Have you ever wondered why some distributors earn $300/month, while other distributors earn $5,000 to $50,000+ each month? One of the main reasons, is the leaders ability to uncover, discover and find out how each prospect needs to be sold. They do this by communicating more effectively than other (less-productive) distributors do with the clients they engage. One-way communication is called preaching, this is done using declarative sentences. Leaders do not "brain dump" everything they know about their company to each prospect, hoping that something they say will get through to the prospect. Through their masterful use of questions, MLM super-stars find out what their client needs, and offers a solution. The use of Questions is the method they use to maneuver the conversation into a two-way interactive communication cycle. Like the statement: "You can not control the direction of the wind, but you can control the set of the sail". Questions are the sails a professional Networker uses to navigate the rough seas of retailing and recruiting.

For a military general... a chess player... an athletic coach... or any other person attempting to out-maneuver his opponent, he or she must ask themselves powerful questions like: What have successful persons in my position done in the past to defeat their adversary.... What would I do if I were them wanting to out-smart me.... How can I best use my team's special skills against their teams unique weaknesses.... What secret tools do I have in my arsenal that my competitor doesn't have..... What would the down-side be if I initiated a particular maneuver.... How would my future change if we accomplished our mission.... What would my spouse/family/parents think if I was successful and accomplished my mission.... or, What are my liabilities if the other contender defeated me?

These are common thoughts if you're participating in a competition or in battle. But isn't building an in-home business a bit of an up hill battle?

For a person striving to become a professional at the art of network marketing, there are similar, yet unique considerations that need to be addressed when dealing with the topic of asking good questions. An important goal of each distributor would be for them to ask a series of questions designed specifically to get your prospect to tell you everything they needed to know to "complete a business transaction" with them?

The use of questions is not magic. Master questioner's are not gifted naturals. (not withstanding the fact that there are incredible people who are just born with special abilities that others do not possess in all facets of life...) The fact is, asking questions is a skill not an attribute. Attributes are almost impossible to develop if you don't have them pre-installed at birth. If your disorganized and lazy, you are better off making enough money to hire someone who is, than trying to kid yourself that you'll become a changed man for the rest of your life. Skills on the other hand can be learned by anyone who wants to apply themselves enough to master them. New habit patterns can be installed in as little as 21 days. Luck for us, human beings, (all of us) were born with a huge appetite for curiosity. It was God's plan for us to thirst for knowledge... it's our quest when we are a child. That's why and how we learned as much as we did when we were kids. It's the foundation of why we become "Street Smart, and the reason why we graduated from the School of Hard Knocks with such good marks.

A good example would be the fact that your mother and father had a "nose" for digging out and discovering just about everything you tried to hide from them, didn't they? Your friends, your teachers, your co-workers could all "sniff out" the truth about anything they wanted to find out from you, couldn't they? How do they do it?... Asking the Right Questions ! Therefore wouldn't you conclude that there is a substantial amount of power to be gained if you learned the art of asking the right questions? Now you can see why it is so vital for you to read this article and pass it on to everyone in your group.

Do you know how to ask good questions?... you used to be a master at it when you were young! You've gotten candy, bicycles, kisses, money, back-rubs, employment, and millions of others things throughout your life contributed directly to your ability to ask the right question, at the right time, and you've been able to maneuver the conversation your way. You've also been the receiver of other people abilities to get you to do things their way... more than not, the victorious individual was the better question asker' than the other. He or she who asks the best questions Wins!

You've just lost your edge, that's all. It's time to sharpen your sword... it's time to apply yourself to re-kindle that talent you used to use so well. It's time you started working on using this tool in order to reach your network marketing goals, because time is running out. You're getting older, and you know what they say about old dogs and new tricks. Well, this isn't a new trick, and even though you may be becoming an older dog each day, it's not to late for you to discover how you are going to use this article to sponsor ten new people in the next ten days... and/or how you're going to use my message to make $500 within the next 72 hours. Be optimistic, anything is possible.

