AndyAcciaioli – Marketing Strategist

Over the years, I have been fortunate enough to observe a number of successful network marketers. Some of the basic traits that they share are honesty, responsibility, stick-to-ittiveness, able (eager) to be coached, financially committed to their future and their business…

Honesty. This is the cornerstone of your relationship with your new network marketing team member. If you do not have honesty your relationship will be on thin ice right from the start. A dishonest person will rapidly weasel their way into – and out of – your business proving to be a colossal waste of your time, energy and encouragement.

Responsibility. A responsible person realizes that they alone are responsible for whatever happens in their life. The irresponsible person will blame someone else for whatever happens to them: my sponsor told me the wrong thing…the products my business opportunity offers are not what anyone wants…I’m leaving my network marketing business because my upline won’t help me… This is the same person that will blame his/her boss for not giving him/her the promotion he/she deserves.

Stick-to-itveness. There are a lot of joiners out there. But do they have what it takes for the long haul? If you have been involved with network marketing for any length of time you realize that it takes time, patience and effort to build a successful business. Do you get a sense that the prospect you are talking to has what it takes to stick with their business even during the tough building phase? One simple test of this quality is to ask a prospect to do something – such as go through the comp plan of your opportunity and write down any questions they may have about it. (Usually the comp plan will have even the most experienced networker’s eyes glaze over…a newbie is usually overwhelmed.) If during a follow-up call they attempt to blow you off by saying something like I haven’t had a chance to look it over, I seriously question that person’s ability to stick it out long enough to make their (YOUR) business a success.

Coachability. This seems like a simple concept: can this prospect be coached? But at the root of this is the idea of this person either being an innovator or duplicator. The difference is that the innovator will try to make your business in the image and likeness of them and encourage his/her team members to likewise do their own thing, the duplicator will make themselves into the image and likeness of your company and pass this on to those on his/her team.

Financial commitment. Does your prospect understand the financial commitment he/she is making by joining your opportunity? If you have been honest with them during the prospecting phase, they realize that it is going to take time AND MONEY to build a self-sustaining network marketing business. This is why I enjoy talking to a prospect who currently runs a traditional business. This person knows that it will take an investment of money (e.g. advertising dollars) to grow their network marketing business just as it takes money to build a traditional business. Paying an initial entry fee to join your business is only the beginning of spending money to make money. All funds spent (training material, sales material, product, etc.) is an investment in THEIR future. If they are unwilling or unable to do this, perhaps you should seek out a team member who will.

To be perfectly honest with you, finding someone to fit all of these criteria is a rarity. When you are fortunate to find this prospect your (and their) business will flourish.

Once we start the prospecting and sponsoring process we tend to overlook questions asked of us.  Our goal is to answer the question with the intention of getting that new prospect to join our business.  However if we really listened to what was being asked, it would give us an insight as to what type of person we would be bringing on our team.

Here are some “red flag” questions:

1. My day job is tough enough, do I have to work hard at building this business?
2. I need to make money fast.  Can I get some fast cash from this business?
3. Is this one of those pyramid schemes?
4. Can I just try the product before I jump in and pay the money to become a representative?

If you have been involved with network marketing for any length of time, you would have been trained to handle such questions along the lines of:

1. You can build the business at your own pace.  Some people build the business faster than others who have a limited time to devote to building their business.
2. How fast you make money at your business is up to you.  Some people make a great deal of money very quickly.  Others grow their business at a slower rate.  It’s up to you.
3. In a typical pyramid scheme, you can never have a bigger business than the person above you.  However in our business, you can have a larger organization than me.  And someone below you can have a larger organization than you.  Thereby destroying the concept of a pyramid model.
4. Sure you can try the product as a customer before becoming a representative.  And then when you are ready, you can always become one of my team members.

Out of the sample typical questions I have just presented, 1 – 3 should cause you concern as to whether you have a trainable prospect or not.  The 4^th question is legit as the prospect might be the type of person who needs to try a product or service first before jumping in one-hundred percent or might not have the money at this time to become one of your team members.  Becoming a customer is okay as it will benefit you and ease him/her into using your product(s) or service(s) and, in time, hopefully lead to a new team member.

If questions 1 – 3 are asked of you, probe a little deeper.

