Prospecting Friends & Family For Best Results

Success in business-group of excited people

Should you lead with the business or the products? There are pros and cons to both methods.How to prospect and approach your friends and family when you’re brand new has always been a controversial subject for as long as businesses like ours have been in existence.

In the past it was common practice to ask new recruits to make a list of everyone they knew or saw regularly and then go out and try to sponsor them one by one by giving them a presentation whether they wanted one or not until you’ve gone through the complete list.

Yes, there will be some people sponsored using this method but there are a few problems with it.

First of all, it takes forever and if you don’t know what you’re doing you can waste a lot of your valuable time.

Secondly, too many new recruits haven’t really been trained well when they are told to go out and start sponsoring. As a result, they just don’t act skillfully or professionally when approaching prospects so they not only don’t sponsor many people, but they also leave a sour taste in the prospects mouth so the chances of ever sponsoring those prospects in the future or getting any referrals from them ever is about zero. There have even been many stories of families and relatives splitting up and never talking to each other again because of the tactics used by an inexperienced new recruit. This is how the term “NFL Club” originated. It stands for “No Friends Left”.

Thirdly, the rejection you receive when you’re trying to “pitch” something to people who have not indicated that they have any interest in it is just too much for many people to bear. Many people quit the business very prematurely because they just cannot take that amount of rejection all at once.

To me, Sending new recruits out unprepared like that is like sending lambs to slaughter. I wouldn’t do it and I wouldn’t recommend it.

What I recommend . . .

To start, I recommend a modified version of the Accidental Salesman Approach. Remember how I told you I walked around with a Catalog in my hand?

You can use catalogs or if you don’t have catalogs on hand yet, you can print out flyers and sometimes even the whole catalog depending on the company you are affiliated with.

All you do is approach everyone you know and say . . .

“I just became a distributor for the XYZ Company. We carry a line of products that people like you use. Will you do me a favor and look through this catalog (or flyer)? If there is anything you would like to order, let me know and I’ll get ordered it for you. If you don’t see anything, no problem, just pass the catalog (or flyer) on to someone else or give it back to me.”

Make sure your contact information is on the catalog.

This is a nice, easy, no stress, no rejection way to let people know what you do.

Compare it to what you would do if you opened a little brick and mortar store or restaurant. Would you have any problem saying to your friends and relatives, “Hey, I just opened a little restaurant. Come down and check it out.”

That would be the natural thing to do, wouldn’t it? And wouldn’t you be comfortable doing that? Just as comfortable as you’ll be spreading the word about your new business.

But there are some limitations to this approach

The biggest limitation is that if you’re personally speaking to and handing something to someone, you have to be there. That takes time and you have to know where they are or are going to be so you can personally talk to them.

The reason that you are approaching your friends and family is so you can start to

Let People Know What You Do.

That is the first step in prospecting. The way to speed up this process is to use the mail to reach the people you haven’t spoke to personally. All you do is get the name and address of your friends and family who you haven’t spoken to personally and mail them a simple letter using the same words above that you would use if you were speaking to them in person and enclose a small product flyer that you can print up online.

You can even contact your friends and family by email or text or whatever other way has come on the horizon. However, if you use those methods,  I recommend you attach one of the product flyers to the email or text.

If you mail, email, or text, make sure you follow up at least with a phone call to make sure they received your info.

You want to let your friends and family know what you do as soon as possible so they can start ordering products from you and join your company with you as their sponsor.

And before the worse thing possible has a chance to happen. That is they hear about your company from someone else and they join with them.

But wait, I didn’t say anything about presenting the business to your friends and family did I?

No, I didn’t, and there is a reason for that.

Actually there are a few of your close friends or family members that you could say, “Hey, I just started a home-based business. Check it out, it might be right for you.”

But for most of your family and friends, you may not want to do that. Start by letting them know about the products. They will be watching you to see how you do at your new business. Some may start asking questions about the business right up front. For those, send them to or give them whatever tool you use to present your opportunity. Make sure they have your Sponsor Info when they go there.

For all the rest of your friends and family, they’ll be watching and sometimes asking you how your business is going. That’s when you present the business to them as you did above.

Get some results so when you get asked you’ll have some very positive news to give them.

You won’t believe how many of your friends and family get very interested when you come back from your first all-expenses-paid trip that you won!

 

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