How To Prospect

The Key to Successful Business Building

Below are some notes from Mike Battistelli’s 9/18/14 Field Call on the topic of how to prospect and recruit. Special thanks to Mike for allowing us to share his wisdom–and that of many other industry leaders whose contributions are sprinkled throughout this content–for guiding us on this important topic.

Listen along to the replay to get the most out of this content.

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What Is Prospecting?

Prospecting is simply identifying people to approach, talk to, to show the plan to…and introduce and bring into the business.

What Is Recruiting?

Recruiting is what we do WITH these prospects…the process we take these prospective candidates through to identify their needs and wants and enroll them into the Youngevity business on your team!

Where To Start

There is lots of training out there on these two subjects…but the best education you can get is in the doing! Putting into practice a simple set of skills…did I say SIMPLE? Yes, simple, but not necessarily easy. But they get easier and easier when you PRACTICE them until they’re second nature. And in the process, you’re growing your business…the true essence of earn while you learn!

The Secret of Prospecting Success

To increase our success ratio when approaching and inviting those we’d like to take a look at our business, we must learn to ASK questions, get to know them, identify the pain in their life…THAT which we can positively affect, and help to change through our products and business opportunity.

Push Vs. Pull

If you want to close more sales, instead of being pushy you need to be PULLY! Pain pushes you until your vision PULLS you. Help someone paint a vision for his or her life.

Asking Questions

The key is asking questions:
— what did you like about what you saw?
— what would this do for you and your family?
— how would this impact your life, if you were successful?
— what would it feel like to be a top earner?
— why are you open to a home-based business?

When we PUSH people into the business what happens almost every time? They quit! Pushy people have the highest refund rates…they create buyer’s remorse.

One Of The Biggest Landmines

— When we recruit someone and send them back home, into their environment among friends, family, acquaintances, what do they immediately seek?

They’re looking for acceptance and approval from their friends and acquaintances— neither of which they will receive!

We need to instill in them a vision that will PULL them throughout this phase.

Learn and Teach

Getting someone to agree to take a look at the business and to actually follow through is a SKILL. It’s a skill that can be learned…AND it can be taught to every person in your business. And it NEEDS to be taught to every new team member we bring into our business if you have hopes of growing a large and successful organization.

Limiting Beliefs

People have almost been trained to resist opportunity in just about every form. Our job is to professionally help them get past that resistance and to help them understand what it is we do.

One of the biggest limiting beliefs in all of network marketing is, “I wonder if I know anyone? Do I know anybody?” That’s the thing that often starts or stops somebody from joining network marketing.

“Do I know anybody?” That’s the big limiting belief. If an interested prospect feels like they know people that might do this, then they join. If they don’t, they don’t.

So whether we’re exploring our warm or cold markets, there are a variety methods to both actively prospect or passively market to prospective candidates (more on this very important subject in another call).

In either case, after you’ve successfully approached your prospect and gotten to know what makes them tick, their hot button(s), what the pain is in their life that we can help to alleviate, what it is that they tell you is important to them in life that is currently missing…in short, what would be their WHY for joining and actively pursuing the business…(by the way, a great tool to accomplish the foregoing is Tom Chenault’s Coffee Shop Conversation)…THEN it’s time to INVITE them to take a look. That begins the recruiting process.

Duplicate!

Many of you have good instincts and a natural gift to meet, speak with, guide and direct people to a decision. Congratulations…you’re likely enjoying some personal success at bringing people into your business. However, you are few and far between, and what comes naturally to you probably does NOT to your new team member…and as a result you’re likely spinning your wheels and wondering why your new recruits are not following in your footsteps and why your team is not growing.

It is critical therefore to break the process down into teachable, duplicable steps that can be taught, practiced, polished and repeated.

The System

The following is Mike Battistelli’s handy step-by-step process that he likes and has used for years. You’ll notice it’s slightly different from — but completely in line with — my New Distributor Game Plan.

1. Raise curiosity
2. Question
3. Point and schedule follow up
4. Check level of seriousness
5. Follow up
6. Question
7. Enroll them or do a 3-way

1. Raise Curiosity

After identifying a prospective candidate and learning about them through a simple conversation, asking questions and LISTENING, here are some of my favorite curiosity raisers:

a)  “Hey, just throwing it out there, would you be interested in a side project if it didn’t interfere with what you’re already doing?”

b)  “Do you keep your options open when it comes to making money if it doesn’t interfere with what you’re currently doing?”

OR – “Hey, do you keep your options open when it comes to multiple streams of income? Are you diversified? If something happens to your job do you have any other monies coming in?”

c)  If you learned that your prospect loves to travel – “Would you ever consider doing something on the side to just have extra vacation money?”

d) If money is not their pain, but where their life is headed and the time to enjoy it – “Do you ever wish you had more time to spend with family…and be more available for your kids?”

–> If your prospect says NO to any of the questions or ice breakers above…then bail out. NEXT them! (my favorite four letter word!)

