Is Prospecting REALLY Important in MLM/Network Marketing?

Posted: May 19, 2010 | Author: Luc Despres | Filed under: MLM Help | Tags: Fear of Prospecting, Prospecting | 2 Comments »

“Prospecting IS MLM/Network Marketing”

We don’t get paid to reorganize our desks, color-code our leads, rearrange our folders etc….

We get paid for talking to people and helping them come to a decision as to whether our product, service, or opportunity is right for them or not.

If you’re not prospecting, you’re probably not making any money. If you’re not talking to people either on the phone or face-to-face, you’re probably broke. Prospecting is what we are paid for in MLM/Network Marketing and that’s where our focus should be.

I’ve seen myself both past and present at times do everything I can to avoid prospecting because it intimidates me. But here are a few things I’ve learned recently that have helped me to get out there and prospect with potential clients, business partners, and customers.

Prospecting Scares The Heck Out of Me!

The key to overcoming the fear of prospecting is to find the most comfortable prospecting technique for you. I will share what is currently working for me.

First you’ll want to start with an objective and it has to be something you’re not intimidated by.

Here are 3 objectives I focus on initially:

1. Find out their name.
2. Find out if they live in town and…
3. What they do for a living.

When you focus on these 3 initial objectives, I don’t believe you’ll be too intimidated and that’s because you have a pretty confident feeling that they will answer your questions without getting offended or coming up with objections. When you’ve accomplished these three objectives, you’re done… For now. Where ever it goes from there, at least both of you were able to get a bit more comfortable in the conversation.

When you get comfortable doing that a few times you can then move on to asking a bit more questions.

At this stage, when you approach a prospect to have a conversation, you will still cover the 3 objectives above but you’ll also want to cover these additional specific topics.

The 5 additional questions you’ll want to ask are:

• Do you have a family?
• Do you do a lot of traveling?
• What do you do for fun?
• What are your goals? And…
• What are your ideas for accomplishing those goals.

From there you want to say something like “I really enjoyed this conversation, we should continue this another time. Do you have a card?“

If they have a card, they will give it to you. If they don’t have a card, you should have built enough of a relationship to have them offer you an email, their phone number and/or even their Facebook contact information.

Note: If they offer you an email address, write it down and then ask “And your phone number?” since you’re already writing down their email address it won’t be as awkward to ask for their phone number.

When Do I Pitch Them On My Deal?

Never really “present” an opportunity or product on the initial contact. You can bring it up as something you do, but say very little about it. There are a few reasons I say this.

The whole purpose of the initial conversation is to find out as much about the other person as possible and build a strong relationship. You also want to place what you do in their minds (this will go hand in hand with the follow up).

Another reason is that it will also help take the pressure off of you, so you can be a lot more comfortable talking to people.  If you’re only objective is to get to know them, you will not have to fear rejection or objections. Remember, the most important person to your prospect is them. Keep the conversation about them and you’ve got nothing to worry about.

When you’ve got their information, you want to follow up with them in about two or three days time and….

Keep an eye out for my next post to find out where to go from here!

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