressed an interest If you qualified the prospect and they have become a hot lead, it is very important to follow-up and follow-through. So many marketers drop the ball and forget to follow-up. They think because the prospect had an interest in looking at more information, the prospect will magically jump into their business. Think this is how it happens will only cause frustration.

Prospecting is the sorting process. Once you find the interested prospect, you will move forward to the selling phase of the sales cycle. regardless of what others may have told you, selling is a major part of network marketing. You must sell ideas, concepts, and the business opportunity. The key element is network marketing is about building relationships, but building relationships require selling skill. Become a student of the selling process and learn the basic techniques in selling.

One important selling skill is follow-up. Don't drop the ball with the prospects who have expressed an interest in what you have to offer. Sometimes prospects will take a year or longer to make a decision. Build upon your relationship by following up.

Think about it, without prospecting, how will your business grow.