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Contacting People You Know
You might have heard the story "Acres of Diamonds."
It is a true story about a man who became extremely excited over the idea
of finding diamonds. He knew that even if he only found a few of them,
he would be very wealthy. He sold his farm, gave up everything else, and
set out to look for the precious gems. After years of futile searching,
the man became depressed and demoralized and eventually committed suicide
by throwing himself into a raging river. In the meantime, the man who
had bought his farm was out in the field one day when he spotted a large,
unusual looking stone which turned out to be an unpolished diamond. When
excavation began to try and locate more of the stones, it quickly became
apparant that the farm was actually one of the largest diamond mines on
earth! The man had been sitting on more diamonds than he could have ever
imagined, but he sold them for next to nothing so that he could search
for them somewhere else.
Many people are actually sitting their own "acres of diamonds"
in the form of good contacts yet they choose to ignore what is right in
front of them and instead go looking elsewhere for prospects.
Some people love talking about eCosway to the people close to them, and
other people wouldn't dream of mentioning it! You don't have to talk to
people you know, you can be successful in eCosway by doing online marketing
and using things like advertising and direct mail to attract prospects.
Just keep in mind that "strangers" are usually harder to find,
more expensive to contact, and harder to convince than friends, relatives
and even acquaintances!
You probably know lots of people who would really love to shop and earn
money from eCosway. The problem is that you might not remember them or
realize who they are. They might be people you've forgotten about, or
they might be people that you don't want to approach because you've already
assumed that they won't be interested in your business ownership opportunity.
Important Principles
- The people you know may or may not be interested
in business ownership, but YOU'LL NEVER KNOW UNTIL YOU ASK! You do a
terrible disservice to your friends and acquaintences when you do their
thinking for them or pre-judge their needs and desires instead of checking
with them.
- Don't assume anything in this business. People
you think will really build this business might die on the vine, and
people you think will never make it might become your superstars! The
people you think will jump at this opportunity might turn you down and
the people you think would never be interested might end up in someone
else's network because you didn't bother to introduce eCosway to them
and someone else did.
- This is a business ownership opportunity that can
bring wealth, financial freedom, and dream fulfillment to lots of people.
Treat your prospecting as sorting, not selling. There are plenty of
people who are ready to catch the eCosway vision. Share your gift with
these people and don't worry about people who aren't ready yet. Just
wish them well and move on!
Once you've compiled a "hot prospect" list… start contacting the people on that list
You can do this:
- In person Directly approaching them
about it, or use a Magical Marketing Statement when the right moment
arises in conversation.
- By phone Drectly inviting them to
meet with you, or by using a Magical Marketing Statement when the right
moment arises in conversation)
- By mail Send them a letter piquing
their interest and inviting them to meet with you or talk to you by
phone for more information.
- By email Send them an email inviting
them to ask you for a special code to enter your new online shopping
mall website or just attach an approved signature file to the end of
your regular (unrelated) email to them
Invite people who show an interest in this stage to meet with you, visit the website, attend a presentation, or talk to a more experienced Business Owner. These are your "diamonds in the rough" now.
Anyone who does NOT show an interest should be moved to the "back burner" or a "holding bin." Don't worry about convincing them to change anything now if they aren't ready. Just wait until life puts more pressure on them (that's how diamonds are made!) or until they realize that they want more out of life. Contact these people several more times, but not too soon or too frequently. Time is on your side: Sooner or later many of these people will need what you offer - great products, more money, or more free time. Be patient and don't burn any bridges.
Taking Consistent Action
Once you've starting contacting people, you need to stay focused and commit to consistent action. Success is the not just about results, it is the progressive realization of a worthy goal. Don't fall into the trap of judging your success or failure based solely on how much you are currently earning or by counting the number of Business Owners in your network. Especially when you're just starting out, it's much better to focus on making progress rather than counting sales and business owners.
This is a unique business. It doesn't grow in a simple linear fashion, one sale at a time. It grows exponentially. It's kind of like watching water change temperature. Water can look the same as you heat it, but then all of a sudden, it turns to steam. Likewise, it stays liquid while you're chilling it, but the minute it reaches freezing temperature, it becomes ice! In physics, this type of dramatic change is sometimes referred to as a "quantum leap" because rather than changing gradually (in slow steady increments) the change occurs in sudden quantifiable jumps.
If you do apply steady and consistent effort, your eCosway business should also grow in quantum leaps. For example, you could earn $50 this month, $100 next month, and $150 the following month (which just looks like slow steady growth) but then suddenly your income could jump to $500 and then to $3000 at some particular point when your Shoppers and Business Owners start multiplying on their own (not just being added one at a time by your own efforts). But this won't happen if you don't take consistent action and hang in there long enough to reach that point.
