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If your MLM business relies on cold calls, referrals, instant messenger communications, and e-mails you already know the importance of properly qualifying prospects. You need to learn about your prospect and their needs and then figure out how your product meets those needs. That means you need a qualified prospect.
What's a qualified prospect and where on earth do you find them?
A qualified prospect is a person (or business) who needs or wants your product because it satisfies a need or solves some problem they have. How will your prospect know if what you're offering is going to help? They've never heard of you or your product until you contacted them. They'll know because you've done your homework before contacting them and know what will enhance their business. That's where good solid Internet research comes in handy.
Now you start getting to know your prospect, or in other words, you start relationship marketing. Over time talking to them, you'll get a clear picture about them and their needs, and you'll know if you want to work with them on your Team.
REMEMBER: Your products and your service and how you offer it and conduct business IS YOUR BUSINESS and you don't want just anyone to help you build it. Some will let you know right away they aren't interested. Some will call you names. Some simply don't understand how you could possibly help them, until you educate them. And here's something you need to know and work WITH, not against. Some prospects for your Team will rule themselves out with their questions to you.
For instance: How hard do I have to work to make any money? How fast can I make money? Is this an MLM scheme? You'll know right away your business isn't for them. Why? Because they will not work to make your business work for them or for you. And you're not in business to lose business or customers.
Also Read: How to use E-Mail Marketing for your MLM Business effectively?
Methods of prospecting have definitely undergone a sea change in recent times. The following are some of the trends that have passed out.
Cold Calling
With the large number of highly effective methods available currently, no one cold calls anymore. There’s no reason why someone should call up a total stranger, when it is very much possible to get targeted people as prospects. At the same time, marketers themselves are understanding that they don’t like getting calls about sales methods and people have developed a kind of total apathy to anything that is being peddled through the phone, even if the company has quite a reputation otherwise.
Invitations
The same applies to invitations to workshops and seminars. They don’t work. People don’t have the time to visit someplace just to check out what’s happening there. Even after a good turnout, the conversion rate is abysmal.
So what are people using nowadays? Nowadays, people are going for two main things. These are classified advertising and Google AdWords.
Classified Advertising
Direct advertising, or rather direct response advertising, is the best form of advertising that there is. In such an advertising technique, a direct response is solicited on an ad impression. This could be an email or an SMS. When people reply to these modes, they open up a route of communication with the advertiser.
The general route adopted here is:- Ad impression => Direct response => Lead capture => Building the relationship => Pitching the right offer => Following up or closing the sale.
But again, the conversion rate is low, because you might have to send these advertisements to a lot of people in order to get a handful of responses.
Google AdWords
This is one of the most popular prospecting methods that is used by network marketing denizens nowadays. Its effect is considerable because you can directly reach your targeted clientele in this manner.
Don't waste countless hours trying to convince people to work with you. They either want to because they recognize the value of the opportunity or they don't want to and hounding them isn't going to make any difference.
