Raven: Listen, Al, before we get started with our questions tonight, for those of us who may not be familiar with you, would you share a bit of who you are and how you got started?

Al: I’m just a nerdy engineer. Back in 1972, I got started in network marketing. I was introduced to being an entrepreneur. I’ve been an entrepreneur now for about 36 years. I’ve had lots of businesses and network marketing.

Raven: I’ve got a question for you. Is prospecting something every business owner needs to focus on, and if so, why?

Al: Well, if you don’t have any prospects, you don’t have any customers. People say, “Well, I want to be in a business where I don’t have to be a salesman?” I don’t know any business like that. If you’re a doctor, you’ve got to convince people to come to your doctor’s office. If you’re a printer, you’ve got to get people to come into your shop. If you’re a network marketer, somebody’s got to buy your product or service. We’re all sales people. Bottom line is that most of us don’t like being a salesperson. So, it’s easier when we have lots of prospects. When we have lots of prospects, we can kind of pick and choose, just take the volunteers, find the people that this is just a perfect fit for, and just let them know about. Let them join. Let them buy. Prospecting, the biggest cause of stress of small business people is they just don’t have enough prospects to talk to that are qualified, leaning towards drooling, looking for reasons to buy or join. That’s why you have to do prospecting.

Raven: You’re really finding the ones with the perfect fit for your products or services, and not just going out there spinning your wheels so to speak, and just going out there and getting every one. Right?

Al: Yes, definitely, not everyone is a prospect.

Raven: Let’s talk about prospects and their mindset a little bit. How important is understanding the mindset of the prospect, and what insights can you offer to assist us in that area?

Al: Well, for the listeners on the call today, I’m going to ask them to maybe just suspend their belief just for a second, and just imagine everything we were told about prospecting was wrong. I’m not saying this is true or not. I’m saying just suspend it just for a little bit, and just take this viewpoint, that trying to find out what’s in the mind of a prospect is so 1970, where the salesman went out and said, “Well, let me ask you a bunch of questions, and depending on what you tell me, I’ll use that to attack you to try to close you on selling.” That’s 70s hard core salesperson, and it doesn’t really work that way. People are a little more sophisticated than they were forty years ago, but consider this. What if we bypass that entire question and answering, being psychic to get inside their mind and learn how to trick them to do things. What if you bypassed all of that, and go up the very next level, where it really happens. Here’s what I mean by the next level. There’s some research about how people make decisions. Let’s just suppose we’re a business person, and as a business person, we want people to make a decision to use our product, service, join our opportunity, whatever it is. I would think that if we’re going to be professional about this, we would like to know how and why they make a decision, where it happens inside the brain, and according to the latest research that I’ve read, it seems that about 100 percent of all decisions are made by the subconscious mind. If you have a conscious mind, that’s the little pea we think with, about the size of a pea. You go around observe things, talk to folks, blah, blah, blah. Then, we have the subconscious mind. It’s the size of a huge building, and this is the one that takes care of all our automatic body functions. It kind of holds our memory, holds our programming that we’ve accumulated over time, holds our beliefs, and this is what makes decisions. So, we have some automatic programming in there that based upon the information that comes into the brain, the decision is automatic. The mistake we make as entrepreneurs as salesmen is we give presentations to the conscious mind, and we’re saying, “You should join our business because we pay two percent more than the competition,” or “You should use our product because it has a secret formula,” or “You should use our printing because we have special 60 pound paper.” That’s all to the conscious mind. The conscious mind is a pea. It’s a three year old that can’t make a decision. It can’t write a check. We need to be talking to the huge building, the parent, they write the check. So, getting inside the mindset of a prospect, maybe we can bypass that, go up to the next level, where it really happens, where the subconscious mind makes those instant decisions, and then it notifies the conscious mind. I think the research says it’s a minimal of six or seven seconds before the conscious mind is even notified that a decision has been made. So, we need to learn to talk to the subconscious mind and communicate with that because that’s where decisions are made. It’s just a different mindset. It might be a bit of a stretch for people listening today, but it’s something to think about. For the people here on the call, is it okay if I just give them a couple of example in a little bit more tangible form.

Raven: Sure.

