Your Network Marketing Business - What Makes People Join

Have you ever taken the time to really think about what factor was the determining factor as to why people joined you in your network marketing business or why you joined your network marketing business? It would be interesting and important to know the answer. It should impact how you build your business. It should influence how you generate your network marketing leads.

I thought it would be fun to set up an online survey and see what you readers in cyberspace thought about the question.

A recent survey of network marketers asked the question: What was the most important factor in you joining your network marketing business? The choices were:

1. The products or service.
2. The compensation plan.
3. The person sponsoring you.

Guess what the answer was. The overwhelming response was 3) The person sponsoring you. Does that surprise you? If you are involved in attraction marketing or learning about attraction marketing, you already knew that.

Products and services

With products and services, somebody is always coming out with a better version of your product with better this and better that. And often a product comes out that so changes the market that the previous product was virtually wiped out. Think of CD's vs. records and tapes. Think digital cameras vs. traditional film cameras. If people got in for your products, if a better product came along, they would be gone and off to another business in a heartbeat. And if the business was a one-product company or had a limited line of products change in legislation or the Food and Drug Administration policies could also wipe out your business. Your product is important but it shouldn't be the determining factor.

Compensation plan

Did you get in because of your compensation plan? Whenever I show my presentation to people, when I get to the compensation plan eyes light up momentarily and then they glaze over. It may be my presentation skills! But the real reason people lose interest is that most compensation plans are too difficult to understand. The only people that can usually understand them and figure them out are accountants and engineers and only if they can stay awake long enough to concentrate on the numbers! Your compensation plan is important and it needs to be fair but it shouldn't be the determining factor.

You

If you are like most people, you got in because of the person sponsoring you. The last 3 businesses that I got involved with (don't ask!), the reason I got in was because of the person sponsoring me. The first sponsor was my cousin. She was not a business person and she was not an entrepreneur but she was having success in her new business. I trusted her and she had credibility because of that trust. The second sponsor was hugely successful and the second highest person in her company in my country. She was a friend of a relative and my wife knew her, but wasn't a close friend, when she was growing up. I had never met her before but when I heard about her accomplishments I wanted to meet her and find out more. It almost didn't matter what the products were and what the compensation plan was. She was successful, she had credibility, and she was willing to personally train me in the business. The third sponsor was somebody that a relative of mine met and became friends with. They had never met before and she started to tell my relative about what she was doing in network marketing. Again she was exteremely successful and was top 20 in the company worldwide and number 2 in my country. She had a lot of credibility. She was also willing to personally train and counsel me in the business.

YOU, INC.

Those of you involved in attraction marketing (as taught by Ann Sieg of The Renegade Network Marketer fame and Mike Klingler of Renegade University fame) already know this. Attraction marketing is positioning yourself as the expert and building your credibility by providing value based information that can help prospects even before (and even if they never) sign up with you in the business. Promoting and marketing you or "YOU, INC." is what attraction marketing is all about. And it is building up relationships through your various writings on the internet, your videos on YouTube, and your personal sites on Facebook and MySpace. Personally I feel that I have gotten to know many of the people in the internet network marketing community through everyone's web of content. I get to see their pictures that are posted with their articles so I know what they look like, I follow them on Twitter and see what they are up to, I watch their videos on YouTube so I know what they sound like and how they act, I read their articles and see how they think, and I check out their bookmarks to see what interests them. This is all about building those relationships and that credibility and that will attract people to you. And when people are attracted to you, it doesn't matter if a new product or a new compensation plan comes along, your people will stick with you. Their loyalty is to you and not the company. That is a huge asset and built properly, will look after you and your family financially for the rest of your life.

I hope you will take the time to complete the survey. Check back every now and then. It will be interesting to see the results.

C Doug Mah is an internet network marketing coach whose goal is to teach independent business owners how to use attraction marketing and Web 2.0+ technologies to grow their businesses profitably. If you are interested in learning more about internet network marketing please go to my blog for more information.