The 5 Aha’s of Natural Selling in MLM:
1. The First Aha: Seek with Purpose
APPROACH FROM A PLACE OF PURPOSE AND FOCUS ON WHERE I CAN BE OF HELP. I will not race through my names list, seeking my leaders in frenzy. Taking more time with each person will help me to be a better listener, learner, and leader.2. The Second Aha: CHILL. . .
When a person chooses to engage with me, in a dialogue about them, I WILL NOT JUMP IN WITH MY SOLUTION AT THE FIRST OPPORTUNITY.I will dig deeper, asking more questions, to find what lies beneath the surface of their concerns.
3. The Third Aha: Integrity in the asking
I must ask people the questions that I know they would want to ask if they knew what to ask.WOW. This philosophy is quintessential to maintaining integrity in our business practice. Truly, we are seeking to assist people in discovering their own truth, their own reasons for making a CHANGE.
4. The Fourth Aha: What I am REALLY selling….
I am selling MY UNDERSTANDING OF MY POTENTIAL PARTNER OR CUSTOMER. Allow that person to feel that they are truly being heard. Listen with ENLIGHTENED INDIFFERENCE.Got it. It is so clear!
5. The Fifth Aha: Don’t treat any responses as a defeat.
This is something I have already been practicing, without fully recognizing its importance. Each time I get off the phone with someone I reflect on the conversation and fill in any holes that I may have failed to fill. I take a moment to determine if my response was effective, and if not, how I might deal with a similar situation in the future. It is my job to discover if this person has any problems that I may be able to solve.
– C. Mintz – BC, Canada
Reprinted with permission from Michael Oliver, Natural Selling® Sales Training http://www.naturalselling.com
Spoken like a true minister of marketing. I use "minister" without any religious connotation whatsoever. Ministry is simply service. Service means being selfless and selflessness can be difficult. This may account for the reason most do not do well in mlm. It appears you really have to reach out and listen. Dare to care. It's such a paradigm shift since we all have tendencies flowing in the opposite direction. That might sound cynical, but in my case it's so true. I need to learn more about communication, relationships and attitude than selling and sponsoring.
If little girls can sell Girl Scout cookies (expensive cookies) outside the grocery stores and if old men can hawk newspapers on the street corner in near or below freezing temperatures, why can't John Doe sell vitamins or shampoo to Jack or Jane Smith?
If Wal-mart, a multi-billion dollar retailer, can hire people to do back breaking labor or lethally boring tasks for $7.00/hr, why can't MLMer John Doe enroll a "needy" person with realized needs and debt up to their neck?
Once I help someone who has realized their need for my solution, do I not have to almost immediately help them see themselves as a problem solving "solution provider" before they decide mlm is not what they were looking for after all?
If it's all about discovering needs and providing solutions without appearing nosey or greedy, then this would be paramount in mlm training.
After all, the largest potential market must surely be the people out there who are honest enough with themselves and the MLMer to realize their need of a reasonably priced product and/or their lack of income.
Therefore my success depends not so much on my honesty as it does their honesty. That takes some pressure off of me. It would seem the ball is always in their court. People truly sell or sponsor themselves to a very large degree. I am a facilitator. A relaxed facilitator.
If they don't buy and/or enroll, they either don't have the need they thought they had,they're not ready or they're in denial. I walk away without looking like a crook or scammer, but only as someone trying to help. AHA! I think I'm beginning to see myself with a marketing ministry instead of a business. Maybe MLMer should be changed to marketing minister. It sounds warmer and more down to earth. The whole industry needs a makeover with new buzzwords.
Because of past and present abuses, terms like "business", "network marketing" and others scare people off and nauseate them. Change the "L" in MLM to "love". I know it sounds cheesy, but I struggle with why I don't get approached daily with someone's products or opportunity because MLM has so much potential to make a difference. AHA! I must make a difference, not MLM.
Lighbulb and Network Marketing, hmmmm
7th Aha, how much network marketers does it take to screw the lightbulb?
A: You keep on recruiting until you find one, else you are screwed.
Not if I generate customer volume. Customers should be the major source of my mlm income, although recruiting certainly has potential for big income.
I figure there are more people wanting to supplement their income than buy products from me.
I agree. I mean to say that overall, if you were to conduct a survey, you would probably find a majority of people more interested in looking at your way of earning extra income than in buying your supplements. Especially if you told them it was as unique as Passport.
Reasonably priced, high quality supplements are everywhere. Opportunities like Passport aren't. But even the opportunity wouldn't seem as unique to someone unfamiliar with the hopeless hype in our industry as it would to someone who is.
I realize I could still make a substantial income marketing my products instead of recruiting, regardless of how many more people would enroll as associates. A 50% profit is huge.
Ty, you're blog is a safe haven of common sense for those of us so worn out from all the outrageous baloney out there. Thanks again.
I think there are more potential customers than business partners. Find a product that is remarkable (in Passport look at Joint Health Plus) and you will find it to be very marketable.