Need leads for your multi-level-marketing business (MLM)? Try some of these lead generation tips.
Create a voicemail script that invites people to your website to get a free information packet and gift when they sign up online. And include this phone number on your marketing materials and other communications. Update it regularly with seasonal and other promotions. Have fun!
Join lead exchange groups like Business Exchange International and trade your business card with others.
Sell your product on a barter. Barter exchanges work on a credit system. You move some product, and possibly get referrals and in exchange you get credits that you can use for advertising, voice mail, internet and many other services.
Host or participate in events. Check into ad swaps, setting up a leads generating fish bowl drawing, teaching a workshop, being a speaker (with handouts and business cards for the audience) and other opportunities. Even if the event is not yours, you could check into running one of your own to coincide with it either beforehand, during a lunch or dinner break, or afterwards and then package tickets for both events together.
Fundraisers are great opportunities for public awareness, to give back to the community and to generate leads. Donate a product or service to a non-profit and host a drawing that gives it away as a prize. Then before the event, announce this news to both online and offline media, and include your contact information with website.
Check out how promotional advertising specialties can help you generate leads and order some items that are within your budget: pens and pencils with your logo and URL, ball caps, notepads, magnets, calendars and more.
Create your own audio and video clips with Camtasia and Microsoft PowerPoint slides to teach others about your products and services. Before people can view and listen to them, have them sign up and give you their contact information for follow up.
Test classifieds ads in those inexpensive Suburban Newspapers and penny newspapers like the Thrifty Nickel. Offer your free audio or video clips, ebook, report or guide in exchange for their contact info for follow up.
Submit articles and press releases regularly to online article databases, PRWeb.com and offline media.
Hire sales and marketing help. Head to online bidding sites like Elance.com or offline companies like Adecco (at Adecco.com).
Outsource some work so you’re not doing it all. Get help with publicity, article writing, website development, database management, customer service, help desk and more. Place a small Help Wanted ad in your local newspaper, check online for outsourcing companies and get recommendations form fellow business people.
Put some tips into practice. And go get some more leads!
Carlos Scarpero is a blogger who writes about internet marketing and MLM. Visit his blog at www.itsaboutresults.com and discover new and innovative ways to promote yourself online.
Prospects are basically the foundation of any business as they are the “potential” customers to the business. So just how do YOU find good MLM prospects?
Let’s start out with a definition of the word promote which is the most important word in finding prospects for your MLM business. The word promote means: to make known.
I was recently helping a person in my downline with her MLM business, which was not growing. As I asked various questions I finally found the “nasty bug” that was stopping her network marketing business from moving forward. She didn’t want to come off as being or sounding salesy. This stopped her from promoting.
How does everyone else promote?
A politician promotes how he or she can make a whole community’s life better - so he or she is making herself known to the public by promoting and making known to as many people as possible what he or she can do for them. If you’ve noticed, politicians promote on TV, radio, signs stuck in the grass or on telephone poles along a busy street or maybe speaking at various group meetings.
A college promotes what courses it offers. It might promote on radio, might promote to high schools or through sporting events. A stockbroker promotes that he can help his or her prospect make money. A local restaurant will promote via radio, or mailing brochures or discount coupons.
The worst thing you can ever do in your MLM business career is to think, ponder, worry or even get the idea that it’s unprofessional to promote!
You really need to know and understand promotion. The only way you can have prospects, therefore customers or distributors - is to promote. The only way for you to make money in network marketing is to promote. You can write down your dreams and goals and study them every night. But you’re as effective as a billboard in the middle of the desert. No one knows you exist until you make yourself known. So if you ever find yourself where your business isn’t growing or you don’t have enough prospects, enough customers, or enough distributors - what do you do? Promote!
Why do you promote?
The reason you promote is to create desire for your product. If you don’t create a desire for your product, it’s very difficult to achieve MLM success. How would you know that someone desires your product or business? Well certainly if you sent a post card and someone called the number - that’s someone showing desire in your MLM business or product. Even if a person called and asks, “How much is this?” - it would still be someone showing desire, or at least slight interest. If you called a friend and asked them to look at something and they said, “Send it to me.” That’s showing a desire. People sometimes refer to desire as “responses,” as in, someone responded to my promotion.
Different types of promotion
So now let’s talk about different types of promotion that create desire. You could promote your MLM business in:
* The Help Wanted, the Sales & Marketing or the Business Opportunity sections of a newspaper
* Advertising section of magazines
* Direct mail, such as sending out post cards to everyone in your zip code
* Door hangers
* Email, banner ads on the internet
* Networking. I’m sure you could have guessed that I would name that one. But you would be surprised at how many people when mentioning all the ways to promote, miss that one. In fact, if you use traditional promotion with the mindset of just finding a network of people to work - you will fare far better than most who only measure their responses with how many people respond to their advertisement. You can turn one response from a promotion into thousands if you properly network.
