Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Lesson #1 - Rejection, and What Causes It.

Dear MLM Distributor & Members,

Welcome to this 7 part e-course! Each day, for 7 days, I will put a post here with the lesson for that day and also some short exercises to illustrate the lesson. I encourage you to complete those exercises. They will help you “absorb and understand” the ideas and concepts that I talk about. I want to thank you for joining me on this program which will cover:

Why the conventional sales techniques and systems taught to Distributors and Direct Sales people:
  • Are ineffective for most of them.
  • Actually cause the objections and rejection that they would prefer not to have.
  • Are the reason for the high team and customer attrition rate.

How you can reverse this and change the results for you and your team by adopting a different approach that I call Natural Selling.

OK, let’s begin!

Lesson #1

Do You Make This Mistake When Talking With Potential Customers or Partners?

The Way You Communicate Will Determine The Way People Respond To You

Ask yourself this. What is the greatest fear that holds back most Distributors and Direct Sellers (and perhaps yourself) from talking with people about their business, products or services? If you are like most it will be the fear of Rejection and all the painful feelings that come with that.

Two Types of Rejection

In my experience, there are two kinds of rejection:

  • The flat in your face “Not interested” type of rejection; and
  • The type where someone has looked at your solution and finds it doesn’t really fit what they need.

The second one can be disappointing but it doesn’t necessarily feel personal. So in this program I’m addressing the first one!

The Cause of Rejection

Have you considered that…

  • if you do have feelings of anxiety about talking with people about your Business Opportunity and/or Products…
  • or you feel the need to get pumped up before you meet prospective customers,
  • or you drag your feet before making those calls and your anxiety prevents you from talking effectively with them

… it could be it’s the way you have chosen to communicate, or think you have to communicate, that is causing this?

Life is full of choices and what you choose to think, say or do, will reflect how other people will think, say or do in response to you.

Let’s look at this more closely and explore the underlying causes of what is holding you back, before I start proposing a possible solution for you.

Why does it make sense to do this? Well, because before I can start proposing a solution would you agree with me that the solution should be based on discovering what is behind this problem called rejection and the fear associated with it, and whether you identify with it before I explain what you can do about it?

If I start off by telling you what you should do about it, then I'm no different than all the other books and trainings that give you quick fixes, systems and techniques!

There are two key things to grasp:

  • People do things for their reasons not ours. They are motivated by their personal interest. You may have heard this referred to as the “What’s In It For Me?” syndrome; and
  • Most people resist being “told” what to do or persuaded to do things, but they do like to learn what to do and how to do it.

And yet isn't it true that what most Distributors or Direct Sellers do when they hear someone express their problems or needs, such as a need for money or good health, is to launch in with their solutions without discovering much, if anything, about the person’s situation or needs and the history behind it? They go ahead with a “one size fits all” fire hose presentation that basically “tells” them what to do.

And does one size fit all? Or are we all unique in how we see things? If you choose to act on the one size fits all view, then rejection and objections is the natural consequence of that.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter much what you think about your product or your solutions and whether they are going to work for someone. It’s what the other person thinks. So if you start your conversations by overpowering people and coming up with your solutions too early, most will withdraw. As a result you have to learn the conventional selling techniques of objection handling, closing and mental strategies to overcome the rejection you created in the first place! It becomes a 'numbers game' that requires a great deal of effort and time to make it work for you.

People like to do things for their reasons not yours!

Observe your own experiences. Have you ever been in a situation where you asked someone for a solution to a problem and they started with the words, “You know what you should do…?” Did you feel resentful or annoyed, even though you asked for help? If you did, it’s probably because you didn’t feel involved and your own uniqueness and knowledge was not being acknowledged. It's the same for most people.

The Natural Law Of Giving – Working For You Or Against You?

The Law of Giving works like this. What you give is what you get. Other people's actions and words are a reflection of your actions and words. It's like a smile. If you smile at people, most will smile back. This is the law working for you.

However, most Distributor's (and sales people) inadvertently have the law working against them by telling, presenting or persuading people to do things they want them to do. Result? Most people will tell them back! How? By one or more of three ways:

  • Rejection
  • Objections
  • Passive Aggression. When people say they will do something and don't! This is also called 'Buyers Remorse'.

In selling, if you want the Law of Giving to work for you and have people listen to you and your solutions, then listen with the intent to understand them first.

Tomorrow we will look at how you can do this and build your team and customers with effortless ease based on solid principles and methods that work…. all the time! See you tomorrow!

Exercises

  • Reflect on how you feel when a salesperson, charity solicitor or telemarketer tries to get you to do something.
  • Think about your reaction when you see an advertisement on TV or in print. If you paid attention to it, why is that?

Doing these exercises will help you understand and use the material we will be discussing over the next 6 days.

To your success...

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