Our businesses, in their most simplistic forms, boil down to two things: invitations and presentations.This means you must “invite” people to take a look at your opportunity, and “present” to the people that say “yes” to your invitation.
Our businesses, in their most simplistic forms, boil down to two things: invitations and presentations. This means you must “invite” people to take a look at your opportunity, and “present” to the people that say “yes” to your invitation.
For example, pretend that someone responds to an ad that is promoting your company’s healthcare products. This advertisement represents the invitation. Whatever you say or do next is the presentation. So… what are you going to say? Do you sit them in front of a DVD that has a medical professional explaining the features of your products? Do you put the label in from of them and list off the incredible ingredients indigenous to certain rainforests deep in the Amazon? Do you pull out a price list comparing the savings of your products versus a competitors? Or, do you do all three and wonder why your prospect is checking his watch and looking at the door to plan his exit?
The average adult attention span varies depending on the material being presented and the person. This means that a ninety minute movie may keep your full attention for the entire running time, while another person may lose interest after the first fifteen minutes and consequently leave the theater. However, the average uninterrupted adult attention span is less than one minute, and some experts believe it is only seven or eight seconds! This means that you have a very brief amount of time to engage your prospect and show them the value of giving you their attention while you present before their mind begins to drift.
So planning what you do with this short time is critical to your success in prospecting and building your network marketing business. Allow me to share what I have learned to be the most effective when building your business live, which is either a face-to-face or phone interaction with your prospect: You must become a master storyteller.
No one likes to sit and listen to you read the ingredient list of your products, but everyone likes a good story! Think of the last movie or television show that you really enjoyed. Recall the last funny joke you heard, a magazine article you recently read in its entirety, or your favorite book. We all enjoy hearing a great story that both captivates and hypnotizes us, we patiently await the ending, and we may even graciously thank the storyteller. Often, we share with our friends what we saw, felt or heard.
Packaging your story is one of the first skills I teach all new distributors in my organization. It gives them a way to present our products or opportunity to a prospect in a way that is both engaging and informative. Telling a story also makes us feel much more natural about sharing our business than simply listing off a bunch of features that the prospect probably doesn’t care about anyway. Sharing a story also provides a platform for connecting with the prospect. They will walk away from your interaction feeling connected to you, which makes incredible strides towards building trust and rapport with this person.
When you package your story, keep it short and sweet. Let’s go back to the example of a healthcare product: always begin with what you were like before you started taking the product, and find an aspect of your health that is most like what the prospect is struggling with. This allows them to identify with you because you are talking about their problems. Then, explain what happened to you when you took the product, and be specific. So if you are talking about a weight loss product, say exactly how many pounds you lost. This gives truth to your story and makes it sound concrete.
Understand that what is not necessary to include in your story is absolutely necessary not to include in your story. If you lost 25 pounds, but it took you two and half years to lose the weight, then just say that you lost 25 pounds.
Next, share a benefit with them. If you lost weight, you could add, “Now I love going shopping because I fit into the cutest clothes!” or, “My kids can’t believe how great their dad looks… I love that they are so proud of me!” This is where you tie the emotion into your products. You don’t just want to tell your prospect what happened to you; you want to share what it meant to you or your family, and explain the impact it had on your life.
Finally, leave the prospect with a “next step”. You may be ready to take their order right then, so ask them, “Would you like to start with a one or two month supply?” Or, you may be brand new and you may need to get your sponsor or mentor on the phone to have them help you with this prospect. If this is the case, tell them, “Give me your name and number… when may I call you tonight?” Either way, don’t just tell your story and leave them feeling great, but with no way to follow up with them. If you did a great job telling your story, the prospect will be excited about your product right then and there, so do not wait to make the sale.
The best part of telling stories is that you can collect other people’s testimonials and share them with your prospect. You are not limited to only telling your own story. If you are brand new to network marketing, you can share your sponsor’s story or ask for other distributors’ testimonials. A saying I learned from my mentor is that, “The message is more powerful than the messenger.” This means that the story you share is more powerful than who shares it, and it does not matter if the testimonial did not happen to you. What matters is that you made a connection with your prospect and let them know that you can help them with their problem.
As a final suggestion, start a binder or a folder on your computer to organize your stories. This will be so powerful to have at your fingertips when you hear your prospect’s problems so that you may easily access the best story to share with them. They will connect with you, they will identify with you, and they will be eager to work with you because you let them know you can help them solve their problems.
