At heart,
you as a network marketer are first and foremost a story-teller. Story-telling
is one of the oldest and most enduring selling techniques. When you tell a
story, you are teaching by example rather than through direct precept, and
you’ll find that this method impacts people in a more powerful and subtle way
than any direct selling technique.
How does
story-telling work for you? Through the time-tested, proven technique of
testimonials. Every day advertisers bombard you with claims about the wonders
that certain products perform. And the greatest selling tool they use—the proof
that their “stuff actually works”—is the testimonial. This is the direct
testimony of a third party (who, hopefully, has not been compensated for their
testimony).
You might
begin by discussing a particular product you’re selling. For example, let’s say
that it’s Acme Carpet Cleaner. You might begin a conversation by discussing
your spring cleaning that you began last week. Every year you go through the
same routine, dusting, brushing and clearing out the attic. Then you vacuum
your carpet—but there’s a difficult stain that refuses to budge. So you
mentioned that you finally used the perfect product to remove the stain.
Then you
pause, for dramatic effect.
Your
curious listener, impatient, finally queries, “What did you use to remove the
stain?”
That’s
your entrance. You mention Acme Carpet Cleaner and how effective a product it
is. Discuss how long you’ve been using it, and the wide variety of purposes to
which you’ve put it to use (it also works on tough stains on automobile carpet
mats, for example). Pretty soon your listener is curious, and so you ask if
she’d like a sample bottle for free.
Most
likely she won’t refuse. Everyone loves that four-letter word “free”—but what’s
this about a sample bottle, she asks?
You
casually mention that you happen to be a distributor for Acme House Care
Products. That leads into a discussion of the work you do, how long you’ve been
selling, and what a fine line of House Care Products that Acme sells. Soon you
are explaining your business to your prospect, and they might just want to work
with you.
Remember,
you don’t have to be a high-pressured sales-person to be a network marketer. As
a matter of fact, that type of selling—the kind you hear about from traditional
sales training, where you’re taught things like “presumptive close,” and how to
deal with all types of objections—is practically useless from a network
marketing standpoint.
The reason
is that you’re not supposed to be engaged in an argument to distribute your
products. Either the products you’re selling perform as you claim they do, or
they don’t. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it.
So you
hand your friend a free sample bottle of Acme Carpet Cleaner, and it works just
as you claimed. The next thing that happens is automatic. She raves to her
friends about the Acme product, and pretty soon, she is “selling.”
That’s
Network Marketing: story-telling, from one friend to another.
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