Do 3-Way Calls Work?

When I got started with my first network marketing company, I was told that I wouldn’t have to do any telling, selling or convincing.  I must admit that I was relieved to hear them say that because I didn’t have any experience in sales and frankly I didn’t really want to become a pushy salesperson.

At first I couldn’t understand how you were supposed to sell your network marketing product without doing any telling, selling or convincing but they were the experts and I was totally new to network marketing.  Part of the appeal of network marketing is that you are in business for yourself but not by yourself.  Your network marketing company will help you to succeed.  So, I was taught about:

Closing the Sale Without Having To Say A Word

Most network marketing companies call it the 3-way call.  This is where you call your upline sponsor while you have your prospect on the line and let them take over the sales process and do the closing.  You don’t have to say a word.  In fact, you are encouraged to keep your mouth shut during this process.

When I was introduced to this network marketing technique, I thought it was very cool.  I didn’t have to say a thing and someone else would make the sale for me.  I mean who wouldn’t want someone else to do the work and you get paid? 

Six figures, here I come.

I got prospects to a presentation and I was even able to call them back and talk to them.  But then I had a problem, whenever I tried to call my upline to do a 3-way call, they were nowhere to be found.  I lost those prospects, my time, and the money that I spent getting the leads in the first place.  Did I do something wrong?

Yep, I didn’t make sure that I had someone to 3-way with before I called my prospects back.  No problem, I’ll just make sure that someone is available before I make my calls.  Now, I have a prospect on the line and someone from my upline (not one of the top dogs because they don’t do 3-way calls unless they benefit directly from the sale) but he’ll do.  So, it’s time to ask for the sale and he doesn’t actually ask the prospect if they are ready to get started. 

With my next prospect, I get someone else to do the 3-way call with and this time they ask but they weren’t very enthusiastic about it.  I try someone else, and someone else, I get someone from my crossline and we make a pact to do 3-way calls for each other and ask for the sale and are available and still no sales.  I lost more prospects, more time, and more money.  Did I do something wrong?

MLM Secret – YOU have to close the sale

As much as I wanted to make those 3-way calls work, they just didn’t – at least not for me.  I’m sure they work for some people or the network marketing companies wouldn’t teach that technique.  The key to MLM selling is YOU.  YOU have to form the relationship with your prospect.  Your prospect has to be comfortable with YOU and trust YOU.  YOU have to be able to close the sale.

With that in mind, I am going to be writing more posts about closing the sale yourself.  Stay tuned for some really good stuff about creating the urgency to buy and some pretty cool closing techniques that I am excited to share with you.

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Amy Howard, October 12th 2009 | Tags: , , , , ,
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Another MLM Secret Exposed

I was preparing my notes for a class that I am going to be teaching next week and it reminded my of an important MLM secret – training your downline.  If you want to have a successful network marketing business you have to pass on some of your knowledge to the people that are helping you to grow that business, your downline. 

This may not sit too well with some of the network marketers out there because they were taught to just bring in the people and the MLM company will take care of the training.  The problem is that most MLM companies (even the top MLM companies) don’t provide the kind of training that is needed to make a six figure income. 

The majority of the MLM network marketing training provided is only designed to get you STARTED in your business.  You may make a few sales using their techniques but for the most part, you won’t be able to quit your day job.  Here are some of the techniques that are currently taught by almost all MLM companies:

  • Make a list of your friends and family and show them what you are doing.  This network marketing tool is usually good for signing up 1-3 people into your business.
  • Three foot rule (talk to everyone within earshot of yourself).  This network marketing tool usually helps you to develop your 30 second introduction speech but it’s pretty rare that anyone will sign up from it.
  • Hand out CD, DVD, or brochures that you have to purchase from your MLM company.  This network marketing tool puts a lot of money in your company’s pocket but vary rarely puts any in yours.
  • Pass out flyers, business cards, or sizzle cards to everyone, put them on cars, leave them in books at the library, etc.  This network marketing tool usually only gets one person to call your number, the security guard at the mall telling you to stop putting your trash on people’s cars.
  • Buy expensive opportunity seeking leads and call them on the phone.  I personally spent thousands of dollars using this network marketing secret and managed to sign up a couple of people but it didn’t justify the expense of the leads.

