MLM Success: Afraid Of Talking To Prospects? Get Over It Fast With These Four Simple Tactics
Tim Sales
December 30, 2008
It's very difficult to achieve real MLM success if you are afraid of talking to people about your business. The following four guidelines helped thousands in the author's MLM business, and they'll work for you too. Use them to achieve confidence when talking to prospects.
Why do you have a "chicken list?" Because you fear you don't communicate easily or well.
A "chicken list" is a list of prospects that you're scared of calling. Often, people think they will call their "chicken list" after they get successful; but they need these people in their MLM business to create the success.
This is a "Catch 22."
The phrase "Catch 22" is from a novel by Joseph Heller, written in 1961, where a pilot who was afraid to fight in World War II feigned insanity. But the doctor he was feigning insanity to said that if he were truly insane, then he wouldn't mind endangering his life by going into the war.
On the other hand, if he were sane, then he would be capable of following orders to fight the war. Thus the phrase "Catch 22" came to mean, "a situation that trips one up no matter which way one turns."
So, you need the people on your "chicken list" to create the success that you feel you need, in order to contact your chicken list. How do you get around this "Catch 22?"
Typically, your fear is based on you feeling the people on the list are somehow above yourself because of their status. But if you were to examine this more closely, you would discover that it's not that the people on your "chicken list" are any better than you, it's that you don't have confidence in your ability to communicate easily.
If you knew you could communicate easily and effectively without making any mistakes, you could and would call anyone without hesitation; you would have confidence; you would have certainty. And there's NOTHING more rewarding than having that feeling.
COMMUNICATE means:
a. To convey information about; make known.
b. To reveal clearly.
EASILY means:
a. Free from worry, anxiety, trouble or pain.
b. Requiring or exhibiting little effort.
The reason I bring this up is because there's a group of characteristics an MLM business professional must possess, in order to truly have success in speaking with prospects. I call these characteristics the 10 Communication Qualities.
Once you're fully knowledgeable about these qualities and have the proper and correct MLM training to learn them, you will be amazed at how much smoother your conversations will go with prospects.
The 5th Communication Quality on my list is:
"Communicate easily - no tension, strain, fakeness, sounding rehearsed, stuttering or hesitating."
Let's take up each one of these issues:
TENSION AND STRAIN:
(The usage definitions for tension and strain are very similar, so they are combined here.)
a. To be subjected to great stress.
b. A great or excessive pressure, demand or stress on one's body, mind or resources.
Tension and strain while communicating is stress that is created by the mental activity of feeling unprepared, or the idea that you will sound "stupid" to others. If you've ever been asked to suddenly speak in public, you know what this mental activity feels like; it creates a very uncomfortable feeling. It's a feeling of "being on the spot" and not knowing what to say. It is often the reason that someone's voice "squeaks and quivers" while talking. Tension and strain communicates "uncertainty" to the prospect or "new to the subject" and unprofessional.
The solution to tension and strain, is familiarizing yourself with all situations that could come up on a phone call with a prospect. Be familiar with all potential situations regarding your MLM business opportunity and also the products you sell.
Also, know what you're going to ask the prospect to do: invite for product or invite for business; send to a website or get on a conference call, etc. If you are very clear about what you're going to do and say, you will greatly reduce tension and strain.
FAKENESS:
a. To represent falsely; pretend.
b. To fabricate.
People sound fake when they use a lot of "fluff" words like: awesome, incredible, unbelievable, fabulous, wonderful, special, state-of-the-art, etc. These types of adjectives demonstrate a clear bias on your part. I'm not suggesting that you should be a boring communicator; by all means, be excited. But you don't have to use "fluff" or "puff" words to describe your excitement, as they normally indicate a cover-up of real content.
SOUNDING REHEARSED:
a. One that is not authentic or genuine.
Rehearsing what you're going to say is NOT WRONG. However, if you talk with a prospect before you've rehearsed enough, you will sound rehearsed; which IS UNPROFESSIONAL. If you've ever received a phone call from a telemarketer and were able to tell that he was reading from a script, it probably didn't sound very genuine, and as soon as you detected that he was reading from a script you wanted off the phone. You want to avoid anything that would cause your prospect to feel that way about you.
STUTTERING AND HESITATING:
a. If you hesitate, you do not speak or act for a short time, usually because you are uncertain, embarrassed, or worried about what you are going to say or do.
Stuttering and hesitating loops us back to the first issue I discussed above, which is tension and strain. See, it is the fear of saying or doing something that the prospect won't agree with, that causes us to stutter and hesitate. So the solution for stuttering and hesitating is similar to the solution for tension and strain: be very familiar with all situations that can come up on your invite call.
I don't know if you've realized the simplicity of this yet, but your willingness to talk to your "chicken list" or lack thereof is based on your ability to communicate easily. And to communicate easily, you need to become familiar with all aspects of your MLM business and company.
To your success,
Tim Sales
For more in-depth information on this topic, study Lecture 5 of Brilliant Communicator.
Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at Tim Sales' First Class MLM Tools.
Why do you have a "chicken list?" Because you fear you don't communicate easily or well.
A "chicken list" is a list of prospects that you're scared of calling. Often, people think they will call their "chicken list" after they get successful; but they need these people in their MLM business to create the success.
This is a "Catch 22."
The phrase "Catch 22" is from a novel by Joseph Heller, written in 1961, where a pilot who was afraid to fight in World War II feigned insanity. But the doctor he was feigning insanity to said that if he were truly insane, then he wouldn't mind endangering his life by going into the war.
On the other hand, if he were sane, then he would be capable of following orders to fight the war. Thus the phrase "Catch 22" came to mean, "a situation that trips one up no matter which way one turns."
So, you need the people on your "chicken list" to create the success that you feel you need, in order to contact your chicken list. How do you get around this "Catch 22?"
Typically, your fear is based on you feeling the people on the list are somehow above yourself because of their status. But if you were to examine this more closely, you would discover that it's not that the people on your "chicken list" are any better than you, it's that you don't have confidence in your ability to communicate easily.
If you knew you could communicate easily and effectively without making any mistakes, you could and would call anyone without hesitation; you would have confidence; you would have certainty. And there's NOTHING more rewarding than having that feeling.
COMMUNICATE means:
a. To convey information about; make known.
b. To reveal clearly.
EASILY means:
a. Free from worry, anxiety, trouble or pain.
b. Requiring or exhibiting little effort.
The reason I bring this up is because there's a group of characteristics an MLM business professional must possess, in order to truly have success in speaking with prospects. I call these characteristics the 10 Communication Qualities.
Once you're fully knowledgeable about these qualities and have the proper and correct MLM training to learn them, you will be amazed at how much smoother your conversations will go with prospects.
The 5th Communication Quality on my list is:
"Communicate easily - no tension, strain, fakeness, sounding rehearsed, stuttering or hesitating."
Let's take up each one of these issues:
TENSION AND STRAIN:
(The usage definitions for tension and strain are very similar, so they are combined here.)
a. To be subjected to great stress.
b. A great or excessive pressure, demand or stress on one's body, mind or resources.
Tension and strain while communicating is stress that is created by the mental activity of feeling unprepared, or the idea that you will sound "stupid" to others. If you've ever been asked to suddenly speak in public, you know what this mental activity feels like; it creates a very uncomfortable feeling. It's a feeling of "being on the spot" and not knowing what to say. It is often the reason that someone's voice "squeaks and quivers" while talking. Tension and strain communicates "uncertainty" to the prospect or "new to the subject" and unprofessional.
The solution to tension and strain, is familiarizing yourself with all situations that could come up on a phone call with a prospect. Be familiar with all potential situations regarding your MLM business opportunity and also the products you sell.
Also, know what you're going to ask the prospect to do: invite for product or invite for business; send to a website or get on a conference call, etc. If you are very clear about what you're going to do and say, you will greatly reduce tension and strain.
FAKENESS:
a. To represent falsely; pretend.
b. To fabricate.
People sound fake when they use a lot of "fluff" words like: awesome, incredible, unbelievable, fabulous, wonderful, special, state-of-the-art, etc. These types of adjectives demonstrate a clear bias on your part. I'm not suggesting that you should be a boring communicator; by all means, be excited. But you don't have to use "fluff" or "puff" words to describe your excitement, as they normally indicate a cover-up of real content.
SOUNDING REHEARSED:
a. One that is not authentic or genuine.
Rehearsing what you're going to say is NOT WRONG. However, if you talk with a prospect before you've rehearsed enough, you will sound rehearsed; which IS UNPROFESSIONAL. If you've ever received a phone call from a telemarketer and were able to tell that he was reading from a script, it probably didn't sound very genuine, and as soon as you detected that he was reading from a script you wanted off the phone. You want to avoid anything that would cause your prospect to feel that way about you.
STUTTERING AND HESITATING:
a. If you hesitate, you do not speak or act for a short time, usually because you are uncertain, embarrassed, or worried about what you are going to say or do.
Stuttering and hesitating loops us back to the first issue I discussed above, which is tension and strain. See, it is the fear of saying or doing something that the prospect won't agree with, that causes us to stutter and hesitate. So the solution for stuttering and hesitating is similar to the solution for tension and strain: be very familiar with all situations that can come up on your invite call.
I don't know if you've realized the simplicity of this yet, but your willingness to talk to your "chicken list" or lack thereof is based on your ability to communicate easily. And to communicate easily, you need to become familiar with all aspects of your MLM business and company.
To your success,
Tim Sales
For more in-depth information on this topic, study Lecture 5 of Brilliant Communicator.
Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the confidence and skills to be an MLM success. Learn how to become a true network marketing professional and sign up for his free MLM training newsletter and listen to free training at Tim Sales' First Class MLM Tools.
Print
Email