One other place to find prospects for your MLM business is to promote to MLM leads you purchase from a lead company. The advantage of this is you’re only paying for those who’ve responded and you’re not paying for all the people who didn’t respond. If I send out 10,000 post cards and get 20 responses then I paid for 9,980 post cards that didn’t get a response.
The advantage of writing your own ads of course is being able to target your specific audience with your specific network marketing product or opportunity message. Which is VERY important and should not be underestimated.
In contrast, when you buy generic MLM leads, you’re buying general ads - perhaps people who’ve responded to wanting a home based business. The other down side to buying leads is that very often, lead companies resell their leads to more than just you - so you’ve got extra competition to deal with.
Three broad ways to promote
Now, it probably sounded like I just contradicted myself; I didn’t. I just saved you years of running in circles trying to figure the advantages and the disadvantages to generating your own leads or buying leads. This is the game. You must promote. There are three broad ways to promote.
1. Networking - which costs the least. You’re going to have costs of meals with prospects, costs of joining clubs and associations. So I have rock climbing club fees, I have mountain climbing association fees, horseback riding fees, mountain biking fees…these are like $50 to $100 dollars a year.
2. Buying leads is more expensive than networking and less expensive than generating your own…but has some advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes you get some hot leads and sometimes you swear you’re calling a graveyard.
3. Generating your own. Most expensive, but has the advantages of targeting your prospects. Here’s a list of advertisements that I’ve run to promote my own MLM business opportunity.
* Some people earn Ten thousand dollars a year. And some people earn One million in the same year. Click here to see difference.
* Need more money; NOW!
* Does it ever break your heart to leave your kids at daycare?
* Looking for a FUN business?
* Go to the golf course when it’s not crowded.
* The truth about making money. A lot of it.
* WEALTH FORMULA. Click here. (Use with banner ads)
* Wealth formula that takes a lot of effort - but retires you in 4 years.
* Extremely well paying position available to right person. Must have sales & marketing experience. Sales training a big plus.
* Immediate Need for Effective Sales Person. Unlimited earning and growth potential. Self-starter, sales writing skills and team player will be keys to success in this growing, high tech organization. Will be responsible for generating sales leads, preparing and giving presentations on company products and training sales team for (enter your business type. Example: Fitness, High Tech, or Health, etc,) development company. Great benefits. Great FUN TEAM! Fax resume to:
Be “in” business
The bottom line is you must be using at least one of these three methods to achieve MLM success. If you’re not, you’re not in business - you’re out of business. What you should be doing, if you see the big picture and want the very big income is you need to be doing all three. All the time. Ideally you start out by networking, which will create enough money to buy MLM leads, and then you’ll generate enough money from the leads you purchased to generate your own leads. My point is, as soon as you start making any money in your MLM business, reinvest it in promotion.
One other thought. Don’t measure your success by just your immediate responses. Any marketer who is of any value knows that how you measure return on promotion investment is based on the “life of the customer.” NOT immediate return. Get one leader from a MONTH or 6 MONTHS of promotion and it can pay you for the rest of your life.
People often ask me, “How much money did you make your first year in network marketing?” I tell them, “I don’t know, I’m still earning it.”
Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at www.brilliantexchange.com
Call reluctance is a term used in sales and network marketing to mean that the salesperson or the network marketer hesitates or procrastinates making calls to prospects. So to help a person get past this we need to figure out what caused this “reluctance.”
As I commonly do, I’ll define the main word - which is reluctance. It means: unwillingness; offering resistance; opposing.
A network marketer knows he/she should make calls in order to build his/her MLM business but is unwilling to, or is resistant to, or is opposed to making the calls. So instead of making calls they bury themselves in a guilt ridden corner and mentally beat themselves up. Sound familiar?
So just what might cause a person to be unwilling to make calls?
I’ve written a list of items that “cause” a person to be unwilling, resistant or opposed to making the calls. This will be a good check list to help a person in your MLM downline find out why they’re not having success in their network marketing business. And, if you’d like a nice jolt of reality, hand this list to someone in your downline and ask them to check and make sure you do all these things.
1. Has she decided exactly what she wants to achieve with her MLM business? Ask her what it is.
2. Has she written a plan of how to achieve it? Ask her if you can see it.
3. Is she working that plan? Ask her to show you where she currently is on the plan.
4. Does she know all the “parts” that make up building her MLM business?
a. Does she have an MLM lead source? Ask her to show it to you.
b. Does she know how to get customers? Ask her to get one while you watch.
c. Does she know how to service customers? Ask her to show you how she does it.
d. Does she know how to get distributors? Ask her to show you how she gets one.
e. Does she know how to train distributors to get customers? Ask her to train one while you watch, or introduce someone to you who she has trained that can get customers. Ask that person to demonstrate getting a customer.
f. Does she know how to train distributors to get distributors? Ask her to train one while you watch, or introduce someone to you who she has trained that can get distributors. Ask that person to demonstrate how they get a distributor.
WHATEVER SHE CAN’T SHOW YOU IS THE REASON FOR CALL RELUCTANCE.
