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New IBO's Click Here
There are two schools of thought about how to handle the
first call with a new prospect. Some people teach a
method that involves qualifying a prospect for interest
and money and some like to teach that all you want to
accomplish is get the prospect on a conference call.
The first method normally involves getting the prospect
on the phone and first getting permission to ask
questions. These questions are designed to find out what
motivates the prospect, why he or she is interested in
building a home business, how much time the prospect can
devote to the business each week and more. This is
called qualifying--the goal on this call is
1. Find the prospects hot buttons.
2. Go through a 20 minute script.
3. Build rapport with the prospect.
This type of call normally takes 30 minutes.
Some of you are familiar with this method and you might
wonder why I don’t use this method. Here are my reasons.
1. If you're going to use this method, you have to be
very good on the phone. You need training on not only
hearing the words the prospect is saying in response to
your questions, but you also need training on
understanding what the prospect really means. Most
people starting a home business do not have 3-6 months
to devote to the training necessary to understand and
use this method properly.
2. Think about the message you're sending a prospect as
you use this method. What you are saying is: If you say
yes to joining me in business, you will have to
do the same thing I'm doing right now. Make phone calls
and be prepared to spend 30 minutes on the phone with
each prospect you talk to. In addition to that, you will
need to learn a script that’s 3 pages long and how to
change direction depending on what the prospect says.
Now I ask you, think back to your conversations with
prospects, do you honestly think this is what new people
want to do?
I mean for a lot of new IBO's, just learning to pick up
the phone and calling a prospect is huge. If you add a
30-minute script to the process, that compounds the fear
a lot of people will have about picking up the phone.
You will have a lot of prospects that like your company,
love the compensation plan, they even like you and think
you're a great person, but they pass anyway because they
do not feel comfortable having to do what you're doing.
3. Consider your time. You could spending 30 minutes
with a prospect asking all the questions, getting the
right answers, reading your script only to find you have
spent 30 minutes of your valuable time with someone that
is lonely and only wanted someone to talk to. At best,
if you use this approach, you could only talk to 2
prospects an hour and unless you're a real pro, that
prospect could have you answering questions about your
business that would be better explained on the
conference call.
This is why I prefer to use a short but powerful
approach that involves 1 or 2 simple questions, give the
prospects information to get to your conference call and
get off the phone and on to the next prospect.
Here are the reasons I prefer a short high impact
approach:
1. MY time - I can contact a lot more prospects in 1
hour if I'm only on the phone for a minute or less.
Typically the only reason I would be on the phone as
long as a minute is the prospect took time to find a pen
and paper to write down my conference call info.
2. The message I'm sending to the prospect without
having to say it out loud is,
“If you decide to join me, all you have to learn is a
short 30 second script that involves 1 or 2 very simple
questions.”
3. Because my numbers are higher in terms of the number
of people I can contact in an hour, I am not emotionally
tied to the prospects decision. Compare that
to spending 30 minutes
with the prospect. If I have 30 minutes invested in the
call, I am going to be more emotionally involved in the
prospects decision than the prospect is.
Finally, and this is big, when I'm closing a prospect
after he has been to the conference call, my short
approach has helped me countless times to close the
prospect. As I have mentioned before every prospect you
work will want to know:
1. Does the program work or is it
real and
2. This is the big one, “Can I
do it?”
As I close prospects, I tell them think back to our
first conversation. I spent about 45 seconds on the
phone with you; all I did was ask you one simple
question. This is not complicated,
do you think if you had 200 prospects to call each day
you could take 30-45 seconds and ask that prospect 1
simple question? Most prospects agree they could
handle that, so the short approach will help you attract
people to your business.
Now let’s move on and examine the invitation script.
Ok, you dial the number and the phone rings. It’s a
prospect from your genealogy list, so what do you say?
Here's the script:
Hello (prospects name), My name is
(you name) and I am calling from my home in (your city
and state). The reason I am calling is, at one time you
were building a home business and I wanted to ask if you
are still working your business? (prospect answers)
Don't worry, I did not call to bend your ear or give you
a sales pitch however I did want to ask you one
question.
If I could honestly show you a way
to put 1,000 dollars into your bank account within the
next 7 days, would that be worth about 30 minutes of
your time later today?
Great, I am going to send you to a
Live business overview call.
Do you have something to write
with? OK write this down, first my phone number is (your
phone number) and the phone number to the Live
conference call is (give them the number to your live
recruiting call). Also (prospects name) I am going to
send you an email with this information, what is your
best email address?
get the email here
(Prospects name) what would be a
good time for us to swap calls after you have heard the
information so I can get your feed back about the call?
