Today we are going to talk about how prospecting in network marketing doesn’t have to be hard.
First I’m going to talk about where to find people. Next I’m going to say exactly what to say to your prospect whether you know them or not. Lastly, we are going to dive into how to stay consistent. The absolute key to your success.
Where to find people to prospect?
I hear from network marketers all the time, “I have run out of people to talk to, I don’t know where to find people to talk to, where do I find people?” First of all I just want to share with you one, you haven’t worked through your entire warm market. Warm market being your friends and family. When people tell me, “oh I’ve worked my entire warm market,” they never have. What they have actually done is they have reached out to the people that they know that they are comfortable reaching out to…which is nowhere near their entire warm market, literally no one has. If you ever want to question this, just open up your phone scroll to the bottom of the contacts, look at that number and ask yourself if you have ever reached out to those people ever and the answer is no, you have not.
You have no idea of who’s in your phone that’s on their hands and knees every single night praying for a solution that you could actually help. Be more addicted to your activity than their response. Be addicted to seeing if they are open to taking a look at what it is that you have versus could I be able to close them or will they judge me. Stop worrying about that. Release your addiction to the outcome and instead get addicted to you asking them. You have no idea who you could be blessing and who’s really looking for your product, your service, your opportunity. They are looking to change their life and you could actually help them, but only if you ask.
When it comes to cold market, I will give you some tactical tips as well. The things that both my wife and I did. By the way just shout out to my wife…when she was 21 years old, her warm market did not have anything to do with network marketing. In fact her family also made fun of her. Okay? Until she hit $10,000 a month, 100% from cold market prospecting on Facebook and then her two brothers joined, her mom joined and her dad built her a little spreadsheet, showed her how to build it. Just know that you may have people in your warm market that don’t want to join you and that’s okay, you can go cold market. I’m going to give you a couple different strategies here.
Number one, follow people that you resonate with on social media. If you follow and resonate with Brene Brown or you resonate with Robert Kiyosaki or Tony Robbins or Bob Proctor or whoever your guru of choice is, Marie Forleo, she’s amazing. By you following them and just paying attention to some of the comments on their pages, you can locate some pretty sharp people. If someone drops a sharp comment and I don’t mean a sharp hate comment, I wouldn’t prospect that person, but someone who actually drops an intelligent comment. You can actually send them a little message and this is what I would say. This is a very real scenario that both my wife and I used to recruit a lot of people into our network marketing business and sell a lot of product too.
It is, “hey, I saw the comment that you left on Tony Robins page. Listen, I know we don’t know each other but I really loved your comment. I’m always looking to work with sharp people, would you be open to taking a look at what I’m doing to make some extra money on the side and if not, totally cool.”
By you telling them up front, not trying to tiptoe through the tulips and build rapport forever… which is what some people do and it’s very frustrating, not only to the person trying to do it but also the person receiving it. I’ve asked so many crowds over the years, “hey do you prefer someone that just builds rapport with you for months and months and months and then they ask you the question or would you prefer they just get to the point?” No one on the planet has ever said “no, I really like that build rapport piece. I really like them buttering me up for months and then asking me the question.” Nobody likes that and it takes too much time. Instead get to the point and tell them, don’t say you should buy my product, ask if they’re open to learning more. Where’s the harm in that?
If you are a network marketer, I would not use this approach on other network marketers because network marketers are very cannibalistic. They eat their own. I would not do this to another network marketer because they are going to say, “wait a minute, you’re supposed to build rapport” and they are going to rat you out, call you out and so don’t do it. Most people, the people that are not in network marketing, this is not an intrusive or spammy method. By the way if you are worried about not being their friends, one little sneak trick (in Facebook at least) is you can comment on their stories. If you see that they are doing stories, just drop a quick comment that will actually make you show up in their messenger and then you go from there. I mentioned one method and also where to find people.
What to say to your prospect whether you know them or not.
I want to share with you, what do you say to people that you just don’t know, that you’re wanting to connect with? Well understand when it comes to cold market prospecting there is a right and a wrong way to do it. By the way if you are wondering if cold market prospecting works, I shared with you that my wife at the age of 21 built a 10,000 month income with it, but does it still work now or have the rules changed. Well one of our students Christina Danielle, she’s the number one recruiter in her company, it happens to be a pet supply company and she doesn’t have any pets and she uses a hundred percent cold market prospecting. So, we know that it still works, it’s worked for a long time if you do it the right way.
Know that when you’re reaching out to someone that doesn’t know you, they want to know a few things.
Number one, do I know you? You want to actually address that in your message or you run the risk of them responding with, “do I know you,” which kind of takes you off the path that doesn’t lead you toward a sale… it kind of leads you more away.
Number two, they want to know why are you reaching out to them. Now this is an often skipped step. Why are you reaching out to them specifically.
Number three, what do you want?
