My new personal trainer ascends from hell, brushing the dirt off his shoulders.

“Okay. Time for our first step. Let’s warm up with 100 push-ups.”

Push-ups?

If I could do a push-up, I wouldn’t need a personal trainer. He doesn’t appear to have a sense of humor. Just as well, as he just got fired.

Lesson learned.

When we make the first step too big, our prospects hesitate

So what offer could a professional personal trainer make so that the first step for “chubby me” would be possible?

“Okay. Time for our first step. Let’s warm up with a stretch. From your sitting position, slowly stretch to your right and reach into your gym bag and grab a donut.”

Yeah! That would work. I’m “all in” and ready to sign a “personal trainer for life contract” ... after I eat my donut.

The same is true for our network marketing prospects. When we make our offer and the first step appears achievable, our chances of success skyrocket. We need to make our prospects feel they can succeed.

If our prospects believe they can do the first step, they will assume the following steps are possible also. Their attention is on the very first step. Our prospects won’t bother to think too far into the future.

Remember this old saying?

“A journey of 1,000 miles starts with a single step.”

We want to sell our prospects on taking that first step. Then, with the momentum rolling, it will be easier for them to visualize the outcome. And as a bonus, if the first step appears easy, we will get fewer objections from our prospects.

How can we shrink that first step?

#1: Which is a better offer?

Results quickly … or results later?

That wasn’t hard.

When we offer fast results it is easy for our prospects to want our offers. So what would prospects want as fast as possible?

• To break even or profit on their initial investment
• To fire their boss instead of suffering years in an undesirable job
• A way to earn bonuses now while waiting for the residual income to build
• A chance to earn enough now to replace one day at work every week

Can we emphasize the quick wins our prospects will get when they take our offers? Humans are naturally short-term thinkers. Now is always more powerful than later.

This is why 18-year-old prospects fail to get excited about long-term residual income and retiring ten years early.

We want to shrink the time to the first big payback our prospects will receive.

#2: How hard will this be?

If our revolutionary offer is complicated, difficult to understand, and hard to do, expect massive resistance. Prospects hesitate to volunteer for difficult tasks. They prefer the habits and processes they do now.

Examples of difficult offers?

• A structured fasting timetable with handfuls of tablets to take every day
• Complicated skincare regimes that take 30 minutes
• Services that require extra time
• Instructions that are hard to understand
• Efforts that will require leaving our comfort zones
• Learning new technologies

Prospects want ease and convenience, not challenges. Their lives are hard now and they don’t want to make them harder.

#3: How big is my investment?

Time invested is time that we will never get back. On the plus side, if our offers give our prospects more time, this is a huge bonus in our favor. Everyone complains about not having enough time, and if we can help, we will be popular.

If we want to talk about the long journey to success, now may not be the right time. Our prospects haven’t received any quick wins yet, so their confidence isn’t high. No one wants to look forward to a long and painful journey.

Also, our prospects will think, “Is taking this first step worth the cost of changing my current life? This will cost me time and money, so I better be sure it is worth it.”

#4. How big is my risk?

Humans hate risk. That is why Tool #1 is all about reducing risk.

What else can we do to make this first step easier and less risky?

• Offer a free trial or sample. This gives prospects a chance to try our product or service before they commit to buying it.
• Break down the offer into smaller steps. This will make it seem less daunting and more achievable.
• Or, how about a low-cost introductory offer?
• Make our offer clear and easy to understand. When we don’t understand everything, we will have doubts in the back of our minds holding us back.
• Remind our prospects that their success is inevitable with our help.

#5: How much can I delay?

We think, “If I have to do it now, wow! I better be sure. But if I can delay some things to the future, that doesn’t seem so bad. I’ll worry about the future later.”

Can we delay the full payment?

Can we extend the guarantee?

Can we give them a little more time before making the big investment?

#6: Focus the vision on the outcome.

Let’s make our benefits and outcome larger so that their time and money investment feels worth it. This is a great time to pile on all those extra goodies we love to talk about. Yes, remind them of the recognition, the free trips, the feeling of accomplishment, the security of the extra money.

#7: Convenience and speed can be better than free.

We value our time and our efforts. So imagine a trip to the Universal Studios theme park. We spent a fortune on airline tickets and hotel expenses, and now we are in line to buy tickets.

The question is, “After our huge investment to get here, will we spend a few more dollars to get the premium tickets? Those special tickets that allow us to bypass the 45 minutes we would wait in line for each ride?”

Yes. We didn’t spend thousands of dollars to bake in the hot sun waiting in long lines. Convenience and speed rock.

That is why dieters drink an expensive protein shake instead of the free option of walking two hours more every day.

And this is why spending a few hundred dollars to start a network marketing business is preferable to renting an office, hiring employees, arranging insurance, advertising, marketing, and all of the other expenses and headaches of another business.

The first step is the hardest

If we can shrink the first step, we make it easier for our prospects to want our offers.

What is the smallest possible first step that skeptical prospects could take? Once they have that first step successfully under their belt, the following steps will become easier. And as their confidence grows, their train will pick up speed and their vision of the future will grow bigger and brighter.