Playing the long game

Written by Glenn Hadgraft on Feb 15, 2008 5:07 am

When speaking to a contact it is rarely a case of the prospect saying "YES, yes, yes" or "No, no, no" to your opportunity. Most of the times it's a "maybe", or a "not for me right now".

From what I have seen in the MLM industry, too many distributors file these under the "No" category and leave them to gather dust.If you are to build a serious business then that is exactly what you must do, BUILD IT, brick by brick, with patience and care. The foundation you build your business on(and yes, this is true even for totally online businesses) is relationships. So foster these relationships and be prepared to play the long game with the maybes.

How do you play the long game ? Follow up. Drip your prospects information about your company, about your process. I send out copies of my cheques, company news, details of the achievements of people in my team. *** Key tip *** Make this information INTERESTING and USEFUL for the prospect. Don't blindly bombard them with more and more sales copy in the hope that they will be so overwhelmed they'll join, actually do try to be helpful and informative. Then call them periodically, see how they are doing and ask whether the information has been interesting and of any help to them.

This shows your prospects the following :

- You have not forgotten them
- You consider them important enough to follow-up on
- You are looking for a way to help them with their problem / achieve their goal
- The company you are with is growing / has exciting thins going on
- You are still in the business and your business is growing

As you form a relationship with your prospects over time they will open up to you more about their personal circumstances and be prepared to listen more seriously to the opportunity you have to offer.

Playing the long game takes time and effort by the new distributors you "grow" in this way will get serious about the business very quickly once they decide to join and already have a loyalty to you and a willingness to listen to and work with you.

I hope that helps someone.

Good luck in all you do.

Glenn