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Closing Made Simple

Ross Crawford

A lot of effort goes into prospecting, so it’s vital that your efforts pay off and you get the best results. So you’ve introduced yourself, shared your story and presented the business opportunity, but then what? You’ve followed the “proven process” to a tee, but your prospect is still not sure whether it’s the right opportunity for them. What do you next?

One approach is to dig a little deeper to find out what’s holding them back and understand what will influence their decision. You can do this simply by asking open questions such as “what was the best bit”, “what appealed to you the most” or “out of everything you’ve seen, what did you like the most”, then follow up with “why?”. The answers to these questions will steer the conversation towards a positive response and you will find out what appeals to them the most so you can focus on that. Another good question to help you understand your prospects’ thoughts (so you can create your closing strategy), and one recommended by Network Marketing Pro, Eric Worre, is the question “On a scale of 1 to 10, what did you think?”. This gives you a good insight into where your prospect is in their head and whether they’re dangling over the edge about to sign up or whether they need more questions answered to help them understand whether it’s for them. Once you know where their thoughts are, you can ask what they’d need to see to get it closer to a 10. Hopefully, it’s something you’re able to help with and they will get all the information they need to make their decision.

As you probably know, a couple of the biggest drivers for starting a business in the network marketing industry are money and time, so finding out how much they would like to earn and how much time they have available are only going to help you close. Remember to do this by asking questions and listening to what they say. Don’t focus on what they could earn or how much time you believe they would need to commit to their business. Understand their expectations and help them with a plan to achieve those. Make sure you’re realistic in the expectation you set – if they’re hoping for unrealistic results, be honest with them. There is no point them registering their business then giving up after a couple of months as they didn’t earn what they were promised. We all know it takes a lot of time, effort and commitment to make it work, so get that across. Then you won’t waste your own precious time working with people who can’t devote the time and effort required to be successful.

The most successful network marketers close because they listen to their prospects and put a plan in place for them to help them achieve their goals, be it £500 a month or £10,000 a month. Each prospect has their own ambitions and dreams so make sure you’re not trying to sell your own dream to someone who’s looking to fulfil a different one.

Ask questions and listen, then respond with a realistic plan that helps your prospect achieve their goals and you will find that you will close a much higher proportion of prospects.

Let us know how you get on. If you have any other tips for closing that have worked for you, please share these below!

5 Top Tips for Success in Network Marketing

Ross Crawford

Self-development is a key to success for all entrepreneurs, especially those in network marketing. Here are five “Top Tips” for success in network marketing:

1. GET CLEAR GOALS

Every business sets goals to measure its performance and determine whether it is successful or not and you should too. Whether you’re hosting a party, attending an event or prospecting, set yourself clear goals and then work to achieve them. A great tip is first to set yourself smaller, achievable goals then increase your expectation and target each time – that way you’re motivated by the buzz of successfully achieving your goals and this motivation will put you in the right mindset to achieve even more next time.

2. BE AWARE OF WHO YOU ARE TALKING TO THE BUSINESS ABOUT, AND HOW OFTEN

It is very easy to annoy friends and family by talking about nothing but your business and pestering them to “take a look”. It can damage relationships, cost friendships and give the industry a bad name. That’s not to say you should keep it a secret, after all, this is network marketing so you need to be out there talking to people about your business and products/services. The tip here is to be aware of who you are speaking to, what their initial reaction is and then manage how often you continue to speak about your business based on their interest. If they’re not interested, that’s fine, drop the conversation. Work your business; build it and let them see your success. After all, actions speak louder than words!

Marketing an MLM business is no different to any other business, you need to target people who want what you have to offer, so decide on the kind of people you want to focus on and go after them.

3. TAKE THE TIME TO LISTEN

This is one of the most important tips – it’s very simple, yet super effective! Good marketing is all about researching the market (listening to what your customers have to say) and then providing a solution (offering your products/services) to problems and challenges they are having.

