As I have seen Multi-Level Marketing, better known as Network Marketing from a very close insight I have found that one of the toughest parts is prospecting people for your business opportunity.
We make a lot of strategies with our core team members with our whole sole knowledge with our immense hard work and after a period of 15 to 20 days, we find that it’s not working to even half of the potential. And then we have a close scan of our so-called strategy and then we take the help of our uplines, and they correct it and advise us to invite more and more people for our opportunity so that the prospecting would not be only easier but would also boost a sense of confidence in us which could help our team growth in a better way.
But now the million-dollar question arises how to make friends and whom to make friends? How to find out if he would be interested in friendship or not? And being his interest in our business would be a distant dream for us.
Before explaining further, we should know that “Pre-judgement in MLM is a cardinal sin” and we should know the fact that first of all, we had not to bother who would be interested in making friends with us. Everyone can be our friend if we are genuine with people.
The fault that generally people make while making friends with people is that they make friendships by keeping in mind their business opportunity and here they miss their mark. First of all, you make friendships with people finding common things between them and yourself. You must keep a lot of patience for inviting your friend for a business opportunity. There is no hard and fast rule for the time to invite your friend for your business opportunity; it all depends upon the comfort level and the bonding with him. This bonding and comfort level could take from 15 days to 6 months.
But I find people saying that investing almost 6 months for creating bonding with people is a waste of time if they did not join our business opportunity. The point here to be noted is that the moment words like “Investing Time” and “Business Opportunity” come into your mind while making friends you are sure to fail. A very simple question we should ask ourselves self that if today we are not ready to spend a mere time between 15 days to 6 months with a guy, then how can we expect the same guy to be our business partner and spend the rest of life with us and working for us in our downline.
Now coming to my question how to make friends and whom to make friends? For making friends we should use a very simple theory called ICC Theory.
And yes, please don’t misinterpret it for International Cricket Council!!!!
ICC Theory stands for
I: Introduction
C: Courtesy
C: Commitment
In the Introduction stage, we must introduce ourselves to the people with whom we want to make friends. There could be any person ranging from your classmates to your nearby vendors to strangers in the metro, bus, or train. They could be your close relatives or people who meet you by chance. In the Introduction stage, you must keep in mind that don’t overreact or act over or you will make a fool of yourself.
The Courtesy stage is the second stage of the ICC Theory and in this stage, you have to keep in mind that you have to try hard to have a casual interaction physically with the person in the next 24 to 48 hours at any cost. If it is not possible by any means, try to have a long telephone conversation of at least 30 minutes in these 24 to 48 hours. The main aim of this stage is to encash the recalling factor of a person. As a person have a detailed conversation 2 to 3 times in any 24 to 48 hours you become successful in securing a place in the mind of your friend for the next 10 days which makes your further operations smooth.
The last stage and the third stage of ICC Theory is the Commitment Stage. This is the stage where most people fail. In this stage, you have to keep your friendship commitments on a priority basis. You should wish him his birthday, anniversary, or any other festival on a priority basis. You would have to see that could be of help to them at any point in time and help them unconditionally. Send them a normal message of their interest at a regular interval of time and don’t forget to call them at least 2 to 3 times a week.
But as I said it is the toughest stage. It becomes clumsy when you make a lot of friends but at this stage, you have to keep patience as only this stage is going to give you results after a while.
For example, if you have 200 newly made friends, make a list of all those friends in a proper diary and categorize them into various categories. These categories could be of your choice that how you categorize them.
I am putting here a sample. One very simple approach is you arrange them alphabetically. You could also categorize them by their stream of qualification, their area of residence or religion, or their area of interest. You would also have to categorize their interest in movies, SMS, food, etc.
And today in the age of social networking sites; get in touch with them on Facebook, Instagram, or other social sites. You could create a group with any abstract heading on any theme and only add your newly added friends to this group. And don’t forget to like their status and pictures at any cost.
This not only gives you help to have a look at your friends but also would help in a better grip of bonding with them. This part demands a lot of paperwork and a continuous approach but as I said you need to be patient and after some time you will find that you have a strong pool of friends who are willing to be a part of your business opportunity.
