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How NOT to Prospect...Hopefully You Don't Do It This Way....
Written by Natasha Nassar Hazlett on Mar 18, 2008 12:19 am
It is my hope that this painful experience will save you from making these fatal flaws in your business.
This evening, I got an interesting phone call from someone pretending to be interested in joining my company. When I returned her phone call, she promptly told me that she too had looked into joining my company eight months ago.
I gulped- knowing that not only did this lady have no intention of joining my business, she wanted to sell me on joining a competing business. Worse than that, for the next 7 minutes and 48 seconds she proceeded to give me testimonial after testimonial about how great her travel company was, how quickly she “retired”, and how her son was making $25,000 in residual income in just three months. And she went on, and on and on and on and on! I actually started worry that she might pass out from never taking a single breath!
Fortunately, 7 minutes and 48 seconds was the limit for this woman…she had to take a breath. Sheer curiosity about the depths this woman would go to try to sell her business kept me on the phone up to that point….but when she paused, I told her thank you and that I wished her the best of luck with her business.
What went wrong? Let me count the ways…
She found my website which also had my phone number. She then took it upon herself to contact me during dinnertime about joining her competing company. Not once did I indicate any desire to leave my company. Not once did I show the slightest interest in her company. Despite these facts, she chose to call me- that was Fatal Error #1.
Fatal Error #2 was not even bothering to ask me if I was even happy in my current business(which obviously I am). She made no effort to get to know me, my goals, my concerns, no attempt to build rapport with me whatsoever! How in the WORLD does she expect me to trust her, when she has shown so little concern for me? It was clear within the first 32 seconds of the phone call that she was out for one thing- HERSELF! That is no way to build a team of business owners. In fact, it is contrary to every business building principle I hold dear!
Fatal Error #3 was the fact that not only did she launch into an unsolicited sales pitch, she did so for nearly 8 minutes. She spent 8 minutes of her valuable time reciting a canned sales pitch to someone who couldn’t have cared less about what she was selling.
Fatal Error #4 was her incessant use of “hype”. I seriously doubt that someone who is making so much money that she was able to “retire” would A) have the time to waste talking to someone who didn’t even request any information on her company; and B) is so desperate for a sale that she would try to recruit people in a competing company. If the company was so great and she was so successful, she would have people joining her business like I have- 5 people, 3 days, 2 countries- 3 of which I had never spoken with prior to their joining my team.
Hope you don't prospect like this, because I don't know who is buying using this method!!!
Thank goodness I found Mike....close to 100 personally sponsored distributors in less than a year! And I never once, subjected my prospects to this kind of torture!
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time And Money on Leads and Cold Calling.
See How. http://yoursuccess.magneticsponsoringonline.com
About the Author: Natasha Nassar Hazlett
Member Since: 03/10/2008
I'm a Distributor For:: PRO U
Other Company: Fast Forward Marketing, LLC
Industry: Communications and Networking
Primary Web Site: http://www.NatashaNassar.com
same thing happened to me....
....right after I became a part of this community here. Out of nowhere some woman contacts me and asks me all sorts of questions, and I was already thinking: great, I joined so I could get spammed some more. For some reason that has totally stopped after the first few days of my membership here, which is a good thing. When she finally asked where I lived and I said Mexico, she said: ah, my company isn't in mexico anyway.
Exactly what you said: as if I even cared.
Too funny.
Thanks for your story.
I feel your pain Natasha
As the host of a very popular free weekly call series, I have been able to meet some of the top producers in the world and even some company owners. I am sometimes approached by these top people to join their opportunities and except for rare occasions I decline (no real time to take on much more right now) and it never comes up again. I have made it clear to my listeners that my goal is to get them the best free training available and at no time do I (or any of my guests) try to sell them on our opportunities (calls are completely generic). I also have made it clear that I am not interested in hearing about joining their opportunity. Yet, every day I get at least one person (most days it's closer to 10) who tries to sell me on their opportunity and why I should join under them. I politely decline letting them know that I have already spoken to someone who is several levels above them (or even owns the company) and rather than listen to what I am saying, they proceed to ask me to watch their movie and call them with questions. I try to tell them that if I have already spoken to the top people at their company then I have obviously learned all about the company and made my decision, yet on and on they go. It's quite embarrassing for them actually. It hasn't happened to me on this site fortunately.
I hope everyone reads your article and that no one who is a part of MS ever prospects for themselves without taking the time to listen to what the prospect is saying.
Chuck
Great Comment!
Unfortunately this is the downside of the industry. By exposing ourself out there to the community, we become some kind of "celebrity" (I like to think that way hehe) and all this desperate people that call themselves "entrepreneurs", are like the "paparazzi" in the Network Marketing industry.
Please stop pitching your business opportunity and start being a leader!
Great Comment Natasha!
Back when I first started marketing on the internet I used to get the occasional email or message to "please contact me about your business." I would inevitably find they were wanting to pitch me on theirs. Only thing is, I never let anyone talk to me that long!
I've since learned when I get emails I answer them back with questions to see how serious they are. I let them know my time is valuable and I only call people back when they are truly serious.
I agree that someone as successful as she claims to be would NEVER use this to try and build a business. A successful leader knows its all about what the prospects needs are, not theirs.
A victim of bad advice.
Not siding with what the lady did....but, she was likely a victim of bad advice from her upline. Most of us are told to take massive action, any action, even bad action is better than no action. She could have just been following her uplines advice. (at least she got some, mine said her is your business, see ya!) She will learn... make alot of enimies in the process though.
How NOT to Prospect, not ever!
Oh this is a pet peeve of mine and I find it very annoying when someone calls my toll free number to try to recruit me. I'm not their target market, my time is valuable, I'm not interested and it's my dime they are spending! What would make them think I'll be happy to hear from them?
Great article, I couldn't agree with you more, this is NOT how to prospect and I would never do this.