Many peo­ple are scared away from net­work mar­ket­ing, also known as mul­ti-lev­el mar­ket­ing (MLM), because of all the myths and mis­un­der­stand­ing about this busi­ness type. Part of neg­a­tiv­i­ty comes from low MLM suc­cess rates. How­ev­er, a mul­ti-lev­el mar­ket­ing busi­ness isn’t des­tined to any more unsuc­cess­ful than any oth­er busi­ness. No mat­ter what busi­ness you start, you need to build it to be successful.

To enhance your multi-level marketing (MLM) and recruiting efforts within the world of direct selling, consider using these MLM Success tips:

1) Brush Up on the Real­i­ties of MLMs
To stay safe from pyra­mid schemes and MLM scams, arm your­self with knowl­edge. Learn about the indus­try as a whole, research MLM com­pa­nies care­ful­ly, and deter­mine if you’re a good match with your spon­sor. The truth is, while you can get rich in MLM, sta­tis­tics show that less than one out of 100 MLM rep­re­sen­ta­tives actu­al­ly see MLM suc­cess or make any mon­ey. How­ev­er, that’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly the busi­ness or MLM indus­try’s fault. Most ath­letes nev­er make it to the Olympics, but that’s not sports or the Olympics’ fault. Any great feat requires knowl­edge and action.

2) Find a Com­pa­ny With A Prod­uct You Love
You can’t sell some­thing or share your busi­ness if you don’t gen­uine­ly have pride in what you are rep­re­sent­ing. Do your MLM research and part­ner with a com­pa­ny that has a prod­uct you can get excit­ed about.

Don’t for­get to look into the com­pa­ny’s com­pen­sa­tion plan before you join and make sure it is favor­able to you.

3) Be Gen­uine and Ethical
One rea­son that direct sell­ing gets a bad rap is that many rep­re­sen­ta­tives use hype and some­times decep­tion to lure in new recruits. This leads many to believe that the MLM com­pa­nies them­selves con­done this behav­ior, but in truth, they don’t.

Legit­i­mate MLM com­pa­nies encour­age you to be hon­est in your deal­ings with cus­tomers and poten­tial recruits. If you love your prod­uct, your enthu­si­asm is enough to pro­mote it. Just make sure you’re not over-the-top or mak­ing exag­ger­at­ed or false claims. Good busi­ness con­duct will ensure that your cus­tomers and recruits don’t feel duped, and as a result, will stick with you.

4) Don’t Bar­rage Your Friends and Family
Noth­ing will annoy your fam­i­ly and cost you friends more than con­stant­ly pes­ter­ing them about your busi­ness. There’s noth­ing wrong with let­ting them know what you’re doing and see­ing if they have an inter­est, but if the answer is “no,” let it go. Many com­pa­nies sug­gest mak­ing a list of 100 peo­ple you know, and while that’s not wrong, you should con­sid­er that most suc­cess­ful MLMers have very few peo­ple from their orig­i­nal list of 100 peo­ple in their busi­ness. In most cas­es, friends and fam­i­ly who are in the busi­ness often come AFTER see­ing the MLMer’s suc­cess. Suc­cess in MLM comes from treat­ing it like any oth­er busi­ness, in which you focus on the peo­ple who want what you have to offer.

5) Iden­ti­fy Your Tar­get Market
One of the biggest mis­takes new MLMers make is look­ing at every­one (includ­ing friends and fam­i­ly #4) as a poten­tial cus­tomer or recruit.

This is one area where the MLM indus­try gets it wrong. Like any oth­er busi­ness, you’re going to have greater suc­cess and effi­cien­cy if you iden­ti­fy your tar­get mar­ket and focus your mar­ket­ing efforts at them. Some­one who does­n’t care about vit­a­mins or health and well­ness isn’t a good per­son to pester about your business.

