• Do you have trouble convincing people to buy / accept your idea, product, service, Joint Venture, or suggestions?
• Do you find your offers and proposals being rejected too often?
• Is it hard for you to get appointments and time with successful people?
• Is your closing ratio / conversion ratio too low?
• Do you want more access, acceptance, sales, acknowledgment, and buy-in?

You Can Do Something About It

First, recognize that if someone else in the same area, industry, and environment, with similar products, services, and offers, is doing better than you are, then there is definitely something you can do about it. That’s good news. So here are some pointers that will work for you:

Tip #1 – Up Your Enthusiasm

Your level of enthusiasm and belief will open many doors. Enthusiasm is contagious, and if you don’t believe in yourself and your offer, nobody else will. The higher your confidence level, the more impact you will have.

How can you increase this?

The word “Enthusiasm” ends with the letters IASM – I Am Sold Myself. You have to believe in, buy, and use your own product or service. You have to be “a product of the product.”

You increase your confidence and self-esteem by knowing everything there is to know about what you’re selling, the benefits, and the details, so training and learning about what you’re selling is essential. The more you learn, the more you will earn. Disciplined learning will increase your self-esteem and expectations.

Tip #2 – You have to look (and act) like a million dollars before you earn it.

Your personal presentation is important. If you’re badly dressed with bed head, sleep creases on your face, cat hair on your coat, and unshaven, no winner will want to talk with you. BO, halitosis, showing up late, not delivering on your promises, and a bad haircut will simply destroy any credibility you might have had.

You have to look successful and act successful in order to BE successful. Look like a million dollars before you can earn it. BE – DO – HAVE. Remember that. People DO judge a book by its cover, and first impressions are lasting impressions.

Tip #3 – Keep It about the Other Person

Talk in the interests of the other person, get your ego out of the way, and don’t waste your prospect’s time. Be very well prepared with a specific sales strategy.

Tip #4 – Look Good On Paper Too

If you have anything in writing, keep it concise, to the point, professional, bottom-line oriented, and on good paper. You will be judged by your written material, hand-outs, and spelling mistakes. Your prospect is looking for clues, so make sure the clues he finds are good ones.

Tip #5 – Set the Bar High and Be Ready to Walk Away

Self-respect, selectivity, and setting the bar high will label you as a professional to be taken seriously. If you’re desperate, needy, broke, and tense, you will frighten any winners away fast.

Be relaxed, well prepared, and ready to walk away from any deal. The more prospects you have, the easier this is, so use Joint Ventures to procure on-going streams of qualified prospects.

See yourself as your prospect’s equal. Be strong and focused.

Tip #6 – Carefully Choose Your “Field of Battle”

Choose the environment in which you present yourself carefully – the Four Seasons is better than a Mac Donald’s.

Tip #7 – Craft a Win/Win Offer…

Make sure your offer is genuinely win/win – think about what’s in it for the prospect, his return on investment, and his goals.

Try to remove the risk and cost from both parties as much as possible.

Tip #8 – …And Craft an Offer that’s Too Good to Be Refused.

Sweeten the pot through the use of Joint Ventures, by adding massive value – “an offer too good to be refused” – this takes preparation and thought, but you can differentiate yourself from your competition by adding four times the value, at no cost top yourself, through Joint Ventures.

Tip #9 – Stop Blaming Outside Circumstances

Stop blaming others and the economy for your poor ales – take personal responsibility – that is the mark of a winner.

Tip #10 – Remember to “Yahoo”

Finally, be sensitive – when someone makes it clear they’re not interested, walk away fast.  There are many fish in the sea, you have many options, and walking away from uncooperative prospects will increase your self-esteem and therefore your income.

Remember “Yahoo”.  You Always Have Other Options!

DollarMakers provides on-going, ever-improving training and support, access and information on how to be a successful and professional Joint Venture Broker, based on our own experience and the changing marketplace. JV’s will help you to increase sales, whether you have a business or not, and we’re here to help.

Flying somewhere in the world almost every weekend, I have learned an important lesson:

Don’t talk to the person sitting next to you!