If you listen carefully, you will soon realise that people reveal the problems they face, and quite often you have the solution in your products/services or business opportunity. People will be more receptive if you’re providing a solution to their problem rather than pushing your own agenda by banging on about your products or business for your own financial benefit.

4. DON’T FORGET YOUR PRODUCTS/SERVICES

There is always a lot of focus on sponsoring new people into the business, and yes, this should be a big focus. However, it shouldn’t come at the cost of losing sight of the products/services that are the foundation of your business. Building a strong, loyal customer base will not only generate regular income but it also will ensure you have ambassadors for your business as your customers will be talking about your products and your business for you. Also, more often than not, you will pick up some sponsors from contacts who start out as customers but who become advocates for the products/services and find themselves naturally recommending them. Earning money for developing these contacts becomes a no-brainer.

5. THE FORTUNE IS IN THE FOLLOW-UP

You may have heard this before, but it’s so true: there is no point in introducing people to your products or business opportunity if you forget to follow up with them as you move on to the next person. To ensure you get this right and don’t mess it up, put a process in place to track your prospecting activity and ensure you know how and when to follow up.

When it comes to sales and marketing, timing is everything, so if you can follow up with your prospects and customers at the right time, you will improve conversion rates and your overall success. This is one of the reasons Pamtree developed its unique prospect tracking feature, as the platform is all about making network marketers more successful by reducing your administration and enabling you to sell more!

As a professional network marketer, please feel free to share your Top Tips below so others can learn from your personal experiences. We’d love to hear your comments.

The 3 Biggest Challenges in Network Marketing Right Now

Ross Crawford

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All industries must overcome challenges to grow and network marketing is no different. Here are three of the biggest challenges professional network marketers face right now…

CONVERTING PROSPECTS

This is one of the biggest challenges that network marketers face. Every business owner has a contact list when they start their business, though often this is the stage when the list of untouched contacts is longest. However, many fail to convert. Why is this? Well, in part it’s due to the new business owner’s lack of experience at the outset of their business. There is a rush to tell all their contacts about the exciting new business opportunity, without a real understanding of how to present the opportunity and, more importantly, how NOT to present it. As a result, lots of warm prospects are lost in the process. This is where training and compliant, best practice guidance comes in. How many business owners practice and perfect role-playing with their uplines before they start sharing the opportunity?!

FOLLOW UP

When business owners nail the first prospecting stage and they’re getting positive responses from their contacts, they can often lose focus and can get caught up in the excitement of the “Yes, I’d like to find out more” response. However, this is where business owners often drop the ball by being overly keen in their response, bombarding their prospects with too much information or chasing prospects for responses to the follow up messages they’ve sent. Enthusiasm can come across as desperation and that’s not attractive, which is why waiting until prospects have engaged with the messages is a much better approach. Contacting prospects before they’ve had a chance to look at what’s been sent will not only make them want to avoid you for fear of having to admit this, but also make them wonder why you’re pushing such a “hard sell” of this amazing opportunity. Remember, anything great requires minimal selling. Having said this, don’t forget to track who you have spoken with and ensure that, once they’re engaged with your message, you do follow up in a timely manner.

KEEP PROCESSES DUPLICATABLE

Success in network marketing is in part down to the power of duplication. However, it’s increasingly difficult to train others in effective processes as business owners are generally time poor, working their business around family and/or career. Entrepreneurs are looking for smarter ways to work, which is great, and the search is on for processes that can be easily replicated and intuitive systems that support them. Simple, effective solutions are built upon well-tried processes that anyone can follow: these are the only ones that will work when it comes to building a large network marketing business. There are many new technology platforms available today that can help make running a network marketing business easier, however, many of these also require an IT degree to be able to master them and these are not the systems best suited to MLM professionals. Social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, though limited in addressing certain needs, are effective because they’re simple and intuitive. Business owners can, therefore, work out for themselves how to use these systems just by playing around with them, making the processes that can be set up using these platforms duplicatable and relatively easy to communicate to new team members.

It would be great to hear your experiences with the above challenges and any others you are facing today. What are the biggest challenges right now that you need solutions for?