–> What do you do if they say YES? – Rephrase the question you asked them in step one… (and here is step 2 — Question)

2. Question

“…I’m just curious, why would you be open to a side project?” Drill down and continue to ask “why”, or “tell me more” to each response. This is the missing ingredient in almost every encounter we have with a prospect. If you can get them to tell you WHY they’d be open before you expose them to a presentation, you’re half way there. We can increase our odds from 50% by getting good at these two steps.

3.  Point and schedule follow up

It’s time to point them to any kind of third party tool that prevents you from saying too much…video, dvd, audio, etc. After they’ve answered your drill down and explained what it is in their life that would make them open to more information about this side project, pose this question

“Okay, that sounds pretty serious (or whatever is most appropriate)…I’d like to send you over the link to a little video. Let me ask you, how soon can you watch it?”

4. Check level of seriousness

If you sense hesitation in any form, check their level of seriousness with another question: “Let me just say something…are you actually going to watch the video? You know, because I’m busy working with a number of people and I run a professional business, and if you’re going to watch It, fantastic, I’ll follow up with you. If you’re not, just tell me now…that’s fine. If you’re just saying it, that’s fine.”

Send the link or other third party tool when you get their commitment and the green light to move forward and SET THE DATE AND TIME for follow-up!

5. Follow up

If you follow up at the agreed upon time and they don’t answer the phone then leave voice mail #1.

“Hey there Jenni. We had a scheduled follow up. Just leaving you a message…give me a call when you get a chance.”

Then 24 hours later if they haven’t called you back, call again and leave another message:

“Hey there, want to make sure you’re okay. We had a scheduled call yesterday, didn’t hear from you…Hey, if it’s a fit for you, or not, let me know. I just want to make sure you’re ok.”

Now if you haven’t heard from them in the 3 days from your original follow up, I want you to call them again (now 48 hours later) and leave the following takeaway message if they don’t answer:

“Hey there, clearly this isn’t a fit for you. No problem at all. I won’t be calling you about this again. I wish you the best that life has to offer.”

That takeaway voice mail will is going to get you a lot of call backs…because people hate being scratched of a list.

6. Question

Let’s say you follow up and on either voice mail message 1, 2, or 3…or if they actually picked up, ask them this simple question:

“What did you like about what you saw?” Then don’t speak until they answer the question. Put on your listening ears and just be quiet.

Remember, it doesn’t matter what your reasons are for liking Youngevity or the video they just saw. They don’t care what you like…listen in to what they like.

You MAY hear them say — ”I didn’t like anything about it…this is a pyramid scheme and I think you suck and I’d never do this business.” — OR – “I have a real job Mike…I’m not interested in your business”.

If so, you say — “Cool! No problem…take care my friend. Best of luck to you.” You get to hang up happy knowing that you don’t have to waste any more time trying to convince someone who’s not a fit for your business, and one who’d likely be a challenge to work with if you DID manage to convince them. Remember…NEXT!

In the doing, you maintain your posture, you remain in control, and they get off the phone without the expected tug-of-war every other inexperienced network marketing newbie engages in when confronted with a NO. Keep your cool, especially if it’s a rude response! They’ve done you a favor.

But if they respond at all positively, I want you to drill in. “What did you like about what you saw?”

“Oh really…why?”
“Tell me more?”

Listen, listen, and then listen some more.

If they loved what they saw and they go on and on about how wonderful the company is, the products, the compensation plan, the leadership of the company, it’s mission, etc….then move on the step 7 and use this magical phrase I’ve used hundreds of times over more than 30 years!

”…sounds to me like you’re ready to join!”

7. Enroll them or do a 3-way

“…sounds to me like you’re ready to join!” (end in a downward inflection. Practice it both ways and tell me which one sounds more confident and less desperate!)

They may say –“Yeah, I’m ready…let’s go!”

What do you do then? Get their information and sign them up. Don’t send them to your website, don’t send them more information, don’t chat on and on…take a piece of paper, a sticky note, the back of an envelope and get their info. Or better yet, have your website open and sign them up on the spot over the phone.

—OR— they may say, “Wait a minute…hold on there. Not so fast I have some questions!”

If you haven’t created a track record of your yet, or if you’re new, I want you to reach up to your upline support system and do a 3-way call.

To whatever question they ask what you should say is — “You know what, that’s a fantastic question…let me get my good friend upline leader on the phone to help answer that, because I want to make sure that if you’re gonna do this, that it makes sense for you.”

These seven steps, learned well and practice often will increase your recruiting success beyond what you’re currently experiencing…guaranteed!

So…. maybe this is your time to step up and play big! Being a student of this industry and learning and the practicing the skills of the top earners will literally change your life!!

Remember to keep your WHY in the forefront as the motivation for all you do. Here are my questions for you….

WHY did you join this profession?

WHY are you willing to step outside (and for a period of time LIVE outside) your comfort zone??

— Do you want to show those who doubt you?
— Do you want time freedom? Work/life balance?
— Do you want to raise your family and your income at the same time?
— Do you want to create a life that’s significant and matters?
— Are you serious about changing your life?

YES? Then write out your WHY and share it with your upline leaders Then, let’s go to work! You have a support system and entire upline team

ready to roll up their sleeves, go to work and do it with you!

You will both be blessed by allowing them the privilege of helping you achieve all that this business offers!

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