Why this anti-social choice? On a five or eight hour flight, even on a two-hour flight, you run the real risk of being locked into a one-sided conversation about the other person.

It’s like attending a “Business Networking Meeting”:

Ask someone, “What do you do?” and be prepared for a torrent of verbal trash and unadulterated BS that only stops when the other person decides that you’re not going to buy from him, at which time here turns you off fast, turns his back, and turns on his next unsuspecting victim.

People are Not Interested in You

You should realize that when people ask, “How ya doin’?” they really don’t want an answer. When they inquire about your business, they’re only trying to find out if you will buy their products or services – they’re looking for sales signals or buying signs; they’re prospecting. They are not interested in you, your welfare, or your opinion – unless it leads to buying their stuff.

Why This Poor Behavior is GREAT for You!

Sell, tell, push, and pressure – it’s amazing how so many broke, self-employed salespeople, has-beens and wanna-be’s, think that if they inundate you with enough egotistical, boring, self-aggrandizing information, you’ll eagerly whip out your check book and buy from them. And that, dear reader, is excellent news.

Why?

Because it gives you the opportunity to benefit from this mindless and desperate behavior. It offers you the lucrative opportunity to get people to send you more business than you can shake a stick at, using a simple, yet highly effective approach.

OK, so here is your action plan:

#1 – Only talk with successful people.

First, only talk with successful people who are capable of sending you lots of business, and many, qualified prospects.

#2 – Don’t talk about yourself.

Second, don’t talk about yourself, your products or services, your needs, opinions, or family. Nobody cares. Get used to it.

#3 – Recognize and drop losers fast!

Third, if the person you’re talking to looks at his Blackberry, interrupts you, or answers his phone, drop him like a hot cake. If he’s badly dressed / groomed, or appears arrogant or distracted, move away fast. If he’s a loser, he will refer you to losers.

#4 – ONLY talk about the other person.

Fourth, only talk about him:

• his products
• his family
• his goals
• his challenges
• his pain
• his needs
• his dreams
• his hopes

Dig deep with open-ended, strategic questions to find his Hot Button.

• What keeps him awake at night?
• What are his secret desires and fears?
• What does he want, or want to avoid, most of all?

Sincere, focused attention on him will make him like you and feel connected. Match and model his movements, speed, tone, and personality type to get in harmony with him, without going over the top (he sneezes, swears and burps, so you do, too).

#5 – Find solutions to bring relief for him through other people or their resources.

Fifth, find solutions, bridges, and relief for him through other people or the resources of others. That’s what Joint Venture Brokers do, and we get paid by the businesses providing those solutions. (This is what I specifically teach at our DollarMakers Bootcamps or through the Home Study Course.  You can read more about that here.)

We like people who help us, relieve our pain, and protect us, don’t we? We tend reciprocate when people do us favors and make us feel good about ourselves. The more value you can create for the other person (while getting paid for the referrals, of course,) the more likely he is to want to reward and repay us.

#6 – Set up reciprocation (that is also in his favor).

Sixth, after solving his problems, (not before,) alleviating his pain, and making him feel like a million bucks, show his specifically and exactly how he can reciprocate and return the favor, and how that will earn him generous commissions and favors from you that can be applied directly to his previously revealed Hot Button.

This is where you can set up a Referral System, Piggyback Mailing, Host Beneficiary Relationship, Endorsed Mailing, or other Joint Venture, again speaking specifically in the interest of the other person, never your own.

Solve More Problems = Get More Business

Zig Ziglar said:

“You can get anything you want out of life, if you’re prepared to help enough other people to get what they want.”

He didn’t say, “Run your mouth, blow your own trumpet, bore them with your false promises, and they’ll buy from you just to get rid of you.”

Solve the problems of good people and they will send you more business than you can shake a stick at.

Joint Venture Brokers get paid for solving, not selling.

We see every problem and goal as an income source, or dollarmaker. We understand that knowing what someone’s Hot Button is and knowing how to release the resources required to help others get what they want, with no cost or risk, is the way to wealth and strong relationships.

Most entrepreneurs have been taught that you have three options with any prospect:

• First, you can sell them something.
• Second, you can sell them more than once.
• And third, they may refer new business to you.

