Designing your network marketing prospecting plan in detail

A successful network marketing prospecting plan can be as varied as the number of companies and distributors, each with different interests, strengths and focuses. A traditional warm market approach might involve contacting the prospects on your notification list. This is a great approach for those who are willing to fly their flag out front and speak with those they know personally or know of. I suggest it as a great place to begin one’s Network Marketing business for a number of reasons.

First, the people on this list typically include those who know, trust and love us. They are often people with whom we have credibility. Many on this list will want to support our success and many will be honored and moved by the fact that we decided to offer a business partnership to them. Often times, it will be the people on our notification list with whom we would most enjoy working and derive the greatest amount of satisfaction from their success.

After all, if we really believe in what we are doing and confident of our impending success, why wouldn’t we want to include our friends, family and acquaintances in our good fortune?

Moreover, we already have these names and their contact information. It will cost us nothing in terms of lead generation expenses to start our prospecting efforts with this group.

To the contrary, many beginning Networkers feel awkward or reluctant to contact the people to whom they are closest. Maybe this is because those who know them best are so familiar with their faults and personal struggles that they lack credibility for them as potential business partners. Perhaps it is because they do not wish to have these people feel obligated in any way to buy products or join them as a favor to them. Or, perhaps their reluctance may stem from their own personal doubts about whether they themselves can become successful and even more importantly whether they can transfer this same success to those they know.

If this reason is at the source of your reluctance to contact your own notification names list, I suggest you speak with other successful leaders in your company and re-establish your belief in what you are doing and in your eventual ability to succeed in your business building efforts.

In addition to this warm market list, there are many other sources of prospects we might focus upon to fuel our business growth. Let’s look at a few of the more productive sources of prospect names might be.

Cold Calling Approaches – In Person and By Phone A cold calling approach is typically not well suited for the faint of heart. Because you would have no prior relationship established with these cold prospects, you will need to become expert at rapidly developing rapport with your prospect while immediately creating value. It is often a good idea to internalize a basic opening line or script so that you can become adept at sparking your prospect’s interest and arousing their curiosity to want to learn more about your offering.

A cold calling approach is particularly well-suited for approaching business owners who may have a need for your products or an interest in exposing their sphere of influence (their customers and fellow business owners) to your products or services as well as your opportunity. Cold calling can be done in person, face-to-face in a manner resembling traditional door-to-door sales or it can be done entirely over the phone or by scheduling a follow up meeting in person, if your interested prospect is situated locally to you. Taking a phone approach will allow you to be much more productive in going through the numbers to identify those who are interested in learning more. However, with some products that require a demonstration, you may experience much more effective results from actually calling on your prospects in person. I suggest you test both ways, track your success rations and continue to follow whichever plan proves to be more productive.

Productive cold calls target business prospects whose customers may have a need for your products or services.

When approaching business owners, it is best to be able to clearly and powerfully outline the reason for your call or contact while spelling out the benefits your company offers that may appeal to the business owner or decision maker. Some of these benefits which may appeal to the business’ end users include products to support customer’s health, appearance or other needs or services that save customers money or enhance their lifestyle. Additional benefits that may appeal to the business decision maker might be the ability to create a second profit center in the business, the ability to offer a value-added service to increase customer or client satisfaction, providing a reason for customers to return more often to the establishment to purchase additional products or the likelihood that satisfied customers would be more likely to recommend the additional products or services to others, thus helping the business grow.

An additional benefit that can be offered would be to invite the business owner and possibly the employees to share in your company’s profits by spreading the word. Many will want to recommend products or services that they love to others anyway, so why not allow them to get paid for doing so?

Many businesses also lend themselves to easily prospecting their customers or clients in a very professional manner. Attractive catalogs and brochures might be made available to customers who visit the place of business or sent to them by mail. Postcards, bill stuffers or direct mail letters can also be mailed notifying clients who the business already has credibility with of the value of additional products or services.

