As a successful marketer I have dozens of prospects and members wanting my attention constantly. And no doubt if you have followed my training or systems you have a flood of prospects and new members as well. But how do you use your time most wisely to be more efficient?
Well of course you will keep advertising as that is an essential part of your business online. But now you need to qualify your new leads or prospects or even members and find which ones are worth your time. You might ask… “Why not try to work with all of them?â€â€¦ If you are like me you will NOT have the time and many of the people who do show interest sadly are not dedicated enough to achieve their goals in the business. So spending your time with the right people is crucial because otherwise it could be well spent doing something else.
Let’s look at the process, first you have a targeted advertisement and that advertisement is seen by a targeted prospect (someone who wants and needs what you have to offer). They enter their information and have either joined for free or are now your lead. What now? Depending on how your system is set up you will either contact this person personally, have an autoresponder message sent to them automatically, or encourage them to contact you. Follow-up is CRUCIAL, if they do not hear from you that is a big mistake on your end.
Whether you send them a message directly or through your autoresponder you need to find out what their commitment level is. First of all they need to know who YOU are. One of the most important factors, if not the most important, is for your prospect to know and trust you. If they see working with you valuable then they will join any business or opportunity, but if they do not know you or trust you they are on the other hand not likely.
How do you do this? Many ways… I myself have created a blog that I regularly post on to show those I work with that I am active and care about my team’s success. I also have an “about me†page that I send my members to. For example in your welcome message to this new prospect or member you will introduce yourself briefly and send them a link to your profile or bio page so they can learn more. You may want to consider getting yourname.com to do this.
In addition to them learning about you, you should be interested in them. Learning why they joined and what they expect to accomplish from joining is something you should ask. This will help you understand their point of view and you can tell them what to realistically expect. Ask them about past experiences and how their journey online has been so far.
Let’s talk about the time constraint issue. You should have value to offer your lead, prospect, or member. What is this? It is upline support, training, and sincere guidance. Let them know that you are serious about their success and prove it to them. They could join anyone else, but they may or already have chosen you instead of the tens of thousands of other possible sponsors. Welcome them and be honest and sincere with them. In addition you need to know that they are serious, so give them a task to complete to qualify for your time. Yes, your time is valuable too and they should respect that. It is hard to find great sponsors, so if you can offer them this then you are a rare find. In order for them to qualify for your time that may include upgrading or even as simple as downloading Skype (www.skype.com) or some other messenger of your choice so that you can communicate more easily with them. What you want in your business are business builders, not people who will sit there and expect others to do the work for them. The job of your sales process is to close the deal and build relationships with the best ones. “Best†does not mean those that are naturally or already good at sponsoring others. It simply means that these are the type of people who are dedicated and coach-able enough to shape into great marketers. In most cases they will have absolutely no experience at all.
So what if you don’t follow this advice and instead try to help everyone without requiring them to prove their dedication to you? Well you will find that you are just helping out a bunch of free members who will take as much free information from you as they can and in return never plan on putting a cent back into it. On the other hand, do not be afraid to give out free information, it is a very good way of earning trust and helping people to learn even before they join your business. So give information free but be wary about putting in too much time for someone who has not shown you a commitment to working with you.
I hope this article has helped you see a clear way to use your time more efficiently when working on your online business. It is true that 20% of the people in your downline will do 80% of the work, the ones who will act after you spend quality time with them are the few that will make the difference in your business.
To your success,
Darren Olander
Marketing Consultant