Every sales person lusts after a good opening line – how else will you catch someone’s attention? Three I’ve heard this week:
“Say I have a great way to make some fast money…want to know more?”
“Hello – I market this great travel service where they pay you to travel. You interested?”
“M’am, I noticed you’re on the phone a lot. I have this really great free long distance program where you can make all your long distance calls free…”
If your ice breaker works and the person expresses interest, will you be ready for the hot seat?
Let’s take the three ice breakers (above):
#1. NM is not fast money. What will you say when they realize it?
(“Say I have a great way to make some fast money…want to know more?”)#2. NM travel companies like YTB don’t “pay people to travel” in any way normal people understand that phrase. Pilots get paid to travel. Flight attendants get paid to travel. Networkers who buy and sell travel services like YTB get discounts or partial rebates on their travel, for an annual fee. Reps may also earn income selling travel programs, yes, but that’s not being ‘paid to travel.’
(“Hello – I market this great travel service where they pay you to travel. You interested?”)#3. A gent just pitched this very thing to me as I was sitting in a cafe last week. When I asked him, “Free? Is it really free long distance?”
“Yes,” he said, “all the calls you want for $24.95/mo. See you have this gizmo (he shows me something…) blah blah blah.” So it is really free then?
(“M’am, I noticed you’re on the phone a lot. I have this really great free long distance program where you can make all your long distance calls free…”)
Why lead with a sugar coated ice-breaker that isn’t true? You’ll be found out and be exposed as a huckster, or someone who doesn’t really know what they’re talking about.
Would you buy from such a person?
Have you checked your ice breakers lately?
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What if you could learn to tell your story so you can amaze and delight your customer niche: Here’s a book and CD program to help. And here’s help for talking in a human voice about your business – a CD set and cribsheet .
this is great. Makes us think twice about what we say to people.
I personally would NEVER buy from someone who is so deceptive. I actually haven’t found a good ice breaker, but I’ve heard a good one on one of the boards for the company I’m with – Send Out Cards. It went something like this “I take the drudgery out of sending greeting cards”. What do you think?
Brad Pollina
http://BradPollina.com
http://YourFreeCard.com
Hi Brad, Honestly, for me the word drudgery seems too ‘heavy’ in relation to greeting cards. How about something like, “I make sending your greeting cards a breeze” or “I make sending your greeting cards fun and easy.”
Ann Rader
http://www.PremiumPetProducts.com
I don’t like to be taken advantage of (who does?), so I certainly agree people should be honest in their approach. I raise labrador retrievers. Since people love to talk about their pets, it’s easy to say – I raise labs, do you have any pets? I market healthy pet food that helps pets live longer, happier lives. What are you feeding your pet? – If they’re not interested in the products, we talk about their pets anyway. It’s a great way to get to know people.
http://www.mothernaturespetshop.com
Ice Breakers can be simple and qualifying………
What do you think of these two?
1. By the way, want to make some money?
2. Can you put in 10-15 hours a week?
Potential Partners disqualify themselves based on not only the words in their response, however, also in the music behind the words
Dedicated to a better life for you.
Questions? mentordr@earthink.net Happy to help
“I market a product that helps empower women between their mammograms by taking their future breast health more into their own hands…literally. Do you know of anyone who would be interested in more information on a product like that?” (I think it’s too wordy?)
Advice/comments much appreciated.
ed_macdonald@shaw.ca
“Saving lives one breast at a time”
http://www.plexuspink.com/39524
Ed, I’m with you on the too wordy, but I also slightly object to the taking it into our hands literally thing. Maybe I’m an exception, being a delicate Southern belle of a certain age, but that’s an image I’d prefer NOT to exchange between just any gentleman and myself. I have to work myself up just to discuss these things clinically with my gyno.
Boring as it may sound, I think I’d go more along the lines of–“I market a product women can use to check themselves better between mammograms. Do you know any women who might be interested in that?” If I were a sales MAN approaching a woman prospect, I wouldn’t even use the word “breast,” especially not as an ice-breaker! I think you stand the risk of it sounding like a cheesy come-on.
