The Nightmare of Telephone Prospecting In Network Marketing
Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.
Over the weekend, someone asked, “Hey, remember pagers?”
Boy, do I!
My husband is a truck driver and back in the early 90s, he wore a pager all the time. He was “on call” and when that thing went off, no matter what we were doing, off he’d run to make a phone call and find out where he’d been dispatched to and what time he had to be there.
It was a pain in the ass. And stressful. I hated that thing because it was always getting into the middle of what we were doing. Even just sleeping: beep-beep-beep-beep. 2 a.m. Gotta get up, make the call, jump in the shower, and gone.
Cell phones changed that, but not by much. It was still a phone call that took you away from what you were doing.
When I got into network marketing, the phone (in general) was my business’s life blood. I worked the phones to make my sales.
I smiled and dialed for dollars. And I did it successfully. For 8 or 10 or 12 hours a day, every day.
As our group got big, we added training calls. And then business opportunity calls. And then more training calls and support calls – and soon, in addition to actively prospecting my business, my partners and I were choreographing 40 hours a week of team calls. And leading many of them ourselves.
Lots of dollars. LOTS of hours.
I ended up hating the phone. I just hated it. I didn’t want to smile and dial anymore.
Then along came autodialers! Gee! What a neat idea! Now I can upload my leads list and just sit here like a bonafide telemarketer and talk to even MORE people (or leave even more messages) every single day. What fun.
Not so much.
Lots of dollars. NO FREE TIME.
My once bright and shiny business was looking bleakly gray.
Burn out.
I couldn’t do it anymore.
Why not find something to do that didn’t require me to be on the phones? Everything out there that didn’t require me to be on the phones, DID require me to be having parties…house parties, tasting parties, 3-party plans…or meetings.
I didn’t want to do parties or meetings. I did them, but I didn’t want to do them. If you’re doing something you don’t want to do, you don’t do it for long.
And then the search began. What could I do that would get money, could be duplicated throughout an organization so that other people could get money, too, that didn’t require me to pick up the phone – EVER – and didn’t require me to do parties or meetings?
Didn’t exist.
Not for years.
And then one day…
One surprising day…
2 people that I respect and admire both sent me an email about what they were doing. And it didn’t require a phone. And it didn’t require meetings. And lots of people were getting money doing it.
Too good to be true, I thought. It’s hype. Great marketing.
More time passed.
I was still looking for something to do that would get money, with NO phone calls and NO parties.
And it happened again, but this time in a different way.
This time, I called a friend of mine in the industry – someone who knows what’s going on with all the companies and all the leaders out there, and I asked him:
“What’s Good Out There? Really Good…Legit…Well Run…Reputable…Great Leadership…Where People Are Making Money?”
And he told me.
Dang! That’s the same thing my two respected colleagues had let me know about months ago and I decided it was too good to be true.
Could it really be? I could get money without being attached to the phones?
And at that very moment…”DING”…I got an email.
Before I tell you about that email, I want to tell you this: What reminded me of all of this, and actually put a knot in my stomach from remembering the pain of working the phones all day, was an email I received this morning:
“Mobile phone sales are in the hundreds of millions each year and tablets are all the buzz.
With Mobile being a game changer today, it doesn’t make sense to sit around your desktop PC waiting for your business to happen.
With our app you can stay plugged in and ‘in the zone’ anywhere – any time.
Waiting for a call from your new recruit but got some errands to run? No Problem.
Pulled the trigger on a marketing campaign and new leads are flooding in but this is the first sunny day in a week and you promised the kids a beach day? No Problem.”
The email went on and on about how your cell phone can free you from working the phones at home…because NOW, you can work the phones from the grocery store, from the beach…from anywhere!
I thought, “This is bullshit! This is exactly what I hated, only now I can be miserable ‘anywhere – any time.’”
And as my stomach started to roil, I remembered:
“I don’t have to do that anymore! I found it! I found how to get money without picking up the phone, without having parties or meetings. I’ve found true freedom”
Yay for me!
It was like waking up from a bad dream and realizing it was a bad dream and I was fine!
I am better than fine!
The only thing that would make it better than ‘better than fine’ would be to share it with you.
So, right after I hang up with my friend Greg, I get an email: “DING”
And it’s from one of the two people who had emailed me months earlier.
I figured it was a sign, right? So I clicked a link and watched a totally surprising video.
It was mesmerizing. It was funny. It was irreverent. It was refreshing. It was effective!
I was in! I was ALL IN!
Now, that guy I knew that sent me an email and then another…he’s a good friend and mentor and he’s taught me how to get money without the phones and without meetings and parties.
And guess what?
It’s simple. It’s so simple my teenage son can do it.
It’s so simple, even busy you can do it.
That’s where it starts.
When you make the decision to get started, I’ll be in touch and we’ll lock arms and save the world together! (You think I’m kidding?)
Think about what you will do when you have not only the money but also the time to do whatever you want. Think about spending your time with the people you love most, doing what you love best, whenever you want, wherever you want.
Get past that and think about all the people you could help…with enough time and money. Philanthropy happens when people have time and money.
Get past making yourself and your family comfortable (I mean get past that time in your mind, NOT get over it – we all do this for our loved ones – to provide them with a better life – with the life that they deserve…with the life that WE deserve!)
Imagine a point past the point where you and your family are comfortable and you now have the time and extra money to help others.
Are you getting the picture about saving the world?
Donna
Work Directly With Me!