“Afraid of rejection” is garbage. Anyone who says that that is their reason, you can easily call their bluff by setting a tape recorder on a table and ask, “Invite me to come to your business meeting.” They can’t do it. Why? It’s not fear of rejection…tape recorders don’t reject you.
AFRAID OF REJECTION, OUT OF COMFORT ZONE, CALL RELUCTANCE, AND ANY OTHER FANCY PHRASE A PERSON CAN COME UP WITH IS ONLY A MASK TO COVER UP WHAT THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO DO.
I don’t care if the person has been in sales for 20 years. If they won’t do it, it’s because they don’t know how.
Fear, fear of rejection, and/or call reluctance is the same animal - not being able to predict an outcome. That’s the basis of all fear. The person just simply can’t predict what will happen if they do something. If you go bungee jumping - it’s the inability to predict the outcome that causes fear. If you defuse bombs (my past profession) - it’s the inability to predict the outcome that causes fear.
I’ve seen this surface from some very unlikely people. There was a person who had seen a fair amount of success but was not able to reap the rewards from one of her MLM business legs. The compensation plan required her to have 12 on her front line to earn on the depth of the organization.
When she first came into the MLM business she had a friend with her and her friend saw the business at the same time. Her friend built a big network marketing business under her. So she had one very large organization. But she could only earn on one level deep.
When she had 12 on her front line she could earn 6 levels deep of the whole organization. But she couldn’t get the other 11 people. Everyone in the company (not just her downline) looked up to her because she had such a large MLM business. But she couldn’t earn money on all the volume until she got those 11 people on her front line. She talked to me about it. She said she wasn’t making the calls because of “call reluctance.” I didn’t buy her excuse.
Don’t you buy your MLM downline’s excuses - run them through the check sheet above and train them on whatever they can’t do.
Don’t you buy your own excuses - get trained with proper and proven MLM training.
Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at www.brilliantexchange.com
How’s your email inbox been lately? No doubt jammed packed with the latest, greatest offer promising to make you $1000s in a matter of days. Your only commitment comprises of simply signing on the dotted web page.
Sounds to good to be true, right? Well, one way to make good money online is by leveraging the efforts of others but one must be careful before jumping in with both feet.
It is important when comtemplating joining a network marketing program that two important things are in place.
Firstly, you MUST have a product that people will buy and that you could use yourself. After all if YOU can find a use for the product then chances are your prospects will be able to do so too.
Too often I have joined network marketing companies and found that the product was sub-standard or worse still, the product came a far off second to the compensation plan, setting the company up with the possibility of being labled a “pyramid scheme”.
Pyramid schemes focus on the exchange of money and recruitment - Sure enough it is important to signup others in order to grow out your team and increase your earnings but the product should not be so dubious that the company comes under the scrutiny of the law.
You can find out more about pyramid schemes at the site below:
http://www.sec.gov/answers/pyramid.htm
One program, that I became involved with recently, attracted me before I even knew I could make money from promoting it. Success University offers Self Improvement courses, which is a genre that I have always been interested in. So, making a monthly payment to improve my knowledge and earning power seemed a no brainer to me. The investment seemed small compared to what I could gain, that’s without taking into consideration the money earned through promoting the product to others.
The above formula is just one way to check out whether the product is something that you can sell to others in good conscience.
Secondly, if you want to make money from your network marketing company with the least possible effort then you must look out for a GREAT compensation plan.
This folks is a no brainer - I have been a member of one particular network marketing program and in spite of the presence of a great product AND personally recruiting hundreds or thousands of members, the monthly payout was comparatively very low. The compensation plan did not significantly reward me for my efforts and subsequently I have lost interest in continuing apace. I would much rather expend the same amount of effort for greater gains.
When perusing the compensation plan ask yourself - Can I start earning with the least amount of effort and more importantly will my income grow exponentially through the time and efforts of both myself and those on my team?
You may also want to find out how others are earning by searching the online forums. People love to boast and if the money is being earned then you’ll hear about it.
Keep in mind the couple of points above when choosing a company to put your weight behind and you won’t go too far wrong.
Mal Keenan is editor and publisher of Home Business Job Ideas Newsletter.
For a company that offers a UNIQUE, HIGHLY Rewarding compensation plan and Top Class product check out: Success University Scam?
Web traffic is of utmost importance for any business. No matter what business model you’re following, no matter what your goal is, be it selling a product or monetizing your web site with Adsense, you need a steady stream of targeted traffic.
With that being said, there are many ways to generate traffic; whatever product or niche you may be involved with. The key is to find the most effective yet most affordable alternatives.
Although it may be easy for big companies with deep pockets to throw cash into a pay per click campaign such as Google Adwords, for most home based businesses these costs can be daunting. Yet without targeted traffic no business can survive for long.
That’s one of the great advantages to running an internet business. The home based business owner has many low or no cost options when it comes to advertising and drawing interested individuals to their sites.
Following are five such ways that can help increase your rankings in the search engines and gain much needed exposure.
