1. When you are new to a business your work-study ratio should be 80-20, you should work the business 80 percent of the time, leaving 20 percent of your working day for study manuals, jumping on training calls, watching instructional videos, etc. One of the major causes of failure in business, especially sales, is newcomers getting it backwards and studying almost 80 percent of the time they devote to the business. Most in this category never get off the launching pad.
You want to learn a business (?) – then real world work the business, starting from day one. You will learn the business faster while making m-o-n-e-y.
2. Run advertising/promotional copy inviting your prospects to call you first. When you call a prospect first you reduce yourself to the level of a desperate “numbers game” telemarketer. And you reduce your prospect to being an opportunity seeking “tire-kicker.” And you get rudely brushed off because you are interrupting dinner time; or because the Giants are on the Cowboys 10-yard line; or you get the “I need to talk to my wife/husband” cop-out. Worst of all is when your prospect likes your program but has no starter capital to invest. Don’t you get tired of taking losers and overgrown babies by the hand?
How many thousands of rejection calls like these do you have to suffer for the light to go on that there must be some successful, business-oriented winners out there you can actually reciprocally network with? What you are doing now is not networking, it is masochism taken to an extreme.
3. When someone calls you first that person has a need and an interest in what you are offering so that you have “success image” power and control over the call. You become the “money bags” expert and your caller becomes the buyer who is open to being sold on your program.
4. Time Management: When cold calling is your default marketing strategy of choice you have to commit to working 40-60 intense hours per week because of the high rejection ratio. The smart alternative is to spend no more than 1-2 hours daily filling your pipeline by placing ads, and by inviting your online contacts to take a look at your business and then call you, using a website link or a little sizzle to motivate them to do that. It’s called “having a life.”
5. So forget initial contact “cold calling” and “warm market” minefield marketing strategies. They are directly responsible for the overall 97 percent failure rate in the MLM/networking industry, yet most companies still encourage their reps to stumble down that rocky, dead-end road. Better to test-market your promotional copy until your find the tape-measure home run that mass-produces the hotline opt-in response you want, and stay the course.
And give yourself a break and resist the impulse to push your business card on flinching strangers in elevators. Like yourself enough not to punish or humiliate yourself in the course of your daily living routine. People who are not looking for a home-based business are not prospects for you, and will never attempt to sell a concept they do not believe in to others.
Winners do not repeatedly employ losing strategies. Just do the right thing, work smart – not hard, and the money will arrive like a flood at high tide.