Great, I look forward to talking
to you at (what ever time the prospects says)
That’s how you handle the call. If you are paying
attention you will notice there are two questions,
“are you still working your
home business?” and the other question is,
“If I could honestly show you
how to put 1,000 dollars into your bank account in the
next 7 days, would that be worth 30 minutes of your time
later today?”
There is actually one more questions
“Do you have something to write
with?” but the only ones that really count
are those two main questions.
So let’s break this down so you understand each part of
the script.
You're first statement is “Hi
______, I contacted you
because at one time you were building a home based
business?”
With this statement and question you are first showing
the prospect that you respect his time and you are
thanking him for taking the time to speak with you.
Notice, here you do not say.
“How are you today?” You do not want to ask a
prospect on a business call "how
are you today" for this reason. You really don't
care. I'm not being harsh or rude here, but let’s face
facts, you don't know this person and the only thing you
really care about is getting this person on a conference
call. And you're prospect knows this, the only business
people who start a call with how are you today are
poorly trained telemarketers. I'm sure you have been
called in the past by a telemarketer you don't know and
when that person says "how are
you today" your response is
"what do you want,"
that’s your response because you know that telemarketer
doesn't really care how you're doing today. You actually
resent the question because you know it’s not a sincere
question. So, if you have been starting your prospecting
calls with the "How are you
today" question, get rid of that as of right
now.
Next, remember you called this prospect from a genealogy
list, so tell the prospect right now why you contacted
him/her. You want to
proceed immediately because you don't want to give the
prospect time to start pitching you on his program, so
tell him why you contacted him or her with this
verbiage.
"The reason I am calling is, at
one time you were building a home business.”
What you have done here is establish the fact that you
are not a prospect for his business. This alone will
stop a lot of these people from going into trying to
pitch you on their program.
Your next step is to keep control of the conversation
with a question. The question is, "are
you still working your business?"
You have actually accomplished two things with this
question. First, you keep control of the conversation
because the person asking the questions is the person in
control. In addition to that, you asked the prospect a
question where the answer is most likely
Yes; this will actually
help later in the call because you have started the
prospect on a yes
pattern with a simple question.
Now at this time the prospect is feeling a little
suspicious and a little disappointed. He thought you
were a prospect, now he knows you're not a prospect and
to add insult to injury, he suspects that you are going
to pitch him on your program. So let’s relax this person
with your next statement.
“Don't worry, I didn't call to
bend your ear or give you a sales pitch, but I did want
to ask you one question.”
What you have accomplished with this statement is to
relax the prospect. He was thinking,
here comes a pitch, but
instead you tell him don't
worry, there's no pitch, I just have one question.
Your next step is to immediately pop the question. This
question is the whole point of the call.
If I could honestly show you
how to put 1,000 dollars into your bank account in the
next 7 days would that be worth 30 minutes of your time
later today?
What you have accomplished with this statement is give
the prospect a reason to want to learn more. The vast
majority of the prospects you talk to would love to be
putting 1,000 dollars into there bank account per week.
As you know, most of these prospects are failing
miserably with their home business. Occasionally you
will call a player in the industry that is already
successful in his business.
But this is a good thing. You want to be sure and keep
that players name, email and phone. In fact, you want to
database all of your prospects, but especially these
players.
Now back to the script. The rest of the script is just
about giving the prospect information to get to the
call.
By now you know how the script is structured and why
your job right now is to practice, drill and rehearse.
You want to absolutely master the scripts.
Take a few minutes each day, read the script out loud a
few times to get the words used to coming out of your
mouth. In addition, as you practice, grab a tape
recorder and tape yourself. Listen to yourself and ask
yourself would I go to the
conference call if that person invited me? Be
as objective as you can be and keep working and
practicing until the scripts roll off your tongue
naturally.
Your inbound calls work exactly the same way as the
outbound call. There is just a slight change in the
first sentence of the call.
Always remember that there is no such thing as “get rich
quick” This method of prospecting works and works really
well however no program will work if you do not work the
program. Be prepared to get a lot of disconnected
numbers and no answer, this is just part of the process
(always remember the leads are cheap and unlimited).
The only way to make money with out having to hear
rejections is, get yourself a blue jacket and go to work
for Wal-Mart as a greeter. After all that is plan b
for most people anyway. You have come this far, you have
already set yourself apart from MOST PEOPLE.
For your success,
Jeff Osness |