Did you ever wonder why our bodies were designed with two ears and one mouth...? That was God's plan to urge us to listen twice as much as we talk! This is especially true for network's. But how do we shut up and listen more? You will be amazed that it's as easy as learning how to...

"Ask Powerful Questions" !

This strategy really works and will improve your business dramatically. Life is a matter of Choices... we make life changing choices thousands of times a day... in fact, we are the embodiment of what we have decided to do up until now in our lives, aren't we? (That was a question, wasn't it?) Every time a person asks us something, we have to re-think a thought we've already processed before. That means we have to internalize the matter and make a choice on what action to take... this is how we will decide how to respond to the question. This rather "deep" process is what makes or breaks a sales encounter. It is your job to ask your prospect the proper questions that will enable you to solve a problem or need that your potential client wants taken care of. Doctors and Detectives ask probing questions to resolve the matters at hand. You to must also learn to again become a "Master Questioner"... like you were when you were a child.

Isn't it true that children question everything they encounter? They ask every form of how, why, when and where. If you re-kindling this old habit, you will gain the power to lead your prospect down the win/win path to making a sale or recruiting them into your business. Your client gets what they want, while you get what you want... and the world is a better place for it.

Your goal is to use 3-6 declarative sentences in a row, and then inject a question to make sure the client was listening to the sentences before! If I asked you to chose something and make a decision... when you give me an answer... who's idea was it now? Yours of course. Using this process, you are not trying to sell anyone something, you're just asking what they want and you're fulfilling a need. If I have the product that solves your problem... I've made a sale directly due to your choice.

If you think back on some of the best conversations you've had with another person in business, the conversation just seemed to "flow", didn't it? Sometime we think we got lucky and found a prospect that we ended up "hitting it off well" with. Maybe we just felt that the other person was "into" the topic of conversation. I suggest that if you played back the video or audio tapes of that interaction with that person you talked so well with in your mind, that you would find out that you and the other person bombarded each other with meaningful questions

Questions forge interaction and solid communication... and isn't that your goal as a budding network professional? One goal (of many) is for you to learn to become a Master Detective.... and then for you to each others how to become good at asking questions too. How does a person learn how and when to ask questions? (This is a good question, isn't it?) If you don't want to go out and buy a book or tape series on this topic, you are going to have to become proficient at "observing" other use questions in daily conversations. It's like when you buy a particular make/model of automobile and start seeing lots of them on the road driving past that you never noticed before. Once you become aware of the power of good questioning, you'll start to notice just how many questions people are asking one another in normal conversations. You'll also notice that some people never use questions. They use declarative sentence after sentence after sentence... telling people what they want to tell them and not necessarily "sharing" any substantial message. You must keep a special note-pad or place in your day-planner where you keep track of all the great questions you hear. You must right them down immediately or else you'll forget them. Next, it is critical that you keep these questions somewhere so you can use them during your conversations with people. This will require the development of some kind of "delivery mechanism"... some little sheet of paper somewhere so you can see them and your prospect doesn't know your glancing at them from time to time. Your only other course of action would be for you to role-play, study and memorize some of these superior questions. I do not think many of you are ready to undertake this method of data installation.

We all know that some people seem to be better "communicators" than others. Teachers seem to have a knack at transferring information and re-installing that information into a students mind. All they are doing is asking questions. What do you think a test is anyway. It's just a method of making you install information in preparation of taking the exam, and then measuring what got installed. If I asked you to give a presentation on your companies product, how good of a job could you do for me? I'll bet you hope you never get asked that question in front of a crowd.

Is there a difference between asking a "question, vs. asking a powerful question? Absolutely. For example, the F.O.R.M. Rule (Family Occupation Recreation Message) was designed as a tool to remind network distributors to initiate a conversation with a prospect during the initial rapport building phase. This is where you might ask a prospect about their family, or about their job, or about some local sports event that was on television the night before. The purpose of this line of questioning is to get a normally shy distributor, opening up to another person just to initiate some level of conversation. The distributor's mission is to build some level of rapport and then deliver a soft message about your companies products or opportunity. Here's an example of how your line of questioning might take place during the "message stage"... (more-complex m part of the "f.o.r.m. rule"). Embellish as you say something like this:

