Network Marketing: How to Spare Yourself the Pain of Recruiting the Wrong People

97% of network marketers fail. So, if you sign up every person who's willing to sign up, 97% of them are likely to fail. This isn't rocket science. Do you really want to spend 97% of your time working with distributors who ultimately aren't going anywhere? This is an enormous drain on your energy and will burn you out. Imagine if employers hired employees this way: first come, first served. You've probably seen some employers who do hire this way, and you've probably also noticed the quality of employees they end up with. If you're willing to take whatever you get, what you get isn't likely to be very good.

If you want to be successful in MLM, you need to recruit only the people who are the most likely to fall into the top 3%. Of course, you'll need to allow for a large margin of error, so you should probably sign up about 20% of the people who come to you. The typical networking marketing story is fairly short. People start their own MLM businesses expecting it to be a simple quick fix that easily generates a large cash flow. They are quickly disappointed when their initial efforts meet with little success. They drop out of the business, and at best remain as wholesale customers of the product they couldn't sell. Do these people a favor by weeding them out early on in the process. You'll be doing yourself a favor, too; you don't want to spend hours of your time trying to motivate them to carry on, when ultimately, this strategy won't work anyway.

Instead, you need to think of your prospective distributors as if you were an employer hiring a new employee. You're going to be investing your personal time into training and developing this person, and for you to know that this investment is going to pay off, they need to demonstrate to you that they take the business seriously. Network marketing is not a hobby, a get-rich-quick scheme, or a means of solving short-term cash flow problems. It's a business model that requires persistent effort over time, and most distributors have to work a plan consistently for months before they begin to see money starting to trickle in.

A distributor who does nothing, or worse yet, a distributor with a negative attitude, is a cancer to your downline. Cut out the cancer before it spreads to the rest of your downline. There's nothing more counterproductive than somebody who indulges in telling their discouraging tales of woe to other distributors under you. If you allow this to happen, doubt will set in and the problem will multiply. The best way to prevent this from happening is to refuse to sponsor these people in the first place.

This hub will help you to start putting together a process that will help you ask the right questions and flesh out the red flags early on in the process.

If you've read Ann Sieg, Mike Dillard, or looked at Renegade University, you've heard about the attraction marketing model by now. You may not know how to get people to approach you about your business, and that's good. Because it doesn't work that way, anyhow. You don't get people to do anything. You develop yourself, and you become the kind of person that you would approach. It's that simple. Until you've done that, any effort that you put into recruiting will be largely wasted. People still think the same way they always did; if you're approaching someone about your business, they're likely to wonder if it's that good an opportunity. If it was, why are you the one approaching them?

Obviously, you'll have to do some form of advertising in order to get the word out that you're in network marketing, and people who don't know you will have to have some means of finding out who you are and how to contact you. But before you get to that point, it's more crucial to prepare yourself for being contacted. What would you say if someone called or e-mailed you today to ask you about your business opportunity? What would you tell them? What questions would you ask? But most importantly, why should anyone want to be part of your downline?

If the answer you give amounts to how great your company is, or how great their products are, think again. That doesn't mean a thing to your prospect. All companies make good products of some kind or another, but aside from that, it says nothing about you. It's you that you want people to approach, not your company. What is it about you personally that makes you a great resource to work with? What skills or resources can you provide to people who sign up as your distributors? If someone were to sign up under you today, what would you do to help them get their business off the ground? How would you support them on a week-to-week basis? Does your answer to this question set you apart from other distributors in your company, or does it sound the same as any other distributor's answer would sound?

It doesn't matter how many people approach you if you don't have a solid plan for what to say to them once you have them on the phone. If you don't have a plan in place for how you will keep them interested in you after they've spoken to you, don't even bother advertising. What you'll get for your money is a few lukewarm prospects who say that they'll think about it and call you back. If you talk to your leads and read them a script that your company gave you, you'll warm them up to the product line, and then three months later, they'll sign up under somebody else.

So, before doing anything to get people to look at your business, figure out why you should be the one that people want to sign up with, and figure out how to communicate that quickly and clearly.

Once you've created a strong value proposition that sets you apart from other distributors, you'll likely have started to see specific kinds of people and situations that fit well with your distributorship. You'll have noticed what kinds of people you want on your team to complement your strengths and skills. Now you need to qualify the people you talk to. This will become an automatic process in several different areas. You'll move into continuous interviewing mode. Think of yourself as a talent scout who's always on the lookout for rockstars.

You'll find that people ask you about what you do in social settings. You'll want to have a brief response such as "I'm a distributor for ABC Nutritionals." In most cases, the conversation will shift to another subject at that point, or the person may ask a brief question or two. But, on occasion, somebody will raise an eyebrow and express genuine interest. Think of this as if you were the president of a top firm in a given field. You might occasionally encounter someone looking for a job in your field. If they got drooly and started telling you that they were looking for a job in your firm, you'd tell them to send a resume to the human resources department and never give a thought to it again. If, on the other hand, they were professional and tactfully revealed that they were looking for a job, you might be genuinely interested and give them your direct contact information. You should be treating potential distributors the same way.

You can invite the people who contact you to schedule an interview if you've determined that they're a good fit for your team. A phone interview format is probably the best way to handle it, since at some point, you'll be dealing with people outside your local area. The first rule is to get the other person doing most of the talking. Ask them why they have an interest in your business, why they chose your company in particular, and what their background is in sales and marketing, if any. Ask if they've done network marketing before. They don't necessarily need to have a sales and marketing background, but do keep in mind that if you recruit someone who's never done sales before, the learning curve will be longer and the likelihood of them staying in is lower.

Finally, ask them how they think they would work the business. Help them begin to speculate about what activities they would be doing on a day to day basis. Ask them how many hours per week they would be willing and able to dedicate to the business. Ask them if they have blocks of time that they could set aside every day without interruption. Ask them how much they anticipate enjoying the process. Just get into a flow and let them share what they have to say. They'll surprise you, for sure, and you'll also see potential problems popping up.

At the end of the interview, give them a definite time frame for follow-up, and stick to it. If you find that they're not likely to succeed, be honest with them about it and don't sign them up.