Members of my Network Marketing Coaching Programs can ask me for help or advice every week.
Today’s Coaching Question comes from 5 Star Mastermind Coaching member, Howard from Melbourne, Australia.
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Recently me and my team is in the prospect intensive mode. So basically we spent most of our time prospecting to build a solid platform. During the 1 on 1 presentation, I’ve followed all the steps I’ve learnt throughout this coaching and all their objections were handled easily. In other words, 90% of my prospects does not have any objections before I end my presentation. Each and presentation was smooth and I manage to be their friend after building a good rapport. I also manage to find their need and also showed them that I’m able to provide a solution towards their need. But the problem is when I’m trying to close the deal. When I’m being slightly aggressive, they tend to be defensive because they already had many bad experiences being prospected by other network marketers. When I gave them the time they needed to consider this opportunity, eventually they’ll be disinterested in the opportunity. How would you handle this situation to lose potential prospects?Would you take a different approach to close the deal? Are there any advice regarding your experience in the Malaysian market?
Here are some Comments from fellow members of our 5 Star Mastermind Coaching Group
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Training on “Hard Sell” versus “Quality Over Quantity”
Howard,
I love your questions because there are never “easy” answers to them!
I have a few comments and suggestions.
The first is the direction you want to take. Do you want to be someone that can “sign up anyone” or someone that chooses “quality over quantity.”
I call it the “Hard Sell” method versus the “Quality over Quantity” approach and I have done both in my 10 years in MLM.
Both are important and from the above Facebook post, Guillermo is taking the latter approach while many would argue that leaves a lot of money on the table.
There are pros and cons to each.
The Hard Sell Approach
The mentality of this approach is that you will come away with the sale (signup) regardless of what happens. There is no chance in the world you will lose the sign up and if you do let the prospect walk away, you have FAILED and are a LOSER.
There is only 1 way to win and that is to get the signup on the spot!
The Pros of “Hard Sell Approach”
If you are the awesome “hard sell” guy who can sign up anyone anytime, then you will make good money in the short term but most of those associates will sign up. You will also win a lot of top sponsor awards.
You do get the people in… and your downlines will be happy.
The Cons of “Hard Sell” Approach
The downside is that if they do NOT sign up then, chances are they will never sign up later cause they don’t like the aggressive approach. Also, even if they do sign up, they will most likely don’t do much cause they were pressured to join so that gives false expectations. You may think you will grow and get massive duplication when in reality all you did was get someone who joined you out of obligation and had ZERO interest to do the business. They won’t attend trainings and will quit after 4 weeks so you and your team will be disappointed.
Now, if you HAVE those negative expectations that they will quit, then you won’t be as disappointed. But make sure that your downlines know that.
Strategies You Can Use for “Hard Sell” Close
There is obvious fear of failure and the 3 Doubts that the prospect faces:
3 Doubts That Every Prospect Has
1) Is this for Real?
2) Can I Do This?
3) Will you Help Me?
If they are hesitant, some or all of these fears have not been erased yet.
What you can do is to remove their fears by doing 3 of the following:
1) Give testimonials – have a few different team members talk about their challenges and how they overcame them and became successful. The more people they hear and meet, the better. The general rule is that you can never have “too many” testimonials
2) Use the Money Back Guarantee – be bold and throw this out. They have nothing to lose because if things don’t work out the way they want or if this opportunity ends up the same as all the other MLMs they have come across, then they can get 100% of their money back in 30 days. I like this and use it all the time.
3) Guarantee What They Will Earn! – If you want to be BOLD and really confident, you can even guarantee they will make $100 in their first month if they do what you tell them to do or else they get their money back. There will be conditions to this guarantee and you can make them up. For i.e. attend every training and write down 100 names and contact 100 names in 30 days.
Both you and I know that if any associate does that, they will definitely earn at LEAST $100 in their first month right?! So it’s really not that BOLD a guarantee cause you know that if they do the work, they will earn.
Those are the 2 things I would use if you are to “Hard Sell” them.
“Quality Over Quantity” Approach
Another approach is the one applied by Guillermo where the philosophy is that if they don’t join on the spot, then it “not their time” yet. You let them go and followup with them later.
The Pros of the “Quality Over Quantity” Approach
Your prospects will welcome your approach and you will be different than most network marketers. It also makes the followup easy later on when your prospects are ready because they liked the way you had prospected them before.
This approach also filters people out and when people do join, they perform much better and you don’t have to waste as much time nor frustrations of them not attending trainings, attrition, etc. Most associates brought in this way are committed and will work the business hard.
The Cons of the “Quality Over Quantity” Approach
Obviously by “letting them go” you will lose a lot of signups since you let them off the hook. This also makes achieving targets with deadlines for new associates (such as sponsoring 4 people in a distributor’s first 8 weeks to achieve Premier Platinum Pacesetter MUCH MUCH HARDER)
Another huge downside is that many of your downlines may be disappointed in you and even lose FAITH in your sponsoring ability. They don’t care whether the prospect will become good in the business or not because all they want is to sign up their prospect so that they can make a check! They think that everyone who joins will become a superstar.
Which Approach is Best For You?
So Howard, you have to decide which approach is best for you. If you choose “Hard Sell” then test out using the 3 strategies of the use of Testimonials and the Guarantees and see what happens.
If you choose “Quality over Quantity” you have to accept the fact that you do have to let people go and they will come back later. Or even if they don’t come back, the signup was not worth your time anyway (that concept is harder to accept when you have less than 500 downlines)
As for me, as mentioned above, I have done both. When I first started and didn’t have many downlines, I chose the “Hard Sell” Approach where I MUST get the signup and anything less than that was a failure. I would beat myself up for days for “letting them go.”
But as I grew in the business, I realized that the people that I brought against their will wasted a lot of my time. They either returned their package within 30 days or they never did anything in the business. It just caused frustration so later on I adapted the “Quality over Quantity” Approach and it is the approach I use today.
Again, it is much easier to say I choose Quality over Quantity now because I have over 50,000 downlines. I admit my mindset was much different when I had less than 10 downlines and I needed to make money.
To learn more about how to be a Magnetic Communicator and also different ways you can Close your prospects to take action, check out my S.O.W. SPONSORING SYSTEM.
As for Malaysian market, I think my recent success in worldwide markets was because I chose Quality over Quantity and I was willing to let people go and I have had associates who joined later on tell me that the only reason they joined was because I was not pushy like other MLM distributors.
I had an attitude that I really “did not care” if they joined or not cause the last thing in the world that I wanted to do was to chase them on the phone to “convince” them to attend trainings.
In other words… I really sincerely did NOT give a crap whether they joined or not. The only thing I asked for them was to NOT waste my time since I am too busy with other people. I’d rather them tell me a quick “No” so we could end our meeting ASAP so that I could do other things than to drag things on and they don’t sign up anyway.
Last Advice
I think the more you prospect, you will find the style that suits your personality best. Some love the “Hard Sell” but for me, I was always uncomfortable with it even though I was good at it. You have to do what your heart tells you and what you really believe is best for the prospect.
Hope that helps Howard. Like I said at the beginning of this post, your questions never have easy answers! 🙂
Sincerely,
Simon Chan
P.S. Many of you have contacted me and enjoy the lessons that I have included in my past blogs. If you are hungry and want to learn more tips on how to increase your productivity, improve your life and become more successful, I would like to invite you to become a member of Simon Chan Insider’s Circle. For a limited time Membership is FREE. Click Here to learn more.
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