The Network Marketing Blog

Archive for May, 2012

Yesterday was a Bank Holiday. Yesterday I wasn’t working and so I don’t intent to publish my statistics.

But the odd thing was that I still ended up doing something for the business. This was what:

That Autoglass man came in the morning – I had tried to put a 2.5 metre drainpipe in the Mini. You might be interested to know that you can’t fit a 2.5 metre drainpipe in a Mini. When you slam the boot on it, the other end cracks the windscreen.

The Augotglass man was rushed off his feet – this being a holiday.  He didn’t even have time for a cup of coffee. When he was done he didn’t have time to enter my prize draw either. But the point was that I’d asked him.

Later on someone rang to ask if I had taken advantage of the government grant for loft and cavity wall insulation. Her accent was so strong that I asked her which country she was calling from. But she said she was in the UK and so I listened politely before saying: “We have a flat roof so there’s no loft and the house was built before they invented cavity walls. However thank you for calling. I think you must be very good at your job – after all, I’m still on the phone…. I tell you what, I’m always on the lookout for people who are good on the phone. Tell me, would you be interested in an extra income? Yes, for you… When you get home have a look at this website…”

And then there was a point just before lunch when Tamsin had taken our Number Two Son to a cycle race at Ixworth, our daughter was cycling to Snape with her friend’s family, Number One Son was walking the dog and Number Three Son was practising his stilt-walking on the terrace and I thought: “I’ve got time to do some callbacks.”

I did five from last week and made an appointment for next Tuesday.

And I wasn’t even working yesterday…

Not a bad day at all. I was very pushed for time but did manage to squeeze in an extra four minutes to cut the deficit.

You’d probably call that The Compound Effect: Just do an extra few minutes every day…

Anyway those extra minutes paid off: Four people agreeing to a callback – and three of them have already agreed to an appointment. The callback is to the partners.

I have found that it is no good at all making the appointment with one party and asking hopefully: “And will your husband/wife be there…”

All that happens is you get a call the night before: “My husband says we’ll all right, thank you.”

You can imagine the conversation: “Oh by the way, we’ve got this chap coming round tomorrow – something about saving money…”

“Nah, we don’t want any of that. Ring him up and put him off.”

On the other hand, if I ring him just as soon as I can – preferably before his wife gets home and spoils it – I can get him onside as well.

And you will notice that the first two people I spoke to agreed to go in for the draw. This was because I didn’t want to waste any time so I found some who were obviously standing and waiting for someone and started a conversation about the weather. Then once the ice was broken, I mentioned: “By the way, I’ve got a prize draw here somewhere. D’you wanna have a go? You can win…”

Total for May: Prize Draw: 1 hr 34 mins. Customers: 1. Distributors 0.

If you go on one of the Company’s Goal-Setting courses, they tell you to announce your intentions: Tell everyone what you’ve committed to doing. Write it out and put it in a frame on the wall. Set it in stone -that way they can hold you to account.

And if you look right back to the beginning of this blog (Good Heavens, it was May 20th 2009!) you will see that was part of the reason for starting it: If I knew I was going to have to sit down every evening and write about what I had done, then I had better have something to write about!

And now I have committed to a daily average of half an hour’s prize draw every day during the month of May, I suppose I am going to have to write about it every day.

Which was how I came to be standing at the corner of the car park again this morning – and since I am already behind schedule, obviously I had to do more than 30 minutes – which was just as well because, as you will see below, the appointment came right at the end: In the 31st minute no less…

And after that it started raining so I went home and used the remaining time to do some callbacks – and guess what? I have another appointment; on Monday week with the people who asked for a callback on March 8th. Eleven days is longer than I would choose to leave between making the appointment and doing it, but I suppose if the prospect was going to go cold, they would have done so after nearly two months.

Total for May: Prize Draw: 60 minutes. Customers: 1. Distributors 0.

Meanwhile you might be interested in an email I received from a new reader.

He writes: “Having told someone at a meeting that I was going nowhere fast with the business, she suggested I had a look at your blog. Inspired by its contents, I ordered some Prize Draw forms and set out to find a car park!!! It took me well out of my comfort zone. My stats :  30 mins, asked 23, 2 filled in a form, but both backed off when I mentioned appointments. Having learned from the first, I offered the second a card so they could look at the website in their own time.  I’m not sure if you give out advice like this (I understand if you don’t), but how do you convert ‘filled in forms’ into appointments?”

My response: “Turning the completed form into an appointment is all to do with what you say and – just as important – how you say it. I would suggest using a choreographed script: Turning over the form at the right moment… opening your diary at the right moment…

And here’s my view on giving out cards: If you hope someone will contact you as a result of being handed your card, you are likely to be disappointed. However, if they squint at it and say: “What’s this?” you have got what you wanted – their attention and an invitation to talk about your business. The only problem is that they also have the website address and it is entirely possible that you will get a call saying they’ve checked it out and decided it’s not for them. They shouldn’t be “checking it out on the website”. You should be doing your presentation.

All of this and more is covered on The Cold-Market Academy – see the tab above.

One O’clock in the morning on the night of the Gala Dinner – the highlight of the company holiday in Las Vegas – where was I to be found?

Sitting in a corridor on the 18th floor of the Bellagio Hotel on the phone to Head Office in London, trying to find out why a customer had cancelled.

I will never put myself in this position again.

But, you see, we are now into the next promotion – the company has a lot of promotions which you would not want to miss: Four customers a month for 18 months got us to Las Vegas – and just two customers a month will get us share options which, it is estimated, should be worth around £350,000 in ten years’ time.

And I had two for April…but only two for April…

Normally I would have at least four a month to allow for such glitches. But April was a short month for me: We were skiing in Italy for the first week. We were in the USA on the company holiday for the last week – and the middle two weeks included six days’ training and a bank holiday.

Basically my April was one week long – and the stress it caused was unbearable.

But if you look back over this blog for the last month, you can see why: The activity just isn’t there – not even during the week I was at home. You don’t succeed if you don’t put in the activity.

So I have set myself a challenge: I will average half an hour a day, five days a week during May.

Anyone like to join me?

P.S: The good news was that the customer hadn’t cancelled after all. The bad news is that, as you can see below, I  am already behind schedule…

Total for May: Prize Draw: 21 minutes. Customers: 1. Distributors: 0.

… perhaps I should explain where the customer came from: I was walking the dog when my phone rang. The man on the other end said he had been recommended to me by his father who was a customer. Would I mind going round and signing him up?

So I did – and you might consider that was not too hard.

I view it as a reward for sitting up in the middle of the night while everyone else was partying…