Traffic Exchanges
These are exceptional tools when used right. Although every niche may not benefit from this particular traffic method, it can be used with great success when dealing with MLM, affiliate marketing and home based business opportunities.
One of the best ways to use traffic exchanges is to create your own separate landing page for the product or opportunity you’re promoting. Always try to stand out from the crowd by using something other than what all the other affiliates are using.
Then by simply enticing other surfers with some free information such as a free ebook and using an autoresponder to capture their name and email address you can quickly build your own opt-in list of interested prospects.
Write a Newsletter
While this may seem time consuming, it really doesn’t have to be. There are hundreds of article directories floating around with articles written by experts in almost every field.
Simply use them within the guidelines prescribed by the directory and author, add a few lines from yourself as an introduction and throw in an ad and you’ve got yourself a newsletter.
Write and Submit Your Own Articles
As the previous point shows, there are many hundreds of article directories out there and literally thousands of web sites, ezines and newsletter publishers looking for new and unique content every day.
By writing your own articles and including a link back to your site you’re not only branding yourself as an expert but also creating valuable back links to your site. This is a huge factor when it comes to search engine rankings which bring the best free traffic.
Online Communities and Forums
By joining online forums you can also gain back links to your site by posting comments and using a sig file with your links in it.
Beware though that most forums frown on blatant advertising. You have to attempt to add something of worth with your posts or you may get banned.
Exchange Links
This may actually be the most difficult tactic. You must find sites that are in the same niche as yours but not necessarily in direct competition.
You also have to find sites that already have a good ranking in the search engines for this to be effective.
Always approach any site owner with grace and dignity. Be tactful and courteous. Remember, you attract more flies with honey than vinegar.
Use all five of these tactics on a regular basis and you’ll surely see a climb in traffic.
Carlos Scarpero is an MLM Expert for AllExperts.com and a Personal Development Counselor with Success University. Visit his blog at www.itsaboutresults.com and learn new and interesting ways to promote yourself online.
The day has finally come! Network marketing online has kicked the bucket! The Internet, having gotten saturated with get rich quick ads, has drowned in its own filth.
There is a word for what MLMer’s have spewed forth…the word is GARBAGE! And it’s a mess cleaning it up, often requiring spam filters, ad-ware and spy-ware removers, and pop-up blockers.
Online marketing and MLM marketing specifically worked for a while, and we put up with it for a while longer. When the Internet was new, and everything about it was a novelty, we didn’t care. We would not only read spam and the crazy claims, but actually get exited about buying from the money mongering website linked to it. It’s a bit like never having watched TV…you would probably get mesmerized even by the commercials!
The thing about television commercials is they sponsor the REAL products which are shown. MLM spam on the other hand, doesn’t support anything beyond the greed of the advertiser.
What we as network marketers can do about the problem?
If you are promoting your MLM online you can increase sales and start hauling in the extra cash! It’s easy.
Why don’t you just give people what they really want? At that point, you’re no longer seen as a seller, but as a friend, a helper and someone that can be trusted.
The best way that this can be accomplished is by answering people’s questions, as on forums, by leading groups on networking sites like Ryze and My Space, where “How To” explanations can be provided. Put forth real solutions to problems. Reveal news that is of interest to your market.
Once you start to freely provide people with information they become open to what you have to say, open to what you have to sell. Soon you will be back in business big-time.
So, summing it up, the first thing that you need is to provide reliable written content to your clients. This will jump-start your business and promote trust in both you and your business. Write articles that provide real value, make useful videos on You Tube or Google Video and make content oriented Podcasts. Make educational free reports and ebooks that provide real content.
Now, that you know the secret to actually being a trusted advisor instead of an MLM sleaze bag, you have no excuse to get out there and just do it!
Carlos Scarpero is an MLM Expert for AllExperts.com and a Personal Development Counselor with Success University. Visit his blog at www.itsaboutresults.com and learn new and interesting ways to promote yourself online.
Several months ago I conducted a survey to find out what network marketers really wanted to learn, and what MLM training topics would be helpful to them. I discovered an overwhelming number wanted to learn more about successful duplication within their network marketing organization. Some specific questions were asked and I am answering them here.
Q. What is the most important thing that a good MLM leader should duplicate within his or her network marketing organization?
A: A successful action. I know that sounds funny but that really is what it comes down to. You’ve got to duplicate something that is doable and simple so that it doesn’t require an enormous amount of training at each level within your MLM system.
That’s not to undermine training, but if what you’re trying to duplicate is so complicated that you can’t get very ordinary, average people to do it - if it requires you to have just completely brilliant people - then you’re going to be limited.
What ever it is that you’re duplicating…let’s just say that it’s a script for making outbound phone calls but this script has got a lot of words in it that the person delivering the script has a hard time with. Not only that, but the person receiving it has a hard time with those words. That’s not going to duplicate easily within your MLM business. So that’s the first thing - make sure that you’re duplicating something that is simple to learn and grasp.