Btw, Ed, I applaud you for having the guts to market something like this. We need all the help we can get to fight breast cancer. I wish you the best.
Ed, how about: “I market a product to enhance early detection of breast cancer by increasing the precision of self-examinations.”
Thought of a tagline for you — “Your fingers do the walking, but our pad does the talking.” 🙂
For my business, I go back and forth between: “I sell a product for people who know they’d be healthier if they ate even more fruits and vegetables, like me.”
and “I sell a product for people who don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables every day, like me.”
and “I sell a product for people who’d like to add even more fruits and vegetables to their diet every day, like me.”
Any preferences? — or new ideas for me?
Thank you!
Dianne
Here we go again. It all comes back to this:
If it doesn’t flow and you know it’s not true, don’t say it. Just tell the truth and you will be way ahead of everyone else out there.
It’s kind of like this – when my ex and I split up, the rule in my house was always “Don’t talk bad about him in front of my kids. He’s their father and eventually they will make up their own mind about how he lives his life”.
Live your life by that. You be the one out there telling the truth amongst the sea of fast talkers and falsehood tellers and people will know who they can trust. Build yourself a reputation as someone who tells it like it is. Tell the truth.
Have you ever heard the phrase “They will know me by my fruit”? That means you will be known by what you do and what you produce, not by what you say.
Roxanne Green
Mentor With A Servant’s Heart
Great responses. However, i must put in a small correction. There is no annual fee for YTB.
I just ask people ” would you or
anyone you know be interested in
a very solid and potentially
lucrative business opportunity?
If they say they are not open to
the opportunity,I tell them I will
compensate them, if they refer
people to me and any one of those
people join the team.I give them
my business card and thank them
for their time.
Raven
I’m assuming we all know that we’d already be in a simple conversation with someone BEFORE we use any icebreaker. Once I’ve started a conversation or when they ask what I do, I like to say, “I have a website for people to book their travel online. Do you like to travel?”
While that statement certainly doesn’t cover all the ways our website could help them save, it does tell the absolute truth. And, let’s remember, this is just an ice breaker. In further conversation or e-mail, whatever, you can expand on what you can do for them. Very few people will answer “No” to the question, “Do you like to travel?” So, it gets the conversation going. It’s step one of the dance.
Although I’ve been in NWM for 15 years, I’ve only been with YTB for a few weeks and I’ve already learned a valuable lesson. I truly think in the travel business, just like supplemlents or long distance, whatever you market, that it’s best to cultivate customers first.
I had a travel party. My upline who is a wonderful, low-key person, has earned good income in his first 3 months, was there for the presentation. I only invited people whom I truly knew from their lifestyle and situation that this would be an excellent business for. Even with all that, the turnout was very low. It was the evening of Mother’s Day since that was the only day Ken could be in town, but I have the feeling that the turnout would have been low anyway. Why? Because I’m so recently started, I haven’t had time to cultivate a relationship with my friends on this specific subject. I even felt that some were afraid they were going to be asked to “join” or “spend money”. However, one friend is seriously considering the business, but more importantly, I got TWO CUSTOMERS.
My gut feeling is that a better way to build my travel business is to first show people how I can be of service to them; how I can help them with their travel; how I can educate them about travel bargains that they might not otherwise find out about. In short, serve them as customers first, which is exactly what we’ve all been talking about here.
In my case, one of the first things I do is direct them to sign up for my Deals and Steals newsletter at my site. Again, that provides a servce first. I could also direct them to my website for getting directions from one location to another, ordering a passport (expedited), even get info about how to handle heatlh issues when they travel or find group cruises they can join at a discount. In short, anything we can do to make our website a destination for them.
Interesting that we keep coming back to cultivating a customer first and building relaltionship before you invite them to join you in your business.
JUDY MARSHALL
http://www.judyann.networkmarketingcentral.com