Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Building Your Target Market In Network Marketing

There are literally hundreds and even thousands of direct sales companies in America. This vast market of companies provides individuals who are looking to join the direct sales/network marketing industry to promote the business that fits their personal interests. There are opportunities to market an endless supply of products, and/or services, including: perfumes & body lotions, health & weight loss products, insurance and financial products, telecommunications products, etc.

Upon making your selection to join with a particular company, you will go through some form of initial training. At some point in this training, you will hear of the term "warm market." In today's post, I would like to elaborate upon this term, and to also share additional options that you may have for expanding upon your warm market. The idea here is to create an endless list of prospects that you can market your business to.


Warm Market

So what does your warm market consist of? The best way to start your list of contacts when starting a new direct sales opportunity, is to create a list of 50-100 names. These names should include the following: friends, family members, co-workers, church members, neighbors, individuals that you have established relationships with in your local community, etc.

If you can pick up your phone, and have the individual on the other line recognize who you are, immediately upon hearing your name, and/or voice, then this individual is part of your warm market, and should be included in your first list of contacts.

Your company should have a system, which includes a script that you can utilize when making calls to your first list of contacts. The WORST thing that you could ever do for your business, would be to pick up your phone, and to blow through you list of contacts, recklessly spouting off at the mouth, and begging these individuals to join with you, simply due to your having established personal relationships.

The purpose of this initial call, is to simply inform the individuals within your warm market of your linking up with a business opportunity, and to invite them to check out a BRIEF presentation on the products, and/or services that your company has to offer. Do not take the approach of a telemarketer on this initial call, as the goal here is NOT to press for a sale.


I Have Exhausted My Warm Market. Now what?

At some point in the DISTANT future, you will run out of people to speak to in YOUR warm market. I will share a few tips with you on things that you can do at this point, later on in this post. However, I would like to focus a bit more on this idea of running out of people to talk to in YOUR warm market.

I explained earlier in the post how to go about identifying YOUR warm market. However, if you promote your business to YOUR warm market in an effective fashion, then you will eventually find yourself signing new customers and business partners into your business. Each time that you sign a new customer or a new business partner into your business, you are then introduced to an ENTIRELY NEW warm market!!

Ex. Years ago, I purchased a life insurance policy from a company called Western Southern Life Insurance. I had never heard of the company, and I had not established any previous relationships with any of the representatives within this particular organization. So how did I end up purchasing a policy from Western Southern Life Insurance?

One of the sales reps in the company sold a large life insurance policy to my older brother. At some point in the sales process, this rep asked my brother for the names and phone numbers of three people that MIGHT be interested in purchasing life insurance. I was one of the three individuals that he presented to this rep.

When the rep contacted me, this was her approach on the telephone: "Hello, my name is Heather Dullock. Your brother (Orlando) just purchased a life insurance policy from me, and he asked me to contact you to see if you would also be interested in protecting your family with a life insurance policy." When Heather signed my brother to a life insurance policy, I IMMEDIATELY became a part of HER warm market! Now had she dialed me up randomly, and attempted to sell me an insurance policy, then she would have heard a click, followed by a dial tone. However, by dropping my brother's name, this created a product association, and she was able to land a sale.

You can use this SAME approach in your business, and in doing so, you will create an ENDLESS list of WARM contacts. By warm contacts in this sense, I am simply pointing out the fact that when you can contact a prospect with news of a friend or a family member already utilizing your product, and/or service, then you are in fact still dealing with a warm market. As long as you have customers who have not referred more than five people to you, then you have NOT exhausted your warm market.


Building Your Business In A Cold Market

"Winslow, I'm new to the industry. I was raised in Michigan. I moved to Florida recently, and I do not have any friends or family members here in Florida. How should I build my market?"

In this situation, I would still encourage you to start with your warm market. In your situation, this process may be a bit more challenging, as you will be forced to make the bulk of your initial contacts via the phone, and/or the internet. However, there is nothing stopping you from shipping free samples, or arranging for Skype meetings, where you can conduct live face-to-face presentations with your warm contacts who may reside in other states.

Social media also provides an ENDLESS flow of contacts for your new business. If you have not done this already, I would encourage you to add to your friend's list on Facebook, on a daily basis. Seek to add 5-10 new friends to your list each day. You are in the network marketing business now, and so you will need to build a NETWORK of NEW contacts. The direct sales industry is NOT for individuals who wish to restrict their friend's list to private groups of 100 or so family members. Your goal should be to create a list of 5,000 Facebook friends.

In addition to Facebook, there are endless opportunities to market your business utilizing the internet. You can create Youtube videos, blogs, Facebook fan pages, Twitter accounts, etc, and you can also post information to hundreds of online forums. The point that I am stressing to you here is that this business (network marketing) is a game of MAXIMUM exposure. Utilize EVERY opportunity that you have to EXPOSE your business to potential customers and/or business partners.

The last tip that I will provide here on the subject, involves the use of off-line marketing in a cold market, and I will attach a couple of videos here of 5 Star Ambassador, Kevin Merriweather, of Visalus, sharing live tips on how to approach complete strangers in your local community, and to quickly present your business to these individuals.

Establish a personal goal of sharing your business in a face-to-face setting, with 3-5 people on a DAILY BASIS! This can be in your local barbershop, at the restaurants that you visit on a regular basis, at your local gym, etc. Even with this off-line approach, I would encourage you to at least begin with individuals who have at least met you at some point in your life. This will remove the defensive posture, and make for nice conversation.

I will end this by posting two videos from 5 Star Ambassador, Kevin Merriweather, training on the subject of promoting your business in a cold market. I do hope that this information has been of some benefit to you. If you have additional questions, or if you would like to join my team as a promoter of the Body By Vi 90 Day challenge, where I would be more than happy to provide you with additional support and training, then you may contact me directly at 517-240-0190.-Winslow Willis


Part ONE



Part TWO

No comments:

Post a Comment