Who here practices their lines of engagement at least 100 times just BEFORE they start talking to people?
In every discipline (except NM) they require massive amounts of practice by those learning it, BEFORE they’re allowed to interact with a real client.
In some fields, even the pedigreed experts with 10 years of advanced education are called practitioners – e.g. a lawyer has a law practice; an MD has a medical practice. Nobody’s ever finished getting better. That’s the message.
Wouldn’t it be cool if we had such a philosophy in the NM industry? You know, learn the words to use to talk to people? And some practice sessions to go with? That’s what networkers are supposed to do, right? Talk to people to sell their product and business? Only no one teaches them how. Weird.
Anyway, for those who believe in practice like I do, here’s a trick some Harvard researchers discovered in the surgery field. The one medical team that used it was 7 times faster than the 17 other surgical teams at other hospitals.
Harvard Business School researchers followed eighteen cardiac surgeons and their teams as they took on a new technique in cardiac surgery…
“The new heart operation – involving a small incision between ribs instead of a chest split open down the middle – proved substantially more difficult than the conventional one…Everyone had new tasks, new instruments, new says that things could go wrong, and new ways to fix them…
“Researchers found striking disparities in the speed with which (the 18) different teams learned.
“All teams received the same three-day training session and came from highly respected institutions with experience in adopting innovations. Yet, in the course of fifty cases, some teams managed to halve their operating time while others failed to improve at all.
“A physician on the Harvard research team made several visits to observe the quickest-learning teams and the slowest, and he was startled by the contrast.
“The surgeon on the fast learning team was actually quite inexperienced compared with the one on the slaw-learning team – he was only a couple of years out of training. But he made sure to:
1) pick team members with whom he had worked well before and
2) keep them together through the first fifteen cases before allowing any mew members.
3) He had the team go through a dry run before the first case, then
4) deliberately scheduled six operations in the first week, so little would be forgotten in between.
5) He convened the team before each case to discuss it in detail and afterward to debrief.
6) He made sure the results were tracked carefully. …
“At the slowest place, the surgeon chose his operating team almost randomly, and did not keep it together. In his first seven cases, the team had different members every time, which is to say that is was no team at all. Nor did they schedule the operations six in a week. And he had no pre-briefings, no debriefings, no tracking of ongoing results. From Complications, A Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science
Bottom line: If you have trouble talking to people, if you find you really don’t want to follow up, chances are you just don’t know the words to use that will engage the other person. You can learn them though. And then, have fun with practice.
Who here has done Cadaver calling, 100 calls in one week, in pairs, as laid out in the If My Product’s So Great How Come I Can’t Sell It book?
I have some folks doing that right now, who’ve never done it before, and already teams are reporting back…they’re scoring referrals and they’re only supposed to be practicing on cadavers (!)
P.S. We just did a totally fun class on creating and practicing One Liners. I hope to have it available for an MP3 soon. Email me here if you want to be notified when it’s available. Put One Liner in the subject. It’ll be US $19 for two 45-minute MP3s. CDs $25 (avail Jan.)
Great article Kim! Thanks.
HI Kim, I did the cadaver calling as you explain it in your orange book but I did them on my own – not in pair. I did it, i believe it was, a year ago. I did more than 100 calls (where I actually talked to a 'live cadaver' – oxymoron)
About every 30-40 someone would ask me "what is it"
I got 1 resurrection (got an appointment and customer) out of total more than 200 people I called/talked to in about 10-12 days.
I did this a year ago but the scripts I used to practice back then are still 'ready to be used' in every opportune moment, like if someone asks me "…and what do you do for a living?"
I practice and practice out loud every script I use, I record it and listen back to it to hear where I need to practice some more.
I don't know if "practice makes perfect" but It really helps save you time/money/embarrassment.
Theodore from Greece
Most agree that building your NM business fast is the way to go. Going fast gets you over the learning curve quickly, builds confidence and generates a shared excitement that helps you go even faster. Interesting that it can be the same in the medical field.
Trish
http://www.yourhomebusinessroadmap.com
Hi Trish – You write, "Most agree that building your NM business fast is the way to go…Interesting that it can be the same in the medical field."
Interesting perspective.
Building a business fast from the ground up when a person hasn't been trained how to do that, and practicing a known and defined skill set fast, don't seem the same to me.
The example I described were all cardiac surgeons with 7-8 years full time medical training. Then they went to a three day demonstration for the new cardiac surgery procedures.
So they were practicing a set of skills and procedures which were defined.
I don't see a comparison with NM, since the entire pitch for NM is that there is nothing to learn. Just talk to people, like you are recommending a restaurant.
So building fast in our industry has led to a 95% drop out rate, because, who is given a skill set to develop?
It's the opposite in NM. The recruiters say, "It's easy, anyone can do it."
HA.
Learning how to talk to people is just ONE of the skill sets folks need to build the big income people long for. So that's why I teach that.
There are many skill sets, but that's a biggie.
Did I misread ya?
Dear Kim,
This is so right on point. The best (most successful) sales people I have know through the years have practiced their approach and presentation so many times that they know what to ask and they know how to answer.
Pro athletes, dancers, singers,etc rehearse their event countless times in their minds prior to their actual performance.
Should not the Professional Network Marketers do the same?
Pretending we only share to avoid the sales objection closes the door on becoming proficient in the true skills required to make it big in our industry. In other words, why should I learn a script or a process if all I am doing is sharing?
Kim you are such a master at clearing the smoke and removing the clokes. I love you for what you do for our industry.
Wishing You Plenty To Live,
Tiom Doiron
Atlanta
http://wwww.PlentyToLive.com
Hey Kim:
"Fast" is a relative term. A surgeon with 7-8 years of training would be considered off to a good start. 🙂
Trish