“Converting Leads to Take Responsive Action”

Converting Leads

Converting leads by getting them to take the positive action to enroll into your network marketing opportunity or buy your products and services is quite different than learning how to get leads for MLM.

The latter can easily be done through buying leads or getting free leads for MLM from lead generation companies, or even generating your own leads through landing pages, blogs, article writings, video marketing, etc. Most importantly, getting free leads is as close and easy as reaching out to your warm market.

The single biggest obstacle to great success in network marketing is your ability of converting leads to take responsive action. All great network marketers are awesome at getting their leads and prospects to close … to buy their products and services … to join their opportunity.

When I launched my network marketing business in 2008, after being out of it for forty-five years, I got no training at all. I didn’t get any training on converting leads to buy my products or join my business. I got no training on what to say and how to deal with those prospects who are in certain more exclusive professions over others. I was given a brochure, a kit, some DVD’s and told to go out there and talk to family and friends with no guidance.

I was so nervous about talking to anyone about network marketing and never mind about knowing how to close them and converting leads into customers and team mates that I flipped and flopped at every turn. It went without saying, “I failed!!”

Over time, I came to understand that converting leads to a call to action which is favorable to my business is an art form which takes time and skill to master. I learned that knowledge of the key closing skills is essential to me making the kind of money I was capable of making in network marketing.

Professional network marketers understand why a lead hesitates and delays, and they know how to structure their offerings to overcome these objections.

Good network marketers know the art of converting leads professionally by:

• Identifying problems and needs
• Building trust and rapport
• Answering objections
• Asking for their business

Converting Leads by Identifying Problems and Needs

One of the best ways of converting leads is to ask good questions to get them opening up their secrets and needs to you and listen carefully.

When you identify the prospect’s problems and needs through conversation and questions, you can match these up with your company’s benefits and features and show them how your opportunity, services and products can relieve their pain and meet their needs.

The more time you invest by asking good questions and getting them to reveal their pains and needs, the more empathy you’ll naturally have for them and the more probable it will be for you of converting leads to respond positively to your opportunity and products.

When asked by your team about how to get leads for network marketing, reply “learn to listen rather than talk.” Listen to what pains bug people the most and what desires and dreams they seek.

Listen to the hurt of not having enough money to take their family on vacation, of being tied to a lifeless job, of wanting to move to a better neighborhood for the health and well-being of their family but can’t afford it. Listen to their desire to be successful at something that makes them feel important, to be put on a pedestal by their family, to make a difference in the world.

Anyone who is in conversation with you and revealing what makes them tick through questions you ask them is a lead.

What are some of the questions you can ask while in conversation with your leads?

“Just curious, how can you create the life that you absolutely love?”

“How are you making your annual income your monthly? If not, why not?”

“Are you happy with your life, your job, your income?” What do you like most about them? What do you like least?

“Do you have a plan to get out of this bad situation? What is it? I have a plan that might help, do you want to see it?”

“If somebody handed you a magic wand, and you could conjure up the perfect life and opportunity for yourself, what would they look like to you?”

“What kind of home business have you been dreaming about?”

“Would you be open to a side project that doesn’t interfere with what you’re currently doing?”

These seven questions get the lead to open up, to reveal their secrets, to show their vulnerabilities. With the knowledge they reveal, you never use it against them but use it to help them by showing how the features and benefits of your company can resolve their problems and needs.

The answers you get from asking these questions have the power of converting leads to join your opportunity, buy your products, all within the confines of normal conversations with those you know personally or meet over the phone.

Converting leads is as easy as getting them to reveal their desires, what they actually believe they can achieve, and help them realize they have a place to go, a goal to meet that is within their reach if only they want it bad enough.

Converting Leads by Building Trust and Rapport

Have you ever experienced meeting someone and two minutes later you felt comfortable with them as if you’ve known them your entire life, like your best friend? And minutes later you make a suggestion to them and they gladly follow?