6) Make an Effort to Share Your Product//Business Plan Every­day
Many MLM spon­sors will have you focus on recruit­ing new busi­ness builders; how­ev­er, your income, in legit­i­mate MLM, comes from the sales of prod­ucts or ser­vices. Fur­ther, cus­tomers who love the prod­ucts or ser­vices can be more eas­i­ly con­vert­ed into new busi­ness builders. Just like any oth­er busi­ness (home-based or oth­er­wise), get­ting the word out about your prod­uct or ser­vice can ben­e­fit your tar­get mar­ket is the key to gen­er­at­ing new cus­tomers and recruits.

Some ideas include shar­ing a prod­uct sam­ple, invit­ing a neigh­bor to host a prod­uct par­ty, or start­ing a web­site or social media account.

7) Spon­sor, Don’t Recruit
One of the ben­e­fits of MLM is the abil­i­ty to bring in new busi­ness builders and prof­it from the sales they make in their busi­ness. While some see this as “using” oth­ers, the real­i­ty is that you’re being reward­ed for help­ing oth­ers suc­ceed. But for them to suc­ceed, you need to see your role not as rack­ing up as many recruits as pos­si­ble, but in being a leader and train­er. The focus then is on the suc­cess of those you help in the busi­ness, not on you. That means you need to take time to train them, answer ques­tions, cel­e­brate their suc­cess­es, and be a sup­port when things are tough.

8) Set a Goal for Par­ties or Presentations
MLM is a per­son-to-per­son to busi­ness. While many peo­ple don’t like that aspect, espe­cial­ly in the dig­i­tal age, the real­i­ty is that it’s the per­son­al touch that sells the prod­ucts and busi­ness, and retains cus­tomers and busi­ness builders. Based on your com­pen­sa­tion plan and goals, deter­mine how many peo­ple you need to show your prod­ucts or busi­ness to reach your goals in the time you want. Doing so will ensure you grow your busi­ness rather than just sus­tain it.

7) Lis­ten and Sell the Solution
Many com­pa­nies pro­vide scripts to help you sell the prod­uct or ser­vice. While these can be help­ful in teach­ing you about your prod­uct and deal­ing with objec­tions, sales is all about being a solu­tion to what a cus­tomer needs. By qual­i­fy­ing your con­tact first, and then lis­ten­ing to their needs, you can tai­lor your pitch so that you’re the solu­tion to their problem.

8) Learn How to Market
MLMers often stick to the three-foot rule (every­one with­in 3‑feet of you is a prospect) and oth­er tra­di­tion­al mar­ket­ing tac­tics. But direct sales is like any oth­er busi­ness. It can and should be mar­ket­ed in a vari­ety of ways that takes into con­sid­er­a­tion your tar­get mar­ket, what it needs, how you can help it, and where it can be found. To that end, you can use a vari­ety of mar­ket­ing tools includ­ing a web­site (check your com­pa­nies poli­cies about web­sites), email, and social media to increase prod­uct sales and inter­est in your business.

9) Stand Out from Oth­er Distributors
One of the chal­lenges of MLM is con­vinc­ing prospects to buy or join with you as opposed to the oth­er reps that live in the neigh­bor­hood or they know online. You’re sell­ing the same stuff as thou­sands of oth­ers, mean­ing con­sumers have a choice. So you need to do some­thing that makes you unique com­pared to every­one else. Give peo­ple a rea­son to choose you over oth­er reps.

10) Devel­op a Sys­tem for Fol­low­ing Up
While you don’t want to pester and annoy peo­ple, in many cas­es, with good fol­low up, you can make the sale or recruit at a future time. Sales is often about tim­ing, and ‘no’ in sales does­n’t always mean ‘nev­er.’ If some­one tells you no, but there was some­thing in the dia­logue that sug­gest­ed they might be inter­est­ed in the future, ask if you can put them on your mail­ing or email list, or if you can call in six months to fol­low up. Many will give you their email or phone num­ber just because they want to be nice. Even so, use your cal­en­dar or con­tact sys­tem to remind you when to call.

 

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