Reprinted with permission from UPLINE MAGAZINE MAY 1994
From slick, professionally produced videos to national conference calls, company satellite broadcasts, four color brochures, scientifically merged-purged direct mail programs, and more--today's Network Marketers have a whole stable of proven, powerful prospecting tools to work with and to put to work for us, as well. Which one is best? In our opinion, the audio cassette tape. Here's why:
REASON ONE: AUDIO CASSETTES ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE OF ALL THE PROSPECTING MEDIA.
Why "most effective"? Simply because, more than any other prospecting medium, an audio cassette requires the least commitment on the part of your prospect. i.e., They're easy! A video requires time set aside and devoted exclusively to sitting and watching (and a TV and a VCR). So does satellite broadcast (plus you've got to have a dish-which starts at $300-and your company has to be in the broadcasting business, which not all are, yet). Conference calls also require the commitment of "set aside" time. For that matter, even reading a brochure or mailed packet requires the prospect to set aside 15 minutes to half an hour (and considerably more if you suffer from sponsor's information-dump syndrome) to review the pile of stuff you sent. An audio cassette can be "done" while your prospect is "doing" something else: driving to the bank or store, exercising, walking the dog, doing the dishes, etcetera.
"Hey prospect-look how simple my business is. Here...I'll prove it. Just pop my tape in your Sony Walkperson and listen to this..."
This is the single most powerful reason to prospect with audio tapes! Not everybody has or is willing to make the time to expose themselves to other prospecting tools. But anybody can listen to your cassette in their car or wherever - because it takes no time at all!
I have at least 10 unwatched or partially-seen Network Marketing sales videos lying around my home office. I do not have one unheard audio cassette - and there must be a few dozen of those little poly-boxed babies in my car and stereo cabinet. I've listened to and heard them all - most at least twice. The good ones a lot more often.
Audio tapes combine the power of radio - still the most attention commanding communication medium in the world - with the convenience and control of listening when you want, where you want, as often as you want. In this day and age where everyone demands and gets a choice, audio cassettes are the prospecting medium of choice!
REASON NUMBER TWO: AUDIO CASSETTE TAPES TAP INTO YOUR PROSPECT'S MIND MORE SO THAN OTHER TOOLS.
Have you seen a James Bond movie? I'll bet you have. Now, I don't know if you have read any of the original Ian Fleming novels about England's favorite spy 007, but if you have, here's something you might have in common with me:
As good and nearly perfect Sean Connery was playing the part of Bond, he wasn't as good as my Bond. The James Bond of my imagination was not only handsome, resourceful, undeniably sexy, schooled in all of the nasty arts as well as the finer ones of picking the correct wine and winning at the Baccarat tables in Monte Carlo - but he also looked like me!
You see, movies (and videos) leave little room for your imagination. It's all laid out there for you in living color; you don't get to fill in the blanks your way - because they're all already filled in. However, when given only the sensory ability to listen, you take what you hear and then create your own pictures in your mind about what's being said and who's saying it. And you put yourself in these pictures automatically. So just ask yourself this question: "As a prospector, what's the value to me to have my prospect putting him or herself in the picture - visualizing him or herself already involved, enjoying my products benefits, making money with me in our opportunity?" I'll answer that for you: It's got awesome power!
REASON NUMBER THREE: Audio tapes are so cheap for you to buy, you can literally have hundreds of them being listened to all around the world on any given day, and - big point here - so can all your distributors!
Smart companies and even smarter upline distributors put out their prospecting tapes for a buck or two, three at the most. (Super-smart ones charge even less.) So, you and your people have, say, 50 tapes, which cost you $2.50 each for a total out-of-pocket of $125. That's an outrageous bargain for all that prospecting muscle! Just look at how that empowers you and your distributors to leverage your precious talent, energy and effort - and above all your time! And considering how effortlessly duplicatable handing out cassettes is and how super-quickly you and you people can tear through your prospect lists with them. . .
LET ME SHARE A STORY WITH YOU THAT SHOWS AND TELLS THE POWER OF THE AUDIO:
Carlton Edwards has been with Cell Tech since June 1st, 1993. In less than one year, Carlton propelled himself to the top of his companies compensation plan, reaching the exalted position of Double Diamond. Here's how he did it:
Kia McCullen, a chiropractor and dear friend of Carlton's wife Nancy (who is also a chiropractor), sent the Edwardses a copy of a tape made by successful Cell Tech upline business builder Ray Cassano. On that tape was a little yellow Post-It note that said, "Dear Carlton and Nancy: This is a great tape. Listen to it and then call me."
