Random musings: Tired of people not showing up to your hotel presentations?

This is from the July 2, 2018 SendOutCards training call by Jordan Adler. Even though this call is aimed at SendOutCards referral partners, it can be used by anybody in network marketing.

First let’s draw the distinction between Marketing and Prospecting. Marketing is passive and Prospecting is active. When you are getting started in the business it’s important to spend most of your time Prospecting but also work on setting up your marketing so you can continue to have a flow of new potential customers and referral partners to work with. Marketing is about “attracting” and Prospecting is about “pursuing”. So if you were to create a blog or use Appreciation Pal, that’s marketing. If you were to make a list and start texting people inviting them to take a look, that’s prospecting. Tonight we’ll talk about BOTH.

Jordan then talks about hotel meetings:

The truth is, it’s become way more difficult in modern times to get people to show up for meetings. We can still visit people in their offices but to get them to come out on an evening or weekend is much more difficult than before. Everyone is glued to their devices and they have become conditioned to look at opportunities and services online. This is just how it’s done today.

The following idea can apply no matter what company you're with:

Imagine a hotel room online. It’s a virtual hotel room. Now imagine inviting people into that room and they don’t have to leave their couch to join in. Imagine asking them if they want to come in, because you are going to be sharing some things that you believe to have some big potential. Now imagine that AFTER we have 50 or 100 people of your people into that room, the two of us are going to do a presentation in one corner of the room. And we are going to do that presentation over and over and over forever in that corner. Anyone in the room can stop by and watch us doing it. But people outside the room can’t watch. And then over in another corner of the room there are a group of people that have had huge success with the business and the service and they are giving testimonials. And those testimonials are being done over and over again in that corner of the room for anyone that’s in the room to stop by and see.

That's pretty cool, but how do you create a virtual hotel room?

A virtual hotel room is a (Facebook) secret group. Only the people invited are allowed to be in the room. It’s free and it’s available NOW. And most everyone will say yes when invited into the room. And they will stay in the room until they decide to leave (which most won’t!) And when you notice a bunch of people in your group loitering or just wandering around you can tag them and message them to ask them to wander over to this corner or that corner and see what we have going on!

Here's how to setup your group:

1. Create your “Secret” Group: Name the Group.

2. Get your friends permission to be added to your secret group. Goal: 25-100 people to start. Complete this within your first 3 days of creating the group. Do not add people to the group without their permission. And CONTINUE to add people on an ongoing basis.

3. Post articles and memes in the group 1-2 times each day. Instagram is great for ideas and things to repost as well. Get in the habit of doing 1-3 posts per day. You can even schedule your posts in advance. Also keep a running list of future posts as you see them and come up with new ones.

4. Focus on information, training and entertaining in your group vs selling. Limit selling to no more than 20% of posts. Make friends and engage people. Do surveys to create engagement. Like and comment on your friends responses to your post. Take it offline to discuss business. 80% Education, Training and Entertaining and 20% Selling.

5. Go “Live” in your group a 2-3 times a week with education, tips, ideas, etc. FB Lives should be 2-5 minutes. Leave people curious and make recommendations.

Jordan also talks about networking groups:

In our business, it’s more than just networking and giving/getting business from your referral network. It’s also about networking the network! One of the many reasons I love BNI is because there is a network of thousands of meetings around the world. So you can gain the leverage of many meetings vs just a few. Imagine having members of your team in 10, 20, 50 or 100 meetings around the world. This accelerates the growth of your business. BNI will teach you to network. They will teach you how to present and how to get the most from your offline networking efforts. BNI will cost you about $1000 per year to be a member. It will be well worth it if you work it. Most people can pay for their membership in a matter of weeks. It’s all about leverage. BNI’s slogan is “Giver’s Gain” and SendOutCards is all about that...giving without expecting anything in return.

Be sure to listen to the recording for more information!