I was waiting for a friend outside the meeting room where a networking function was being held. At the entrance there was an audio video equipment display booth.

A salesman from the booth approached and asked inquisitively, “Do you ever give presentations or seminars?”

“Yes,” I replied, “Though I mostly facilitate workshops.”

“Do you ever use audio video in your presentations?”

“I’ve attempted to,” I responded, warming up to the questioning process. Read More→

“Would you like your shoes cleaned sir…?” I was suddenly asked out the blue while walking down a street in Seoul, Korea when I was there last.

My instant reaction was to say “No, thank you!”

Undeterred he looked down, pointed to my shoes, and asked in broken English in a half questioning, half stating kind of way, “You look good and feel better with clean shoes?”

That got me – looking good and feeling better! I looked down and saw what he meant. “OK” I said, not even thinking about asking the price. He guided me into a warm little hut on the sidewalk, where I was invited to sit down and take off my shoes. Read More→

Here’s an interesting question from a reader:

I find there are people on my warm list that I “feel” would not be interested in the business, but they may know someone who is. In essence, I want to contact them for referrals.

Maybe this is not the correct way to approach someone, but I can’t get past this issue and would like to know how my conversation should go with them. Maybe what I really can’t get past is my “fear” in calling them and letting them know what I am doing. What do you think?

My answer: Read More→

“I’m in conflict. How can your Natural Selling approach work when people in my company use the conventional way of selling almost exclusively? And how do I train my down line using Natural Selling when the company’s literature and support, is based on the conventional approach?

I get these questions presented to me all the time. So here is my answer in a nutshell.

First. There is no right or wrong way. Read More→

If you’re actively selling products, you’ve probably heard the following questions before from potential customers who point to one of them and ask…

• “What is this?”
• “What does this do?”

In my workshops when I ask this question, I invariable get a DATA DUMP of what the product IS with lots of features and technical jargon, such as, “It contains XYZ, a powerful anti-oxidant”. So what? What does this mean to me or anyone else?

Data dumping will cause people to mentally shut down and go away, unless you can describe your product with the language of – what’s in it for them or, HOW IT HELPS PEOPLE.

What someone is really asking is, “Tell me how this helps me.” Read More→

A common response many Distributors get from the people they speak with is, “I don’t have the money”.

The standard network marketing reply that most Distributors are taught goes something like this…

“I know how you feel. Many people I first spoke with felt the same way and what they found when they started, was that it was the best thing they did….”

Or they justify it with… Read More→

In the last “Oliver’s Twist On Selling” I wrote about having a 24 Hour “Maybe Day” and eliminating your “Maybe List” of potential partners or customers. These are people you might have allowed to hang around, clutter up your mind and slow you down like a dragging anchor. I left it with the hanging question, what’s the worst that could happen?

The worst thing, according to some distributors, is that at the end of the day no one joined.

Well, the objective IS to eliminate your Maybe List… whether anyone joined you or not! Read More→

My study is where I do most of my work. Every 6 months I spend a profitable day “Feng Shui-ing” my “Maybe List” of potential clients I had “allowed” to hang around, clutter up my mind and slow me down like a dragging anchor.

Maybe you have your own “Maybe List”; one that you’ve allowed to slow you down sucking out the energy that you could otherwise use to carry you profitably forward?  If so perhaps it’s time to speak with the people you have been hoping, wishing, praying for to join you, and ask them the liberating question, “Are you ready to make the change?” Read More→

In one of my Natural Selling workshops, I was demonstrating through a role-play, how to talk with another person, by basing most of my questions on the answers I got to my previous questions.

The role-playing was purposefully set up as a difficult conversation. It was based on discovering what this person wanted in life that she didn’t already have. It appeared there was a lot!

It came to a point where I asked a final Qualifying Question; (though as far as I’m concerned, they’re all Qualifying Questions); Read More→

When talking with people to discover if they have the types of problems you might be able to help them solve, start by asking what I call Background Questions (in the Discovering Stage of the Natural Selling Dialogue Framework) that you use in your everyday life, such as:

“Do you have a family?”
“What do you do for a living?”
“Do you play any sports?”
“Where do you live?”

Now, these are not random questions. There is a significant reason why you ask them. Read More→