When I get asked (Questions #1) about how hard someone has to work the business, my usual response is you can work the business painfully fast or painfully slow: painfully fast pays better and sooner.  When I was in training with my first network marketing business over 20 years ago, rhe prospect asked the person who was presenting the business opportunity for me how fast he could make money as he was in a real dire situation.  My trainer responded that it would take time to build long-lasting residual income…and, if you are seeking a quick solution to your financial situation that perhaps you should invest in lottery tickets rather than  the business he just presented.

Another time, again while I was in training, we did a one-on-one presentation where the prospect kept insisting that this was a pyramid scheme.  After the third or fourth time of his making this statement, my trainer packed up the presentation material and looked at him and said “In your eyes this will always be a pyramid deal, so we have nothing more to discuss.”  We left.   When we got in the car, he explained that this guy world have been quite the project so it was best to not pursue the business with him.

It is almost as if you have to develop a sixth sense to discern what is really behind the question being asked of you.   Most questions are legit and deserve clarifying answers.  However, let the questions that you feel are rather absurd speak volumes about the questioner and the type of team member that person will be once added into your organization.

You have received emails about a network marketing hero who managed to build a business with a monthly residual income in the tens of thousands.  And this was accomplished in a very short period of time.  While the part about it taking little time to do this might be true, the fact is that this person probably spent a great deal of blood, sweat, tears and time building to this point.

I am not trying to diminish this accomplishment. But it is important to realize that this person probably has built a loyal team of networkers who have experienced success under his leadership in other network marketing opportunities and are therefore eager to join in the anticipated success of the new venture.  Besides this, this mlm guru has built a large email list of people looking for a business opportunity.

You might think that parading this person in front of new recruits will entice them to join.  This will probably be the case for a number of those signing-up.  But such large claims, in spite of the fact that they are true, will turn off some potential prospects as they view such claims at best as being too good to be true and therefore these claims are phony.  At worse, these claims could lead to the rapid disillusionment of your new recruit as they realize, after they join your business, that they will never be able to do what this person did in such a short period of time.

A more realistic presentation of someone who has been a seemingly overnight sensation would be to present the facts of what lead to this achievement: Mr. Bid Deal Networker has been successful at building large organizations in his previous business opportunities.    A number of leaders from his previous network marketing business have joined him in this new mlm.

While acknowledging his skyrocketing success you are also presenting an understandable framework of how it was done. You – and your business – are believable.

As I have written before, the world WORK is in network marketing.  Mr. Big Deal Networker had to work at getting to his present level.   But more importantly, your new recruit can understand that he/she can also do the same thing provided they are willing to work the business.

We often moan about the “one” that got away.  “Forget-about-it-“ and go after his/her replacement.  In a world of nearly seven billion people, 1 ½ billion of them connected to the internet and growing, the odds are with you, in time,  that you can be a network marketing superstar.

How?

One word: information.

You can’t market anything – or build a successful network – without first acquiring all of the information you need. You need good solid direction, and to get that, you need good solid information.  You also need to understand the market potential for your products, services and programs you offer.  You have to choose your products with an eye to building a team, to recruiting and to obtaining and maintaining a good client base.  Without these things, you’ll be another MLM marketer with a good idea, and not be able to accomplish anything.  Chances are you’d be out of business almost before you even got started.

Team building (those below you who will duplicate what you do), with a  program or product/service, substantially expands your marketing potential. Because very simply, the more people you have under you, the more business  you can generate from your network marketing business.  The more business you generate, the greater your residual – month after month – income.  Great concept, but not always an easy one to accomplish – at least not alone.

With the expansion of your marketing potential, the type of prospect you are seeking also grows significantly larger.  These people will have the ability to become part of your personal team and build secondary incomes by utilizing the tools and training you provide them.

To get a good grasp of just how large your market potential really is, you need to understand that literally ANYONE in ANY group you belong to – personal, business, chat groups, clubs, is a potential member of your team. In addition, ANYONE in another networking program is also a potential client.

How many friends do you have on Facebook?  How many connections do you have on LinkedIn?  Which other social network websites do you belong to?

Also, watch for all the people who are looking for a home-based business.   (Join and participate in online forums.  Offline?  Join your local area business or lead groups.)  The numbers are staggering.  If you can snag them and get them working for YOU, not only do you benefit, so do they.  Imagine how many potential team members, and potential customers you could find in just that one “home based business” sector.

