When I was first introduced to Network Marketing I was immediately introduced to the concept of leads. I was told that I needed leads to build my business. I asked . . . Where do I get these leads? I was told to go to X leads company and buy them. Then it was my job to follow up with these leads by phone and tell them about my business. I was apprehensive about calling people I didn't know and even felt strange getting on the phone and telling people that I was "a home business consultant" and I received their name as someone interested in home businesses when in actuality I was a 23 year old guy who bought a list of names and was calling them because that's what I was told I had to do if I wanted to be financially independent thru network marketing. Never the less I persisted and I got into a routine. Every month I paid $500 and I got about 20 real time leads a day for the month that I would call and try to connect with. It was comforting to have this routine. I even got comfortable doing it, but after 6 months and a lot of money spent and very little success I started to get down on myself. I was doing what they said to a tee and nothing was happening. I thought . . . "It must be me?" Then I did the dire thing I set a timetable for my business. I said to myself "I'll give this two more months and if nothing happens I have to take a step back". (This is the deceptive first step towards giving up! If you have this thought about your business you're on the way out because you're starting to define a rational exit for yourself.) But the bottom line was. I spent a good deal of money and time and recouped no return. That's a very high risk scenario. If this happened to me then most likely it will happen to others as well. Leads to me meant a lot of risk and little or no return. Now let's fast forward to today. I do things drastically different than I did when I began and it all begins with the how I manage my leads. Previously if I went through my phone follow up process with a lead and it didn't convert I trashed it. In essence I gave up on that lead. This created risk for me because I didn't give myself ample opportunity to develop a long term relationship with that lead. See here is what I didn't understand when I first began network marketing that I have a very clear and concise understanding of now. Some people will join your business in the beginning and those that do are not joining because of you. They see the offer and that's why they join. Most don't. But . . . If given a chance to develop a relationship with a lead over the course of time trust can be established and then . . . What happens is you find that almost like magic leads that were sitting in the background watching will start to percolate to the top like bubbles rising from boiling water to say hey now I'm interested. These days I don't ever give up on a lead. I establish credibility and trust and then wait for them to come to me. A great example of what I mean is last night I got an email from young lady that gave me her phone number and she told me to give her a call. I had some time, so I did. When she answered the phone, first off, she started giggling with surprise and excitement about the fact that I would actually give her a call so quickly. Immediately she told me that she wanted to make money online and the rest was history. That's the type of interaction you deserve in your network marketing business, but it only comes from cultivating trust and giving value to your leads over the course of time. This is something very new to network marketing, I don't think you'll here to many other network marketers talk about leads from this perspective. But that's why I'm here:) |
