During the 2015 ANMP Convention, I had a chance to listen to Tom and Denice Chenault speak on stage. If you don’t know Tom’s Story, take a look at this description of him recently posted on his bio page at the convention website.

“His life has been one big adventure. Tom has been a corporate airplane salesman, a stock broker, a public relations firm owner, a radio show host, and an ultra- successful network marketer. While Tom has made and lost a lot of money during his career(s), he has never lost his infectious sense of humor and his ability to rise to the top of his profession… and help others to do the same.”

Their speech was centered around “The Coffee Shop Interview” and what you should do when talking to a prospect. That last sentence already has an error in it, as you should do more listening that talking. Why?

Make your prospect the center of the universe. Just because you happen to be a successful Internet marketer, doesn’t mean the world revolves around you. One of the secrets to success is to ‘simply’ pay attention to others. In other words you want to work on understanding what the person is saying, rather than trying to be interesting. The idea is to make the conversation as much about them as possible. This is something that some people can’t do, and if you are able to master that skill, then you will be doing better than many of the marketers out there.

When talking to a prospect one thing to do is move the emphasis to what’s in it for them. Your prospect is smart enough to know that you are going to benefit from any potential transaction. If you focus on what’s in it for you, the prospect may conclude that you are only in it for you, and not them. Remember, the Network Marketing industry is one that can be used to spread joy and financial happiness to everyone. If you spend the entire time talking about yourself though, then your prospect may be turned off to you.

Imagine that your prospect has had a very bad day prior to meeting you at an evening meeting. Maybe they’ve learned their job is going to be phased out, or that they’ve had an unexpected life event come up that is going to cost them a lot of money. Does your prospect really want to hear about how much money you’ve made? Probably not. What they want to hear is the joy and happiness that Network Marketing can bring to their lives. Make a vow to yourself, right now, that in every interaction you have with a prospect you leave them feeling better than they did when the meeting started. The more that we contribute to others, the more we will contribute to ourselves.

Network Marketing is a team sport, and you need to be able to recruit team members in order to succeed. Meeting with a prospect and making the conversation all about you isn’t going to win you many team members. You must be able to connect with them, and show them they are important, and that you will be there to help them every step of the way.

If you liked this article, please email the author (don@trainingforwealth.com) and let him know.