While it is not impossible for a guppy to capture a whale.  It is highly improbable.

So too is it improbable that a newly recruited team membe3r to your network marketing company could attract an industry leader to his/her opportunity.  Yet in most cases when a new person who has joined our group and mentions people who have recruited him/her in the past, what is our first reaction?  Why not contact them, since you already have a relationship with them, and try to get them to look at this opportunity.

By encouraging your new team member to do this, you are almost setting his/her up to fail for a few of reasons.

One. The network marketer that is being contacted who is already committed to his/her opportunity will not be receptive to any other mlm program.  If they are experiencing the slightest success with what they have why would they want to jeopardize this by jumping on something new?

Two.  Since that network marketing leader initiated the contact by originally prospecting your new team member who refused their opportunity, human nature being what it is, don’t you think that the leader is a tad offended when the prospect who refused his/her offer suddenly comes and attempts to make a pitch for another business opportunity?

Third.  Any network marketing leader would look at a former prospect contacting them as an opportunity to once again try to recruit him/her into their network marketing opportunity?  You know, the reverse recruiting strategy.

The outcome is that you have a deflated team member who was rejected by a leader.  It’s one thing to have the opportunity rejected by a broke brother-in-law, but it’s another thing to have it rejected by a

living, breathing networker.  In the case of the brother-in-law, his opinion has come to mean little over the years.  In the case of a leader rejecting your business, well, maybe they are right and you are wrong for having gotten involved with the opportunity in the first place.

Encourage your newbie, your guppy, to wait until he/she is sponsoring and operating their business successfully before trying to snag a network marketing whale.  Besides, once it becomes apparent that your new team member is on their way to building a profitable mlm business, it will catch the attention of those that tried to recruit him/her in the past.  As we all know, it is better to be chased by those who want to learn more about our business than it is to chase someone into joining our business.

How do you view you5rsponor?  The person who got you out of your comfort zone by introducing you to his/her business opportunity or the sly scoundrel who got you to invest a few hundred dollars in a mlm that just doesn’t work for you?

Quite simply, your response to how you view your sponsor will determine your level of success in your network marketing business.

It’s easy to blame our sponsor when things do not go our way.  to draw an analogy, it’s sort of like blaming the personnel manager who hired you at your day job if in fact you hate your day job.  After all was it not this person who hired you in the first place?  How dare this person not tell you how awful this job would be.  How dare your sponsor in the business opportunity not tell you that it was going to be work. (As you have probably seen in my previous writings, it is called netWORK marketing, not netWISH marketing.)

Let me give you an example of how I was a “scoundrel” sponsor to one of my new recruits.  This person lived over 5 hours from me.  I encouraged him to gather everyone he knew that was willing to attend a business presentation for our opportunity and I would be more than willing to do the presentation at his home.

About a week before the scheduled presentation my team member called me and said that he also invited someone else who was in our network marketing company but not in our group to also come and present the opportunity to the people he invited.  He felt “the more presenters, the merrier”.  I explained that this is a bad idea as having a presenter outside of his line of sponsorship is not done in network marketing (as there is no direct financial benefit for the person doing the presenting).   I said that this would be his decision if he felt more comfortable with this other person doing the presentation that I would not have a problem not participating.  He insisted that I do it.  I asked him how many people committed to attending.  At that point, he told me that no one had.

The night before I was scheduled to drive the 5 hours to this presentation, I called and again asked how many people had made the commitment to attend as I wanted to have enough sales material and applications.  He said that In spite of his best efforts that no one had said that they would be attending.

Since I did not want him to feel as though he did not succeed at pulling a business presentation meeting together, I suggested we move it to another date which world give him more time, and also give me a chance at working with him at inviting others to attend.

It turned out that people did show up for the presentation and he did the presenting himself.  I sent him an email telling him that it was great that he was able to step up and present.  The email that was sent in return was the absolute worse email that I have received in my 20+ years in network marketing.  He not only sent it to me but sent it to every uuplind email address he could find in our network marketing company.  My first inclination was to fire back an email with the facts but then I thought it best to not respond.