You can't control other people and you can't directly control numbers that depend on other people. What you CAN control are numbers that depend on you. Focus on activities that you know will ultimately bring you success and that you can do on a regular basis.
You'll want to choose activities that you know will take prospects from one "stage" to the next in the decision process.
Typically the 5 stages that a person will go through on their way to becoming a successful eCosway Business Owner are:
- Disinterested
- Interested
- Evaluating
- Joining
- Actively working the business
Use things like: Magicial Marketing Moments, Flyers, Ads, Headlines, Subject Lines, Generic email, etc…to pique their interest.
When prospects are interested, (but not interested enough to investigate and evaluate yet):
Invite them to the website, give them a VCD presentation, bring them to a meeting, invite them to lunch to discuss a business proposal, give them some materials, bring them to an eCenter etc… to get them to take a serious look.
When prospects are evaluating the business (but haven't joined yet):
Make sure they get all of their questions answered. Send them FAQs by email or let them talk to experienced Business Owners. Keep in close contact with them in person, by phone or by email during this period… Help them to believe that the business will work and to believe that they can do it!
When prospects want to join:
Strike while the iron is hot and make it easy! Give them any help they need in getting to the registration form on the website or at an eCenter. Use testimonials, 3rd-party validation, and any documentation they might require to answer any last minute questions and to ease any last minute doubts.
Once prospects have joined:
Get them on the fast track to success. Make sure they know how to access and use the resources and business development tools they will need to succeed. Meet with them in person, by phone, by instant messaging, or by email to help them go through the 10-steps to success.
Tracking Your Progress
Use the contact & progress sheet to track where your prospects are in the process, and what you have done to move them from stage to stage.
Write down the names and contact information of all your prospects on the left side of the page . Then jot down whatever you do to move these prospects "one square" closer to success.
For example, look at the sample contact and progress sheet on the second line. The prospect's name is Chris. You would write down "MM "(magical marketing) under the word disinterested if you met Chris at a party and used one of the magical marketing statements when he asked you what you were up to. If you invited him to lunch and told him more about the business you might write down "prez" (presentation) or "lunch" under the word interested. If he said he would seriously look at the business and you gave him a VCD, you would write "VCD" under the word evaluating. Then, if one of the business owners "up branch" from you helped to answer his questions and helped him to join, you could write "up" under the word joined. In this example, we are assuming that Chris has just started, so you have nothing written under the word success yet. As soon as you help Chris start moving, you could write something like "online" (website training) or "eC" (eCenter) to remind you of how you helped him to get trained.
You can create your own system of symbols, letters or words to represent the activities you have chosen. Make the system fit you and work for you.
Tracking these activities will really help you to make steady progress toward your goals for two reasons:
- It's easier to take action when your weekly goal
is something like "I will move 10 squares this week" than
it is when your goal is "My group will hit 500 eV this week".
You know what to do, when to do it, and when it's in front of you like
that, you'll actually do it!
- It keeps you honest! It's so easy for us to THINK
we're working hard (especially when we spend a lot of emotional energy
worrying about things or talking excitedly about our plans) but it takes
real action to produce real results. By tracking your activities, you
can see what you are REALLY accomplishing and which activities are really
producing results for you.
It's also important that you remember to celebrate your victories! Don't wait until you hit a big sales volume. Set little milestones and celebrate when you reach them. If you're working with a group of team members, you can even hold regular celebration meetings where everyone reports their progress, and cheers one another on.
You might want to create a special designation called "the 100% Club". At your meetings, you can ask everyone whether they are entitled to be in the the 100% Club this week or this month, and then give recognition to the people who are. Anyone who has given 100% effort to whatever game plan they have set, deserves to be recognized as a success. This is a great way to keep people motivated even when they haven't signed up any new Business Owners yet. If you're worried about "fakers", don't be. They can't fake it for long. You just can't be part of The 100% Club for too many weeks in a row and not start to see actual increases in sales and network numbers.
Final Point
Remember one of the first principles you learned: Leverage is better than Labor. Don't try to build a whole network by yourself! It's much easier and far more effective to find a few good people who really want to succeed and then help them to do the same. If you just help a few people you know succeed, you won't have to do so much work in the long run!
Never neglect "building" activities for "prospecting" activities. Don't leave a Direct Business Owner "alone" until his or her branch has created at least 2 "sub-levels" of branches.
Here's an example. Let's say you get your friend "Tina" to join eCosway.