Q: In your own network marketing organization that you built how did you figure out what to do and what to duplicate?
A: While building my MLM business, I learned that the first thing to do is to build a prototype that actually works. When I define the word “work” I mean that you as an individual are able to make a customer happy. And once you make that customer happy you’ve got to write it out - write out exactly what you did. Then follow your own written procedures and see if you can recreate that same happy customer in another person.
How this worked for me is that I just looked over my product line and what suited me best (my company sold personal care products). I noticed that I was around a whole bunch (being in the Navy) of guys that had bad skin , acne, problem skin. So I first got successful with myself. I had a similar situation with my skin so I used the products and found the best combinations and so forth that got me results.
From that I was able to get four other guys that were in my unit to do the same process. I wrote up what it was that I did and then I showed them how simple it was and that they too could help people that they knew and saw that had problem skin. I ended up with this whole group of rough, tough, macho guys out there selling this mud that pulled impurities out of the skin. That was the way that my network marketing organization began to duplicate.
Q: Did you find it was easy to teach your MLM downline to do exactly what you had done?
A: NO! That’s where you have to perfect your system. You have to continually work on your systems to ensure that those systems are in place and are workable. And then this is the part that can get you - once a person figures out how to get success - the greatest seduction, I believe, in all of life is to always want to continue to DO that, instead of TEACH that. Because it seems easier to do than having the patience to sit back and allow that other person to make the same errors and mistakes that you made.
I think that is perhaps the greatest difficulty in leadership. I think that every one of the books that are out there on leadership - that’s the part that I’ve always seen that’s missing. Having the patience to just sit there and watch and observe, and see people in your group make mistakes but not correct them at that particular moment but…to sit back and say, “Alright is this a systematic thing that I need to change? Or is this something specific to this individual that I need to change?”
I’ll give you an example for this. There’s a lady in my network marketing organization now, and she has absolutely resisted being a public speaker and speaking in front of more than one or two people at a time. I started off encouraging her to just stand up and do nothing but introduce me. And of course she fought it, and she needed to prepare for it for a week, and things like that. But in the process, I taught her how to teach herself, if you will. In other words, I told her, “Okay, what you need to do is set up a teddy bear or some kind of stuffed animal that you’re communicating to and then talk to it.”
So, the next time I’m speaking at one of her events, I’m listening to her introduce me, and I walk into the back of the room and no one can hear her back there. Of course, I’m not going to correct her in that moment so I wait and then I praise her. The rule is that you praise twice and correct once. If you ever get those ratios out of order then you’re going to have basically a “tucked tail.” That’s what they call it in the dog training world. When you’re training a dog, if the tail goes below parallel to the back, you stop training that dog (because he’s starting to feel “whipped”) and you praise the dog. So, in a similar way, you praise twice and correct once with people.
With this lady, I waited until it came back around again that she was going to be presenting our team’s MLM business briefing. What I said to her was, “Okay, it does you no good to prepare and plan and train yourself if the people can’t hear you. And so what I want you to do is to read aloud to your children.” She’s got two kids and she had already told me that she reads to them every night. I told her, “What I’d like you to do is put them on the other side of the room; don’t cuddle up in the bed with them. Be on the other side of the room and you read to them.”
She tried that and of course she emailed me back and she said, “That was unbelievable! The kids kept saying, ‘We can’t hear you Mom!’” She began to figure out, “Oh, okay. I have to project my voice. That sound has to get to the back of the room. Just because the front of the room hears it, it doesn’t mean that the whole room hears it.”
So this is what I’m talking about. That was something that was specific to that person that I had to assess - “Okay, there is something that she needs help with. What specific thing does she need training in?” Then I figured out a way to teach her to do that.
Now, she was just on a radio talk show and she’s been requested to come back and be a speaker in this community of events that happens every week. She is becoming that public speaker that she resisted being for so long. And of course, now she ABSOLUTELY LOVES IT. I’ve seen her speak; she’s good.
Being a great MLM leader means developing a simple, workable system and then having the patience to teach others - in spite of the discomfort of sitting through their mistakes. It’s not always easy but it can be really profitable for you.
Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at www.brilliantexchange.com
This MLM training bulletin is about how you as a leader can add incentives so your network marketing downline will produce more.
What I’m going to share with you here DOES NOT REPLACE what you can read in “Nine Proven Actions to Get Your Downline Producing More,” an article that discusses the importance of a well trained MLM distributor. Proven MLM training is the backbone of motivation. Nothing motivates a person more than fully knowing what to say on the phone, how to say it, and having confidence that they can do that.
So in conjunction with a well-trained MLM downline, here’s how I recommend you use incentives to grow your network marketing business. Adding incentives can be thought of as games you can play to keep your MLM business fun and in the spirit of play. I’m talking about dynamic, exciting incentives to increase your MLM downline’s enthusiasm, and make them excited and looking forward to doing the business. And in turn, have that enthusiasm translate into products sold and new distributors signed up. This also creates a fun culture around your network marketing organization.
