Finding good people to talk to and, when they finally have one,
getting that person to even LISTEN to the opportunity.
Everybody seeks those elusive, good people.
The kind who are committed to do what it takes to make it. Obsessed.
Resilient. Ambitious. Not easily influenced by others once they've
made up their own minds, based on their own research and personal
experiences. Fun people. Friendly, open-minded people. Self-starters.
Hard working. Will do whatEVER it takes. And of course, they will
have a major sphere of influence over other people just like them.
Yes.
Shall we agree that this is a likely definition of a 'good person'
for the business? Oh, and they're definitely not whiney or pukey
towards new ideas and new things.
Let's say we agree who the 'good people' are. Did you realize
the things they usually teach you to say from the front of the
room typically turn these kinds of people right off? Oiy vey!
Really?
Everybody knows that step one is attracting good people, and then,
getting them to listen, yes?
Well, for good people like this, of whom I consider myself one,
and I believe many of my readers consider themselves ones too,
here are the 5 worst things you can say to any of us:
Why would anyone tell a good, new prospect this?
If it were really true, why do 90% plus of the people who sign
up, cave?
Besides, whom do you actually attract when you say that? What
do people who hear that expect they have to do to make it in the
business?
While it may be true that cerebral brain power is not what one
needs to make it big in networking, shouldn't we stop pretending
that it's easy and anyone can do it? Otherwise, wouldn't EVERYONE
be making it?
Predicting the future like this for someone else
is pure hype. Be it about the product (‘you will lose X lbs./you
will feel like new’, etc) the potential income, or how others
will feel about it (‘You’ll love it!’ ‘Your
friends will love it!’)
Hype is easily recognizable to anyone with brains, and even people
with not so much grey matter.
First, be honest with yourself: how often does that big income
happen right away, or even ever, for most people? If it's so easy,
how come so many people don't make it?
Good people don't fall for this nonsense. But guess who does?
Yes. Sorry. It's those people who want something for nothing or
next to nothing. Yahoo's Seth Godin calls them the "dreaded
opportunity seekers…someone with more time than money, a
nonconsumer who focuses on low-margin items and is a less than
ideal prospect for most products." (Permission
Marketing, P.108)
Is that who you want on your team? Well then, please stop asking
for them.
While maybe true theoretically, this is what almost every network
marketing company says about its services and product lines. In
fact, it's what most every company out there say about their wares.
Picture this: New people going off, after the 'meeting' thinking
that 'everyone' will want this, or that the stuff/service is for
'everyone.’ What happens when they go home and call a few
people and hear the usual 'it's too expensive' and 'I can't believe
you fell for that' types of responses?
Uh huh. They figure, either the people in the front were lying
or, worse, ‘I'm not smart enough to do this, I guess. Better
give the stuff back.’ And after the first few calls, it's
over.
This doesn't mean the products or services COULD not be beneficial
to the whole world. But does that mean that everyone WILL do the
thing? Or will love it like you do?
You may believe in your heart of hearts that everyone SHOULD do
‘it’ (=whatever you’re selling that you believe
in) or use it, or whatever, but doesn't McDonald's marketing team
think the same thing? Or people who
make Hondas?
They can't figure it out either. Why doesn't EVERYONE eat at McDonalds?
Why doesn't EVERYONE drive a Honda? Or eat Snickers? Or buy Crest
toothpaste? Or eat organically grown food? Or exercise when they
know they should?
What’s wrong with all these people out there, anyway?
Smart marketing people are finally beginning to ‘target’
their potential users (‘target marketing’) so they direct
their spiel at the ones for whom it’s the right thing to
be using. (E.g. our products are for people who are ‘adventuresome’
or who ‘put family first,’ etc). A tiny fraction of
the total people out there. But it works much better. They get
the right ones AND those who wish they could be (or perceived
to be) ‘adventuresome’ or ‘intelligent’.
In the network marketing world, the ‘right ones’ are
people with some entrepreneurial flair and readiness to change.
2-10% of people out there, it is said, over and over, by those
in the trenches. What fools everyone is this: nearly everybody
we know SAYS they want more freedom, more income, more energy,
residual income, more blah blah blah. But what percent of those
same people are willing to make a change and do something about
it?
A paltry 3-10%. There’s the rub. Everyone who’s ever
lived a day in the life of a networker has experienced it.
So, could your ‘thing’ be helpful and beneficial to
everyone? Maybe. Will everyone ‘see it’ or do it?
Complaining about a thing and doing something about that thing
are well, not the same. There’s maybe 1 doer for every 20
complainers and wannabes. The rest are just venting, a very in
thing these days. If in doubt, ask:
"Do you really want [THE BENEFIT] or are you just venting?"
And there’s your answer. Accept it, and act accordingly.
Venting is not a crime. I mean, doesn’t everyone just ‘vent’
once in a while? You just need to know that’s what they’re
doing, that’s all. So ask.
P.S. In ‘THE BENEFIT’ blank, insert that extra income,
more free time, residual income, your own money, more energy,
tax savings, legal protection, an internet business, a new life
or whatever they said ‘attracted’ them to the business
in the first place.
To utter these words with any credibility, shouldn’t the
speaker have personally done EVERY deal, been in every company,
tried every product, or met and worked with every management team
out there? How else could anyone even offer an opinion like this?
How many who say this do you think are qualified to say it?
Actually, isn't #4 just a silly thing to say? That is what EVERY
company says about themselves. And what would you expect them
to say?
Who cares? (Saying something different than #4 has wonderful consequences.
Think Avis, whose slogan ‘we try harder’ because they’re
#2 has made them a household name. America has been in love with
the underdog forever.)
Even when people do try the very same things, they have different
reactions, don’t they?