Other businesses may choose to run professional, company produced video or DVD presentations to expose their clients to the possibilities offered by your company’s products and income opportunity. Some may wish to place an attractive sign inviting customers to inquire about your opportunity. Many salons, barbers, realtors, flea markets, gyms, stores, cleaners, tanning salons, and a myriad of other businesses might place a sign that says:

“Earn an Extra $2,000/month, Ask Us for a FREE Brochure and Video.”

Like other methods of prospecting, cold calling comes down to a numbers’ game. If you are convinced that the prospects you decide to target would benefit from your products or opportunity AND you become adept at creating value with that they can appreciate your presentations, success will result from tracking your ratios (the number of businesses you’ll need to prospect to make a sale or enroll as a distributor) and speaking with enough people to make the numbers work.

Remember to always be upfront with your prospect with regard to the reason for your call or contact, request a brief amount of their time to share the benefits (initially no more than 5 minutes) and never argue or exert pressure upon them to buy or evaluate your opportunity.

The 3 Foot Rule While cold calling typically refers to approaching business owners, the 3 Foot Rule pertains to everyone else on the planet. This type of approach assumes that we meet prospects who would have an interest in joining our business every day of our lives. They can be found at the supermarket, PTA meeting, soccer game and every other place we go. We just never can tell when we might bump into our next superstar business builder. Because people need what our company has to offer and we can never prejudge who might be interested if we do not ask, the 3 Foot Rule assumes that it is our responsibility to build rapport and create an opening to explore the possibilities of an interest in our offering everywhere we go.

Those distributors who are most successful in building their business in this manner share a number of common characteristics:

• They are not afraid to speak with strangers. A stranger is only a friend they have not yet met.
• They are masters at breaking the ice, instantly building rapport by talking about whatever seems to come up at that particular time and place and asking a question to determine if the suspect is really a prospect in disguise.
• They usually have a practiced method of performing the actions listed above so that their pitch comes across in a natural and appropriate manner. Their conversations can not appear to be canned, filled with clichés or pushy and invasive. They must flow as naturally as making a friend while presenting their invitation to explore possibilities in a manner that creates an opening without being offensive.
• They are always prepared with business cards, prospecting packages, audio or video tapes and any other materials they normally use to educate and expose their prospects to their company’s products and opportunity.
• They ask questions that stimulate conversation. For example, they might say something like “I think I’ve seen you here at these games before. Do you live or work in this area? Oh, great. Can I ask you what you do for a living?” The areas open to building rapport are typically: family, where they live, what they do for an occupation, and what their passions or hobbies are. I remember

these areas as FLOP since it’s critical to develop rapport in order to avoid making your conversation a flop!

• They are adept at making requests that move their prospect along in the evaluation process. They might say something like “You know you have a great personality and I’m looking for someone just like you to expand my business here in Massachusetts. The position I’m looking to fill has the potential to be VERY lucrative for the right person. Would you be willing enough to just take a look at some information and watch a brief video that describes how our company works? Great! I have an info pack in my car. It’s parked right in front. Here’s my business card. Do you have one also? Would it be convenient for me to call you some night this week to answer any questions you may have and further explore your interest? Great! What night and time range works best for you? I’ll look forward to calling you then! Have a great day.”
• Many Networkers have successfully built their Dynasties by committing to the daily action of handing out a minimum number of audio tape, CD or DVD Rom presentations every single day. Of course, developing rapport before making the request to evaluate the tool and obtaining a commitment to watch or listen to the presentation and agree to speak about their interest on follow up will dramatically increase the effectiveness of this sort of activity. I suggest always requesting the prospect’s contact information before passing out costly materials.

We’ll discuss additional prospecting approaches in a subsequent article.

Dr. Joe Rubino is an internationally acclaimed network marketing and personal development trainer, life-changing success coach and best selling author of 9 books and 2 tape sets on topics ranging from how to achieve network marketing success, personal and leadership development to restoring self-esteem and maximizing business productivity. An acclaimed speaker and course leader, he is known for his work in developing Network Marketing leaders, leadership development, listening and communication skills, life and business coaching and team building.

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