How Not to Prospect

      Yesterday, I got a phone call from a friend who asked me if she can come to my house with a friend of hers who had come from Denver, CO to make a presentation of a WonderfulTravelBusinessCompany.com. I said Ok, so they came. My friend is rather shy in regards to new opportunities, so she asked me to listen to her friend to see if this business is worth starting.

      So, the presenter plopped into the sofa and started her awful presentation. It was a sheer hype about how great the company is, how smart they are to start using the Internet to sell vacation packages and trips, how great the compensation plan is, and how easy it is to recruit new agents for a start-up fee of nearly $500 and a monthly website fee of nearly $50. Then all of a sudden she stopped talking and pulled a DVD disc out of her purse and let the CEO of the company take over and continue the “presentation” on the DVD as a slide show. I saw many wonderful pictures of exotic places resembling the paradise no mortals have ever seen; I saw attractive figures of the comp plan describing my future careless life; and I listened to the CEO’s promise that my website would be doing all the work 24/7/365, so I could only run to my mail box to pick up my pay checks. After the DVD show was over, the gal decided to disperse my pessimism with the last ace: she said she had flown to the headquarters of the Company and shaken hands with its CEO and founders to check whether the Company is real and legitimate. When she said that, I thought she should have better showed me at least one pay check with some figures, and that would have been a less expensive way to prove how great the Company is.

      Then I invited her for a cup of tea and she asked me if she could use my laptop to show me how well her website works. Then she said it is not any different than those huge online travel agencies with one exception: instead of letting those huge agencies earn commissions off of my purchases, I’d better use her website so she could make money. What a value! :-) Instead of seeing “What’s in it for me” I saw what’s in it for HER and what’s in it for the Company! Awesome! How foolish was I to expect to see anything for me! Didn’t I understand she’s in business for herself, not for me? When we were having tea, I asked the gal about how she’s going to market her website in order for it to work 24/7/365. She didn’t answer and switched the topic. When listening to her I heard something that really shocked me. She said she didn’t really care about her new travel business as a business; she only uses it to be able to get tax write-offs for her primary business, which is real estate brokerage. The only person she really cared about during that presentation was herself. To me, it sounded very selfish. She wanted me to purchase “paradise” from her website so she could make money to purchase her own air tickets to have tax write-offs! What about value that I wanted? Where was it? There was none.

      I said that I’d think about her business opportunity when she was about to leave to which she sarcastically answered: “I like your slow-pace approach to this. Good luck!” I felt sorry for her. She didn’t realize how silly she looked at the moment. Did she really expect me to hug and kiss her for presenting this opportunity? Did she really expect me to spin on my bellybutton from “joy” she’d brought to my house? Man, she was a classic example Ann Sieg describes in her eBooks, an example of how not to start and build one’s network marketing business. This business is not about your company, your product or service. It’s about human beings building friendly and strong relationships for mutual benefit. This business is not about selfishness, and it’s not about greed. It’s about solving people’s problems and meeting their expectations.

      Despite the unwanted results for my presenter, I am so glad I had this situation in my life, because it taught me, once again, the following invaluable lessons:

1. Present yourself as a professional, not an amateur.
2. Present the benefits that your prospects will get when dealing with you and the company you represent, and do not overemphasize features
3. Provide value
4. Use your own business tools, not your prospect’s
5. Show interest in your prospect more than in his/her money
6. Do not blame your prospects for the sale you failed
7. Try to solve your prospects’ problems and meet their needs
8. Not everyone is your prospect
9. Nobody likes to be sold to
10. Learn attraction marketing and sales will follow

      What about you? Did you recognize any old-school marketing practices you’ve been taught by your Upline? Are you still doing in-house presentations? Are you still acting as an amateur? What value do you provide and are you willing to help prospects resolve their problems?

      When presenting your opportunity, ask yourself this question: “Would I join myself after such a presentation?” If your frank answer is “no”, then it’s time to change your approach to network marketing. It’s time to realize that this business is about people coming to you on their own accord because of your professional attraction, and not you chasing and persuading them to join you because you think they can’t survive without your opportunity. Remember: professionals sort, amateurs persuade.