| As
we embark on the adventure of marketing, I want you to
think about your marketing mindset. I believe that 99%
of successful marketing is mindset, and the final one
percent is what you DO as a result of your mindset. It's
the SPIN that you bring to your marketing adventure.
Here's an example. One day a company sponsored a softball
game between the marketing department and the sales department,
and the sales department won by a landslide. The score
was so lopsided it was embarrassing. But the next day
the marketing department posted this memo on the bulletin
board: "The Marketing Department is pleased to announce
that we earned second place in the company softball league,
having lost but one game. The sales department, however,
had a rather dismal season, as they won only one game."
Marketers
of the right mindset understand SPIN, an acronym for
Situation, Performance, Intuition and No-How. (Yes,
no-how is the same as know-how. Remember: it's an adventure,
and I am, after all, the MLM Dummy). As a network marketer,
you have countless opportunities to apply SPIN.
Situation.
It can be any of these: a three-way call with your prospect
and your upline, a face-to-face recruiting opportunity,
a recruitment meeting, a conference call that you're
conducting, a training meeting, an awards program, and
so on. Everything you do as a network marketer occurs
at or within a situation. Never forget that.
Performance.
When you're in or at a situation, you're performing.
Some performances, by the way, are as inspiring as a
corpse. Some folks just show up and that's their performance.
You can bet these folks aren't going to be successful
network marketers. Performers get involved! They're
excited. They ask questions, they offer answers, and
they assert themselves (hopefully not obnoxiously).
They look at every situation and ask, "What can I do
here to make myself memorable?" Showing up isn't memorable.
A memorable performance could be the way you smile,
your willingness to be helpful, the way you dress, the
way you talk, or it may be as simple as the presentation
of your business card. Always give a memorable performance.
Intuition.
Don't wait for the answers because you already know
them. Do what your intuition tells you to do. Get in
touch with your thoughts and feelings. In a given situation,
how would you want someone to perform? Be that person!
Use your intuition to size up every situation and then
perform appropriately. When you're recruiting, consider
how you want to be recruited and recruit appropriately.
Sell appropriately. Support customers appropriately.
Treat your upline and downline appropriately. Do what's
right because that's what your intuition will tell you
to do!
Know-How.
The greatest marketers are people with knowledge, and
by knowledge I don't mean they're necessarily the brightest
people, or the most academically credentialed people,
or that they ever even studied marketing. They are people
with knowledge about the benefits rendered by their
products and services. They are people with knowledge
about the wants, needs and desires of their customers
and prospective customers. They are people with knowledge
about themselves! They know what they want and they
have developed a path for getting it. These are people
who feed their intuition. They get their knowledge by
reading books, listening to tapes, participating in
conference calls, attending training meetings, and by
applying their no-how. Because of their knowledge, they
understand how to market. Often times, by the way, these
people get knocked down because their ideas fail. But
then they get up, they dust themselves off, and they
get ready to apply their no-how all over again. In other
words, they look for the next opportunity to SPIN.
You
can SPIN your way to success as a network marketer.
There's no reason to be intimidated by marketing. Regardless
of your past, your education or your credentials, you
can SPIN. Even if you got knocked down this very day,
you can SPIN tonight. That's one of the tremendous attributes
of network marketing. There's always another situation
somewhere, and that means there's always another opportunity
to perform. If you take care of your intuition, it will
always show you the no-how that you need to succeed.
John
P. Hayes, Ph.D. is the co-author with Zig Ziglar of Network Marketing
For Dummies. |