This is a linear, traditional way of thinking.

Use Joint Ventures to Maximize Impact

In today’s world, we have to think in terms of viral marketing and multiple impacts. In order to illustrate a simple Joint Venture scenario, let’s use the example of someone who recently joined the DollarMakers Joint Venture Forum. We’ll call her Carol. She has one thousand clients who know, respect, and trust her. How can she use Joint Ventures to make a serious amount of money, fast?

Make Real Money with a Replicator Website

I suggested Carol start off by leasing a Replicator Website, which will track all business and pay her up to 50% of all sales, including the sales of audio downloads, training, Memberships, more replicator sites, my book, etc. I would then write a very compelling letter for her to send to her database and friends, inviting them to visit her site and obtain a complimentary audio download, which I would create specially for her clients – applicable to their specific type of business. Carol would send out this email and two follow-up e-mails, which could make her a significant amount of money.

Build Your Back-End with Gift Certificates

Then she would send each of her thousand clients five Gift Certificates as a Thank You Gesture for their loyalty and patronage. Each gift Certificate would offer her clients a complimentary service worth at least $100.  For example, a business consultant might offer a complimentary consultation worth $150.

• Each Gift Certificate would be designed to provide real value and entice the user to buy more of the service.
• The supplier of the service would pay for the printing and postage.

Carol would have negotiated an ongoing percentage of all the business resulting from each of these 5,000 Gift Certificates that she distributes. In other words, when any of her clients started using the business consultant, accountant, lawyer, yoga trainer, spa or coach, Carol would receive a monthly check from that service provider of 20% of the total monthly bill.

This would create ongoing, multiple streams of passive income for her.

Leverage Databases with Prizes

Then, Carol could offer her clients a range of special prizes, all sponsored, which they could win. The way they could win these prizes would be to get everyone they know onto a certain conference call or to attend a seminar, which I would present, and the client who put the most people onto the call or into the seminar, would win the top prize. That way, Carol would use viral marketing to access her clients’ databases with their permission. One of her clients has 10,000 people in her database. Any sales resulting from the Conference Call or Seminar would earn Carol additional income.

Add Value AND Make Money

I could go on all night with different ways in which Carol could continually add value to her clients and make more and more money, in more and more diverse ways, as well as significantly grow her database.

Make $15,000 without Spending a Cent

In the above scenarios, Carol did not spend one cent. She continually gave away valuable information, prizes and services to her clients at every turn, as a thank you gesture for their patronage. She never tried to sell them anything. I would conservatively expect her to make at least $15,000 and an ongoing revenue stream in addition to that. This is all pure profit to her.

This system of accessing databases, giving stuff away at no cost, adding massive unprecedented and unexpected value and continually, exponentially expanding the options and reach, is typical of the atomic power of Joint Ventures.

A lot of people are cutting costs and cutting back during this recession, which can make it harder to recruit the right people. 2009 can be a time of famine, drought, and scarcity in your Network Marketing / Direct Marketing / MLM business, or it can be the year you get stinking rich.

But first, we need to agree on one important thing, and that is that this is not a time to recruit desperate people. They say, “Desperate people do desperate things”, and that is true. You want to be recruiting successful, influential, Centers of Influence.

Recruit Leaders

When you recruit a Center of Influence correctly and manage that relationship, you will be amazed at how you can rocket your Network Marketing through the roof. They can sign up their leaders and use their existing communication and resources to build your business.

Follow Through

Most Network Marketers drop the ball after signing up a Center of Influence because they’re too obsessive, desperate, and self-interested. They follow what they are taught by their company, and they forget about the fact that they are, in fact, involved in a Joint Venture.

This is the difference between what you will learn from DollarMakers and what you will learn from your Network Marketing company. I have been recruited to join Network Marketing companies as a Center of Influence myself, and I have also recruited Centers of Influence, and in most cases I made a lot of money, so I know whereof I speak.

What is a REAL Center of Influence?

Now there is a reason why you haven’t recruited a Center of Influence before, and if you have, why they’re not performing. We’re not going to discuss that here. What I want to discuss is HOW to recruit busy people who have access to many other people who will do what that Center of Influence suggests they do.