As hard as it may be to believe on the surface, it is widely acknowledged that distributor recognition is as effective a motivator as an increase of income.
Recognition raises self-esteem. It shows your distributors that you care about them, and you value and appreciate the effort that they put forth. You can’t put a price tag on that. And once they know that you care about them BY YOUR ACTIONS, they will show you something you may not have thought possible. They will give you their best performance ever.
What you’re trying to achieve with incentive programs is an increase of performance. The two important factors are:
a) What performance to reward
b) What to reward achievers
What performances to reward in your MLM business:
* Any of the 13 activities in Pocket Tracker. (A little booklet I developed to keep track of daily performance) Such as the number of appointments set, number of presentations, the number of retail sales, etc.
* Total number of guests at MLM opportunity meetings or on conference calls
* New distributors per week/month/quarter
* Retail products sold
* Training steps completed
* Highest volume, highest increase in volume, and highest increase in volume percentage and pin level achievement
What to reward achievers:
* Two things you should always do for small achievements within your network marketing organization are handwritten thank-you cards and delivered balloons or flowers. Those two things should be a staple in your MLM business.
* At every MLM training meeting you do, you should give at least two awards to high achievers. If you do a newsletter be sure to recognize your achievers in the newsletter. Get their picture with their guest(s).
* Weekly, whoever had the most guests at the meeting or everyone who had over three guests gets a free dinner.
* Professionally done certificates - in a frame ready for hanging on their wall.
* Recognition pins are good.
* Prospecting leads for high activity. Like whoever has the most number of prospects on the MLM opportunity conference calls gets 20 free leads.
* Apparel - such as company shirts or hats.
* Convention tickets are a great one. Everyone who sponsors five new distributors in the next two months get a free national convention ticket.
* Travel is always a good one - ski trip, beach trip, cruise, family trip.
Points that can hurt your program…and your MLM income:
* Lack of MLM training - I’ve mentioned this already but it tops the list as being most important.
* Reward the achievers immediately at the end of the program period. Don’t wait.
* Keep the program simple. If there’s a ton of twists and turns - no one knows what they have to do.
* Frequent winners - if the same people in your MLM organization win every time, others get discouraged. Change the program so that it rewards the super achievers as well as others.
* Lack of follow up after the program - at the end of the program right after the awards ceremony, pass out a 3×5 card and ask for comments.
* Lack of communication - someone has to be driving the incentive program. This means constant communication. Send pictures of the destination if it’s a trip. If it’s a car, send pictures of the car. Keep the incentive in front of them a couple of times per week.
* Lack of a good rollout. The means plan the program. Plan the promotion. Plan the award.
Let’s say we’re going to do a “School’s Out” Game that ends on June 1st. The winner gets a trip for four people to Disneyland for four days. March, April and May are the performance months. The winner is leaving as soon as school’s out! This gets kids involved as well. We start promoting the program February 15th. Awards ceremony will be at a BBQ outing on June 1st where all family members are invited. At this event we will also announce the next program…”Back to School” Game.
As you can see this creates a wonderful unity between everyone within your MLM organization as well as a fun culture.
Enjoy your MLM business!
Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at www.brilliantexchange.com
A lot of network marketing professionals ask me what my “trick” is for getting prospects to actually watch a DVD, listen to a CD or review some literature…you know, something that introduces the prospect to your MLM business. So often, these network marketing business materials get passed out, prospects say they’ll review it and then you never hear from them again.
My experience is that you’ll get better results in your MLM business if you use the right technique before you even give that prospect a DVD, CD or piece of literature.
This technique is called “Closing Your Prospect Into Action.” The “close to action” step is part of a six-step formula I always use whenever I am prospecting for MLM business partners or people who could benefit from my products.
The “Inviting Formula” is taught in great detail in a CD set I authored called “Professional Inviter,” but for reference in this article the Inviting Formula is:
Greet
Qualify
Invite
Handle any Questions/Objections
Close to Action
Follow-up or Follow through
Don’t confuse Close to Action with “closing techniques.” This discussion is exclusively about closing people into action during the conversation when you first introduce your MLM business or product and ask them to take a look. Not, closing someone to buy something or closing someone to sign a distributor agreement. Although similar, that is not what I am discussing here.
Pretend…or envision that you call a prospect and greet them with a fun hello and several other niceties - she in turn asks how you’re doing - so there’s a nice exchange between the two of you. You ask how her job is going and she says, “Oh…okay I guess.”
You: You don’t sound very enthused about it - is something not right?
Her: Well, I’m just tired of the same old grind. Day-in, day-out. I just really thought I’d be in a different place in my life by now.
You: I know how you feel. Where did you think you would be by now?
Her: Well - I certainly didn’t think I would spend my life working like a dog just trying to cover bills - I didn’t think I would marry the man of my dreams only to have us wave bye to each other every morning and rarely see him - just everything is a struggle; you know what I mean?
You: I absolutely know what you mean. Have you thought of doing something else? Do you see this changing anytime soon?
