Network Marketing Lead Generation Ideas

Many new network marketers forget the first tool of network marketing - the network.

If there is one key component that is missing from most folks' understanding abotu marketing online, it's the fact that building a business becomes about the "marketing" first. I think it's much easier when building network comes first. I'll tell you why.

People are attracted to energy.

The more people you have in your network of friends, the more people will be drawn from the outside into your business. It's simple physics. Energy is attracted to energy, when you put energy freely into buiding your network first, prospects will be drawn toward you naturally as you build your network.

With the rise of social media, building a network is not hard and the great thing is, it's not scary either.

Social media sites like Facebook, Myspace, Digg, Twitter, etc. all have immense power to build you a very strong network, and draw people into your "circle of influence."

In the end it's about generating leads by converting those people who are attracted into your circle of influence, see that you are someone who is a "giver" rather than a "taker" and they will request more information from someone like that.

Read more if you'd like to put together your own profitable lead generation funnel for your network marketing business.

If there was one secret of network marketing lead generation I wish I'd known when I started building my business it would be:

• You Should Focus on One Aspect of Marketing First and Master It!

Knowing that one rule could have saved me hundreds of hours of work, thousands of dollars of money spent on new "secret" programs, and a ton of sleepless nights wondering why my marketing just didn't seem to be working.

I was listening to an audio by Sean D'souza, the publisher of psychotactics.com, and an amazing marketer to boot; he talks about the myth of a "target audience" when what we should really focus on is a "target profile."

A target profile is talking to exactly one person rather than an audience of people. Communicating this way focuses exactly what we say to our prospects, and as an added bonus it speaks to more than just those "targets"

That's the true focus of marketing is to "speak" to your audience better. When you focus your communication on one person you'll magnify the effect of your message, and you'll increase your business much quicker than trying the shotgun approach.

If you're looking for another great tool to generate more leads of your network marketing business, I recommend what I call my network marketing leads secret weapon

Doesn't it always seem like if you're going to succeed in network marketing that you have to "talk" about the "business of network marketing"?

Okay I see the irony of this statement in the midst of a hub about network marketing lead generation, but if you really want to become successful at generating leads for your business you probably should focus on one aspect of your product or service in order to pre-sell your prospects into asking for more information from you. In this way you find your niche and establish yourself as an expert withing that niche.

This is super important to your success, not only does it lend you credibility with your audience for giving away focus information concerning a problem or concern they are having, but you also lead with your product or service, generating income for your business and we all know it's volume that drives all commerce.

Network marketing too often looks like a snake eating it's own tail because of distributers' focus on making more distributers first. Leading with the benefits of the products first creates customers, then converts those paying customers into product advocates, which is exactly the type of distributer your business wants.

Here's Wikipedia's answer to what network marketing really is.

I thought lead generation for my network marketing business was some kind of big secret for a long time. . .

I spent several years trying to discover the secret to building my prospects list, and developing my network marketing business in an ethical and systematic way. And I really don't want to come across to you as one of those so-called "gurus" that let you in on their "big secret!"

I'm anything but a guru. Before 2005 I didn't know anything about HTML, Internet marketing, social networking. . . but following a disciplined approach to building my network marketing business, and focusing only on low and no-cost techniques that work I've learned quite a bit about building a real (profitable) business on the Internet.

These techniques can be applied to any business, it certainly doesn't need to be network marketing. Affiliates can use them, non-profit organizations, service sellers. . . pretty much anyone who'd like to earn income or get exposure to their ideas from their computer.

I personally use these techniques to steer potential prospects to my websites, and them let them decide whether or not they they want to take the next step. It's very simple.

True leverage for building your network marketing business come with a focused plan, finding a plan that works with your

• schedule
• skill set
• personality
• budget
• knowledge
• product

I have found it much more effective to find the niche first, then choose the network marketing product that fits the needs of that niche, then do some no-cost testing to see where there are responsive parts within that market.

You are probably using some of these same resources right now:

• Social networking sites - Squidoo, Hubpages, Facebook, Myspace, Digg, Stumbleupon, etc. these are all good networking sites, and they will become the "hub" of your network marketing lead generation machine as you move forward.
• Article marketing - using free resources like Go Articles and Ezine Articles this is a terrific technique to get exposure to your ideas and websites, plus they have great Pagerank so they help in your search engine marketing efforts.
• Lead Capture Pages - Depending on what your knowledge about network marketing lead generation: lead capture pages can be generally divided into two parts: 1) Those you build yourself or 2) Quality lead capture pages with affiliate programs, there are two real good ones I've found as far as quality of information goes. Ultimately these are the pages you'd like your potential prospects to look at and make a decision whether to proceed or not.

Just think if you'd started your network marketing business in 1998, you saw the scope of the Internet and latched onto building a website right then. . . just think about how big your business would be right now! Think about it!

If you had really gone for it full-bore. . . you'd be a millionaire guaranteed. Just 10 years ago! What's wrong with us?

Okay, so you didn't latch onto the power of the Internet 10 years ago, neither did I. I'm not going to bash myself (anymore) and neither should you.

So what if I told you you could jump into almost any market you want and dominate in almost the same way you could of 10 years ago. What would that do for your network marketing lead generation activities?

If you said: "It would make it a lot easier!" I would whole-heartedly agree with you. . .

. . . and it's true, you can dominate almost any market you want to enter, right now using the power of social media. This concept is so powerful for your business. But if you snooze you lose, again.

This window is only going to be wide-open for the next 18 months. If you're not using social media right this second, you are missing out.

Are you excited? Well you should be. If I were you, I'd get accounts with Squidoo, Hubpages, Digg, Facebook, and many of the other top-end social networking sites, right now. . . Get more tips on lead generation and network marketing here

Okay I guess it goes without saying, but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway. Network marketing has a bad name for a good reason.

I read an book the other day called "The World's Greatest Networker", it really opened my eyes up to the fact that network marketing is the only business where no matter what your product is, you are in direct competition with all the other network marketing companies and products.

This makes it really important for the entire industry to clean up it's image, get rid of the 90%+ failure rate, and make it much clearer for people to succeed, as long a they're following a sound course of action. This is really being opened up with power of the Internet and social networking.

Social networking allows you the freedom to be yourself, get your distinct message out into the marketplace, and make virtual friends and build virtual teams with people you have an affinity with. . . and contary to popular belief there's no need to try and pitch or trick people. As long as you do your business in a manner that is ethical and sound, people will be interested in your offering and will request information.

This is what Seth Godin calls "Permission Marketing." Prospects giving you the permission to offer them information with which they can process and either move forward with, or reject and stay where they are. The prospect is in control.

Hence the power of social marketing. You build relationships with people, don't abuse you friendships and people are automatically drawn into your circle of influence.

Plus, and I think this is the biggest benefit for generating your own leads for your network marketing business, is you can use these sites for free. The only cost is being yourself. . . it's pretty powerful. Intelligent people will not stand for spam, being bombarded with promises of millions of dollars in three weeks, or anything like that.

I think if there is one well-founded stereotype about network marketers it is their belief that everyone is going to see the intelligence and logic of "doing" network marketing. This just isn't so. There are a select few people that truly have the desire it takes to succeed in network marketing.