The root of this person’s problem, is that he is not a networker but a netWISHER.  Over the past few years he has been in and out of a number of network marketing opportunities.  He probably felt as though his sponsors in those businesses were also scoundrels so he would move on to the next bigger and better opportunity.

It is a matter of personal responsibility. It is easy to point a finger at someone else, such as your sponsor,  for our failures rather than pointing your finger at the real cause of your failure: you.  Your sponsor has one goal for your business that it succeed.  They realize that their business is only as strong as the weakest network marketer they have on their team.

If you feel as though you are not getting the best advice from your sponsor, go further upline and seek to be counseled by that person.  I will bet you that the advice that person gives you is the same advice your sponsor has been giving you.

New Year’s resolutions look like great ideas but oftentimes became a vague memory within the first few days of the new year.  The main reasons for this is that they are not specific and oftentimes quite impossible to achieve.

Take weight, for example.  Saying you want to lose lots of weight and failing to set a specific goal, you are setting yourself up for failure.  A more realistic plan would be to say, I want to lose two pounds a month and by this time next year I will be twenty-five pounds lighter than I am right now.  (An even better plan would be to write your goal down and at the end of each month, record your new weight in a calendar.  If you exceed your goal for that month and lose more than two pounds, terrific.  If not, well you know that you will have to work harder the next month.)

Now, my networking friends, let’s talk your business and your personal sponsoring plans.  By aiming for a gazillion or trying to sponsors lots and lots of people, what exactly are you saying?  Focus on a month-to-month plan.  Go with what is realistic to achieve.  Set your sights on the modest side of personally sponsoring one new recruit into your business every month…or even go more conservative by bringing on a new team member every two months.  Now teach that team member to do exactly as you have done and they will personally sponsor 6 – 12 new team members over the course of the year.  You know that you have succeed in your duplication effort when all of those personally sponsored new team members do exactly as you did by sponsoring 1 or 2 new recruits into their business annually.  Then all of those new team members will pattern themselves after this modest model and so on.

Where will your mlm business be after a year or two?

By your setting achievable goals for yourself, you will be establishing achievable goals for everyone else in your organization.  Your group will have an unstoppable momentum with the added benefit of having a plan that everyone can follow.  Oftentimes a new team member will look to you for guidance as to what is the first step to building a business.  That’s easy: plan on recruiting one new rep a month (or one new rep every two months when you first get started) and plan on personally sponsor 6 – 12 team members each year.

I know the thought of sponsoring a gazillion reps is more glamorous than sponsoring one new team member at a time.  But by keeping it real, your network marketing business will experience a secure future with constant growth.

As the industry wide statistic goes, you have 63 days to get a new member of your team 63 days to get them to make money in your opportunity or he/she is history.  Somehow the vision of “you go and sponsor three and then teach those three to sponsor three who will then go and get three each”…well, that vision has faded over the past couple of months.  All they see is the money they put into buying into your network marketing business plus the monthly autoship payments.

This is not saying that you have not tried to get their business kick-started with them.  Most all of us focus on getting a new member of our group to start generating some activity be it online or offline.  However, it is almost as though all the answers we had while pitching the new recruit do not hold true once they realize that they have to work the business in order to get it working for them.

Let’s be perfectly honest, in order to build an organization that will provide substantial residual income will take months for the overly ambitious and even years for the most seasoned of us.  When a brand new network marketer who has paid anywhere from $250 to $500 to join your business and then a monthly autoship of around $100 realizes that the $2 or $3 residual (from his/her purchases) is a far cry from walking the beaches of the world, you have a problem retaining that person.

There are online affiliate programs that you can join and introduce your team members to.  These will serve as a means of keeping new (and even old) team members focused on building your mlm business.

Why?  Affiliate programs will pump immediate cash into their bank accounts.  No longer will they feel as though all they keep doing is shelling out money for autoship and marketing tools for their (your!) business.

You have to be careful of affiliate programs.  Some offer you a tiny amount, a small percentage of the sale,  to promote their product or service.  This becomes burdensome as you, and your team members, find yourselves working even harder for a small amount of money.  Worse yet, it becomes a distraction to their building their (and your) business.

Find an affiliate offer that practically sells itself and pays out a large commission.  This will get an unstoppable revenue stream flowing to you and your team members which can then fund the building of their (your) network marketing business.

