The Phone-Phobic's Guide to MLM Success: Why you Don't Need to
get Dialing to Build Downline
Most people believe you can't build a successful MLM business
without strong telephone skills. Yet many people say they hate
using the telephone. Does that mean they'll never succeed in
network marketing? Not necessarily - it all depends on what
exactly they dislike, and what they're willing to replace it
with.
In reality, telephone skills aren't an integral part of network
marketing. Communication skills, however, are critical. Network
marketing is about creating relationships - something you can't
do without communication. The telephone is a tool for
communication, but it's not the only one. You can always
communicate face-to-face with people you already know. For those
you don't, many MLMs can now be run completely online - so if
you're confident communicating by e-mail, this might be worth
considering.
WHAT'S THE REAL PROBLEM?
Of course, often the phone isn't really the problem. Most of us
will happily phone people we know. It's only when we have to
start talking about our business to complete strangers that
nerves kick in. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Cold
calling (calling someone who hasn't approached you first) is
something that unnerves most of us.
Luckily, cold calling skills are far from critical to building a
strong MLM. Internet marketer Daegan Smith built a team of over
1,800 downline in less than 7 months without once making a cold
call. Frank Rumbauskas, author of 'Cold Calling is a Waste of
Time' states that cold calling actually does your business more
harm than good. While not everyone agrees, facts are that cold
calling simply connects you with new people who might be
interested in your MLM (prospects), and there are many other
ways to do that.
WORKING WITH YOUR WARM MARKET
This is the basis of 'grass roots' network marketing, and the
way many MLM companies suggest you start. All other things being
equal, people prefer to do (and go into) business with people
they know, like and trust; so it makes sense to start with
people you already know (your warm market). To do this, just
make a list of everyone you know, then tell them about your
opportunity and what it can do for them.
Be aware, though, that experts disagree about whether this
really is the best place to start. If you were hiring for a
traditional job, you wouldn't take someone without the right
skills just because they were a friend (and if you did, you'd
probably regret it!) While network marketing isn't a 'job', it
still requires a certain mindset. It can't hurt to give friends
and family the option to get involved, but unless they're
seriously interested in what your MLM can do for them, they
probably won't put in the time and effort it will need.
REFERRAL MARKETING
The next technique for generating prospects is 'Referral
Marketing' - basically, asking people you already know to refer
you to people you don't. For an example of why this works,
imagine you've just been called out of the blue and asked to buy
a widget you weren't looking for. Chances are, you'd say no,
right? But what if you'd recently told a friend you wanted a
widget, and the caller (who'd spoken to your friend) mentioned
your friend's name? You want a widget and here's someone
contacting you offering to sell you one. Wouldn't you at least
think about it?
To use the power of referral marketing, go back to your warm
market, and ask each person who they can think of that might be
interested in your opportunity, and why (not everyone will know
someone, but many will) Once you've got their contact details,
contacting them becomes much less daunting, because you already
know there's a chance they'll be interested. And if they're not,
don't forget to ask them for names of people who might be!
INTERNET MARKETING
Lastly, there's the internet - a tool that's totally
revolutionised the network marketing industry. Instead of
limiting our prospects to people we know personally and their
networks, we now literally have the entire world at our
fingertips. This allows interested people come to us to ask for
more information, instead of us having to contact them.
Internet Marketing just requires you to have a good website that
sums up your MLM's benefits (a sales page) and lets interested
visitors give you some way of contacting them (a lead capture
page) For an excellent example of a page that does both these
things, please see the resource box. Any good MLM should provide
these as part of your business tools - all you then need to do
is get those visitors.
Of course, getting visitors can be a little trickier than it
first seems, but there are many resources out there that will
help. Learning how and where to advertise, how to work with
forums, blogs and search engine optimisation is beyond the scope
of this article but training tools exist. And, as with referral
marketing, once you know someone's probably going to be
interested in your opportunity, it's a lot easier to phone or
e-mail them back to talk to them about it.
BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS WITHOUT COLD CALLING
So there you go - three simple ways to build a strong MLM
without having to cold call, and potentially, without having to
use the telephone at all. Different techniques will work better
for different people - try each and see which brings you best
results. Good luck!