Posted by Richard Talkington on September 30, 2000 at 17:54:18:
Mike has ask me to share a few building tips on a regular basis. Mike has been my mentor now for five years. I will nunmber my builting tips in case someone has questions they can refer back to a particular point.
1. We all start at some point less than perfect. If we intend to move forward to a higher level of achievement, we must be able to measure our efforts. Keeping track of what we do will give us information that will assist us in self-evaluation.
I suggest keeping a notebook. Make notes on your presentations and follow-up calls. Know exactly how many people you are talking to and what the conversion rate is (successful sells). Keep notes on what the prospect shares with you and any information on what you have shared with them outside the standard presentation outline.
Every month evaluate what you have done. Keep statistics. These facts will help you to know where you need to focus. These statistics can help you analyze the effectiveness of a system. Without these facts you may not evaluate a system correctly. For an example when I started the postcards system sometime ago, at first I got a ton of leads back but couldn't get a hold of the individuals. I thought the postcard system didn't work. Mike educated me on the purpose of the system. The system was working but I had to focus on another step and that was getting a hold of them.
I changed my approach. I began to call the individual who sent the card back to me to let them know the information packet was on its way. That way they heard my voice on the voice mail and would be expecting a call at within a certain time period. Also, I refined my message that I was leaving on the voice mail. After I tried to contact the prospect 4-6 times I would sent them a letter restating some of the points on the card and to let them know I was trying to get a hold of them. They must have been interested the first time or they wouldn't have mailed back the business reply card. The letter would remind them of what may have interested them the first time. I would never of known that I needed to do this is I wasn't keeping track of what I was experiencing.
Is your weakness that you do not have enough prospects to talk too? If it is you can focus on systems that bring more prospects to you. Maybe you need to change mailing list. Maybe you need to send the solicitations out during a different time. Maybe you need to find a way to increase your investment in that end of things.
Are you not getting ahold of the prospects that you have? If that is the problem then you may have to focus on what type of message you are leaving on the voice mail. You may have to send a follow-up letter as I mentioned above.
If you are receiving plenty of leads and getting incontact with them maybe you will need to sharpen up on your presentation. You close may be weak. What kind of feedback are you getting throughout your presentation? Don't just be blind in what you do. By writing down comments the prospect makes during the presentation you may find what area your weakness is in. If the prospect agrees with you all of the way through the presentation and then doesn't sign up, there may be several possibilities. I will not get into all of them now but you can get with a consultant at Professional Networkers and find the particular area you are weak in. If you do not have any information to give the consultant, they will only be guessing on the answer.
Keep track of what is going on below you. Who you contact and how often is important. What is there feed back. You can give you downline a work analysis sheet so that you can help them later. Mike at one time was providing this worksheets in one of his other businesses. I don't believe they are available yet in his 4Life business but you can make your own. By keeping track of what you downline is doing you will be able to help them in more detail later. If you start out providing your downline with a questionaire, it will not be so awkward later.
Basically, what I would like to share in today's building tip is to keep close track of the details of what is happening so that you will have the information to evaluate your progress or lack of progress later. You have the greatest mentor in the industry in Mike Akins and the best support in Professional Networkers. I suggest you take full advantage of it. I have been around a long time and never have experienced anything like Mike's wisdom and knowledge on network marketing. As far as it is concerned on life in general.
I wish each of you the best.
Richard Talkington