Coaching the Dream Blog – Empowering Others with Home Business Education, Training and Coaching

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In my last post, “How Not to Prospect,” I wrote about how some in the multi level marketing industry didn’t DO IT RIGHT. Today, I wanted to share another experience I recently had. But this time it’s a very positive experience of prospecting from someone, outside the MLM industry, who exhibited very effective marketing skills.

As a reward for my promotion, I decided to join a fitness center. (Remind me to do a post on the importance of rewarding yourself for achieving your goals.) As part of my ‘orientation’ to the club, I was to receive a complimentary personal training assessment from a gentleman named Scott. First, let me say, “Ugh, I am not very fit. But all that is about to change!”

Secondly, I had the most amazing experience during my consultation. This personal trainer blew my socks off with his interpersonal and marketing skills. We obviously are in different industries, he fitness and I Network Marketing. But really we are both in the business of developing relationships and educating others on our respective services. So it was ironic that the very skills I use when talking to business opportunity seekers, were the same skills he used with potential training partners.

When I meet with prospective business partners, my goal is to help them identify the problem they have and show them how what I have, in terms of product or opportunity, can solve that problem for them. Well, this was Scott’s goal as well. As I begin my communication with leads, I like to determine if they have any previous experience with a home based business. Similarly, Scott was interested in my previous health history and fitness knowledge base.

If a lead has had a prior business, I like to then determine what worked for them, what did they find success with? And on the other side too, what did they find that was the most challenging for them and thus blocked them from the success they were after? So as you can imagine, Scott and I talked about my fitness history, both my successes and my challenges. I recalled how I was in great shape before the birth of my daughter, but that the last four years were not good for establishing a fitness routine. My challenges revolve around the limited time I have to get to the gym.

In order to get to know a business seeker better, I then like to inquire as to what they’d like a home business to do for them. What are their goals and what are they looking to achieve? Scott very early asked me what my fitness goals were, what was I looking to achieve with my new club membership? He wrote these goals down. This way he wasn’t making assumptions about what HE thought I needed, but rather could operate off of what I determined for myself that I needed.

So we discussed my problem areas: lack of endurance, fatigue, weight gain, loss of muscle tone, and my family history of heart failure. He was then able to show me how his personal training services could help me solve those problems. He inquired whether I thought I could achieve my desired results on my own, based upon my previous experience, my fitness knowledge, and motivation level. Ha, that’s where I had to laugh. Obviously that was not happening, as I had let my fitness go for the last four years, while growing and nurturing both a young child and a young business. He then asked if it would be more likely that I would achieve my goals with the assistance of a coach / trainer, who did have the ability to show me the way through the process.

I often encounter people who want a change in life but don’t have the experience, knowledge or motivation to pull it off by themselves. That is when it is advisable to enlist the services of a coach / trainer; whether it be a personal fitness trainer or a home business coach, like myself. We teach that in order to find success, you should follow the lead of others who have already arrived at what you want to accomplish. It’s teachers in life that move us to the next level of success.

So once we determine what we need, personally or professionally, we need to lay out an action plan. Scott was able to show me how his training services would help me achieve what I had already indicated I wanted.

When I wasn’t ready to close the deal and showed resistance, he gently took me back to what I expressed to him. “You told me you wanted to lose weight, increase your endurance, and tone up. If you continue to do what you are doing now, will you get to where you want to be?” Oh, boy, I think I’ve used that statement with prospective business partners.

When I started in on the excuses, “Yeah, I WANT to BUT I am not sure where in my schedule I would find time to meet … BUT I am not sure I can afford a personal trainer … BUT I have to give more time to my children and my business, than I do to myself… Fill in the blank with any ole objection. We all hear them from business seekers. I was being no different with Scott. I gave him my laundry list of obstacles, which mostly revolved around my time limitations. He reminded me how I had worked hard for four years to build my business to a level that WOULD afford me more time. Remember that is what multi level marketing was for … for building TIME leverage. Right, an “Aha Moment.” And his schedule was flexible, and he would work around what I needed.

By Scott getting me to express out loud what could possibly hold me back, he was able to effectively demonstrate how we could over come each obstacle. He showed me the value of having good health and what price could you put on that. When the larger package didn’t seem to fit into my idea of what I had to budget for the health club, he showed me another option. Now I had to agree that was doable and not as expensive as I had originally preconceived.

Boy, he was making it as easy on me as he could. Just as I express to my possibility thinkers, he was expressing to me, “If I can show you a way that these obstacles can be solved, would there be any reason why you wouldn’t want to get started in making the changes in your life that you expressed was your desire?” Wow, I had to giggle and even shiver a bit at what I was experiencing. The very words I use in my coaching business were coming back at me. He was making a lot of sense, of course, he was talking my language!

Scott then said to me, “I want you to sell yourself on this. I want you to be completely comfortable with moving forward.” Oh boy, did I know the power of making the decision for one’s self and how others “selling you” will never result in success.

By now I understood what my fitness goals were, the value of a personal trainer and coach, knew I could afford it, and was assured he would work around my schedule. But I was still expressing, “Yes, I see the need to do this and I WILL, but … later.” He asked me to be honest with myself, “If you walk away from the opportunity today to begin rebuilding your health, with your busy life style of being a full time mom and business owner, will you be motivated enough to come back to it later?” So one more time the words I have learned in my network marketing business came back at me, “Cathy, if not today, when?”

Now this was giving me goose bumps. As a home business coach working with people looking at my business, I totally understood how someone could lay out for you their desire to make a change in their life, expressed their goals, were shown how the obstacles could be overcome so that they could find success, and yet, they still sit on the fence.

So when Scott asked me one last time, “How much do you think not being out of breathe when you walk the stairs, having less fatigue to be able to take your business to the next level, having more assurance that you are doing all you can to counter your family history of heart disease is worth?” I had to agree it was priceless and that there was no better day than TODAY to make the changes I knew I needed to make to find success in my fitness life. So I was all in. Scott became my personal trainer.

So here I had accidentally found someone with incredible marketing skills and the ability to show a need and a solution to a potential client. So guess what my next move was, besides to start exercising? It was to show Scott my business proposal to give him a better understanding of what I do with my business coaching and ask that if he knew anyone that exhibited the same skills he so successfully used with me, to send them my way .

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