Business Building Skills
Skill Sets of a Professional, Part 2
By Randy Gage
May 26, 2008 - 4:26:34 PM

This is part two of a five-week series on the skills necessary to
become a network marketing professional. Last week we explored the
first skill set, the ability to work a candidate list. Now let's
study the second: Inviting.

Your ability to invite people in a compelling manner is probably
the most important of these skill sets. Because it's the one that
gets your candidates into the recruiting pipeline. It means they
are reviewing the correct information to determine if they are
right for the business.

Some of the things you might invite a candidate to do are:

* Review some marketing materials;
* Attend a home presentation;
* Attend an opportunity meeting;
* Get on a 3-way call;
* Listen to a conference call; or,
* Participate in a webcast.

Your ability to invite candidates to take actions like these with
power, conviction, and poise will have a huge impact on how fast
and large you are able to build a business. And it will have a
dramatic impact on your earnings ability.

A network marketing amateur may invite ten prospects to watch a DVD
and only one or two will do so. A network marketing professional
might get eight or nine out of ten. Likewise with a home meeting.
Professionals that have honed their inviting skills will get high
turnouts, while those that haven't will have poor compliance rates.


The good news is that inviting skills - like all of our skill sets
- can be readily developed if you will commit to learning how. A
good invitation should:
* Be well planned, yet earnest and sincere;
* Lead with benefits for the prospect;
* Be for something in the immediate future; and,
* Have a strong sense of urgency.

Let's look at each of these in turn:

I'm not a big believer in people rehearsing programmed, robotic
scripts. They almost never work. However having a general
guideline of what you want to say is important. When I'm creating
a system for a client or my own team, I like to provide a number of
general ideas of what you might say. Then I encourage people to
find something that feels and sounds right for them, and make it
their own. By having some guidelines of what you can say in
different situations, each person can find something that is right
for them. And if it feels right to you, it will be earnest and
sincere, and not sound stilted or canned. The discipline of
knowing what you want to say and what the outcome you want are,
actually give you the freedom to relax and be real.

A big mistake amateurs make is to structure an invitation around
features, not benefits. Features are things about you, your
products or company. Benefits are always about the prospect.
Saying things like, I'm working with a 25-year old debt-free
company and we're looking for key people" have no benefit to the
candidate. Leading with a benefit such as, "I'm working with a
company that offers a free car, profit sharing and passive income
potential and you could do great with it," is much more likely to
be compelling to a prospect.

The next important aspect of the invitation is timeliness. If you
invite people to a home presentation three weeks from now, you'll
have a lot of people confirm they can attend. But by the time the
event rolls around, you'll find actual attendance quite low. But
if you invite someone to a home presentation in the next few days,
some people will have previous commitments, but the percentage of
people that actually turn out will be much higher.

Finally your invitation should have a sense of urgency. If you
want them to watch a DVD, ask how soon they can do it. When you
hand out a packet of information, set a timely deadline to get back
in touch. Let people know that positioning and timing are
important.

The best way to develop strong inviting skills is to practice them.
Bounce your invitation off your sponsor and practice with your
spouse. Invite your dog or cat. Get a MP3 player and record your
invitation and play it back. Does it sound like someone that could
show you how to achieve financial freedom? If not, keep practicing
until it does. Like all of our skill sets, this can be learned.

Next time we'll look at our third skill set: Follow up. Until
then, have a great week!

-RG



© Copyright MMIII by NetworkMarketingTimes.com
a division of Prime Concepts Group, Inc.