...Nope. Sorry. Too Busy.

By Andre Best
Posted Friday, August 20, 2004

I was having a conversation with my wife the other day. Rather, she was conversing with me through a rather interrogational way. She's known to do that sometimes with me. Especially when the issue at hand is about my MLM biz.

Anyway, she was asking about priorities in my life and when I thought about what she was asking me it suddenly occurred to me that when I answered a part of her question by stating that 'I didn't have time' for what she was thinking I should be doing... I realized that I had actually lied to her without knowing it.

You see, I've written about this before and I'll do so here.

We all have the time to do our business. The real (and more accurate) question is do we make it a 'priority'?

I know you've almost all heard before from your guru upline triple- chocolate double-diamond star-command leader that a new distributor can either choose to treat their new business as a hobby, or they can choose to treat it for what it is... a business.

Treat it like a hobby and make 'hobby' income, if any at all.

Treat it like a business and make potential 'gangster' money, if at all.

Now, with this small insight I had after conversing with my loved one I would like you to think of this hobby/business stuff as more appropriately a 'priority/not a priority' issue.

I'll explain.

You see, if you haven't yet already you're going to come across whole boatloads of folks (a.k.a. prospects) who are going to reply/yell/scream/swear back at you...

"Look... I just don't have the time so quit bugging me and don't ever call/talk to me again about your new biz".

Now I would like to ask you (rhetorically anyway :-), does that Jane/Joe prospect really not have the time to do a biz deal with you? In some cases... yes. But in the vast majority of cases... no.

Think about it. What do you do when *you* don't want to do something?

I know, I know... silly question...

"Duh, Andre, when I don't want to do something I, ah, DON'T DO IT!"

I deserved that answer. :-)

But my point here is that when you truly don't want to do something there is something going on beneath the surface of your inaction. You see, you're not only not doing what you don't want to do - you're also making a decision that what you're choosing to not do is also, for the moment at least, not important enough for you to take up your valuable
time to do.

Essentially, you're deciding that the proposed task at hand is not a 'priority'.

And what does it mean when something is not a priority?

...It means that that something is not important enough to start and/or finish.

...It means that that particular something is not ranking high enough in your daily scheme of things to actually dedicate or set-aside time to do it.

...It means that although it might be important to get done there are other things that you've decided are more important and they are going to get done instead of the proposed task-at-hand.

...It means that even though the task-at-hand might be a bona-fide way
for you to actually make $800,000 your first week in your MLM deal (joke :-), it just doesn't turn your crank or press your buttons enough to get you into action to do something about it.

Now, let's continue and apply this to your fledgling MLM deal.

~~~~

Let's get back to that Jane/Joe prospect situation.

They're telling you that they don't have the 'time' to do your deal.

----~~~~==== Comment ====~~~~----
Just yesterday I received an unsubscribe to my auto-responder on my main deal.

The fellow unsubscribing was nice enough to write a small note along with his unsubscribe request...

"Not interested. I work full-time."

(Ya gotta wonder about folks sometimes :-)
---~~~=== Comment - End ===~~~---

Now that you're armed with the information I just provided you with above... you now know that they're just using this 'time' response as an excuse.

What they're really saying is that they don't have starting a biz up on their priority list. It may be on the list, don't get me wrong, it's just not at or near the top of the list. Not high enough to actually get them into action and considering your deal. Or someone else's.

Instead they tell folks who contact them (after THEY requested to be contacted in most cases nonetheless!) that they don't have time.

That's fine. Leave 'em alone.

----~~~~==== Comment ====~~~~----
This kind of reminds me of a conversation I overheard one day while living down here in Arizona where the wearing of helmets while driving/riding on a motorcycle is strictly (and legally) voluntary.

(I know, some of you might be thinking 'If they're stupid enough to drive a 150-horsepower engine on wheels without a helmet... let 'em face the consequences of bugs in-between the teeth and the results from crashing the bike.' Well, unfortunately, once they open up their silly little noggin's on the asphalt roadway when they lay the bike down at 75 mph we Arizonians are all stuck with paying for the medical rehabilitation costs. Strange laws we have here in the U.S.of A., eh?)

I digressed off of my digression. Sorry.

Anyway, the conversation I overheard was...

Concerned 'Person A' (after seeing a non-helmeted rider just arrive in a shopping mall parking lot): "Do you think we should go over there and tell that guy what could happen to him if he crashes while riding his motorcycle? Do you think we should tell him it's not safe to be riding his motorcycle without a helmet?"

Non-concerned 'Person B': "Why do that?... Don't you think he ALREADY
made the decision to not wear a helmet?"

Good response. Person B made a keen insight into human thinking.
---~~~=== Comment - End ===~~~---

Okay, back to this time stuff.

How can this insight help you specifically grow your biz? Well, how about you now really know what the vast majority of, if not all, people are *really* saying when they answer your request to join their deal and they say they 'don't have the time'.

Does that make them a bad person? NO, of course not.

Does that make them a liar? Well, let's be nice here.

I would venture a guess that they don't truly know just exactly what they are saying with their answer. Just like I didn't know at first when I answered my lovely wife's question about my biz.

I truly believed I didn't have enough time to do certain things that she thought I should be doing. But what was actually happening wasn't that I didn't have the time to do the actions she thought I should be able to do -- rather I wasn't making these enough of a priority to allow me to actually decide to TAKE the time to do them.

Interesting twist there wasn't it.

So, digging deeper here...

When a prospect tells you that they don't have the time to do your deal with you, you now know that your deal is not important enough for them to do.

At least for right now.

They don't have doing a biz up there on their priority list. They may *want* to do one. But not right now because if they did they truly would make the time to work with you.

It's pretty simple when you think about it.

Obviously, we're all humans (duh :-) and as humans we mostly don't want to hurt others feelings. So we tell that little white lie to those others and also to ourselves. Instead of doing the work and figuring out for ourselves what it is that we actually want to be doing in life, we would mostly rather go along and take the easy route and just tell ourselves that we don't have the time to do certain things.

Certain things that would have major impact on our life and existence on this plane. If only we made them a priority.

I know that this is tough to see for some of us. I know that this is why we're told to take the six things we want to do that day and prioritize them from most to least important. Even though they may all be important to us still just categorize them from one to six on the list. And then do number one and don't move on to the next one until that one is completed. Totally done.

THAT is a good way to figure out one's priorities for that day. But again...

THAT is a lot of focused work to complete that task.

And most folks won't truly have 'doing a biz' up there EVERY day on their list of six priority things to do.

THAT my friends is what should help you, again, to know in another way
how to sift and sort those prospects as you work your biz.

Don't fight with your prospects.

Don't argue with them.

Don't 'overcome that objection' of not enough time.

Rather, just accept what they say. Because now you know what they are truly saying.

...And then just move on to the next prospect. And hey, what the heck,
just come back to that person in a few months or so and ask them again
what's up in their life and if they truly show interest in your deal, maybe they now 'have the time'.

Right?

About the Author
Andre Best is the owner of (http://www.Is-MLM-For-You.com) - a generic MLM resource site offering over 400 printed pages of unique information for struggling and beginning MLM/network marketers.