| Author: Kim Klaver |
On my newsletter sign-up at my Banana Marketing website, I pose this question:
What's the # 1 thing you wish you could offer a customer or recruit?
Here's a response I got two days ago.
"I want them to really get how great our products and business opportunity are." - Melanie K.
This is understandable, right? What sales person who loves her products and business opportunity doesn't want everyone to "get" how great they are?
This attitude though, when it's actively turned on, leads to the high pressure sales talk and tactics that so many women steer away from. Why?
Because like Melanie says, she's on a mission to convince and sell someone else to her point of view.
She's on her way to straining her relationships already. Many networkers have no place to go for Christmas dinner. (Who's a member of the "NFL Club" here - No Friends Left - from having over-exercised the "mine is the greatest" attitude?)
It's easy to see, from our consumer shoes, why that attitude puts off so many people.
First, do you like to be forced and nagged to someone else's point of view?
And especially, when there is little or no basis for trusting the person's opinions and claims. We do know the person looking to make a sale.
Second, real people make choices based on much more than whether a product or opportuny is great or not, don't we?
There are many great things out there that I don't buy, even if I could buy everything I wanted to buy.
I love my Range Rover. However, I also like the Hummer, but I don't own one. The MiniCooper is also cool, but I don't own one.
There are many other cars that are "great" too - Bentleys, Ferrari's, you can add to the list - but I didn't buy any of them. Arnold Schwartzenegger, CA's governor, bought 5 Hummers, and he could have bought other high priced cars. But he didn't buy everyone he could have bought. And not because the others weren't great.
How about you? How many "great" choices are you leaving on the table when you buy, say, toothpaste, or a home, or choose a business or a mate?
To become a successful marketer of things you love, you must first open the mind of the other person a bit to what you are offering.
To increase your chances of opening that other mind just a little, enough to slide in your offer for their consideration, adopt these two attitudes:
1. Embrace the fact that nothing is for everyone. Probably you've already learned this the hard way, hmm? Tables turned: Do you enjoy having someone trying to force you to their way of thinking?
Now, let's assume that the products or businesses being offered are good to begin with, even great, and not shams or scams. If we can assume that, here's the second attitude to adopt:
2. Marketing anything to anyone has one purpose: to see if there is a match.
Of course the ultimate goal is to make sales, else you'll starve. But let your goal be to make sales to the RIGHT people. Where there's a match between your offer and what's important to them. They'll tell you if you just ask a question or two.
The long term marketing game is NOT just see if you can persuade someone them that your thing is the greatest for them. That's what leads to irritating and questionable high pressure sales tactics so many people hate.
Plus there's no repeat business if you pushed too hard, or if the promises you made didn't happen. Each time you make a promise about what will happen to someone, ask yourself: Can you keep the promise you just made about what will happen to that person?
The big drop out rates in our field attest to this gaping gap every day. The epidemic over-promise, under-deliver approach is continuing to erode our reputation. And when you really pressure someone who caves in and says yes, you know what happens, yes?
Remember the old adage, "A man persuaded against his will is of the same mind still"?
Furthermore, we all intuitively know great or greatest is relative.
"According to whom?" is the question that always pops up in my mind when someone pitches me "the greatest business opportunity out there" (or product). The "greatest ANYTHING" triggers that question from my brain. Just because the sales person says it the greatest, doesn't mean I will think that. Doesn't he have an agenda that could color his stated opinion?
But even if I agree something is the greatest, that doesn't mean I'll buy it.
If I don't care for golf, I won't buy the greatest set of clubs. You?
Good marketing is not about imposing our view on someone else about what is good or great for them.
To play at marketing AT ALL, it is assumed by the public that the products or businesses do what they say they will. That's the first cut. If someone's product or business doesn't meet that, they shouldn't be in business at all.
If we've learned one thing in the network marketing business, it's that too many broken promises means lots of dead bodies, bad word of mouth, and a bad name.
But, assuming that the products or the business is as represented, and people and products do what they promise they will, then it's all about match-making. Remember nothing is for everyone. No matter how great you think it is.
To see if there's a match, you need to ask the other person certain questions. Make no assumptions about what they will want or what they think might be "great" for them. ASK first.
Finding the right people for your business or product is like shopping for shoes. There are many good ones, but don't you buy a particiular brand you like? And do you, like me, leave the others in the store? Even "better ones" (according to you), or an equally good pair, but another brand?
Fortunately, with nearly 300 million people in the US alone, there are quite enough people for everyone to have a few in their business. It doesn't take that many good ones to have a successful business. The biggest gangster money earners have 4 or fewer people generating 85-90% of their incomes. Ask them. |
Author Bio:
Kim Klaver is Harvard & Stanford educated. Her 20 years experience in network marketing have resulted in a popular blog, KimKlaverBlogs.com, a podcast, YourGreatThing.com and a giant resource site, BananaMarketing.com which features hundreds of stories, tips, books and CD programs for those who want to learn the art of network marketing. |
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