Let’s face it, the phone is where we get traction.
Ever notice inside the word traction is the word action?
So, is our phone, your phone, the phones of people in your group a 5000 pound weight or an ATM Machine?
It can’t be both.
There are all kinds of and differing opinions about ‘how to’ get people to pick up the phone. Â And what a range…..upliners use.
Here’s the Dirty Dozen…..
- Abandon them, they are losers.
- Have Heart-2-Heart
- Motivate them
- Irritate them with their goals
- Give them CDs about attitude
- Give them CDs about phone techniques
- Beg
- Plead
- Sell them on the deal
- Sell them on the product
- Make them feel GREAT
- Make them feel WEAK
We could go on for pages……you get the point and, if you’ve been in a while you have probably been through that list both ways. Â I mean you have heard all those things and used all those things.
How’s that working for you?  Yeah, same for me too.  The overall percentage of people making calls  stays about the same, yes?
Four of us sat around one day and built a much bigger list than the Dirty Dozen. Â All of us 6-figure earners, all with different companies. Â Trying to figure it out, what would work that is.
Conclusion?
A waste of time.  But that is what these long time friends of mine do.  We try to solve the impossible.  Call it ego.  Call it an excuse to meet with friends who are pros.  Call it a way to avoid working. 🙂
Over the years I realized that there were really only 4 things I could do to help people.  It was this discovery, working these 4 things in tandem, that yielded better results.  A 100% making calls?  Of course……NOT.  But about 10% instead of the normal 3-5%…….and of the normal 20% that do something…..the do it more consistently.  Bigger checks for everyone  Momentum.
FIRST
First thing is to remember how difficult it was for me. Â Compassion. Â We simply cannot be so egotistical. Â Understand, feel and get into service.
SECOND
I tell them how I got on the phone, how I got into ATM mode. Â I let them know different things work for different people..fear, goals, family etc…..and it’s not the method, pre-se that I used but that I used something.
They always ask what.
I tell them that most people won’t do what I did. Â I am reluctant to share it.
They always ask again.
I make them ask 3 times.
“NARC”
What is that? Â They always ask.
Neurological Associative Reactive Conditioning.
“Huh?”
I read my goals 30 times a day out loud. Â Then, at night, I would sit in front of the phone and drop them in the trash. Â I promised myself if I did not get on the phone I would bring the kids in the office and confess I was a quitter.
This creates pain. Â I associated pain with not picking up the phone.
Once I made 10 dials, not matter how they went, I opened the top drawer on my desk and looked at pictures of my Uncles and me playing baseball. Â Loved those days. Â I was associating pleasure with picking up the phone.
NARC is simply conditioning our mind to shift the ‘pain’ …. ‘pleasure’…..the way we want.
Phone?  Pleasure  No Phone?  Pain.
“Pretty radical, eh?”
They are stunned.
Then…..while are thinking about it I tell them the truth. Â Again.
Most people won’t do it and most don’t have to but ….”if you are not picking up the phone, nothing is going to happen and you’ve to reward yourself when you do regardless of the results and I can help you.”
THIRD
“Would you like me to help you make some calls?”
Now here is the key …..learned this from Hill and Stone….Think and Grow Rich authors.
Look, we all get call reluctance……I have built a career on helping others. Â There is something special that happens to all of us when we commit to helping others…..that’s another whole post and then some.
Anyway, offering an idea about over coming fear and telling them what you did helps them identify with you instead of comparing what they are feeling with what you are doing. Â You’ve built a bridge of trust.
Schedule calls with them. Â I do this every Friday. Â Schedule dozens of sets of calls with folks in the organization. Â I am trapping myself with my own integrity. Â Sometimes I want to make calls, sometimes I don’t. Â By agreeing to make them for others, i am trapped into success.
But it is making the calls for them that pays dividends. If you educate them.
FORTH
It is, in the end, a skill based business. Â Teach them what to do and what to say. Â Nothing builds confidence like knowledge except confidence with a kicker.
I give the little 90 second script we use that gets 90% or more to say ‘yes’ and I stay with it WORD-4-WORD.
Here is the kicker. They are learning what to say and do by listening and reading along.  They hear that I get just as many answering machines, wrong #s etc as they do.
They get their in no magic even though there is magic happening right at that point in time.
The magic is helping other people, learn by doing the work with them…..and when this duplicates in your organization they get it……they get that one of the best ways to learn is to teach.
This formula works and it was not my idea. Â I learned it from the great Ralph Waldo Emerson. Â There were no phones is his day. Â This is a life changer, it’s free and most people reading this will not read “The Law of Compensation.” Â So sad.
Difficult read? Â Yup. Â Language and all.
Everybody says they want to be successful.
Everyone who has read it and applied it is successful
What would be easier for you? Â To get it now, make the time and succeed or to procrastinate?
believe
mark januszewski
Great post Mark. I wonder how many of your readers took the time to read:
http://www.emersoncentral.com/compensation.htm
It can be summed up by one line:
Galatians 6:7 “Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”
JB
Yup, you got it Jimmy
4 words ….Give more, get more….define Emerson’s Law
[…] So how do I apply this to what is going on in my life today? Â I have some very specific goals for my life professionally, relationally and physically this year that I know will produce the results that I desire for my life this year. Â So what I am going to do is associate and attach pleasure to doing the things that will produce results and I will associate and attach pain to my failure of not reaching my goals and desired outcomes for 2011. Â Below is a link to one of my mentors blog, where he describes how he use NARC to change his life. Â Â https://worldslaziestnetworker.com/confession-of-a-chicken-the-phone-atm-machine-or-5000-pound-weight/ […]