The thing is that these network marketing tools work great for the MLM company but don’t usually work for the individual distributor. So if you want to be successful in your network marketing business you have to teach your downline the real network marketing secrets that actually help people to sell their network marketing product.  That’s right the product, not the business.

Let’s put it like this.  Would you buy a franchise from someone that couldn’t or wouldn’t show you how to sell your product?  Of course you wouldn’t, that would be silly.  So why are we taught to sell our business and not our product?  Oh, but I digress.  This is supposed to be about teaching your downline.

So, what do you teach your downline?

You don’t have to try to teach them everything all at once.  Start off with the basics:

  • Teach them who their target market is.  That way they won’t be wasting time talking to the wrong people.
  • Teach them where to get leads.  If you are really nice, you may even want to give them some of your leads so that they can get started right away.
  • Give them your prospecting script and role play it with them.
  • Give them access to the presentation that you are using to bring in new customers.
  • Give them your closing script and role play it with them.

If you give your downline access to the things that are working for you, they will feel like they have a partner in their network marketing business and want to work harder.  Make yourself available to your people and they will reward you.

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Amy Howard, October 7th 2009 | Tags: , , ,
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MLM Secret – Testing

I’ve read a lot about sales and marketing since I became a network marketer.  I’ve even taken some marketing classes at college.  There is one common theme with everything that I have read and done as it pertains to marketing.  You have to TEST, TEST, TEST.  Did I mention that you have to test?

I know that we all would like to be given the magic formula to making MLM sales but the truth of the matter is that what works for one network marketer may not work for another.  Why?  I don’t know.  My theory is that whatever technique or method you feel the most comfortable with works the best.  The MLM secret is - to try it, track your numbers, and look at the results objectively.

What Should You Test?

You should be testing everything.  If you are marketing your MLM products online, you should be testing your headlines, pictures, subheads, even the color of your site.  If you are using the telephone to reach your prospects, then you should be testing your scripts, presentation, and leads.  If you are advertising your MLM products at all, then you should also be testing your ads.

When Should You Test?

Just because I said that you should be testing everything as it pertains to your network marketing business doesn’t mean that you should go and do that now.  If you are in your first year of network marketing and are still learning what feels right to you, then you should put off testing until later.  You really can’t test anything until you have a baseline set.  What do I mean by a baseline?  Let me give you an example:

Let’s say that you have a data capture website that you are driving traffic to, giving your prospects the oportunity to sign up for a free report or something.  You know that you have about 100 visitors a day visiting your site and about 2% of those visitors are giving their information.  That is your baseline.  At this point you know that you can always get 2 prospects out of a hundred to leave their information.

Now that you know your baseline, you want to try to improve your numbers.  There are a couple of things that you can do at this point.  You can work on getting more traffic, knowing that about 2% of your visitors will leave their information.  Or you can work on getting a larger percentage of your daily visitors to give their information.  But until you have a baseline to fall back to, it’s not a good idea to do any testing.  Really folks, your numbers are important.  I wrote an article about hitting your numbers that you may want to check out.

How Should You Test?

I recommend testing just one thing at a time.  For example, if you are using the telephone to market your MLM products, you have to have leads, scripts, and a presentation of some kind.  Don’t test everything at the same time because you won’t know what made your results better or worse.  So, just change one thing at a time.  You can change your leads by targeting a different market.  Keep track of how many people agree to go to your presentation and compare it to your baseline numbers.  If you had better results with the new leads, keep using them and make those results your new baseline.  The object is to improve your numbers.  If the thing that you tested didn’t work, go back to what you where doing to make your MLM sales and your baseline and try something different.

Once you find the MLM secret (the thing that makes you the most sales) you will know it because your numbers will tell you.  Numbers don’t lie.

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Amy Howard, October 6th 2009 | Tags: , ,
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