• A Center of Influence is someone who influences many people who trust, respect, and like them, and who follow their suggestions.
• A real Center of Influence communicates regularly with his or her people.

Just to be clear, there are a lot of people who SEEM to be Centers of Influence and CLAIM to have large databases, but usually those databases are simply people who once opted into their database to get a free gift, and they don’t even know who the Center of Influence is, much less open his e mails or read them or follow his advice. I’m talking about a real Center of Influence

• who cares about her people and has a relationship with them.

Your Approach Must be Based on a Relationship and Reciprocity.

The Joint Venture Mindset that we teach through DollarMakers is that you should build business based on a relationship and reciprocity. I don’t do business with people I don’t know or respect, and who haven’t built some kind of trust relationship with me. I don’t even consider promoting people or products who have not contributed to DollarMakers or been involved with us. It is dangerous to work with unknown people.

This needs to be remembered when you approach a Center of Influence.

• You have to earn the right to talk with them or pitch them.
• You have to show them that it is in their own best interest.
• First, you have to know what they want, and what their “Hot Button” is.

Remember, Centers of Influence are being pitched almost daily by MLMers who do it all wrong. If you do what everybody else does you’ll have what everybody else has. Using the Joint Venture approach, you can differentiate yourself from all the others.

Tips for Top Notch Recruitment

In a nutshell, here are the simple points to follow in order to recruit a Center of Influence into your Network Marketing business:

1. Earn the right. Create reciprocity. Build a relationship. Contribute. Become known and respected. You have to put wood on the fire before you get the heat.
2. Position yourself. Look and act successful. Dress and groom yourself appropriately. Package yourself for success.
3. Find out what the Center of Influence’s Hot Button is. You need to understand his pain, problems, challenges, hopes, dreams, goals, and secret wishes. This takes work and research, but it’s well worth it. Be clear about what he wants, so that you prepare the bait / prize / incentive correctly.
4. Prepare your offer properly. Customize your presentation and be sure that it’s all about the Center of Influence to show her how she will benefit by joining you.
5. Make your offer in such a way that it is hard to refuse. Remove time, money, risk, inconvenience, and irritation, and add massive value and substance. Push the Hot Button effectively.
6. Close and sign him up.
7. Follow-up and management – this is the most important part. If you stop putting wood on the fire, it will go out, and you will be replaced.

Finally, remember this:

The Center of Influence you are going to recruit is not going to be doing your business on a full time basis – she already has a successful business, and you are simply an add-on. By neglecting this fact and assuming you and your products or services are the center of the universe, you will very quickly lose the relationship and commitment of that Center of Influence.  That’s what DollarMakers teaches.

If you want to acquire the Joint Venture mindset that will make the above possible, I suggest you join DollarMakers, get involved, and learn from about reciprocity, value, commitment, wealth, and Joint Ventures from us.

When he strode into the room in his thousand-dollar suit, I knew that George Choriatopoulos meant business. He was poised, purposeful and looked at each one of us intently.

He ripped the Goals Program off the office flipchart, calmly crumpled it up, and threw it into the bin. Then he leaned forward, resting his fists on the huge oak boardroom table.

“Gentlemen”, he said softly and with great intensity, “every week we meet here to discuss our sales and plans. You’re all independent business owners. Time is valuable to all of us.

From today, I don’t want to know about all the leads and deals you have ‘In the Pipeline’. I don’t want to hear about what you’re working on or whom you’ve met. I only want to know one thing, and then you can all get out of here until next week. This meeting will take just five minutes. HOW MANY SALES DID YOU EACH MAKE LAST WEEK?”

What Really Matters is Results

Salespeople are in the habit of making excuses and promises when they’re not delivering results. We’re all good at it. After all, we’re salespeople, right?

And often we lie to ourselves about what is really going on. We talk about our plans and goals, but what really matters is results. I don’t care about schemes and dreams – I care about results.  Intention and goals are important, but outcome is more important.

