How to PROSPECT….
BY EILEEN SILVA
He says: Show me the money!
You’ve heard of the bestseller, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
Apparently, millions of people believe
that there are fundamental differences between the sexes, and they want to
decode how “the other side” thinks. This fact set me to thinking: is there a
consistent difference between men and women when it comes to network marketing?
Do you have to use different means to prospect, depending on the sex of your
audience? Should you create two presentations of your business opportunity, one
in pink and one in blue?
These questions remind me of a conversation I had
about a year ago. Settled comfortably in First Class on a flight home, I found
myself next to a distinguished-looking man from the Midwest. I learned that he
was the director of a large hospital with over 300 affiliated doctors. “So what do you see as the
fixture of medicine?” I asked.
“That’s easy,” he replied. “Women.”
I was intrigued and somewhat taken aback. “What do
you mean? As patients?”
“No. As doctors. I’ve got a great staff of dedicated
physicians,” he explained. “They’re virtually all men. But I have never met a
male doctor who went into medicine solely to save lives. Most went into
medicine because years ago when they were choosing careers, it was the most
lucrative, prestigious career you could find.”
“And...?”
“Now doctors work twice as hard for half the money
they were making five years ago. Now men aren’t flocking to medicine. Men
starting out today are probably getting MBA’s and going into stock
trading—because that’s where the real money is now.
“But women are motivated differently,” he explained.
“Women are nurturers. They think it’s noble to save lives, and they are not
just money-driven. They truly want to make a difference. As the incomes of
physicians continue to drop, the percentage of women entering the field of
medicine will continue to rise.”
Apply this insight to network marketing, and what do
you discover? That men are attracted by the plan and the money, women by the
product and the chance to transform lives for the better.
An interesting theory, there. But is it true? I asked
a few of the top network marketers in my own company, First Fitness
International. Billy Banks, a company icon from Arcadia, Calif., agreed with
the theory and elaborated.
“I always work from a recruiting perspective,” he
said, “whereas my wife Eltha focuses on products. I start with the attitude, ‘Let’s
go make some money!’ Eltha concentrates on the benefits of the product and who
else the customer knows who might need it.”
“There’s also a big difference,”
Eltha chimed in, “in terms of buying decisions. Men tend to make a decision
right on the spot. Women, on the other hand, need to analyze things. They want
to know how much something costs, about the ingredients, and other people’s
success stories.” Ann Black, a former schoolteacher— and astute student of
human behavior— points out that while men are very bottom- line about money,
women must love the product and know that it works. “Sometimes, too, when a
weight-loss product works well for a woman, she won’t want her friends to
discover her weight-loss secret!” Few men would ever think tat way. In fact,
“sometimes men tell their best stories before they ever use the products,” she
reported, laughing.
I often mention in training sessions that 95 percent
of the women I’ve dealt wit want to make sure that the product works for them personally,
before they will actively work the business. I’ve found tat men, on the other
hand, can stick a case of product and a business kit under their arm and enroll
six other men before they even crack open their first bottle and try the stuff.
For
further confirmation, I turned to “The Punisher”-that is, to Lorraine Howard, a
one-time winner on TV’s American Gladiators and owner of Chateau Lo Jer Day Spa
in Arcadia, Calif. She only got involved with the business end of network
marketing after our Suddenly Slim! Program helped her lose 12 pounds (and3” of waistline) from her (already spectacular) frame. I
posed the question of what I called “gender marketing” to her.
Not product-focused: I’ve seen a man enroll six
other men as distributors before he finally tried the stuff.
“You know, it’s really funny,” she
replied. “Women are supposed to be so much more emotional. But we want to know
exactly how to use a weight loss system and how it will work. Men will just
grab it and go. They often double the dose to speed things up- can you believe
it? Men are a lot more likely to ignore directions entirely.” When they’re
willing to ask for them in the first place. I got another insight from my good
friend and colleague, Ken Pontious. He started a controversy at an industry
conference some time ago. During a speech, Ken issued a brief warning to women
along these lines: “Don’t try to dose a sale with a professional man
unassisted. Bring along a man.” His idea was that this would help them be taken
seriously-and avoid any mixed signals.
I
stood up and answered that yes, it was a good idea to have a male presence-but
that it could just as easily be a ‘virtual’ man. I’d found that just dropping
the names of men who were in my organization worked just as well-in recruiting
men-as actually bringing a live one along. I used a fast-paced, 10 minute,
“what’s in it for you” pitch, followed by a package and a follow-up call to
close the deal.
But
you don’t want to get stuck in your generalizations. I asked the network
marketer closest to me-my own husband, Taylor Hegan-for some insights. He said:
“I
actively try to avoid the trap of gender marketing or any other segmentation
the market. I use what I fondly refer to as the ‘Home-Eased Business Golden
Rule,’ which goes beyond ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
“This rule reads: ‘Do unto others as they would have
you do unto them.’
“That means, find out what individual people want so
you don’t put anyone into some preconceived box. I find out what is important
to each individual and why he or she is looking into a home-based business. I
need to tap into deep desires-into a lifestyle that someone will love and work
hard to achieve.”
I
can’t argue. These eloquent, non-judgmental remarks come from the same man who
found me the finest maid and cook that network marketing dollars could hire.
The man who put me on the Spend to Save Program, where the more money I spend,
the more I save. The one who sends me to the spa and makes sure my weekly
chiropractic appointments are followed by a thorough massage: “Sweetpea, you
could use a little spoiling None of
these luxuries appeal to him very much, but the whole package certainly works
for me! •NML
Him & Her: Dos & Don’ts
More women than ever are disenchanted with the
lifestyle forced on them by an outside career. Leaving their children in day
care for someone else to raise is no longer a viable option. Women have
particular talents in multitasking, which makes them ideally suited for a
networking career. They have usually been trained to do many things at once,
such as talking on the phone while cooking, while tending to children, while
opening mail. Men, on the other hand, tend to have tunnel vision-they’re
hunters, and they like to focus on a single target.