Al: The things that we don’t know, the things that we don’t believe, these are the things that have the best chance of giving us the new results we want. I’m sure if people want to make massive leaps in their business instead of trodding along with the drivel of staying back. Here’s the example of the subconscious mind. You do great work on the telephone. Maybe the folks that are listening, they could relate to this. When a salesperson calls you, thirty seconds into the phone call, how many listeners have already made-up their mind to look for reasons to buy or not to buy, and for most people I would say about a hundred percent of the people say after thirty seconds on the phone with a salesman, I’ve already made-up my mind to look for reasons to buy or not. That’s before the salesman has even started the presentation. Now, is that fair? Of course it’s not fair. He hasn’t started the presentation yet, but that’s what happens in real life, the subconscious mind makes an instant, immediate decision of what’s going to happen, and all the little drivel about a presentation and a flowchart and all that, that’s all anti- climatic. The question for the people on the call here today, if you’re listening, if you make that decision within the first thirty seconds, without knowing a single fact, if you make that when people call you, do you think other people make that instantaneous decision when you’re talking them, they make up their mind to buy from you or not, and join with you or not? The answer is of course. Here’s the second example to show you that all decisions are made by the subconscious mind, and has nothing to do with the conscious mind presentation, the drivel we do with the flowchart and stuff like that. I want everybody listening to the show here today to just consider for a moment that I just graduated from the Houston Chiropractic School of Medicine, and I learned a brand new move of how to twist your head, and who wants to be first? I bet everybody here has made the instant decision; they don’t want to be first. Our subconscious mind made that instantaneous decision, “I don’t want to be first. I’m not doing this,” and you haven’t heard a single thing about my presentation. You made that decision without a single fact that I’ve tried this on small animals first and I’ve researched it and read books, and I graduated number on in my class, and I’ve got a color brochure. None of that even matters. Once we realize this, then we can start making our business grow in leaps and bounds instead of struggling, “I called a hundred people, and to show that presentation.” We have to bypass all of that because we’re never going to get where we want to go if we use those kinds of methods. That’s what I mean by the subconscious mind.

Raven: Now, I know you talked about the thirty second, how important that is. Is that why you feel it’s vital to make sure that we watch the first words out of our mouth when speaking to a prospect? We make sure those first words are the right words, which we’re going to get into briefly. Is that part of the reason because we only have those thirty seconds?

Al: Yes, we only have just a few seconds to get the job done, so we have to be right the first time.

Raven: What should those first words out of our mouths be when speaking to a prospect?

Al: We need to talk to the subconscious mind. So, we have to get through the clutter of the conscious mind, and all the filters and stuff. Let me give an example of some of the things, and I want people to think, “Okay, did that get through my mind or not?” Let’s try this. Let’s say that since you talk to a lot of women, if I was talking to a woman and I was going to sell some skincare product, I could probably say, “Well, I have this fantastic skincare product. It’s endorsed by an actress that we gave a lot of money to, to say that we’re good, and we have – oh, gee wiz, we have this terrific lipid in it that goes sixteen layers deep. I’ve got research here, and a testimonial here.” If I say that to one hundred ladies, what’s the odds of me getting very many presentations?

Raven: You’d probably get a few, but not a whole lot.

Al: It’s going to be pretty touch, and I’ll be slugging it out, making all these efforts to try to get a lot of prospects and so on. What if I were to say this to one hundred ladies, “Winter’s hard on women’s skin, and most women want to prevent wrinkles, but some women have figured out a way of keeping wrinkles way an extra twenty years?” Eighty out of one hundred ladies are going to say, “Tell me more.” The other twenty will say, “Here’s a check, fill in the blanks.” So, the first person selling the skincare is saying, “Nobody’s interested in skincare. It’s too expensive. When I talk about the lipid dermal layers, nobody seems impressed.” The second person who says, “Winter’s hard on women’s skin, and most women want to prevent wrinkles, but some women have figured out a way of keeping wrinkles way an extra twenty years,” they’re saying, “Everybody’s a prospect. Everybody wants to know the story about this fantastic skincare. This is the greatest opportunity, greatest thing to sell in the history of mankind.” This strikes an emotional switch of the subconscious mind, and there’s one dozen ways to do it. Like, let’s say that if I sold some sort of vitamin anti-oxidant table juice whatever. I could say, “I’ve got this fantastic Oreck rated 3449 is better than green peas and green pea combined to build your anti-oxidant immune system, blah.” I could break through the clutter, and go directly to the subconscious mind by simply saying, “There’s two types of people in the world. Those who take anti-oxidants now, and those who take chemotherapy later.” People go, “Ah, what do you mean?” You can do this with any type of business, any type of product or service. The important thing is to realize we have to stay away from talking to the peas. Hi, this is Raven Blair-Davis interviewing for Michael Senoff’s HardToFindSeminars.com.

