Step #6 – The Art Of Telephone Prospecting

If you have implemented each of the steps in the course in order than you will have come a very long way towards setting yourself up as an InterNETworkMarketer. It’s now a good time to start looking into what happens now that you are starting to generate leads using the Internet…

I heard a great interview with one of Ann Sieg’s Renegade Marketing Team members the other day and she joked about her previous mlm business as not being a ‘Home Business’ at all.   She would drive anywhere within a 3 hour radius to meet with prospects and talk about her opportunity, it was more like a mobile business.

When you use the way of working that is outlined in The Renegade Network Marketer, you will never have to move from your desk to speak with a prospect if you don’t want to.  In fact, since I have been working with Ann (August 2006), I have never mentioned my mlm business or opportunity to anyone in my family or social circle.  If they are interested  they will come and ask.

Telephone prospecting is quite an art and requires some practice.  I will say it is a lot easier when you are attracting the right kind of prospects as opposed to calling purchased 3rd party mlm leads (that can be hard and demoralizing work).

I am going to introduce you to an absolutely wonderful resource that is going to help you hone your telephone prospecting skills but first…let’s talk about telephones. I am in Australia and have prospects, customers, and downline members all over the world.  You would think that my telephone bill is so high I can’t jump over it…not so.

Skype

These days I use Skype for all of my calls, even my personal calls within Australia.  Skype is a free piece of software that you download to your PC.  If 2 people anywhere in the world have that software then they can talk for free and even have streaming video too if they like.  This I found was good for keeping in touch with friends and family but not much good for connecting with prospects as they may not have or be familiar with Skype.

Not mixing businesses…

I run an acupuncture clinic from my home and so the last thing I want is people calling me while I am doing that job wanting to know how to build a website.  The other problem I had was the answering machine message was related to my acupuncture clinic and so it all could get a little bit confusing for people who wanted to contact me about Internet/network marketing related work.

Skype has a wonderful feature called Skype-In which allows me to  purchase a phone number for about $10 per month.  This allows people call my number and it goes go through to my PC where I have a voice message recorded that is relevant to my Internet business.

What’s really great is  you can get a number for virtually any country in the world.  I have an Australian number and a United States number.  This means that people in the United States can call me at the cost of a local US call.

This certainly solved my problem of mixing my businesses but I still had to call the US frequently to attend conference calls and make International calls to prospects.

Skype used to charge a $0.06 connection fee and then a cost per minute to call a land-line number.  It turned out that I could use a phone card and get a better rate and that is what I did for the longest time.  The rates where pretty good but I would have to call a number in Australia, then enter a 12 digit pin number and then enter the number I wanted to call.

It was OK but it was a lengthy process and when you are calling many prospects, it can get rather tedious, especially when you get one digit wrong and have to start from the beginning each time…And then came Skype World!

I was chatting with a friend in Ann’s team one day and I commented about the clarity of the phone he was on and he told me he was using Skype.  He then tipped me off to what is called Skype World.   I gave it a thorough check over because there is nothing worse than getting a service and finding out that there is a hidden catch,  but I am happy to say there isn’t one with Skype World.

I purchased a year subscription for $114 and this gave me 3 numbers for 1 year and unlimited calls to any land-line in the world (10, 500 hours per month fair use policy).

I thought that is must be too good to be true but I have spent hours on the phone to the US and the UK since I purchased my yearly subscription and it hasn’t cost me a penny.

This means that people in the States, the UK and Australia can all call me at the cost of a local call because I have a local number in each country and  after my initial outlay of $114, it doesn’t cost me a cent more to call them!

The reason I purchased a yearly subscription was because you get three Skype-In numbers of any country of your choosing.  If you pay by the month it is a little more expensive and you would have to purchase the Skype-In numbers separately at around $30 for 3 months.  If you multiply 4x 30 you will see why I choose the yearly option.

I actually had a plan that was costing me $100 per month to allow me to make unlimited local and long distance calls within Australia with an Australian Tel-co and so I cut that back to line rental only which is $30 per month now.

The Skype World works out at $9.50 per month and so I just saved myself $60 a month in telephone charges, needless to say, I am pretty happy .

Here is a video showing how I use Skype:

Get Skype World by Clicking here…

The Art of Telephone Prospecting and The Works Team…

You are probably thinking prospecting and art just don’t seem to go together and in most cases they don’t…but, when prospecting is done really well it is like an art.  The text book that has been the mainstay for Ann Sieg and her team of consultants has been, The New Conceptual Selling by Stephen E. Heiman.

This is a book that was written for the sales industry in general and is not specific to network marketing at all (which may actually be an advantage).  It is a most excellent book and is going to be the framework for some really excellent training that I will introduce you to.  You can get that book from amazon by clicking here…

The Works Team

This is a resource that you will find absolutely invaluable.  The amount of information that you have available to you in this password protected website is incredible.  You will be able to access recorded calls on all aspects of prospecting based on the teaching of The New Conceptual Selling.

These calls are from Ann Sieg’s upline and mentors.  Much of Ann’s wisdom around sales in mlm comes from this source.  I guess what I am trying to say is that this information is priceless (and not just free…which in your case it is).

Here is a short video over-viewing the website:

You will need to contact me and request the Username and Password to this site.

For now that is it for this series although as time goes by I will no doubt be adding more content here and so you may wish to subscribe to this blog’s RSS Feed so that you will be notified.

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