How To Get People To Join You Even When You Have No Credibility?

When I first got started with my business in 2012, I had a lot of difficulties to even just invite someone to sit down and listen to what I had to share. Especially to my own friends because I was a student who had no experience and completely no credibility to talk about business. Even if by some chance I do get someone to sit down, I wasn't able to convince them that I had a great business idea that they can venture into. People don't join you because of your business, people join your business because of you. So how do you get people to join you even when you have no credibility?


1. Words
There was once where I met a very direct and straight forward lady at cafe cartel in Plaza Singapura. She dressed sharp, looked confident and the first thing she said to me was "Ok you've only got 5 minutes. Tell me what you've got". At that time, I was pretty intimidated and nervous. But somehow, halfway through the presentation, I unconsciously used some of the statements and words I read from a book the night before; and I could tell from her facial expression and body language that she was impressed. Even though she didn't join, this experience gave me a valuable insight. 

I went home, took out my books, wrote down some impressive words and incorporated them into my presentation. They weren't fancy and pretentious words, they were just simple business words to make me appear smart and knowledgeable. Some examples were "scalability", "leverage", "cash flow", "perpetuity" etc etc. After enough practice, I became very fluent and natural in using words like this. The people who understood these words were impressed; while the people who don't, will pretend to act as if they do, which puts them on a defensive mode; and my credibility wouldn't even be a question.


2. Vision
Very often, we get nervous about telling people how big and incredible the potential of our business when we ourselves are not even making any money especially if we just got started. With no results and no credibility, how to get people to believe and join me?

But one day, it dawned on me that I am a work in progress on a direction towards a huge dream, a vision that is way bigger than most people whose future in the next 10-20 years was to continue the same thing working and paying bills every single month. Because of that perception, I started becoming more confident not because of my current situation, but because of where I was heading and will eventually become. I started talking, sharing, and casting my vision and it never failed to make me enthusiastic and excited whenever I talk about it. The right people started joining me because they catched on it too and they were also excited about the vision and direction that we would be heading towards together. 

Narrow minded people only see what you have right now. They can't see ahead. You don't need these people in your business. So don't be ashamed of what you don't have right now. Be proud of where you are heading, and be proud that you are on a direction towards something way bigger than most people dare to ever dream. 


3. Association
Although I had no success story nor any results in the beginning, but I know people who do. Even though they don't know me, I still took the initiative to ask them for a picture together and if they could share with me their story. People who are successful would usually be glad to share their story especially if it's of any help to anyone.

What I did was posted the pictures of us on Facebook and Instagram and shared their story. Friends in my social media would than associate me with multiple successful people which in turn associated me as someone credible too. That gave me leverage to easily invite people out. There was even once where someone privately messaged me to ask me meet up because of my associations and she even signed up!

During my presentations, I would also show the pictures and share their stories as well. This would not only allow me to show that I am associated with people who already have the credibility, but also at the same time, I wouldn't be perceived as someone arrogant as I am not blowing my own horn. Even today, I am still using this powerful method and even teaching it to my team as it is easy to use and easily duplicable. Alot of times, people's perception of your value is based on who they perceive you to be associated with. 


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