About two years ago I decided I was going to become a CIA spy, not knowing fully what I was getting myself into.  All I really knew about being a spy was Sidney Bristow, Jack Bauer, and of course the spy that never dies (or ages), James Bond, or better known as 007.

I could only imagine in my head that I’d have lots and lots of cash in all currencies, the ability to speak just about any foreign language, beautiful women all over me asking for my number, the Austin Martin, and crazy martial art moves to come out of every fight… winning!

Excited about the prospect of an illustrious career in the intelligence industry I attended by invitation a CIA recruiting event somewhere in the west coast.  As I approached the recruiting table I was greeted by two gentlemen, one a retired clandestine services field officer (i.e. it’s the politically correct term for a spy) the other active.

I whipped out my resume imemdiately, eager to display my qualifications for the job. As I excitedly conversing with the older gentleman, I noticed that his name tag read “Joseph S.” while the other agent’s read “Joe D.” I thought to myself, Joseph & Joe, what are the chances…

What happened next though, started to creep me out a bit…

“It was good talking to you Jerry.  Here’s the card of your interviewer.  He’ll contact you within the next 72w hours” said Josephn S. as he handed me the card.

I thanked him and read the name on the card… and my interviewer’s name was… Joseph K. Immediately I questioned Joe S.

“Is Joseph your real name?”

He looked at me and gave me sort of a George Bush smirk, wished me good luck with my interview and sent me on my way.  As I walked out the door I started feeling uneasy about this whole thing… I mean, why the heck do they all have the same name?

A few days later, I received an e-mail about my interview, signed by Joseph K.,the interviewer assigned to me. It was followed by a personal phone call. He quickly introduced himself (I could swear that voice belonged to Joe. S the recruiter at the event) and asked if I’d be available the following Tuesday at 1:30PM to which I replied positively.  After we confirmed the date and time, he didn’t give me the location where we’d be meeting.  All he said was he’d call me the morning of our interview to provide instructions in terms of our meeting location…

Totally CIA style.

Now the problem is, I was thoroughly CREEPED OUT!  What the heck, 3 people and all their names were Joe.  And now this.  I was honestly SCARED about getting kidnapped or shot through my own window.  Let’s examine the facts:

1) I knew NOTHING about the real identifies of these individuals, and

2) I did’t know where my meeting was going to be.   And truthfully,

3) I wasn’t even sure if the guy on the phone was from the CIA. He could be anybody, really.

He could be a rogue agent, or a terrorist, or some spy from another coutry for all I know (well, I really didn’t).  He could be watching me as we were talking on the phone!

So there I was, sitting in my room, SHAKING and trying to make sense of these perplexing incidents. And then the question popped in my head…

“Do I really want to work for the CIA?”

The answer was clear.  I called Joe K. (whoever he is) back about 30 minutes later and told him that I wasn’t ready.  You know what his reply was?  He said:

“I thought so.”

Some of you probably got the correlation I’m drawing here with the story, and some of you are thinking “what does this have anything to do with MLM?“  Well, it’s something called

POSTURE.

Mike Dillard talked about this in Magnetic Sponsoring and re-emphasized this point as I attended his MLM Traffic Formula 101 course.  When I was creating my e-mail series at the seminar I was asked to create the avatar of my ideal prospect.  I had to lay out all the qualities of the ideal person I’d like to have in my business to create the avatar, and then take the features of my business and turn them into benefits that’ll be attractive to my ideal prospects.  These benefits might not attract people that do not fit the avatar of my ideal prospect, but it doesn’t matter because the whole point is to attract only the kind of person I want in my business.

The Joe’s definitely had posture and knew what they wanted in an ideal candidate.  Their system was designed to find the best candidate they could and weed out the pretenders.  And you know what, I wasn’t the one!

Now think for a second about how most network marketers talk to their prospects.  Do you think that they usually speak with total confidence and belief?  That they are the ones holding the cookies?  Based on the law of averages (and real-life stats & observations), the answer is NO.

Many network marketers have no idea what they got themselves into and didn’t approach the business as a business, and why do you think that is?  Chances are the posture of the SPONSOR was weak, which inherently attracted weak prospects and/or demonstrated poor posturing that was duplicated in a negative fashion.

What I learned early on from the mentors in my primary MLM opportunity that really made a difference was posturing. It took me sometime to understand and master what posturing meant.  It didn’t mean bullying people around or anything like that.  It was about being steady in my belief that I was offering someone an opportunity that was extremely valuable and life-changing, for the right person.  It wasn’t easy but well worth it.

I was thoroughly frustrated with my prospecting activities in the first 11 months of my business, blasting through 63 warm contacts without sponsoring a single person.  Yet, I took a deep breath, calm myself down, learned to posture effectively, and with the coaching of my mentors, eventually climbed to the top of the compensation chart in our business in the next 12 months, personally sponosred as many as 13 active distributors in 7 days, with traditional prospecting.
I hope my experiences can shed some light on how you can grow your business more efficiently and rapidly.  Join my training newsletter for more free networking and marketing education.