There is a struggle going on between those that have been building their network marketing businesses using the old school methods of prospecting, and those using the newer online methods used by many in network marketing today.

While one does not have to be completely abandoned in favor of the other, there are differences that are important to realize, the main one of which is that to use the newer methods you must be willing to educate yourself and invest some time into building a presence and a name for yourself.

The prospecting method can be compared to going through a deck of cards to find the four Aces that we know are there, or to sewing seeds which are bound to yield some plant growth in some proportion to the number of seeds sewn.

It’s a numbers game in that you talk to many people to find the few who are looking.

What some fail to realize is that while they have been sewing seeds in an uncultivated garden, there are those that prefer to cultivate the soil and reach a better return on the investment of seeds by first qualifying the ground in which you work.

This applies both to online and offline, when you think about it.

Although you might be more skilled in the old school methods, knowing when and how to bring up your opportunity or products, others who are not might be best served by using online methods while they hone their inter-personal skills.

Online marketing also removes some of the pressure as you talk to your warm market, you no longer may feel the need, often sensed by the other person, to have them join your business.

So while a deck of 52 cards might yield four aces, would you rather be personally qualifying all of the other 46 cards yourself (and even having to deal with the couple of jokers in there) or utilizing a marketing system that will weed those out for you?

Yes the latter will require some learning and a bit of work to set up.

But the point is that it will save you years of prospecting in the long run and yield a set of highly qualified and targeted leads for you to spend your valuable time with.

And as for the customers who are not interested in a business but may be only interested in your product, prospecting and marketing makes sense to be used hand in hand.

The more methods in your arsenal for getting retail sales, the more successful you will be. (That is if your product is not over-priced for retail).

Why Change or Add New Methods? Try a Failure Rate of No Less Than 97%

I believe that much resistance to the idea of using marketing to generate MLM leads is born from those ‘”trained” by the heavy hitters in the industry who do have success doing things the way they have been for so many years.

These people have a natural ability to get people to follow them, yet they are not as skilled in mentoring and training others to learn those skills (aside from pointing to a few books).

And, those heavy hitters are the mere 4% or less of distributors making the largest portion of the money in most MLM companies (just check your income disclosure sheets if you even have them). Of course they are going to trumpet their methods and ‘train’ using those methods while telling you nothing else works.

After things weren’t moving in the direction I liked for me using those methods, the question kept popping up in my mind, why not look for people who are looking? And if people ARE looking, where do they generally go? *Google*.

So that is where I went. I found that there were so many thousands of people looking for both my product and opportunities in the industry that I had no idea how to connect with.

And I found an entire, thriving industry which had been ignored and had even been bashed by my upline, full of people who had indeed already figured this out.

Why was this so pooh-poohed by my upline? Because they did not know or understand it. Since the time I took to learn the new methods, I have met dozens if not hundreds of like-minded people in the industry that I will be working with now toward a residual income.

These are the people I want to be in business with, the ones who WANT to be in business with me, the ones I do not have to chase down, cajole, and convince!

Attraction Marketing

The terms Attraction Marketing and Magnetic Sponsoring are often foreign to those that have been arguing against the newer methods, but really aren’t even new concepts.

Basically they are built around the fact that you want to be able to provide people with what they are looking for, so that they will be attracted to you. What are people looking for in this business? Time with their families, extra money, residual income to name a few. So if you help them get that, they will be attracted with you.

In either method, online or offline, you will build relationships with the people and a subset of those, and many of those will be lifelong friends, and some will end up going into business with you.

Therefore, your best bet is to utilize both methods! Know that many people will be uncomfortable approaching their warm market or making cold calls. Get to know a system that allows people to use automated methods to weed out the people who are looking.

Many online lead generation systems are available, and founded in the Law of Attraction, based on giving without want, and over delivering value to those you are building relationships with, which results in your business growing naturally.

If you would like to know more about really taking your prospecting to marketing online, and dealing with people in your own niche, test drive this proven duplicatable training and lead generating system, put together by internet marketing leaders who have a stellar track record!

Revolutionizing

It would seem that we are on the slight edge of a revolution in the industry. With still so high a percentage rooted in the old methods of using only prospecting to get people into their business, and failing to train their downline to even do that skillfully (while leaving out online marketing methods), there might be a correlation to the rate of attrition in the industry (of course this is also the result of other factors such as the compensation plan).

There are skills to be learned in the offline methods which are ignored, causing MLM to have a bad name while people try to sell and talk others into their products and opportunity.

Consider your personal trainer or car salesman for example. Do you have any idea that they feel targeted, as if they have MLM stamped on their forehead? I did not make this up, my personal trainer told me this. Do you know that your car salesmen all run when they see a network marketer coming? I know this because a car salesman I know told me!

But, network marketing is positioned to be one of the fastest growing industries in the next 10 years according to well known economist Paul Zane Pilzer. However, it is NOT going to happen by finally convincing every trainer, sales person, hair dresser, and chiropractor to go into business with you. Not when there is an ever increasing number of people willing to train themselves in the arts of marketing online.

It is going to happen only through successes of the masses in this industry, which is not what has occurred historically with over 97% attrition and failure rate of distributors and companies respectively.

This success will occur with the use of actual marketing methods, albeit in many cases combined with a bit of traditional prospecting (let’s say, 10%).

But it will not occur if everyone continues to hammer those they happen to know who feel would be ‘perfect’ for this business, further tarnishing what would otherwise be a thriving industry rivaling any other.

A good system should incorporate training in both online and offline marketing and sales, so that they are duplicatable. Why is duplication important? For the same reason you would want to use tools that provide automation: to leverage your time.

And with the learning of attraction marketing techniques including social media marketing, a proven duplicatable training system can hep you to both train your team and qualify your leads. And this will lead to an increase in retention, one of the primary keys to building a true passive residual income.

I would think it well worth anyone’s time involved to become a little educated on some marketing and sales techniques to be rejection free and work with Highly Qualified and Targeted Leads rather than pursue any passerby who can fog a mirror!

As a colleague of mine said in response to these ideas in another post of mine, “Like the old MLM parable of getting a hundred no’s. Who want’s to get a hundred no’s for gosh sakes?

The history of teaching that system is anchored in the results 98% have been getting all these years.”

Utilizing this system eliminates the need for you to ever have to face rejection again, and allows you to sop straining those family and friends’ relationships!

I Look Forward to Your Success!

Tags: Magnetic Sponsoring, new school network marketing, online network marketing, proven duplicatable MLM training system, simple duplicatable attraction marketing system

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 10:04 PM and is filed under Core Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.