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NOT understanding your WHY and how to properly reframe your mind to motivate yourself is one of the BIGGEST mistakes that can KILL your business.
Part 3 of Attraction Marketing Goldmine by Mike Klingler
The only way to lead is by continuing to learn and improve!
Attraction Marketing leader, Mike Klingler talks about the importance of learning in different areas of business… and he wraps up part 3 of his fabulous training interview by sharing his secret strategy that helped him attract over 90,000 followers on Twitter, how to correctly use it, and how to attract even better quality followers than he did!
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
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.
We know there are a lot of “systems” out there within all different business opportunities, and most of them are probably promoted by their leaders as “the system” to the road of success. And truth be told, there is no “perfect” system out there.
In this day and age where opportunities abound and an avalanche of information overflows wherever there is Internet access, the world has become an unfamiliar place for many network marketers. People are becoming more skeptical. While it’s true that only leaders make money in this business, and a solid leadership development system is the real key to the long-term success for a network marketer, one of the most important skills that is so vital to this industry yet seldomly taught properly is LIST-BUILDING.
Most systems out there pretty much teach either leadership and motivation (called rah-rah when overdone) or selling/retailing only, but just about none that I’ve come across actually teaches good, solid list-building strategies.
Every system that I have heard or been part of teaches new distributors this mehtod:
1) Take out a pen and a piece of paper
2) Write down the name and phone number of every person that you know
3) Call them
And this is as much list-building as it gets for them. The rest of the strategy involves starting a conversation cold with 1-5 people within 3-feet of you on a daily basis once that list runs dry. These cold contacts are to be pursued within 24-48 hours and the whole follow-up process generally lasts no more than a couple weeks max.
I have personally built to a somewhat successful level with a very reputable network marketing business using this method, yet I was stuck at that level for almost two years before I finally, beyond the shadow of a doubt, realized that this method is not a duplicatable, effective list-building strategy in today’s world. It might have worked in the past, but times have changed.
This age-old strategy could still work for a while, especially when a company is on the upswing of its growth. However, the network marketers who have switched opportunities a few times will tell you that their “lists” are not so fresh any more(they called the same ppl each time they jump to another opportunity), and going from one opportunity to the next can bring down their credibility quickly.
Now why is it so important to add an effective list-building component to a good training system? Well, in my opinion if you are a conscientious network marketer and truly care for the long-term success of the people you introduce to your opportunity, effective list-building strategy will go a long way to helping someone succeed in this industry. Company management teams and business philosophies change, comp plans can be reconfigured, yet at the end of the day we are still in a relationship marketing business… so it is essential that we teach others a strategy to effectively amass a list to build relationship with!!!
Within those two years when I struggled to maintain my level in the comp plan, I invested much time and money ($8000+) in educating myself about effective marketing strategies and list-building methods. This education process included late late late night reading of various manuals, viewing of video tutorials, testimonials, technical instructions, the works.
I came across many different “gurus” that sold their system as the solution to this common challenge of effective list-building. By and large they all teach the very effective yet basic strategy in Internet Marketing called lead generation, which is essentially the de facto list-building strategy of the Internet age. This simple yet powerful concept is very rarely taught by anyone in the network marketing world. Why? I have no idea. But one thing I know is that it is THE best list-building strategy to add to any MLM training system to make it near perfect.
My personal choice of a list-building system is called Magnetic Sponsoring developed by Mr. Mike Dillard out of Austin, TX.
What made it so exciting yet painful during this period was the fact that I was all alone in this journey that led to my discovery of Magnetic Sponsoring! My upline mentors were open but not participating nor helping with the investigation or implementation of the new strategy, and I wasn’t ready to instruct others on my team (i.e. downline… but I don’t like that term) to come along with me in this journey. After coming home from showing “the plan” or participating in team events each night was when the real work started for me. I knew very well that most people want to follow, not to lead, and to inject something of this magnitude requires me to blaze a trail and eventually seek help from the higher leadership within the system. But the help never came…
You know, I’m not the smartest guy out there, but fortunately for me I am very persistent and work extremely hard. The strategies taught in Magnetic Sponsoring and MLM Traffic Formula really propelled the retail end of my business quite nicely, generating 3-5 PAYING leads for a niche area of my retail business. It was then that I knew I have found something that was unique and powerful enough to make all the difference in my business.