4 Hour Work Week Prospecting For Your MLM

So there I was in Eilat for 5 days, the idyllic holiday town nestling on the Red Sea on the southern point of Israel. I was keen to indulge in the pleasures Eilat has to offer; exquisite beaches, snorkelling (ok that’s not my scene but the kids love it!) and of course swimming, and grilling myself in the intense sunshine, after a chilly winter in the UK. On the other hand, as Anthony Robbins would say, it is inner civil war because I also wanted to maintain momentum in my Network Marketing business!

In preparation for my 3 week trip I’d been implementing some of the Four Hour Work Week principles and had been practicing checking my email only twice a day. Have to be honest though, I fail miserably in this and have come out the closet and admit that I have a serious email addiction, although on holiday with pc access limited I could actually adhere to these harsh disciplines and sometimes only checked my email every couple of days. (Gasp!!)

I had my laptop with me for whenever it was possible to use it so I could be in touch with the team via Skype or email every couple of days quite easily. I had my mobile for emergencies so I figured that side of things was covered. Hmmmmm …. But what about my prospecting? I know from experience what a mistake it is to let your ‘funnel’ empty completely because it is far harder to get momentum going from a complete standstill than it is to just keep it humming along.

No internet connection for my laptop in this cutesy hotel so I was working against the clock. Literally!! 10 shekels for 30 minutes and the timer was on. I managed to get into a little routine. Every morning after a full Israeli breakfast which makes British fry ups look quite shameful in comparison I would head out to commandeer my place in the hotel lobby and start my 30 minute prospect against the clock session!! It’s far easier than one might think really. Actually not much different than when I’m at home except that I was actually time efficient and couldn’t keep going into the kitchen to make cups of tea.

My usual goal is to invite 2-3 prospects each day to review my opportunity. Sometimes I spend the time generating new contacts to add to my list, others it just flows and I do 2-3
‘exposures’ as we call them in our company. Sounds quite rude really but is actually a very methodical process of inviting people to review a video. Goodness we even have a tracking facility these days where we know exactly what, or rather where, our prospects are up to! Ever since we got that it’s ruined me a little bit for sending out hard copies because then I need to call them to find out if they have reviewed, as opposed to knowing in advance. Well it has been said that I can be a bit of a control freak!

The pool was calling and the clock was ticking and my mouse click clicked through my emails and profiles. The trick is to completely ignore everything that is not of relevance to generating or following up with prospects in those 30 minutes. If you start replying to Aunt Matilda, and looking at Cousin Sarah’s new baby photos in the home feed of Facebook you’ve had it I’m afraid. No can do!!

Just from the friend requests and emails from Facebook, Plaxo, Ecademy and Linked In I found myself with a steady stream of possible candidates to review my video. The liberating thing about having a deadline is that you just can’t mess about. Straight to the point and on to the next. Anyone can do this kind of prospecting with the phenomenon of Social Networking threatening to overwhelm us with sheer numbers of possible networks to be involved in, and ways to contact people online.

Before you whiz off on holiday be sure to build up your profiles on your chosen networking sites so that they are of interest to visitors and will entice them to want to connect with you. Let your personality shine through and add some applications that interest you and will attract people with similar interests. That way you will never run out of candidates who become friends and/or business contacts. Some of these people will join you in your business. (If you are nice of course!!)

Don’t be tempted to change your ‘system’ just because you’re away from home. Online networking knows no location. It is absolutely irrelevant to your new prospect where you are based that week. We went from Eilat to Jerusalem to Tiberias and back to Jerusalem and I’m quite certain that my prospects neither new nor cared where my internet connection was. That fits completely with my vision of working from a lap top under a palm tree. (And I don’t mean the one that has mysteriously flourished in my cold British garden either!!)

Keep up the tempo, let all the stuff that isn’t important pile up in your inbox and just stick to the basics. I recommend 30 minutes ‘work’ done, preferably in the morning, as I found that the most efficient way of working and it didn’t interfere with my afternoon siesta and early evening cocktail habit!! On top of that of course you will have a prime opportunity for making contacts in the ‘real world’ and exchanging business cards which you can follow up on later.

Warning!!! Don’t try this when you have just started or are still quite new in your business because it can seriously damage your mental health, and the momentum created from launching your business may disappear in a puff of smoke, never to be seen again. You need a solid foundation before you can downgrade to temporarily working 30 minutes per day, and this should not be sustained for long periods unless your volume is so bullet proof that your downline don’t care whether you ever work again, and you are already an MLM Rock star!
So did I make the 4 Hour Work Week? Just about but I have to confess that when relaxing by the sea of Galilee, which is absolutely hands down the most gorgeous water I have ever swam in, I got cold turkey as there was no internet connection for my laptop and I didn’t discover the computer in the lobby until I checked out! Still on a bright note it forced me to get to grips with my Blackberry and actually download emails (which for some bizarre reason I hadn’t done in the whole year since I bought it for that very reason) and guess what? Yes you got it. These days we can even connect to Facebook on a Blackberry. So how does it go? ‘Dear John…. I don’t know if this will be something for you but I do think you need to check it out…..’

If you enjoyed this post stay tuned for the next one about prospecting on a shoe string budget. Find out how I kicked my former ‘advertising habit’ that cost me £300-£500 per month with my former company, prior to being taught by the pros how to network and business build without having to re-mortgage the house.