Good Evening!
Here's a good question: What tools can a home-based business entrepreneur use to grow their business? What tools and skills should you be focusing on to achieve the growth in the business that you're looking for?
If you wanted to become a doctor, you would be required to go to school for a minimum of 8 years (up to 12, depending upon your specialty) before you would be allowed to collect income for your expertise.
If you wanted to become a lawyer, you would need to complete an undergraduate degree, as well as law school, before you would be compensated for your expertise.
If you wanted to be a software engineer, it would take a standard 4 year degree plus a masters degree before you are paid for it.
The point is this: In order to be compensated, you have to have a skill-set. The concept of "money for nothing" is a fallacy. A doctor has to have the skills to diagnose diseases. A lawyer must have the skills and knowledge of the law to help their clients. A software engineer must have the skills to benefit their employer.
I'm not going to get up on my soap-box or anything, but I will say that the world has a funny way of "balancing the scales". Today's marketplace does not reward incompetency.
So what kind of skill-set does a home-business or network marketer need to have to build a strong, consistent, long-term business?
To market a product, service, or opportunity, you must learn how to become a good communicator. You have to learn how to communicate with your target market. You have to communicate the benefits and value of what you have to offer.
Without doubt, there are people out there that need whatever it is that you're marketing. But if your market doesn't know how your products and services can benefit them, then how can you expect them to seek you out? If your target market doesn't know that you can help them, then you don't have a business. Period.
There are 3 fundamental tools that a network marketer or home-business operator can use to communicate with their market. Now, I want to be clear: if you have pockets deep enough, you can use really expensive techniques like using the radio, using infomercials, or using commercials to market your products or services.
The downside of those tools are that they are very, very expensive. In fact, if someone had that type of money, then they probably wouldn't have started a home-based business. Most of us don't have a half-million dollars in the bank to promote their products and services.
So here are the 3 tools of the MLM trade, the 3 skills that you can hone and perfect to communicate with your market:
Power-Tool # 1 - The Telephone.
Are you disappointed? It seems so simple, so basic. It might even seem like a downer, using the telephone to grow your business. But the telephone is one of the most powerful...most time-saving...most effective business growth tools anyone can use.
It has been said that more business is done on the golf-course than anywhere else. I disagree. I believe that more business is done over the telephone than anywhere else on earth. The telephone offers 2 distinct advantages:
A. - It's dirt cheap. It costs around $20 a month for unlimited telephone long-distance. Now, not everyone has access to the Internet, but nearly everyone has access to the telephone, so if you're building an organization, you want to be able to teach those that choose to join you in your business to use tools that they can absolutely master, and start mastering immediately.
B. - Efficiency. You can reach more people, in less time, than you could ever imagine doing in a "belly to belly" environment. You can run all around town, and talk to prospects in person, and if you drive really really fast, you might be able to talk to 10 or 15 people in one day. However, sitting at home, I can use the telephone to talk to 200 - 300 prospects in a single day. From a numbers standpoint, it makes a lot of sense.
Power-Tool # 2 - The Internet.
Why is it that everyone is obsessed with the Internet? Why do marketers believe that the Internet can make them rich? The answer is simple: Because it can.
The Internet is an extremely potent, extremely effective tool to grow your business. It is a bit more advanced than the telephone from a skill standpoint, and it takes a bit longer to truly master. However the rewards for mastering that tool far outweigh the effort it requires.
The Internet has been responsible to creating more millionaires (and even billionaires) in less time, than at any other point in the history of the world. Again, it is simply a tool to communicate with your market.
One of the added benefits of the Internet is time leverage. Your business builders may or may not choose to work one evening, and your downline might choose to be lazy. But if you have a campaign on the Internet, you know without doubt that the Internet will work extremely hard for you, even while you are sleeping.
Power- Tool # 3 - The Written Word.
The written word is the most powerful tool you can ever use to grow your business, hand down. Can you imagine have someone calling you on the phone, credit-card in hand, asking you to take their order? Can you picture what it's like to have someone fax you an order for your products and services?
That's the power of the written word. It works when you don't. It closes business while you vacation. It speaks to prospects, answers their questions, and creates the urgency to buy. It is phenomenally powerful.
Consider: My wife and I visited Hannibal, Missouri, this last weekend. Hannibal is where Mark Twain was raised. Mark Twain (aka Sam Clemens) has been dead for a very long time. And yet, the books that he wrote still create income for people. In other words, Mark Twain created a residual income with the written word that is so powerful...it continues to work even after he has physically passed on. That's the power of effective communication. That's the power of the written word.
Those are the 3 most important tools you can use to grow your business. Notice, I didn't put in 3-way calls, DVD presentations, flyers, business cards, product samples, etc.
Why?
Because all those items take away from your ability to correctly use Positioning to your advantage. Positioning is the art and science of developing a relationship with a consumer based on their needs, and your ability to satisfy that need.
Positioning allows you to develop expertise in the eyes of your prospect, to become a "problem solver". If you use a 3-way call, or a DVD or a product sample to close business for you, then you are deflecting your expertise to another source. When you do that, you diminish your ability to solve the problem for your client.
In effect, you are saying "I can't actually solve your problem, so why don't to talk to this person, or watch this video, and they will solve your problem". At that point, you become a gopher, not an expert. You lose your position.
Master the tools to grow your business, and get paid. These tools are powerful. I can tell you that these are the same 3 tools I use every day to grow my businesses, and they work. There's no magic here, no secret formula. It's amazing what one person, with the right skills, can accomplish.
I hope you've enjoyed this information. Until next time...
