One of my front-line leaders who focuses primarily on selling products says she does this because according to her, “trying to get other people to sell products feels icky.” Have you ever felt that way? If so, it is because you are doing it the wrong way! Anytime you feel “icky”, it is because you are making it about YOU and not about them! Examples include:
- Trying to convince family and friends that this MLM is going to work (so they’ll support you)
- Trying to justify the cost of the “expensive” products to people (so they will buy them)
- Trying to convince buyers to convert from customer to distributor (so you can move them to a better position on your team)
- Trying to push BOGOs (Buy One, Get One) or product specials to your team (to make a higher bonus this month)
Can you think of anything like this that you are doing? Remember, awareness is the first step to “recovery”!
The icky feeling happens because you have put your priorities over someone else’s, and deep-down feel this. In all the above examples, you are trying to convince someone else to buy oils so YOU will make more money. It feels selfish, and that is NOT who you are.
After you have been doing this for a while and start to get a taste of some extra money coming in, you begin to realize it might be possible to quit your job if you commit and go to the next level. Then you discover that the next level means converting customers into distributors. You need to teach them to build their own business and/or have their own account with orders each month. You are pushing them from simply BUYING products to SELLING them too. Deep down, however, you know that you are pushing to sell more (and in turn are pushing your team to do the same) because YOU will make more money, not because THEY asked you to help them make more money to advance in rank.
Unfortunately, many leaders teach this approach because it creates more volume and therefore higher bonuses.
WHAT IF… your focus was to find and help people by asking them what they need and then helping them get it? How could you feel icky?
How could it ever feel bad to help other people who are asking for your help to make their lives better? The problem is that you started the entire conversation selling products instead of trying to help them get what they need. So, what is it they need?
To understand icky-free prospecting you get to think at a higher-level, so stick with me on this.
Higher-Level Thinking
Why do people need the products? Usually, especially if you are part of a wellness company, it is to help them solve some health, wellness, or other issue they are having. You say, “Of course; that’s obvious!” But what is one of the biggest contributors to their issues?
Stress! Stress tends to trigger many different issues.
When our body is stressed, it starts eating itself from the inside out, creating all these nasty “bugs” that destroy its natural defenses and making it vulnerable to everything from colds and flus, to organs out of balance, all the way to the top of the chain, cancer. We use wellness products to help reduce the stress in our lives, and many times it works — or at least reduces the severity of many of the problems.
But, you say, “Sure, I get this. What’s new?” Let’s hop up to the next level of thinking. Consider this question: “What is often the highest cause of stress?” Most people will respond with things like:
- The kids
- My spouse
- No time
- My job
- My health (this one is a spiral — stress causes your health to suffer, which causes more stress, and down the spiral you go)
- Not enough money
When you think about it, you probably realize that the lack of money is the granddaddy of them all, because with plenty of money, most of the other stresses are solvable. Here’s how that may play out when you have more money on hand.
- Kids: You can have more time to play with them, money for daycare or buying them things they both want and need.
- Spouse: You can have more to play with your partner or money to pay for things to do or have that make your lives more fun.
- Time: With passive (royalty-like) income coming in every month, you can do what you want, when you want.
- Job: With passive (royalty-like) income coming in every month, you can drop-kick that stressful job.
- Health: With an abundance of money, you can reduce your stress, which naturally improves your health, and you can afford medical care to tend to your health. You can even afford the “luxury” medical services like massages.
As you can see, solving the financial problem will help reduce stress and therefore support overall good health and wellness. For those who say “The love of money is evil”, I would agree, but money isn’t evil; it’s the love of it that is. Money is a tool that can be used to help solve the challenges that come up in life. Money can create a more powerful future for you and your family. What’s wrong with that? NOTHING! But you must believe this if you want to use money the right way.
Tell Your Story to Build Trust with Them
I recently finished reading a very easy to read, short book called The 60 Second Sales Hook, which had a straightforward way of telling a story. Why is this important? People almost mind-meld with the storyteller who is telling the story.
Think about it. When you are watching a movie, you end up “becoming” the hero of the film. Notice that it doesn’t even matter the gender the hero is, you still become that person or want to be that person to some degree!
The reason I recommend understanding how to craft YOUR story is that it will better connect you to the prospect. I’m sure you have heard that customers buy from people they know, like, and trust. According to The 60 Second Sales Hook, it turns out that the following happens when you tell a story.
- Prospects will “know” you because you reveal yourself in a relatable way
- They will “like” you because you will win respect with authenticity
- They will “trust” you because you share your struggles and secrets
The following are the four parts to a simple story:
- Identity
- Struggle
- Discovery
- Result
Let’s get into each step with an example for each:
- Identity: This is a sentence that identifies who you are.
“Hi, I’m Ron, a network marketer.”
Your Identity: __________________________________
- Struggle: This is a sentence or two that describes the specific problem or struggle you have.
“For years I joined MLMs but kept spending more money than I made. I had become pretty jaded toward them and wasn’t interested in joining any more of them.”
Your Struggle: __________________________________
- Discovery: A sentence about the thing that provided the solution to your problem.
Example: “A person I respected who was doing well financially, suggested I join his MLM company to see if it would work for me.”
Your Discovery: ________________________________
- Result: A sentence describing how life is different since discovering and implementing the solution.
Example: “I am so glad I decided to join his company. This is the first MLM I have joined where I have made more money than I’ve spent and now have a nice lifestyle.
Your Result: ___________________________________
Of course, you can add more to each of the areas, but don’t go overboard. The beauty of this simple approach is that if you practice it, you can deliver it in a minute and make an excellent connection. You can also talk about your product experiences and do simple personal testimonials with it. Just be careful who your target audience is because you could get into compliance issues if you did this as an online video talking about how “this magic product helped solve my [fill in the ailment here].” Just don’t go there and you’ll be safe.
Help Them Craft a Believable Plan
One thing you can do with business builder prospects is to help them come up with their own WHY by assisting them to do a little dreaming. As kids, we dreamed all the time of places we would go, places we would live, cars we would buy, people we would marry, and many other things. We did this because we didn’t think they wouldn’t come true. We had no real-life experiences to hold us back.
Unfortunately, most people stop dreaming by the time they hit thirty years old. Why? Because life happens (work, marriage, family, TV, Facebook, etc.), and they realize that they are “stuck” in a grind. They don’t see a way to be able to come up with the money and time to experience or buy things they once dreamed of. So, they “settle for” the life they have and push down their dreams. This makes it hard to get them to open with their dreams and goals. They are so far from some of those dreams that they have no idea that any of it might be possible.
YOUR MISSION is to help them see a way to manifest those dreams.
For example, you could share a path to the following income levels with them to get them thinking (and more importantly, feeling) this could be a neat pathway to take in their life. Ask which income level they would like to achieve in the short-term and long-term. They can choose from this list:
- An extra $200/month to pay for dinners out, house cleaning, or new toys
- An extra $500/month to pay for daycare or a new car payment
- An extra $1000/month to pay for a mini getaway, rent, savings or account deposits
- An extra $2500/month to pay for a mortgage payment, a nice vacation, or hope to drop-kick a part-time job
- An extra $5000/month to quit your job or to take nice vacations
- An extra $10,000/month so both husband and wife can quit their jobs and save for a nice home
- An extra $25,000/month to buy a vacation home and put money away
- An extra $100,000/month to buy whatever you want! You’d be a millionaire every year!
Have them list out some things they would like to have or experience. If you tie this into your story from the previous section, you will be well on your way to helping them know, like, and trust you to be their guide to a better future for them and their family.
It’s magic because you can find all you need about their WHY, pain points, and other things that will help you better connect with them.