Raven: How important is it in asking questions? Can you share maybe three or four you feel are most effective?

Al: Let’s go back to the original premise here. I’ll go against the grain here a little bit. This is for people as an alternative. When we start asking questions, people are going to make an instant and immediate decision with their subconscious mind based upon if we are in rapport with them or not. If they find similarities, we have similar beliefs, if they think we see the world the same way as they do. It has nothing to do with this thing about getting inside their head as a prospect, and finding their needs and fulfilling their needs. Quite honestly, lots of people need life insurance, but they don’t buy it. Lots of us need to exercise regularly, but we don’t join the health clubs, and lots of us need to eat healthy food, but I see Krispie Kreme’s still in business. Even though you’ve got inside their mind and this is what they need to do, it’s not going to happen. So, we have to say it so maybe asking questions to think about the rapport building skills here. I ask somebody questions, “Tell me about your children. Tell me about your life. Tell me about your hobbies.” If the decision is made in the first thirty seconds, how much conversation can we do in thirty seconds? The answer is almost none. So, we have to be a bit more proactive. We’re going to have to have instant and immediate words to say to go to their subconscious mind where decisions are made in the first 30 seconds. The downside to questioning for most people is people are saying, “Well, you’re just asking questions, and it’s going to be a conditional friendship, a conditional relationship. You’re just asking questions to be pleasant, so if I buy then you’ll be my friend,” or they might say, “You’re asking a whole bunch of questions. Why do you want to know that? Are you going to use that information against me? No? Maybe I should climb up until you have that danger with all this questioning.” Just a different point of view that I’d like people to consider, and after you listen to the show here today, ask yourself, in real life, do I really make decisions in that first thirty seconds, or are the decisions really made by my subconscious mind. Here’s a great example since you talked to a lot of ladies. Raven, how many ladies do you think have ever seen a pair of shoes that they like?

Raven: We’ll get into the millions and billions.

Al: Okay, so if you’re a lady listening in on the call her today, imagine you saw a pair of shoes you liked. You can’t buy them right away, and you go home and you think about. You use your little pea, the conscious mind to say, “Well, will they go good with this set? Will it go good with this budget? I don’t know if I should do that.” So, the pea is rolling all these thoughts around in their mind, but do you get a sense that in the back of your mind the decision has already been made. That decision has been made by your subconscious mind of saying, “We’ve already made the decision, but just roll it around and mess with the idea as long as you can. When you get tired, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.” That’s where it all happens.

Raven: If you could name three of your favorite ways of prospecting that could assist the listeners if they’re not prospecting, to get started on it.

Al: You ask about ways of prospecting. There are ways where you can find targeted prospects that are presold, leaning forward, looking for your product, and what you need to do is set up systems where you have a constant supply of these, so you never have to worry. It’s impossible to quite your business when you have a constant supply of fresh new hot prospects coming to you presold. That’s what keeps people in. I wrote a book called Twenty-Six Instant Marketing Ideas to Help Build Your Network Marketing Business. It’s a couple hundred pages, and I wrote that about eight years ago. You can use these techniques, sound bites, etc, in any business. If your listeners would like, I’ll send them that book because I can tell them in those couple hundred pages in the next 45 seconds.

Raven: They can get it by going where?

Al: Just have them send an email to BigAl@FortuneNow.com. I have a website called BigAlReport.com. This would probably be the best way. If they just go to BigAlReport.com, and put in their email address so they can download, I have seven special reports on magic words and phrases they can say to prospects that’ll make a huge difference like we’re talking about today. They can download the seven reports free. Just go to BigAlReport.com, all one word. Just go there, start downloading those, and if you go there today, I’ll ask the office there to send you all that book automatically, so you can start reading about twenty-six ways of instantly getting more prospects for your business. Trust me, if you have a lot of prospects, your business is great.