Her: Yeah, I’ve thought about it…but jeez, we’re just so invested in our careers - I feel trapped!
You: Jenny, you and I are very similar. What you’ve said about you’re not where you wanted to be - I can so relate to. I think you would benefit from seeing a DVD that is purely educational. If I order this for you - will you watch it?
Her: Yeah - what’s it about?
—POINT ONE—
You: It’s about what we’ve been talking about! It’s about not working like a dog and spending time with the man of your dreams! I’ll see to it that you get the DVD in the next 24 hours - you watch it - then you and I will talk about it. I want to help you solve this trapped feeling! Deal?
Her: Deal!
—POINT TWO—
You: Alright, I’ll overnight this to you. You will get it tomorrow - Tuesday. You watch it and let’s talk Wednesday about 11 am - does that work for you?
Her: That works - thanks!
POINT ONE is the Close.
What you’re doing in the Close is “concluding” the conversation. Caution! Don’t jump ahead of yourself and give your prospect ALL of the great details about your network marketing company at this point. I’ve only found this distracts MLM prospects and creates objections for them.
POINT TWO is the Action part.
What you’re doing in the Action is creating agreeable steps to help the prospect get what they’ve stated they need, want or don’t want as it pertains to your network marketing business.
Jenny very clearly stated that she didn’t want to “work like a dog.” She wants to spend time with the man of her dreams and she doesn’t like feeling trapped. You smartly gathered this valuable information because you followed the Inviting Formula and very effectively executed the Qualify step. You didn’t prematurely blurt out a solution when she first said her job was, “Oh…okay I guess.” You used her exact words in the Invite and Close to action steps. It was like “magic.”
When these steps are executed EXACTLY as I’ve described you will not have or will very rarely have, “I didn’t watch it.” As a result, more prospects will be evaluating your MLM business and if your business is what they’re looking for…well, you’ve just found yourself a new network marketing business partner.
Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at www.brilliantexchange.com
Prior to becoming involved in network marketing, I was a member of the U.S. Navy’s Underwater Explosive Ordinance Disposal Team (the Navy’s bomb squad). I learned many great lessons there that helped me with my MLM business years later, one of which was overcoming fear.
In the Navy, what allowed people to overcome their fear of defusing bombs under water was simple: drill, drill, drill - and when you’re sick of drilling, drill some more. Overcoming fear did not mean read, read and when you’re sick of reading, read some more; that doesn’t make someone skilled at defusing bombs. By the way, drill means repetitiously going over something to learn it well.
It’s the same with getting appointments so you can share either the MLM business opportunity or your products with someone. Not that reading and learning the way bombs go “boom” and phones go “ring-ring” isn’t important, it is. Reading or studying is only one part of knowing something and getting effective at it.
Here’s why some distributors in your MLM organization quit. Just think what would have happened if the bomb squad trainers told the bomb squad to go home and read about the most common ways a bomb blows up, and then sent them out by themselves to defuse a bomb.
Yet that’s what network marketing leaders are often guilty of - asking their new distributors to go home and make their list of prospects. They’re given a sheet (sometimes) of objections they “might” encounter, and then are told to call their prospects and invite them to take a look at a great MLM business…BOOM! Ever wonder why that new distributor in your network marketing organization disappears within 30 days?
What worked best for me was to start with a script. Very often I’ve heard people say they don’t/can’t use scripts. That’s fine. Write down what you plan to say anyway, because you need to get comfortable with making your call. You’ll need to repeat it several times. It’s very helpful to “invite yourself” into a tape recorder microphone. Listen to the tape and ask yourself “Would I accept that invitation?”
One of my scripts went something like this:
You: “Hi, John, this is Sue. Do you have a minute or did I catch you at a bad time?”
Prospect: “No, I have a minute. What’s up?”
You: “Great, are you open to a business outside of_______(what they currently do for a living)?”
Now, here are some likely responses you’ll hear. These are the common objections and questions that you can almost always expect to get from your MLM prospects:
* What is it?
* Is this a pyramid?
* Is it Network Marketing or multi-level marketing?
* Is this sales?
* What would I be doing?
* I’m too busy, I don’t have time.
* What is the investment?
Here are the steps to take so you don’t get caught off guard by your prospect’s objections to your network marketing business:
Step 1) Drill
Step 2) Drill
Step 3) Drill
These are the questions and objections! You know what they are! Drilling these beforehand is like knowing what’s going to be on the test!
This is how I finish the invitation:
You” (This was already stated, but I put it here again so you get the whole sequence.) “Great, are you open to a business outside of ________ (what they currently do for a living)?”
The most common response is:
Prospect: “What is it?” This is exactly what you want them to ask.
You: “Do you have Internet access?” (If not, send them the Brilliant Compensation video.)
Prospect: “Yes”
You: “Do you have something to write with?”
Prospect: “Yes”
You: Give the web address of your Brilliant Compensation website and say, “This is a purely educational online movie that explains our marketing strategy - watch this and then we can have an intelligent conversation about the target market, product lines and things like that. Read me back the address.” (make sure it’s correct) Confirm when they will have the time to review the information. Set when you will talk again. Hang up the phone.
