NetworkMarketingUncut.com

Prospecting 101 Lesson 1 - Everyone is Not a Prospect

Edited by David Gignilliat

If you want to annoy your friends, frustrate your family, lose all of your confidence and fail miserably at your network marketing business, adopt the mantra that “everyone’s a prospect.” If prospecting everyone that gets within three feet of you is only marketing strategy, be prepared to join the 97% of network marketers that quit the industry without making a profit.

The phrase ‘everyone’s a prospect’ has been the lynchpin of MLM lead generation techniques for decades. But is there any truth to it? Ask the millions of aspiring entrepreneurs who have tried and failed. They will tell you, without fail, it’s not for lack of “presentations,” “pitches” or “contacts.” Often, it’s simply because they’re trying to sell to an audience that just doesn’t care. Your company has spent millions on market research and knows exactly how many people you need to talk to get someone interested and how many of them it takes to get a prospect signed up. Your managers will tell you repeatedly that it’s just a numbers game, but the amount of rejection you personally have to endure is both demoralizing and unnecessary.

Does the strategy actually work for anyone? Yes. For these rare Johnny Appleseeds that make it work, they’ll tell you it’s just a matter of putting your head down, trusting the numbers game and staying the course. For most of us, however, this “shotgun” approach will be our first step toward quitting the business. It’s the contradiction of it all that starts to get to each of us. You’re frustrated and desperately want people to sign up for a great opportunity where they “can make money just by talking to people,” … while you can’t seem to make it work simply by talking to people. People tend to sour quickly on the business after an endless loop of no’s and go running in the opposite direction. It’s not the business itself that repels them, it’s the work required to convert these “prospects” into to sales that drives them away.

Ultimately, your customer has to be in a mindset to want to buy something from you. The more expensive your product or service, the more your customer will have to be thinking about it already and better yet, taking steps of their own. Even though your business makes perfect sense to you, everyone else probably doesn’t see it that way. Try convincing someone to move to Australia. Unless they’ve been thinking about it on their own already, it is crazy to suggest it to them without warning. You can give a prospect all the reasons in the world to say “yes,” but if they have no desire to do it, an avalanche of features and benefits will do little to change their mind.

So what should your motto be? “Everyone that asks you about your business or product is a prospect.” And how do you make people ask you about your project? By positioning yourself as someone that can provide others with something they want. Instead of broadcasting your perfect, polished message to thousands of complete strangers who don’t care, you must learn how to get yourself in front of those who truly want to hear what you have to say.

In short, find the people who already want to move to Australia. If you can do this successfully, you just may be able to afford to visit them there someday.