Say 3 people try 5 different hamburger joints. Chances are that
each of them would give a different opinion as to which is their
first choice.
Depends on your tastes, yes?
Is anything 'best' for everyone?
Experience tells us something else. For example, Rolls Royces
are for people with money, who enjoy showing it. Not ALL people
with money, but those (of them) that like to show it. Sam Walton,
the richest guy in the world in his day (not long ago), drove
a 10-year-old truck even when he was, when he drove it, the richest
man in the world (according to Fortune magazine).
So even just here, within this single elite class
of the very rich, we observe differences in preference. Nothing
is 'best' for everyone. No one would want that except the owners
of the supposed ‘best thing’ or ‘best belief’
or ‘best way.’
'Best in the world' for everyone is the same thing religious zealots
preach.
They too, say their 'deal' is the best in the history of the world.
But isn’t it based mostly on faith? A very strong feeling
of certainty someone has? And doesn’t a person’s faith
depend largely on where they live? And how and where they were
brought up? And to whom they have been exposed in life? And what’s
happened to them?
Think Bombay, versus Rome, or the Midwest or Iraq.
Very different beliefs, yes? Not very conducive
to a ‘one for all’ mentality. Plus, who wants to change
their own beliefs? Everyone wants the other to change theirs.
And the zealots really try to make that happen.
Remember the religious crusades? It is reported that religious
wars are the #1 cause of death and destruction in the history
of civilization. And what are those wars based on? The insistence
by one group or another that THEIR DEAL is the best for EVERYONE
and, if you don't agree, well then we'll just have to crush you.
And they have, and they still do. Almost no religious group is
exempt from this intolerance.
Insistence on ‘my one best belief system or
else’ still justifies killing and cruelty all over the world,
by otherwise normal and good people.
But some leaders are coming around to a more tolerant
and open-minded perspective. Did you know what the Pope did in
March, 2000? For the first time in the history of the Church,
he offered an official, public apology for the Church's participation
in the crusades of yesteryear. That was when, in the name of the
Church, members cruelly tormented and erased any and all 'non-believers
in our best way' (including women and children).
The people you want to attract know better than
to buy the line Ours (this) is the best deal/company/pay plan/management
(you name it) in the history of the world, for you and everyone
in the world just because someone else says it or believes it.
People prefer choice. And choice is what they will
have or create, depending on who they are and what they think
is important.
Surprisingly, when marketing anything, the more
narrow, specific and limiting your stated audience is, the more
people seem to flock to it. Think Harvard.
Thousands of applications for each student admitted.
Now, how would you market Harvard? A place for people who…?
You fill it in. Would it be for ’everyone’ or just people
who blah and blah and probably blah blah and then some more blahs?
Same here. "X is for people who…"
and the more narrow and specific that is, the better it attracts
those people and hoards of others who won’t even qualify,
but who can’t resist. Like applying to Harvard. Besides,
they may know people.
Telling new people this is worst of all. And not just because
it isn't true. (Unless you are President or some famous deity
who can actually influence others to at least try the thing being
sold, like celebrities who endorse products and companies.) It's
because this one fib is the #1 reason new people don't make it.
You know it, don't you? Picture it.
Re-experience it…
There goes an innocent new baby in the business,
happily off to talk to people they know, expecting to sign them
up and sell them the dream or save them. Without one ounce of
preparation for what they're in for. And after the first few calls,
it's usually over, or nearly over.
Who would have thought what misery friends and family wreak on
an innocent new person? The worst pukies are friends and family.
And it doesn't take many of these reactions. 3-10, usually, before
the new baby is out of the game.
Going to friends and family right off should be
outlawed, so new people at least have a chance to make it. AFTER
they've had some success, perhaps they can entertain the idea.
Instead of risking approaching friends, people can send a Dear
Friend Letter (in Truth
book). It removes the risk of getting dumped on. Because only
the ones who have an interest call back. So no one even hears
‘no.’
Think of the hours on the phone chatting about hemorrhoids
or failed marriages that they get to skip.
Everyone knows about Napoleon Hill, yes? He wrote
Think
and Grow Rich, perhaps the best known book in the English
speaking world after the Bible.
Nearly every industry leader claims they've read
it. They recommend it to anyone and everyone. But they don’t
follow his advice.
It is Mr. Hill who said that perhaps the biggest
reason people fail in life is the tendency to listen to friends,
family and neighbors. In his own words:
"Close friends and relatives...often handicap
one through 'opinions' and...ridicule...meant to be humorous.
Thousands of men and women carry inferiority complexes with them
all through life, because some well-meaning but ignorant person
destroyed their confidence through 'opinions' or ridicule."
Think
and Grow Rich p 140-141.
This, after 20 years of full time research asking
what it takes to be successful in life. Walking and talking with
the likes of Thomas Edison, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie
and 497 other self-made men.
And they want you to send a good new recruit into
this destructive environment without preparation?
New new mlmers will offer lots of alternatives to
finding good people, like the 14 methods of reaching out described
in the Truth book and
Giant Heap tapes (see pp. 97-98 for some). Really.
Besides, in what start up business does anyone ever say 'all you
have to do is go talk to people you know' to make it big? Good
people expect there to be more to it than that. And we all know
there is, don't we?
Check out Ms. Stud's Complete
Collection for more articles just like this one.
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Each
week on our big national conference calls, people from the 35-45
companies on the line tell us their biggest obstacle to success
is this:
The
first worst thing you can say to a good prospect is:
#1: "It's easy. Anyone can do it." 
The
second worst thing you can say to a good prospect is:
The
fourth worst thing you can say to a good prospect is:
The
fifth worst thing you can say to a good prospect is:
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