You Can’t Bank Excuses or Potential

If I say I will do something or produce a certain result on a certain date and I don’t, my excuses are of no importance to you. You can’t bank excuses or promises. Your accountant doesn’t want to know about potential and opportunities. The bottom line is real money.

Get Serious about Getting Results

This is real life and every day gone is gone forever. This is not a dress rehearsal. Let’s get real serious about getting real results. Winners will allow one or two slip ups, but sooner than later they will cut bait and stop working with you if you don’t produce.

2 Criteria to Reevaluate What’s Possible

I once trained the insurance salespeople in 91 banks simultaneously on a conference call. I asked them, “Can any of you double your sales next month?” they all replied that it was impossible, given their busy schedules and past results.

I then asked if it would be possible to double their sales if their families had been kidnapped and they knew without a doubt that their families would be murdered if they didn’t double their sales in a month. Guess what? All of a sudden it was possible!

I asked what they would have to change and do differently and stop doing, and we could create an action plan to accomplish 100% sales increase without calling in the terrorists. Think about it:

1. How badly do you want to double your sales?
2. What are you prepared to do?

By your FRUIT you will be known. Talk is cheap but money buys the whiskey. Action is all.

When Rika and I sold houses years ago, we did well. Because we used Joint Ventures. The first house I sold, I hadn’t even seen before. Worse still, I had never even read the contract. I got buyer to help me understand the contract! We sold a lot. How did we do it?

…And how can hard working realtors differentiate themselves in a very competitive market, dramatically increase sales and create multiple, additional streams of residual income at the same time?

1. Access the Right Demographic

First, we used simple Joint Ventures to access the right demographic. You don’t need the access to people as long as someone else has it. We piggybacked our marketing on existing distribution and used Host Beneficiary relationships.

2. Add Massive Value.

Then we used massive, added value to differentiate ourselves, again leveraging other peoples’ resources at no cost or risk to ourselves. You don’t need to own a cow in order to get milk. And you can get the milk at no cost, if you know how to offer real and compelling reciprocal value.

3. Only Aim to Solve Problems.

Most importantly, we never “sold” – we solved the buyer’s problems.

4. Leverage the Competition.

We had no shortage of inventory because we worked with our “competitors”. Only the egotistical, vain and stupid are afraid of their “competition”.

5. Keep it Real.

I didn’t use a 15 year old photograph of myself on a business card or the back of a bus. We were real people. Slick is scary.

6. Get Exposure Without Risk.

We branded ourselves effectively, again using JVs, so that we weren’t some unknown quantity. We were known and respected by leveraging relationships and exposure. So trust was never an issue for our prospects.

7. Set up a Back-end!!!

Best of all, we created multiple streams of income, a serious back-end that far exceeded the commissions we earned. Fifteen businesses partnered with us to meet the needs of our clients and even those who didn’t buy houses from us.

8. Adopt a JV Mindset.

The Joint Venture mindset is far removed from the “self employed salesperson” we see so much of today. It’s based on Zig Ziglar’s premise, “You can get anything you want out of life, if you’re prepared to help enough other people to get what they want.” It takes a bit to get used to and understand. Knowing about something and actually using and understanding it are worlds apart. But, once you start using it, everything changes, including, I’m pleased to inform you, your bottom line. This applies to any business or profession. You don’t have to try hard to persuade a starving man to eat.

Anything that is customized or personalized suddenly becomes very much more valuable. We like our own names and our company names and our sports team names, don’t we? So when we customize a product or service for an industry or a specific business, we create massive increased value at very little cost.

Here’s How It Works

You can private label an innocuous shampoo for a good hair salon and make serious money. You can make a seminar or sales training program industry specific and sell ten times as many. I was recently talking with someone who created exercise DVD’s. How about making one for seniors, one for travelers, one for children, one for ladies, one for teens, one for busy executives… then market each one through the marketing and distribution channels reaching that particular demographic? For example, you would Joint Venture with seniors publications and clubs, AARP and seniors tours to reach seniors with your seniors exercise DVD.