So they did that. They listened to the tape a couple of times over the course of the weekend. Then Carlton called Kia on Monday, and asked her what to do to sign up as a distributor. Being Professional people with little in the way of "free time" - and feeling that their families, friends and associates had a right to be exposed to such great products and the companies compelling vision - they just did what had been done with them: they sent out the tapes to all their prospects.
Here's what happened.
In June of Ô93, they sent out a hundred tapes to what amounted to their Christmas card list. They sent most of the tapes to people who had their own businesses. Their thought was that these people were already business-builders, even though they weren't Network Marketing Sales distributors yet. Within a few days, people began calling and wanting to become distributors and asking Nancy and Carlton all kinds of questions about the products and the business opportunity. People started joining their organization and the Edwardses simply taught each of them how to do what they were doing: Sign up as a distributor, put a prospect list together, get the tapes and send them out, then bring people into the business.
From 100 tapes sent out, Carlton sponsored 40 new distributors in a matter of a few weeks; 20 went on his front line, and he put the others in down through his second and third levels under his most committed new people. By the way, Carlton and Nancy do their Network Marketing business part time - about one to two hours a day, five days a week. Their Networking business is currently doing about $50,000 annually. Not bad for such a very part time enterprise.
These two busy professionals were already attracted to a home-based business opportunity. But what convinced them to jump into Networking Sales, was the ease of doing the business. How easy? Just a few hundred dollars in tapes and stamps and the time it takes to send them out, coupled with consistent follow-through and follow-up. Have you ever seen an easier way to make 50 grand? From an hour or two a day, no less! And all on the backs of audio cassette tapes.
And Carlton and Nancy's experience is not unique: business-builders throughout Cassano's Cell Tech organization have applied the same simple, highly replicatable approach, with equally effective results. When Edwards et al. started, Ray and his sponsor (now wife) Kim Bright were looking at buying a new house. This year they bought an island instead.
If you're after signing up busy, proven, professionals, who are powerful centers of influence, run that business plan of prospecting with audio cassettes up the flag pole and see how many salute!
THERE IS ONE MORE PART to the story that really drives the point home.
Scott Ohlgren is a Cell Tech distributor who, interestingly enough, is not in the Cassano/Edwards organization. Already a Double Diamond for several years, Scott was successful in his own right - but not satisfied. Having more or less "plateaued" at about $100,000 annually, Scott had greater ambitions, and had been on an intense hunt for the "right way" to make his business double, triple and more.
Scott invested heavily back into his business. He used conference calls. A blitz training tour of the country, complete with a painstakingly produced training manual. But it still wasn't happening. One day Scott heard about Carlton's success. He called him up, learned about Cassano's tape system, and decided to drop everything and "do" the tapes. In February Scott sent out about 125 audio tapes to a "warm" list of brand new people, and for the rest of the month, did nothing but introduce his people to the tape and teach his people to do the same thing.
At the same time, he set a goal of reaching a $300,000 total volume by this August (his volume then being about $200K). When he got his genealogy at the beginning of March, he was stunned: His organizational volume had grown by 51 percent, and he had already surpassed his August goal!
Scott's experience, in turn, was reflected in the entire company, as the simple, replicatable tape system took hold in other downlines. Cell Tech was a 10-year-old company that had put together many of the right pieces of the Network Marketing Sales puzzle: unique good product, good comp plan, good management, good people. But they had no truly effective recruiting technology. Since distributor leaders began picking up the tape and running with it, the company's growth (and not surprisingly, distributor moral, confidence and commissions) has literally taken off.
That's the power of the humble audio cassette. And that's the power of technology - of using the right technology for the job, as WAVE 3 author Richard Poe describes in this issue's cover story. So how do you get the right audio tapes to use for yourself? What qualities and features make an effective audio cassette, and how do you select one - or like Cassano, make one yourself? We'll answer those questions in the concluding part of this article, to be published in a future issue.
Reprinted by permission from UPLINE MAGAZINE (800) 800-6348 24hrs, or (804) 979-4427.
If you would like a FREE COPY of the Ray Cassano tape mentioned in this article, EMAIL YOUR NAME, ADDRESS AND PHONE TO: RShip@aol.com
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