My name is Dr. Graham Clingbine and over the years I have been involved with various home income opportunities including Cabouchon, Telecom Plus and Shopping Genie. I have built successful teams and helped others along the way earn a regular income. There’s nothing more exciting than getting commission checks in the mail and seeing the envelope drop in your mailbox or seeing the “pay in” appear on your bank statement. The excitement increases when payments arrive from foreign sources and from your own country. This article is designed to help you generate income… so we’ve called it Success… and the need for a business strategy.
People often start a home-based business full of enthusiasm and motivation. It seems that only a minority stay involved long term and make money. So let’s take a look at some of the issues around this.
People often start with the hope that they will do well. Hope is not enough. To be successful you need a business plan… a flexible strategy to establish what you intend to do, how you are going to do it and when. In some companies you have to take into account expenses such as rent, the purchase of shares, staff salaries, advertising or marketing and shipping costs. Many network marketing or multi-level marketing home-based businesses do not include these expenses, but a business strategy is still essential for success.
It is often said that “if you fail to plan then you plan to fail” and I think this is very true. When new people join my team, whenever possible I like to meet them in person and create a personal report. Part of this includes figuring out what they hope to get out of their new business…everyone has different expectations and therefore it will take different times to achieve their dreams, ambitions or goals. Therefore, setting realistic goals is a good way to start a new business, and your mentor or sponsor can help you with this. I would suggest setting separate SHORT, MEDIUM and LONG term goals…and as mentioned, they should be REALISTIC…I also believe they should be set down in writing in a notebook or planner and not float in the air. your head. By writing down your goals, you are visibly committing to achieving them and you can see as you go if you are achieving your goals or not. You can review your plans and milestones set at intervals of 6 months, 3 years, and 8 years down the road.
For many home businesses, a very important strategy is to use the concept of “referrals.” One of the first things you should do when starting a home business is to write a “contact list” in a binder. Think of everyone you know. Don’t judge people. Some people you know may not be very good at business or interested, but you don’t know who they know. So start by writing your contact list. Ask yourself the question “who do I know?” Think about friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, any clubs you might attend, like sports clubs or social clubs… who do you know at church, synagogue or mosque… who do you send to? Christmas cards? What about the local merchants, the postman, the doctor, the dentist, the builder, the plumber? Let’s say you produce a list of 100 names. It’s a good start, you have 100 people to talk to and it doesn’t cost you anything. What if you call a friend and they are not interested? Don’t keep bothering them, maybe they’ll change their mind and join you in six months. What you can do is ask them “who do you know?”
It’s all about getting referrals. Let’s say your friend doesn’t want your service or join your business… ask for 5 names and phone numbers of people your friend knows who might be interested, they might even call on your behalf just to introduce you when you call. it will not be a cold call. Some friends may give you zero referrals, others may give you 10. Let’s say that on average you got 5 referrals from each friend on your contact list. So if you started with 100 names on this list and each gave you 5 referrals… if you calculate how many people it gives you to talk to it’s… A LOT! Your extended list will keep you very busy.
What about the phone technique? When you call someone to talk about a new service, don’t jump right in. If it starts with “do you want to join my new business?” or “would you like my new offer to save money?” you will get a quick “no” as people are very cautious and defensive. Your phone conversation with a friend, let’s call her Ann, could go something like this… ”Hi John, this is Ann, we haven’t talked in a long time. How are you? How is the family? How is your work? Great, listen, I know you have a long history of business and you deal with business at work, I would really value your opinion on something I just started. Your help would be much appreciated. It’s too difficult to explain over the phone, but can we arrange a time when you’re free for coffee and a chat? I’ll show you what I’m doing and you can let me know what you think about it. Next Thursday on mine at 7 pm. Excellent. I’ll make sure the TV is turned off and on silent so we can focus. See you soon”. People love to help other people, compliment them on their skills or knowledge, and ask for help. Offer them a disclaimer, such as “it may or may not be for you, but give me your advice.”
Once you start your business, two factors come into play. The initial euphoria may have worn off and you may have had some rejections of your services or business. This is where many soon give up and often throw away a potential fortune. It’s all about keeping up your MOTIVATION and PERSISTENCE… you probably all know the story of Colonel Sanders’ Kentucky Fried Chicken getting rejected over and over again regarding his new recipe and how he kept going… and KFC is almost everywhere parts today.
Take a look at major businessmen, let’s say Richard Branson. Think about their different qualities. Write them down on paper and for each put the quality under the heading of SKILL or ATTITUDE. When you’re done, add both sides. You will probably find that you have made many more attributes entries in the ATTITUDE column than in the SKILL column. Attitude is undoubtedly more important than skill in business. If you think you will not succeed, you are right, if you think you will succeed, you are also right. Don’t forget it’s also about taking ACTION… if you don’t do anything how do you expect to do it right… some people complain that their business is slow and when you ask them how many people have spoken the answer is usually ” none” or “one last month” and “it was my best friend and she said no and I asked her 20 other times and she said maybe next week but I didn’t ask anyone else.” Some people talked to 10 people last month, some people talked to 10 people last week, but some people talked to 10 people every day of the week.
Getting and dealing with rejection is part of the process of success in business. A “no” should not be taken personally. I always teach my team the SW rule… Some will, some won’t, so what? NEXT! You may get 10 no’s before you get a yes. This can be part of the fun, and each rejection brings you closer to the next positive result.
I did a YouTube video dealing with Objections and my sponsor Zak and I discussed rejection and why people might be concerned about joining a networking business in another video. I have even put together 5 training videos called Seminar 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 and you can watch these and other topics on my You Tube channel. I highly recommend you to visit my YouTube channel and watch the videos and of course ask your friends to do the same. We are gaining friends and subscribers all the time and you are welcome to join. We have also recently activated a Twitter account and you can follow us there.
