Network Marketing Journey

Buying leads, prospecting and cold calling is something you will hear about often in Network Marketing. Many people believe it is the best way to build a business if you don’t have a lot of personal OR business contacts.

For some that may be the case but not everyone is going to be comfortable, nor should they be making cold calls at all. I say this because some people just aren’t meant to be picking up the phone, calling people they don’t know, to hock their wares.

In my opinion, cold calling leads you have purchased–people who have no connection to you at all, mind you–is dead. Right along with the door to door sales technique. After all, they are essentially the same thing are they not?

You’re interrupting their day, trying to sell them on something they don’t care to know about and you’ve invested time, money and sweat equity on something which could get a door slammed in your face. In my case it was a death threat and slamming the phone in my ear.

Yes, you read that right.

I spent the first part of the evening organizing my desk and getting everything ready. At least, that is what I told myself. Eventually there was nothing left except to jump in and begin making calls. Clearly, I was nervous.

Actually, its more accurate to say i was terrified.

My fingers gripped the pen I was holding as if it were for dear life.

And then I made my frist call.

My voice quaked as I read the script.

The first handful of calls followed the same vain.

After making a dozen dials and talking to a few people, it was already beginning to wear thin. After all, I was an introvert persuing something which is not inline with my genius (talents). I resolved to make one last call when the phone rang.

It was one of the phone numbers of someone I had spoken to not more than 30 minutes beforehand.

I answered.

The man on the other end of the line is the husband of the woman I had spoken too. He’s furious. The interesting part of all of this is the fact that she and I spoke for all of 5 minutes. She told me she wasn’t interested and I thanked her for her time and that was it.

No pitching. Pushing or anything.

But her husband, we’ll call him B, was on the other end of the line cussing, swearing and asking me why I was calling to talk to his wife. I could barely get a word in edge-wise between all of B’s blathering when he came out with it.

If you call here again, I’ll kill you. Do you here me? I’m going to find you, hunt you down and kill you.

No lie. Word for word, thats exactly what he said. I’ll never forget that moment.

Obviously he can’t follow through. He’s just trying to unnerve me which wasn’t really necessary considering I was already pretty shaken from fighting against my fears. Months later I would finally realize I had drawn this experience to me by simply thinking, feeling and expecting it to happen.

Anyway, I tried to tell him about the conversation with his wife but he just kept bombarding me with the threats of an unbalanced man insane with issues.

I hung up on him.

The next day when I talked to Tom about it he encouraged me to call the guy back and joke with him. Essentially saying that I had only received half of my training that day and now, today, I was ready to complete our conversation.

Tom insisted that the guy would either laugh and talk with me OR he’d hang up.

I never did call the guy back. I wouldn’t want a guy like that for a customer, let sponsor the guy to work in my business.

That day taught me some things. First of all, I didn’t have a lot of skill in cold calling or sales. Secondly, I realized I didn’t want to ever be put in that situation ever again. On that day I recognized the need for a system which would bring people interested in the business to me.

Whether they opted in to my website, called or emailed me–I was never again going to barge into someone’s life without their invitation.

That is when Matt came into my life.

After months of searching, testing and visualizing I would find myself generating my own leads. Not only did these people know who I was, they were tied to a specific project and they initiated the conversation. At the height of that campaign I was generating more leads than my team and I could handle.

This is why finding YOUR genius is so important to your business.

Don’t worry about the prattling on of your sponsor, telling you what you have to do. It’s YOUR business, you build it in the way which suits you.

Leading with your strengths puts you in a position of confidence, you know it and understand it. Then once you have drawn success to your side, you can address the your weaker points.

Stop chasing the things that haunt you.

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