Will Anyone Show Up?
WHAT TO DO
WHEN PROSPECTS WONT COME TO YOUR MEETINGS
Here's a question I hear, in one form or another, from many distributors. It describes a problem that can cripple a business:
“I’m a distributor for a natural health products company. Many of my distributors hold a Health & Nutrition Hour’ in their homes to introduce prospects to our products and our business opportunity. We send out a lot of invitations, but few people come. Worse yet, even fewer guests become customers or distributors. I know our products and opportunity are great, so what is the problem?”
Answer It sounds as if you have a marketing problem. If you’ve chosen your company well—that means good products and a good plan—then the hitch must be in how you’re promoting them. If you’re sending out piles of invitations and getting only a few people trickling in, then you ought to look at the following “maybes~:
Maybe You’re inviting the wrong people. For example, if you were to mail out invitations to a meeting about macrobiotic health products to overweight chain-smokers who are confirmed alcoholics, you’d most likely have a problem getting people to show up—or to sign up if they did.
Could you find better-qualified prospects to start with? That would improve your odds. Ask yourself, way in advance, ‘Who would be the perfect prospects for my business?” Then think of who’d be second best, and soon.
Given your company—which sells health products—your response rate would have to improve if you sent mail to people who’ve already demonstrated that they care about their health. For instance, people who:
• actively exercise
• join health dubs
• shop at stores that sell fitness wear
• walk or jog on weekends
• buy boded water
• like to bicycle
• are trying to lose weight
Use your imagination. Think of the ideal prospect for your business. Put yourself in his running shoes. If you were he, where would you go, and what would you do when you got there? Learning to think this way will help you track down better prospects.
In your business, you need to know which offices, shops, and houses contain people willing to invest extra money for better health. Perhaps bottled water drinkers are the very best prospects for you—after all, the/re already paying for water Maybe they’ll pay for some more substantial health products, too.
Why not follow the bottled water truck as it makes its deliveries? Take down the names and addresses where it stops—or better yet, take the bottled water driver to lunch. Whatever it takes, get that list together, mail a sales letter with your materials, and follow up with a telephone call to this select group.
In all contacts, be sure to connect your product line with these people’s demonstrated interests. Explain how your products complement dean water and magnify its benefits.
Or—if you really want to be clever—why not convince the bottled water driver to leave behind a discreet, sealed envelope containing your sales materials at each stop along his route?
Who knows? Maybe after your explanation, the boded water truck driver will want to sign up in your downline. Wouldn’t that be a coup?
Maybe Your invitation letter is dull or ineffective. For instance, maybe you’ve sent out a flier that says: “Free health lecture. Come learn about the colon.”
That’s boring (at best). Why not put a little energy and joy into your writing? Try something more like: “Find out how you can have more energy than your teenagers!’
If you want your sales copy to shine, invest some time in talking with a professional marketer to enhance your message. Or train yourself to become a proficient and effective writer. That may mean taking a class, or studying copy-writing from a book. Remember, you are in competition with professional copywriters to grab your prospects’ attention. You are also fighting wit television, radio, newspapers, sports events, family time, social time, hobbies and more. If you want to break through that clutter, you’ll have to say or write something very, very interesting. If you invest the time and money to learn this specialized skill, you’ll be reaping the rewards for the rest of your networking career
Maybe You have no relationship with the people you’re inviting.
When you get a letter, what’s the first thing you look at? The return address. In the same way, when a prospect opens your invitation, he immediately thinks, “Who sent this to me?” In other words, “What is my relationship with this person?”
The closer the relationship, the more powerful the invitation. So a note from
Mom will always mean more than junk mail addressed to “Occupant.” Focus your efforts on inviting people who know you and think of you favorably
If tat list is small, it’s time to build up the number of people who think of you favorably It’s easiest to market to this group; the bigger it is, the more prospects you have.
How do you build this list? That’s simple- associate with more people. You could:
• Meet more people at work
• Circulate at pates
• Take up new hobbies or activities
• Get married and gain “instant in-laws”
It doesn’t all have to be this “high-touch.” You can also create a brand-new list of people who think favorably of you by advertising and mailing to cold prospects.
If you take the time to contact the same people every month, you’re guaranteed to build some relationships.
It’s simple to contact a cold prospect once a month by sending him an audio tape, a newspaper clipping, a newsletter, or a sample of your product. It is easy to think up reasons to contact people.
Don’t worry if they aren’t ready to join your business just now. The one thins you can count on in life is change. Maybe some of these people will see a friend open a successful business, have more children to feed, or get passed over for promotions. Any of these can motivate a prospect to look for a new opportunity If he already knows you, and has heard all about your meetings, you’ll be the first one he turns to when things change. Often, marketing is simply keeping yourself in front of the prospect and waiting for the right moment.
So if you don’t want to speak to an empty room, remember that half of
“network marketing” is marketing. So you’d better go out and learn those
marketing skills. NML
Friends by Mail
You can create a brand-new list by advertising and
mailing to cold prospects. If you contact the same people every month, I
guarantee you’ll build some relationships.