Often a person will only buy a product or try out a company if they receive a recommendation from someone they trust. Converting leads to buy your products and services or join your business opportunity takes some trust building.

What if I told you that you can easily build rapport with and gain trust from anyone within just a few minutes after meeting them?

Building trust requires a positive connection, a “clicking” that develops through interaction and conversation with another person. To become an expert at building trust you must practice making the other person the center of attention to make sure they’re as comfortable as possible within a given situation.

To build trust in network marketing you must have three components: attentiveness, positivity, and coordination.

Converting leads to your way of life, to what you have to offer requires a focus on the other and being interested in what the other is saying and doing. This attention needs to be positive, a friendliness and caring about what the other has to say. Mostly, converting leads by building trust requires matching the other’s energy level, body language, tone, and talking speed.

Imagine a conversation between two interested positive people. One person is turned away from the other, and one is talking very quickly and other is talking slowly. What are the chances of these two people ever building trust and rapport with each other? Absolutely none!

Trust and rapport can be built naturally and quickly by duplicating the other’s body language, including position and movement, eye contact and facial expressions. It also must include verbal conversation with what you say to the other person to develop trust and rapport. You must establish common ground with the other person to make them that you’re genuinely interested in them and what they have to say and what’s bugging them in life.

The best way to convey interest in the other person is to let them speak. Ask the other person questions, but let them vet and answer in their own way without interruption with what they have to say.

Genuinely listen to their answers, and let the other person know you have heard them loud and clear by restating what they said or by asking another question that follows up on what they said.

Here is a real time scenario that I used to build trust and rapport with a prospect within a few minutes after meeting him, and after asking him a couple of questions about his life:

Prospect: “I worked in my job for 10 years and was fired last week. I don’t know where my next pay check is coming from. I have to pull my son from the private school he’s been attending for two years. My wife and I have a 20-year anniversary coming up, and I can’t afford her a gift.”​

Me: “So, let me get this straight in my mind, if you would let me. You just lost your job from being fired after 10 years of faithful service to them. You’re not sure where your next pay day is coming from, and on top of that, you have a son whose been attached to his school for two years, and you feel it’s going to kill him when you have to withdraw him because you can’t afford to pay for it. And on top of all that, you and your wife’s 20-year wedding anniversary is fast approaching with no way for you to afford the gift you wanted to get her and so well deserves – Is this what I’m hearing correctly from you?”

Prospect: “Yes, absolutely! You nailed it!”

Me: “So, if I could show you a way where you can make the same amount of salary you were making while you were working those 10 years for that company, and not have to report to a boss again, where you can keep your son in school without ever having to disrupt his life, and pay for it in full every year, and where you can afford that expensive gift for your wife whom you love and who so deserves it, you’d be open to seeing what I have to make that happen, wouldn’t you?”

Prospect: “Absolutely, I would.”

Me: “Awesome! Let me show you a video of what my company can do to help you right now with all those situations to move you past them so that you can live the bright future you were meant to live.”

Prospect:“Let’s do it now.”

I repeated back the words and conditions the prospect said to me, indicating to him that I heard his pain loud and clear. I duplicated his body movements, eye contact and voice tone. I then offered a solution to help him overcome his obstacles. This built trust and rapport within just a few minutes after meeting him. And I’m happy to say, he joined my team.

Converting Leads by Answering Objections

Converting leads by answering objections doesn’t mean convincing a prospect to do something they don’t want to do. It means helping them overcome their fears and misunderstandings so they can do what they really want to do.

Turning a “no” into a “yes” can open the door to many more distributors and many more product sales.

Converting network marketing leads by answering objections means helping people see that what they thought was a valid reason to say “no” either isn’t true, or isn’t as important as they thought.

This can be done by providing new information, sharing stories of other people who originally had the same reservations, or asking questions to help the prospect realize that the benefits they desire (income, time freedom, etc.) outweigh their objections.

