When One Is Worth More Than 100

A common mistake marketers make when they invite prospects to their meetings is that they believe everyone is a prospect. When we invite people to our local opportunity meetings, telephone conference calls or one-on-one presentations, we will end up with ‘no-shows.’ The key element is to get qualified prospects to your meetings. To reduce “no-show rate”, we want to make sure that we talk to prospects and have our plan in front of them. If our prospects don’t show up, we miss the opportunity to show our business and consequently our business will not grow.

You need to know that people will not magically join your business because you invite them to an opportunity meeting, because they call a sizzle line or call a teleconference line. We need to have proper expectations about the business, and the fact that people are not gong to join just because you show them your opportunity.

In order to get more qualified prospects to your meetings, this is where your knowledge, skills, experience and actions all come into play. With proper training, you can be helped to determine what is missing for you to build a successful business. You have to develop you skills and master the basics in network marketing. The key is for you to gain the fundamental training to understand the basics.

If you don’t know the basics, if you don’t know how to connect with people, if you are afraid to telephone people, if you are not sure what to say to people when you invite them to a meeting, you are in the water and you need to plug into the right training. Until you are equipped with the foundational training and you first lay the proper foundation, you can’t start building the business.

We need to build the foundation based on consistent action, to learn step by step, and to grow incrementally. Taking consistent action is the secret to finding more quality prospects for your local opportunity meetings, conference calls, and one-on-one meetings, and getting more qualified business partners to join your business.

Many uplines tell new people to show 10 people the opportunity every week and they will sponsor 2, but this strategy does not work. By learning the basics, you will understand what it will actually take, and the level of action you will need to take to build the business. The right effective training will help you build a solid part-time business. It will help you to get more qualified people to your opportunity meetings, and to sponsor more qualified business partners into your business.

You will need to have a certain number of properly qualified people at these events, and you will have to track the outcome. By consistently tracking your activities, it will help you to know what it will take to sponsor one person into your business. You have to properly track your daily activities to get a good understanding why you are sponsoring the number of people through your local opportunity meetings. Your tracking will, also, help you to understand why you are not getting enough qualified people to your opportunity meetings, conference calls, or one-on-one meetings.

Most marketers believe that anyone is a prospect. Not everyone is a prospect, because not everyone cares about your business. You don’t have credibility in everybody’s eyes, and credibility is a primary factor in marketing. You will learn that most of the people you know from school, work, church and through acquaintances are not prospects for your business.

Many people fail in the business because they aggressively tried to use the old “3-foot rule” by approaching people in grocery check out lines, airports, etc to tell them about their business opportunities. It is an unnatural way to do business because most people are uncomfortable with this kind of marketing approach. Some people may choose to attend your opportunity meetings, but they will not join the business just because you show them your business and compensation plan.

What you want is to get qualified people to your meetings. You need to target your market. Target marketing is important even in your local market. One targeted qualified prospect who is interested in building a business is worth 100 of your neighbors, friends and family with no interest.

How do you get prospects interested and excited about your business? You have to figure out why you are in a business. This is something a lot of people have not thought about in depth.
You have to find out why people want to build a business. That is what marketers do all the time when they target a market. They target by age, group, income, socioeconomic, and geographic regions. The more you know about your prospects the better you can target and fine tune your offer. Before approaching people about your business, ask yourself, is this someone I would even want to make this offer to?

In the local warm market, people are told to approach friends and family. But we approach them in the wrong way. We approach them in a way that is unnatural. We approach them in a way like somebody who is trying to scam them. As a result, we loose our credibility with our family and friends, and credibility is something hard to get back. It is at this point where a lot of people get blown out of the water and quit the business. But if you quit before you get started, you don’t have an opportunity to build your business and achieve success.

You have to learn and master the skills. You have to realize that not every person is your prospect. With target marketing, you go through your regular course of business talking only to those people who fit your target market. By using target marketing you get some upfront information about your prospects which helps you to build rapport easier with them. When you target your market it allows you to be open with your prospects.

One of the main reasons new marketers do “3-way calls”, the sizzle lines or conference calls to pitch the opportunity to prospects is because they are not trained to qualify their prospects. Many uplines feel that it is better for you to bring as many people to these events and to let a qualified person tell the story, talk about the product and get the prospect excited and then they will join. As a result, new marketers do not pre-qualify prospects before inviting them to meetings. They become dependent on their upline, and they in turn build a dependent downline which is tragic. You will save a lot of time and build your credibility by properly qualifying your prospects. We feel that everyone is our prospect, but not everyone is a prospect for our products or business opportunities.

Network Marketing is a relationship business. You as the marketer has the first contact in building rapport with your prospects. You have to make sure you are properly qualifying and properly interviewing your prospects before inviting them to your opportunity meetings or introduce them to your upline. This approach gives you leverage and competitive advantage with your prospects . You will build loyalty in your downline. You have to always promote yourself first instead of your company, business opportunity or upline. When you promote yourself first, you are building credibility and trust which is essential, and it begins with you in the initial steps while qualifying your prospects.

How do you qualify the prospects for your local opportunity meeting or conference calls? You have to qualify to find out if your prospects have interest in your business. You have to find out if your prospects have the time to build the business. You have to qualify to determine if your prospects have the money to build the business. These are the three things you must ask each prospect upfront. When you are inviting someone on a ‘3-way call’ with your upline, inviting them to a local opportunity meeting, or a teleconference call about your business opportunity, you have to qualify your prospects on interest, time, and money.

When you invite someone to take a look at your opportunity and you don’t qualify them on the money to get started, are you really being honest and ethical with your prospects? If you properly qualify your prospects, you will be able to find out if they have the interest, time and money to get started in building a business. Only then are they ready to go to your opportunity meetings, attend your conference calls, or one-on-one meetings to take a closer look at your business. By properly qualifying them it help you to leverage your time, and you are showing that you respect their time.

In the qualifying process, you are building on your trust and credibility. If they qualify and want to hear more, then you can invite them to your business opportunity meeting to reinforce their knowledge and understanding of what your business is about. You should not use your business opportunity meeting as the first presentation. It should be used to reinforce and supplement the other things you have done. You need to always remember that one targeted qualified prospect who is interest in your business is worth more than a list of 100 family and friends who have no interest becoming your business partners.

Make no mistake about this, your upline wants the same thing you want. He or she wants to see your business grow. Your upline wants you to bring more new people each meeting. But it is your job and responsibility to find more qualified prospects to attend your meetings to see your business opportunity. How you accomplish that task is up to you. You will need to plug into the right training to gain the knowledge, skills, tools and expertise to connect with qualified prospects to sponsor quality business builders into your organization.