Success Story
Would You Do Me a Favor? - Liz & Hugh Zachary of Achievers Unlimited
 Liz Zachary was busy designing houses while her husband Hugh wrote books. They enjoyed the solitude of a North Carolina island community, and they had control over their schedules. Hugh was receiving acclaim for his writing, but while their lives were rewarding, they didn't have much money.
Then some friends they'd met in another Networking company called. Liz and Hugh decided to humor them, because they were friends, and go to a presentation...
Liz: We knew before we got there that we were going as a courtesy, and we left with the same idea. I, personally, did not believe in nutritional products. We took vitamins, but what they were saying sounded too good to be true.
Hugh: We said, "What have our poor friends gotten into?"
Liz: We actually felt sorry for our friends. Then, over eight months, they gently persuaded me to try the product, and I had life-changing effects from it. People started asking me, "What are you doing?"
I told them what I was taking, and they would say, "Can you get me some?" I finally realized I was in the business without realizing I was in the business. Since I wasn't "selling," it changed my attitude totally. I made pretty good money my first month without really trying.
A few months later, I put a check on Hugh's desk. He had consistently refused to do anything with me, but when I showed him the check, he said, "Wait a minute. Do you know what you've done?" In seven months, I'd bypassed the national average income. He said, "What can I do to help you?"
Hugh: Our first challenge was finding six people to do what we did. No, let's put it another way: finding six people who would do the right thing. We didn't know anything about Network Marketing, and we didn't have the proper training. We thought, since we'd finally found a good company, that it would be easy.
We were in an economically depressed area. We had the Atlantic Ocean to our back, and we had to drive an hour to get out of the pine trees and our little village of 500 people.
Another ongoing challenge is to get people to look on this as a business and be serious about it. We know people who have been in Networking for years who still don't realize what kind of a business this is.
Liz: We overcame everything with persistence. Even at our age, and we're 71, we found that we have to change. We've recently moved and put ourselves outside of our normal, everyday life. We make it a rule: Go out every day, do something, get involved.
Hugh: That puts us in contact with people. You meet people by going where people are, and meeting people is it in this business.
You don't have to move to a new town to change. Change the places you shop, get your hair cut, go to church. Get change into your life, because the things that you don't like in your life are not going to change until you do.
Liz: Hugh and I do the business individually. My key action for success is getting out and getting "cold contact" out of my head. That is something that doesn't exist for me any longer. I realized that any person becomes a friend the moment I smile and say hello. To me, that's the key: making a friend.
Hugh: People rarely have anybody say, "How are you doing?" and really mean it. That's the secret of Liz's success. She's a warm, outgoing person, and genuinely interested in people. She teaches: Never ask a question that can be answered with a no. She has a series of magic phrases she uses to always engender a "yes." It may not be yes to the business, but she never gets a no. She protects this fragile little being inside us that doesn't like to be rejected.
I tend to use the curiosity approach. I'll start a conversation, but I won't really get into giving them a sample or material right then and there. I'll say something as simple as, "I don't know if you would be interested in this or not, but it would only take three minutes of your time to call that number. If you're not interested, maybe somebody you know will be." Then I bug out.
I don't have as much success with that approach, but we have put people in the business that way. We're together mostly, though. I think my forte is to start a conversation and then let Liz take over.
Liz: "Would you do me a favor, please?" That's one of my magic phrases. The answer may be "What?" "If I can." "Yes." "It depends on what it is." Never "no."
Somewhere in my conversation I realize that I can make an approach, even if it's just offering a sample. I ask, "Will you do me a favor, please?" I want to give them something, to contribute.
Hugh: I think the fact that we're old fashioned Networkers is our main philosophy. I fool around with the high-tech stuff -- I'm on the Internet with a couple of pages -- but our main belief is that, as John Fogg says in Conversations with the Greatest Networker, "Networking is conversation." For years we've been saying, "All you have to do is talk to the people." This is the core of our philosophy.
Liz: You just have to keep at it.
Hugh: I think the best thing about this business for people is to not have to say, "Hi, Boss. How are you this morning?" That freedom from a boss or the retail grind is what drives most Network Marketers.
I can write what I want, when I want, because of Network Marketing. If they don't buy it in New York, I can publish it myself.
Network Marketing also gives women an equal chance. They can make as much money as men, and more, if they want to do it. The first thing you know, we had single mothers being able to cut down on their work schedules or leave it all together to be spending more time with their kids.
We had an entrepreneur who, when we first made him a distributor, said, "Don't you ever dare ask me to give up my business." He was working ten hours a day, seven days a week. One year later, he sold his business without telling us.
Liz: Isn't it wonderful, isn't it marvelous that this business can be for anyone! It doesn't make any difference what age, what gender, what race, what educational level -- if their dreams are strong enough, they're going to succeed. It's a good feeling where you can see people come up and realize their dreams, some of them for the first time in their lives. That's one thing that I love about this business. Not just the freedom, but the people. I can't separate them, because the freedom gives me a chance to be with people.
LIZ & HUGH ZACHARY started with Achievers Unlimited, Network Marketers of nutritional products, in May, 1993. They are full-time Two Star distributors and live in Fayetteville, NC. They celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary in January, and Hugh expects to have his first industry-related book -- The First Success Book, showing how Biblical philosophies apply to Network Marketing -- published in March.
Back to top of article
Reprinted with permission from Upline, Cvitanovich-Dubie Profile - January 2000, 888-UPLINE-1, http://www.upline.com
Back
|
