I am quite a quite person by nature and when I was a kid I would just listen to people’s conversations taking note of everything they said.

I would be fascinated by the conversation of others so you would think that would make me a great listener.

Er, no. When I started out in my network marketing business I could talk and talk about the company, products comp plan and just about anything there was to do with the business.

I think that most of us have been down that road where we simply don’t know where to shut up and listen.

My upline at the time said to me, “Tristram, God gave you two ears and one month so you must use them in those proportions.”  At the time I had never heard that saying before but it’s one I always keep in my mind today.

When you adapt that phrase wonderful things start to happen in your business. Here is what happen to me when I took that on board. At the time I was building my business very differently, If you have not read my post “I Really Can’t Believe I Used To Do This” I let you in on what I used to do.

Now I did get prospects, not very good ones but I did get them and it helped me talk to people.

Confidence.

I didn’t have much confidence in what I was doing to begin with, properly because I was talking so much about my opportunity I was getting a lot of rejection. However when I started to ask questions the conversation would flow and the more I did it the better I became at it.

People Talking to Me and Answer Questions.

A lot of people would start to open up when I asked questions. Some would be more open than others but I found that the rejections were becoming less. This in turn would boast my confidence levels as I was getting to know the person and a feel of their wants, needs and desires. This is so important when you understand that just because you think your business opportunity is the best thing on the planet, everyone else has other ideas.

Save so much time.

I could be on the telephone for half an hour or more just talk about the opportunity and answering in their questions. Then they would turn round and say it’s not for them and put the phone down. That’s half an hour wasted. When I start asking questions I felt in control and I could very quickly tell if this was what the prospect was looking for or not. Within a few minutes I could continue or let them go.

Instead of using two mouths and one ear I began to grow in confidence and learn so very valuable lessons that have stayed with me until this day.

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I love my hobby, well actual I love both of them. It why I do them because of the pleasure I get from them.

My first hobby is following my football team Leeds United. It’s a time consuming, expensive hobby and one that’s had it’s up and downs the last few years.

It takes up quite a bit of time at the weekends since I live over 200 miles away from their home ground so I have about a 7 hour round trip on match day. Is it worth it, well yes if we win but it’s a hell of a long drive back to Swindon from Leeds if we lose.

My second hobby is one that I wanted to do as a job when I was a child and that’s cooking.  Again it can be a very time consuming and expensive hobby.

From the preparation time to the buying of weird and wonderful ingredients that in all honest I may not use again for a while as there is always something new to try.

But for all the time and money I put into them it really doesn’t bother me because they are what they are, a hobby. And hobbies are supposed to be time consuming and expensive.

Why did you start you network marketing business? More money, spend time with your family, fire your boss maybe?

But are you treating it as a business or a very expensive, time consuming hobby?

You have to treat your business as a business and nothing else. It is there for you to work and to make money from not to take money from you.

I think the reason why some many treat it as a hobby is because they are still in their comfort zone. What I mean is they still have a full time job and are just really looking at alternatives to their current lifestyle.

Maybe it doesn’t matter if they make money or not because they can simply quit and go back to the day job.

If I’m honest I would say that in the very early days I treated my business as a hobby because I was in a comfort zone and I found it difficult to step outside that zone and do new things.

Maybe that is the real problem, stepping out your comfort zone, talking to new people, doing something that you have never done before.

However help is at hand and by having the right system and training in place stepping outside your comfort zone is so easy because now there is no chasing people, giving presentation, trying to push you opportunity onto anyone who will stand still long enough.

People come to you and want your help so your business becomes a business and not a hobby. Using attraction marketing and a system that offers your prospects a solution you are best placed to step outside that comfort zone and start building your business.

Make time for your hobbies just make sure your business is not one of them.

If you want to have a very expensive, time consuming hobby might I suggest you take up golf. There is always the 19^th hole if you have a bad day.

Tristram I Want To Stop Treating My Business Like A Hobby & Learn All of Your Secrets

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We all have a personality but were you aware that every single one of us is one of just four personality types.

Just one of four, that’s amazing but you will see during the video how diverse those personalities really are.

By understanding your own personality style and that of others it will give you a better insight in how you can approach and deal with different people.

Here is the video and pick out your own personality style.

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I want to share with you something that I used to do to find prospects and build my business. To be honest looking back now I really can’t believe I used to do this but I did.