How many of your team members are approaching 63 days without having made back their initial investment?

by Andy Acciaioli

Twas the night before Christmas when I arrived home.
Only Jackson was up waiting for his dog bone.
My 3AM return from networking afar.
The business presentation kit left in my car.

The wife and the kids decorated the tree.
I can’t believe they did all that without me.
To be perfectly honest I was always away,
With meetings and trainings filling both night and day.

Then all of a sudden a bang on the door.
Who could that possibly be at quarter to 4?
I looked through the peephole and on my front steps
Why it was Frank one of my most successful reps.

I couldn’t imagine what could be the matter
Tears down his cheeks, his teeth starting to chatter.
“It’s my son”, he cried out, then gave a long sob.
“He gave up networking and got a real job.”

Not a job I said with a trembling voice.
It’s obvious to me he made a wrong choice.
Think of all the residuals he will forego
Besides the promotion levels he’ll never know.

Frank just nodded his head, he knew all too well
Losing a rep is one thing, to that rep farewell.
“But having my son leave our mlm biz…
He’s always been brilliant, a sponsoring whiz.”

I comforted him, told him all would be fine.
I poured him a drink of my favorite wine.
A few hours had passed and the bottles did too
6AM already crowed the hallway cuckoo.

Although we were tipsy with holiday cheer
Groans from the chimney we started to hear.
All of a sudden Santa landed with a thud
I could understand soot but why all the wet mud?

“Raining all night I knew we were in trouble.
Rudolph guided us right into a puddle.”
Here have some wine and forget the milk and cookies
Santa enjoyed it and was by now quite at ease.

We talked and we talked for almost an hour.
Then he turned to sad Frank and asked why so dour?
After Frank told his tale, Santa started to cry.
“When it came to networking why was I passed by?”

Frank reached in his pocket and out came an app
Santa signed it and left, quick as a snap.
As his sleigh started to rise, he said with a grin
“Back for training on Tuesday unless I’m snowed in.”

Frank’s sponsoring Santa is very astute.
Santa has billions of people to recruit.
Not all network marketing stories end this way.
It’s Christmas, after all, and the truth we can sway.

While at the gym this morning, one of the news channels reported the discovery of two new planets that were approximately the same size of the earth called Nerdistan. Actually they were called Kepler-20e and Kepler-20f (you know how uncreated astrophysicists are when it comes to naming new planets and galaxies).

I started to have palpitations. Not from exercising. But from the anticipated phone call from one of my team members asking when do you think we’ll be able to offer our network marketing business opportunity on Nerdistan, er, I mean Kepler? My response: probably after you sponsor your first couple of reps from planet earth.

You think this is ludicrous? Well, I think having one of my team members trying to recruit from some far off country is just as ludicrous given the fact that that same team member will not make the attempt to sponsor someone in his/her immediate area. With the pervasive internet – especially Facebook with its nearly 1 billion members, the attraction to sponsor worldwide has increased to a fever pitch.

Recently I crossed paths with someone who I recruited into one of the network marketing companies I was with a while ago. I asked him what he was up to and he said that he had joined several mlm’s since he left the company we were in. He added that he recently joined another opportunity. I asked him what it was all about and he told me that he would email me the link to the online business presentation. I asked him to give me some idea of the type of opportunity he was involved with. His response was that he would not be able to do justice to his program that it would really be best if I viewed the online presentation that “they spent megabucks to create” (his words).

Come on. If someone opens the door, as I did by asking him what it was all about, it’s up to you to walk in and give your prepared SHORT spiel as to what your business is all about.

Most of us have become so internet focused that we are almost clueless to the fact that there are people to sponsor right in front of us. Sure we have become experts at using social media as long as it involves tapping on a keyboard…but presenting our business in person, one-on-one is so, so 1980’s and 1990’s. Yet is there any better way for a prospect to gage your level of excitement than to hear it in your voice and see it in your eyes. Somehow typing out a “WOW, FRANK, THIS OFFERS YOU A TREMENDOUS INCOME OPPROTUNITY”, even with the emphatic, capitalized letters will have less of an effect on Frank than looking at him square in the eye and making the same statement.

Bottom line: Talk to people across your town while continuing to develop online prospects across the globe. I do think, however, that it’s a tad too early to pack your presentation board and easel and head off to Nerdistan or Kepler-20e.