Private Label Training, Seminars or Teaching

When you find excess inventory, you can re-purpose it in this way. You can also approach someone who presents training, seminars or teaching, and Joint Venture with someone who has access a particular market segment, while procuring the rights to market their products and services to that segment and receive ongoing commissions. For example, how about Training for Realtors? Get more specific with Training for Female Realtors and you’ll make more money. The more specific, the more terrific.

Let Your Access Lead the Way

Which segment of the population do you have access to, or can you get access to? Once you have access to a demographic/psychographic sector, you can go out and find products that can be customized or relabelled for that sector. Once you have strategic alliances in that sector, it’s easy to expand to the entire sector.

I once did seminars for an Executive Women’s Club and ended up serving all their clubs nationwide. Had you set that up, you could have asked for and received up to 20% of all my income from that market, and that would have put at least $20,000 in your pocket. All it took to get me into that market was a friend making one, single phone call. One phone call can be worth $20,000 to you. Do Joint Ventures work? You’d better believe it!

Sales Tip

Specialists get paid more and have more credibility. Understanding more about an industry than your prospect positions you as an expert. In order to do this, use statistics and education to differentiate yourself from the generalists who think they can cure anything from recessions and receding hair to bad knees and bad attitudes.

Management Tip

The more you understand your prospect and his business, the more likely you are to sell to him. Train your employees to ask questions, make notes, do research and create industry specific solutions. Learn the language and jargon of the industry you’re targeting. Become familiar with their hopes, dreams, challenges and unique opportunities.

“I am an innovator. This is a term of distinction, a term of honor, rather than something to hide or apologize for. Anyone who has new or valuable ideas to offer stands outside the intellectual status quo. But the status quo is not a stream, let alone a ‘mainstream’. It is a stagnant swamp. It is the innovators who carry mankind forward.”
~ Ayn Rand

Have You Been Behaving Like a Baboon?

Most businesses are like African baboons – these furry fellows race through the cornfields, picking corn and stuffing it under their arm. As fast as they stuff the corn under their arm, it falls out the back, but they keep on picking and stuffing! By the time they get to the edge of the cornfield, they are carrying one corncob and they’ve left a trail of corn on the ground. This is how many entrepreneurs handle customers. They’re so busy getting new ones that they neglect and lose their existing customers out the back door. Attrition spirals out of control and yet they continue to spend more money on finding new customers.

Invest in Your People

We know it’s far more affordable to resell existing customers than to get new ones. We know that it’s better to retain our customers and to encourage referrals through added value service than to spend a lot of money finding new customers. So why don’t we act accordingly?

Why don’t we spend 80% of our marketing budget on our EXISTING customers?

Invest in your people and they will bring you a lot of new ones. Building strong relationships with the customers you have will:

• increase loyalty
• reduce attrition
• increase transaction values
• lengthen customer lifespan.

Why not put a program together to REACTIVATE inactive customers?

It’s much easier than trying to buy new ones.

A happy customer is good – an elated customer is better.

By redirecting our marketing dollars to our loyal clients and creating unprecedented added and unexpected value, we can engender massive reciprocity in the form of referrals and goodwill. But only strategists will understand this. Tacticians, those “instant gratification” types, will never understand this. A satisfied customer might stay with you, but an inspired and enthusiastic customer will bring her friends, family and associates. You can buy a lot more new customers than advertising with:

• A surprise party
• An unexpected gift
• A personal phone call
• A complimentary dinner

Use Joint Ventures to add value at no cost to you. Partner with other businesses to increase the value to offer and to differentiate yourself from the competition. Put yourself in your clients’ shoes and take the time to find ways to make their lives easier and more comfortable. Look after what you have and they will look after you.

Sales Tip

Act in your customer’s best interest. Reward referrals generously. Don’t skimp on packaging. Create referral systems that make the customer happy. Protect your customers; they’re hard enough to get and they can be worth their weight in gold.

Management Tip

Teach your team to listen and to go the extra mile. When I go into Safeway and ask where the bathroom is, the employee will walk me to the bathroom. When I go to the competition, the employee points in the direction on the bathroom. Big difference. A nice bag with a pretty bow and a big smile, a follow-up telephone call and even a thank you note can generate a massive return on investment. Get creative and set the example.