Now, that script is one I’ve used successfully for years. The reason it works is because it was designed to PREVENT the objections mentioned above. It took me a long time to develop that script. In the example below there are several phrases I identified that actually CREATED common objections to my network marketing business invitation.
Avoid These Phrases and Instead Use…
(Phrase to avoid listed first, then recommended phrase listed second.)
I recently became involved
I’m working on a project…
I’d like to get you involved
I’m looking for the right person that…
I want you to…
You might want to…
I think you would love this
It may or may not be for you…
You would be good at this
This might be lucrative for us…
New business opportunity
Business idea or project
Are you interested?
You might want to see this
Are you looking for a business opportunity?
Do you keep your eyes open for expansion/diversification?
The point is, to overcome any type of fear, you must have both knowledge and practice. Therefore you must get with your network marketing organization and practice what to say to prospects and drill how to handle questions and objections. This is the best kind of MLM training I know. I’ve not seen or heard of a better way of overcoming telephone fears, training your distributors on what to say and how to have a lot of guests at your MLM business meetings than TEAM CALLING.
I put together a program called Assault Team Training - an event to teach people how to get past the fear of the phone, as well as talking to strangers (in person).
Eight distributors were invited to my house (because I had four phone lines and wanted two people per phone). To attend, each distributor had to bring 250 names with phone numbers.
Everyone spent the first hour around a table writing a script of what they would say on the telephone to invite contacts to an MLM business briefing we scheduled three days later. Then each person read their script back to the group and the group critiqued the script with one major emphasis: prevent the objection. We all agreed that in the invitation call, it’s much easier to prevent objections than to have to handle them. (See example of what to say/what not to say above.)
Here’s the best way to overcome the most common MLM objections. With good communication skills and using the phrases from the example above, we still got “Is this one of those pyramids!?” objection 50 % of the time.
It was this objection that constantly stopped or severely slowed down my organization’s growth.
After everyone writes an MLM invitation script, the next step is to role play. At the Team Calling event, divide people into pairs and have them role-play with each other. Person A reads the script. Person B asks the most common questions or objections. Start slow and easy and get tougher as your partner gets better. It’s very important that your partner feel successful. Compliment his/her efforts ALL THE TIME. Then switch: Person B invites and Person A asks the questions.
Because during the role playing, one person is constantly reading the MLM invite script - this serves as a drilling of the invitation. Once you as the leader are satisfied that everyone attending team calling is able to handle the above objections, then hit the phones.
Two people on each phone line. One is prospecting - the other coaching. After 15 minutes, switch. The person that was coaching switches to prospecting. The one that was prospecting is now the coach. Do this for one uninterrupted hour.
The rules are: No getting up. No bathroom, no food, no water, no answering cell phones. Nothing! It’s so important to play by the rules. We all know the feeling of searching for any excuse not to dial the phone. Believe me, this is fear-facing at its best, but also one of the best forms of MLM training I know of.
By the way, people who show up late are not allowed in “the pit” until after the hour is up. I can’t stress enough the importance of this SOLID HOUR of no interruptions.
Use Monday - it’s the start of the week and the best day to invite to your weekly MLM business briefing without a weekend interfering. Charge $5.00 per person to cover the cost of the phone calls.
Your job as the leader is to help keep the calls under three minutes and to ensure that the person making the call wants to continue making calls. As a coach, resist the urge to correct “everything” you see a new person doing wrong. You don’t want to unintentionally invalidate the person or make him/her feel that they’re messing everything up. It’s much better for the coach to consider the whole exercise as a gradual learning process. For some people, it can be a huge success just to dial 10 numbers in an hour.
I suggest that you teach everyone how to keep accurate records. It’s very important for everyone to keep statistics while doing team calling. You want to keep track of Dials, Connects and Appointments. Set a goal for each, and then keep track of the activity.
This is the basis for coaching and measuring progress and is the backbone of successful MLM training. If anyone complains about their results, you can go straight to the Daily Marketing Worksheet and tell exactly where someone needs help. Maybe they need help with their actual phone skills, or maybe they’re just not dialing enough numbers!
What Results Can You Expect? After two one-hour sessions in which everyone kept their statistics, the least number of confirmed appointments we’ve seen was eight. The most was 64. That’s right!
The most impressive are those eight. What this represents is the minimum result of eight confirmed guests! What this means for you is that if someone spent two hours per week inviting through team calling, they would have a minimum of eight confirmed appointments at the weekly MLM business meeting.
The next time you or your distributors come to a business meeting without a guest, ask yourself and them, “How much actual time did you spend making calls?”
Making MLM prospecting phone calls isn’t as hazardous as bomb squad work, but it really can be just as scary. But the way to handle any fear is learn how to do it and do it over and over. Confront what you fear most enough times and you won’t fear it anymore.
Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at www.brilliantexchange.com