Do I know you, what do you want, why me? Those are the three things that you have to address when reaching out cold market. Just ask yourself if someone you don’t know messages you, isn’t that what you’re thinking too? Do I know you, why me, what do you want. That’s pretty normal, that’s a normal thought pattern. When you’re reaching out to them, I would cover those three things. I’m going to give you two different methods and two different little scripts.
Let’s say that you’re wanting to grow in a particular area, location is one of my favorite things to use when you’re doing this cold market prospecting. An example might be, “hey, I know we don’t know each other. I see that you’re in Dallas, Texas. I’m looking to expand my business there. Would you be at all open to taking a look at what we’re doing to make some extra money? I’d be happy to show it to you and if not, no big deal.” What exactly is spammy about that? You are telling them it’s okay if they don’t want to learn more, it’s not spam.
Spam is assuming the position of the prospect without any evidence. If you went to them and said, “hey, I see you’re in Dallas and I have a no-brainer for you. I have an amazing ground floor company that you will totally love…” that’s spamming because you are assuming these things and you don’t have any evidence to them. So make sure that you understand that this isn’t spam, you are just seeing if they’re open. No does that mean that every single person is going to say yes? Of course not because not every person is is interested or open.
The second one is occupation. That is very similar you might have guessed but it’s, “hey, I know we don’t know each other, I see that you are a realtor, we happen to work with a lot of realtors, would you be open to take a look at what I’m doing to make some extra money? If not, no big deal.” Notice how interchangeable location and occupation are with these scripts. This is the type of messages that have helped us help network marketers generate over 300,000 new customers in the last three years, 71,000 reps and 14,000 rank advances. We know this stuff works.
If you are learning prospecting you should learn to close as well.
Before I get to my last point, make sure that you subscribe to our YouTube channel. You can find it here at Higdongroup.com/channel or by clicking on the video at the top of this post. I would highly suggest that as you are learning prospecting, make sure you learn closing as well. We cover closing on our channel a lot and so I want to help you not just reach out to people but also close some of those sales and get more customers and reps. So feel free to subscribe and check out some of our videos.
Let’s talk a little bit about consistency.
I can tell you right now if you are reading this post and you struggle with consistency, it’s really not your fault and it’s not that you’re lazy. It’s that you’ve drawn the wrong conclusion to success based on an observation you made as a kid. What? That sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I have found from coaching hundreds of people around this whole concept of consistency that is 100% of the time the truth. Let me give you some examples. Understand that I may not say your example but I want you to think about your scenarios and when you think about success or money or recognition, what comes up for you around those words and your parents or your upbringing if someone else you know raised you?
A couple weeks ago I coached a lady and she would go through her business, she would do a little bit of work and then she’d just stop. She would just fizzle out. She would do a little bit of work. She had big goals but she really struggled with consistency. What I got from her was that she really just could not get herself to make the big effort, just couldn’t. So I asked this question. I said, “I’m just curious, at what point in your childhood did you try really hard but then realize that no matter how hard you tried, it just didn’t matter?” It’s a big question and she’s like “oh my god” and she remembered using an easy bake oven to make cookies or brownies or whatever and she made somethings for her dad. When he got home, she surprised him and she worked really hard on this stuff and her dad was furious. He was furious that she used the kitchen ingredients and maybe he thought she could hurt herself…I don’t know…but it was in that moment that she created the program that said no matter how hard I try, it just doesn’t matter. So, why bother?
Most people are struggling with their own version of why bother. Another example would be I have coached many people that had parents who made a lot of money and then lost it and so what they find themselves doing the work and they’ll start doing well and then all of a sudden they’ll just stop, just go the other way or they’ll just stop being consistent or they will get even more stressed out. Well if you saw a parent make a bunch of money and lose it and get ridiculed made fun of, downgrade in society, downgrade and income and all the things that you got to experience then you could very well draw the conclusion that, “well if I make a bunch of money, I’m just going to lose it…” so let me not make a bunch of money.
If you’re scared of falling off the mountain, just don’t climb it. You have to look at and become aware of what your programming is when you think about consistency, success, achievement, recognition. How does that resonate between you and the experience you had as a kid. I will give you a hint. If you have massive memory struggles of even remembering your childhood then I guarantee you there was some kind of trauma in there and you are in a protective program. These programs, they protect you, they don’t hurt you, they try to prevent you from being hurt again.
Check these out.
This is some deep deep stuff and I would encourage you to check out some of the coaching I have done around this subject. Here is a link to some of my live coaching that I’ve done, Higdongroup.com/breakthrough. We call it breakthrough coaching or defiant coaching. Helping people become defiant to the programs that are running them. Feel free to click the link above and it may help you out if you struggle with consistency.
Ray Higdon
Play Bigger. Make An Impact.
Considering Coaching? Check out my Work with Me tab and Survey where we Help People Everyday