First up I want to tell you about the system I was using at the time. It had nothing to do with attraction marketing, but promoted my primary business and only really focused on trying to get people to join the business or sell them a product.

Once I had a prospect the system worked like this. I set it up to schedule in an appointment, they would pick a time and I would call them. Now you may well be thinking so far so good, they pick a time, they are expecting the call and I call them.

Hang on a minute, we’ve not got to the good part yet. The appointments were set to half an hour each, or you could go to an hour if you want.

The system worked like this, I would tell them to go to a website and log them into the website using a unique username and password. They would then follow my instruction and go through a slide show, clicking next when I asked them to. I would be reading the presentation over the phone from a pre-written script.

So I would call the person and start to build some rapport with them. I would then begin the presentation which would last for around 20 to 25 minutes. This would leave no much time for questions or building a relationship with that person.

Now I would get my leads from the job site Monster.com and these people would have no idea what to expect when I called. Most would listen but had no interest in starting a business, they were looking for a job.

Occasional I would get somebody who was interested and I actually signed up two people into my business. However they simply disappeared after a few weeks.

The point that I want to make is I was targeting the complete wrong market. A market that was looking for a job and not a business. A market which would run a mile when they knew it was MLM.

The system I was using was too time consuming, too focused on the business and products and very little focus on the person that matter most in the whole process….the prospect. It was a fishing trip, I might get a bite someday.

Knowing your market and what that market needs is so important. I think you will agree by reading this but so many people fall into this trap and continue to do the wrong thing. After a while I knew this wasn’t going to work and I found a much better way to build a business.

 Was it a mistake to do what I did? Well no it was a good thing because I have learnt from it and more importantly I can share my experience with others who may be thinking of doing something similar.

Thank you very much for taking the time to view this post. Please leave a comment and share this post with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Reddit and Google Buzz. As a special Thank You I would like to offer you a “FREE gift” just for stopping by my blog.

How can you, someone who has been involved with network marketing for a few months add any sort of value to your prospects?

Well as it happens you can offer quite a lot. Stay with me on this one and I will tell you how you can help others with their business while building yours at the same time. You have heard people talking about adding value, leading with a solution not a business opportunity.

You may have been fortunate enough to have read Mike Dillard’s Magnetic Sponsoring. (If you haven’t yet I would strongly suggest you do!) So how can someone who has only been in network marketing possibly add any sort of value to anyone else in the industry?

To start with you can share your experience in MLM up until now, the things you have done that work and that don’t work. People love a story so tell your story, the ups and down’s, the good and bad. Tell people why you got started and your background, this can be great to build some common ground.

Something you can do is find articles, videos or training’s that have caught your eye and you have found helpful and share them with your contacts. You can do this through social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and  Linkedin. You can find a ton of great content on  Better Networker.

A tool that I have been using for a few weeks now is called AutoTweetX, it pulls content from any website you like with the key words you have picked. You can then check out the content, if it is relevant to your market you can add a bit.ly link and post it to twitter.

If you have used twitter you will have seen the 1000s of ads on there, so by posting this type of non promotional content you will get a good following and build strong relationships. It’s also great for finding great content.

If you do this DO NOT copy and paste the work and present it as your own. This is not ethical and you will get found out as a fraud and someone who is not to be trusted. Simply copy the web address from your web browser and that will take people direct to the article.

What else can you do, well I would suggest that you sign up to as many newsletters as you can. Some will just try and sell you anything and everything so just hit the unsubscribe button. However most will pass on good quality information that you can share with other networkers. They will give you information about useful websites and tools to help you grow your business.

Pass this information onto others and you will soon build a great reputation as a leader and not like most network marketers who are out there selling products and have no interest in actually helping anyone.

At some point you are going to have to start producing your own content. Check out how the leaders write and the subjects they write about. Also get some Copywrite training, this is a skill you will need.

As your list grows, keep sending out quality information at least once a week, twice is better. Have some of your content and some of other peoples. Remember if you are using someone else’s content send your list to that person website or content on the web.

Trust me in the long run it better for your and for them, and they will appreciate you spreading there content around. Its good practice to get into as your content could be passed onto in much the same way. Imagine having your content blasted around the internet, how much would that explode your business and your brand name.

Enjoy sharing the great content that is out there, your prospects will appreciate it and you will grow as a leader and business owner.

Tristram Lodge