"Now isn't the time to talk"...... (is it? is implied). "And you may not be interested in the fascinating business I am in".... (are you? is implied). "But I am sure you will know somebody who is interested".... (give me a few names is implied ! )

If you have built rapport with this person before this final stage part of the f.o.r.m. rule, this prospect will be curious to find out more about what it is that you do. You started the conversation by setting them up with, "now isn't the time to talk"... what would you say if some stranger you just met said this? You'd think, yes - now probably isn't a good time to talk, fearful that they might be a con-artist. Next, we pressed on to say, "now might not be the right time to talk"... Again internally I've got you to say, right again Mr. Stranger. But if you've established just an once of rapport with this person, the last statement will draw them further down the road toward them hearing your presentation about your opportunity. Now when they ask you what you do, this is where you default immediately into your testimonial story.

You are a paid professional story-teller... you have practiced presenting your personal message with your upline, and you are ready to briefly and enthusiastically share your story with this new prospect. You have already been taught that features tell and benefits sell... so you focus on all the worthwhile benefits of your products and business opportunity. And because you said "now isn't the time to talk"... you respect there time and set up an appointment with your group, (in order to use the power of the 3rd-person technique), in the near future by asking another powerful question: "Would Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday be a good time for me to introduce you to my business partners?" And then, "Would you like me to pick you up at 6pm or 6:30 ?" Tell them that you have joined a group of exceptional leaders who, like them, get together to work on designing a quality lifestyle through financial independence. (or whatever it is your client is interested in). There's much more to add to this sequence, but for the purposes of this article we're focusing in on the power of questions and how questions enable, you the distributor, to communicate more effectively with your prospects. Once you know how to extrapolate information from your potential clients, you will have the power and the control you need to lead your prospects into an "informed decision". And with a little luck, you've made a great impression on your prospect and they'll decide to take action and move forward to buy your products or services. They may even join you in marketing your business opportunity to others.

You can look at this process as using your cunning to out-wit, out-maneuver and in some ways to exploit, jockey, manipulate or convince other people to do what you want them to do... but that would be a distortion of what this message is all about. We want to be pro-active and positive about the use of asking probing questions. We're all about helping people fill a need. In any communication sequence, one person usually will convince the other to lean in their direction. Our jobs as distributors is to share not convince... to share not sell... to share not tell. We need to use the power of questions to discover the real need and wants of our prospects and to fulfill their wishes. In so doing we get what we want.

There are thousands of above average questions you can ask someone... but there are billions of foolish questions to ask. Here are some great questions you can use to retail product, recruit your sales force, and train more effectively?

Use these questions and thousands of other great ones to reach all your goals, dreams and aspirations. If you ask good questions, you could very possibly sponsor ten new people in ten days, couldn't you? I'm sure by now you have clearly understood the benefits of learning a few good questions to use during your business activities. I am not suggesting that you learn 100 of them... but don't you think you need to learn at least a handful sometime soon. Get together with another person who shares you dream of becoming successful in network marketing like you do, and ask them to work with you using the "Buddy System". You both agree to mutually be responsible to hold the other accountable for learn a few of these questions each month. It's not hard at all. It's just a matter of having someone push, prod, and force you into learning some of the questions listed above. I have written another article on the Power of Accountability... Finding and becoming a Success Coach is critical to your ultimate success in this business. Be sure to read that article and others I have put out. Remember, you must continuously invest in your career. Doctors do, mechanics do, every professional does. Why would you think a network marketing professional would be an exception? Some distributors spend more money improving the outside of their heads than they do improving the inside. Make it a goal to attend seminars put on by the leaders of this industry no matter if they're with your company or not. Genius is genius. Expand your mind and when you're asking someone to autograph the book you just bought from them, be sure to tell them that I sent you...

Write me to share the questions you have used effectively in building your business... email me or call and leave them on my voice mail at 714-450-3123 or 714-433-2128. I'll share them with others in subsequent articles, books and tapes coming out in the near future.

Good Luck and God Bless..................... Dave

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