The best way to handle objections is to eliminate them before they occur. No matter, however, what you do to eliminate objections before they occur, you will still get them.

Here is a way to handle the single most common objection in network marketing: “I don’t have any money.”

When someone tells you they have no money, rarely is this true, because often they have the money or a way of getting it. They’re just not sure they want to.

Ninety-nine percent of the time you’ll find it’s not the lack of money, but it’s lack of belief.

They have no faith in what they’ve seen is true. They may lack confidence in themselves, in the company or in you.

They may have other concerns and doubts. They’re not interested. They just need to see more information.

Here is a real time scenario on how to handle the objection of no money by using the company tools.

Prospect: I call the prospect up after seeing a video on my company and ask what he liked most about what he saw and heard, and he says, “I can’t afford it. If I lose my money, it would take food off my table for my family.” His hidden objection is wanting to know his breakeven point, not the lack of money.

Me:“If I could show you how to get your investment back in two weeks without difficulty and taking food off your table for your family would you be open to that?”

Prospect:“Maybe! What do you have to show me?”

Me:“I have a ten-minute video with a breakdown of the compensation plan showing you fifteen different ways to get paid by my company starting from day one once you join the business. Let me zap it to you really quick and then we’ll chat.” (I send him my company video on the compensation plan),

Me: After giving him 11-minutes of watching the video, I call him up and say, “Did you see the video?”

Prospect:“Yes, I did!”

Me:“Awesome! What did you like best about what you saw and heard?”

Prospect:“I liked the way I can get my friends and family to help me build my business.”

Me:“That’s exactly what I saw when first looked at this video, and felt the same as you. I saw that I can get family and friends involved and they can help me grow my business by buying products or joining me to build my team. That really opened my eyes to all the possibilities”

Me: “So, among the other fourteen of so ways of getting paid, do you see this one feature alone can get your money back quickly?”

Prospect:“Yes! I see what you’re talking about.”

Me:“Great! Sounds to me like you’re ready to join?”

Prospect:“Yea, I think I am.”

Me:“Awesome! Let’s get started.”

Though his objection was he had no money, I realized his hidden objection was, how do I get my money back in the least amount of time? I merely used the company tools to best answer him. And it worked.

For those who do not have a video file, use the compensation tools available from their company to help answer this hidden objection and with converting leads.

(Refer to my previous two posts on neutralizing and handling objections for overcoming other objections not stated here).

Converting Leads by Asking for Their Business

The best way of converting leads is to ask for their business.

After a prospect spends time seeing the video presentations of my company and opportunity, I immediately ask them, “What did you like best about what you saw and heard?” If they give any indication of being positive … I liked this and I liked that … I especially liked the natural products from the Amazon … I simply say to them, “Awesome, those are the same things that caught my attention. Sounds to me like you’re ready to join,” or, “sounds to me like you’re ready to buy?” This is a subtle way of asking for their business.

A more direct approach is merely asking, “What is the best feature you see from the video that would help you right now to join (or to buy)?”

To help with asking for their business, focus on a single benefit or feature that’s different or unique, and one that delivers an important benefit to the prospect. Use the data from the company tools to show why this feature is different from all others out there and what it can do to resolve their problems and needs.

Some important questions to think about when converting leads by asking for their business are:

• What is unique about my product and opportunity that delivers relief and value to the prospect?
• What in my opportunity and products can I specialize in, or what niche does it have over other products and opportunities that help the prospect get from a sometimes bad situation to one of hope?
• Is there a way to brand my opportunity and product in a unique fashion that will appeal to prospects?

The more you position your opportunity and products from others out there, the easier it will be for you to ask for their business, because you have eliminated all competition.

How do you go about converting leads to take right action? By identifying problems and needs, building trust and rapport, answering objections and asking for their business. Make the benefits and features of your opportunity or products those that are above all others and that the competition cannot or does not offer.