Network Marketing Success: Responsible Sponsoring

There's one philosophy of network marketing that says, "Sign
up anything with a pulse."

This is the throw-them-against-the-wall-and-see-who-sticks
approach. The hope is that SOMEONE amongst those raw
recruits will emerge as a leader.

I see two problems with this strategy.

First, it's bad for the network marketing industry.  Why?
Let me give you an extreme but true example.

I know a network marketer who enrolled 2,000 new recruits
into his organization in less than two years.  And not just
any old recruits.  These folks all purchased his company's
top starter pack.

He made quite a bundle on pack commissions, as you might
imagine. Naturally, everyone wanted to know how he did it,
and he became quite popular as a speaker for a while. 

Later, I learned that his retention rate was a measly 10%.
Surprise, surprise!  He just didn't have the time or the
resources to work with all 2,000 of those people to help
them succeed.

Okay, 10% of 2,000 is 200.  That's still a lot of people.

True, but let's turn that around.  It means that the other
1,800 people, who paid a lot of money for those starter
packs, got their dreams shattered and are now probably
telling their friends and relatives that network marketing
is a hype and a scam.

Is it any wonder MLM has a bad reputation?

The second problem with this super-enroller approach is that
it's bad for the business of the person doing the
recruiting.  How can that be? 

I'll answer that very simply: Lack of duplication.

If you've been doing network marketing for longer than five
minutes, you know the importance of helping the distributors
in your organization learn to do what you do and duplicate
your efforts.

I doubt that many of the 200 surviving team members
recruited by the mega-enroller were able to successfully
copy what he did (which come to think of it might be a good
thing, considering the negative impact his type of method
has on the network marketing industry).

Unless he changes his approach, he'll never reach a solid,
residual income that will enable him to retire.

By contrast, here's a completely opposite approach some
friends of mine are using.  In their system, a distributor
finds ONE and only one new business builder per month, every
month. No more, no less. (Product users, on the other hand,
can be unlimited.)

Each new enrollee makes a commitment to do the same, and
becomes part of a small team.  Team members support one
another and hold each other accountable to meet their one-a-
month recruitment goals.

One a month.  Hmmm. If you were doing it this way, you would
have plenty of time to interview prospects, get to know them
well, learn their strengths and weaknesses, and pick the ONE
person among them who is most likely to succeed - the
individual who will take her commitment seriously and
continue the process of working with the team and finding
ONE new person each month herself.

But one new recruit per month - can you really build a
successful business this way?  Let's crunch some numbers and
see. 

If everyone does what they're supposed to do, your
organization will double in size each month.  Starting with
the first month, there would be two people - you and your
first new recruit.  The second month you would each find
another new distributor who would commit to following your
lead, and there would be four people on your team.  The
third month there would be eight. 

I know that so far this sounds really lame compared to
recruiting 2,000 people.  But get out your calculator and
see what happens if you keep doing this for twelve months
and everyone else does his or her part. 

You'll end up with 4,096 active distributors in your
organization. Compare that with the 200 distributors the
mega-recruiter was left with after the 1,800 disgruntled
recruits dropped off his team.

Of course realistically it's not very likely that you'll end
up with a perfect 4,096 team members after a year because
there will always be a few dropouts.  But what if you're
only half that successful and end up with 2,000?  You'll
still have lots more active distributors than the mega-
recruiter, and your numbers will continue to grow.  What's
more, you'll have achieved that success without destroying
the trust of masses of innocent people in the process.

Now I certainly haven't studied the compensation plans of
every network marketing company on the planet, but I'm
guessing that anyone with an organization of 2,000 - 4,000
business builders is making a pretty good income, regardless
of what they're selling.  And it all comes from personally
sponsoring just twelve new people - one per month.

The most important point is this:  If you want to be
successful in your MLM business, be a responsible sponsor.
Take the time to select your business partners carefully,
and support and train them so they'll have the best possible
start in their new venture. 

In the long run, it will pay off for both of you.

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Liz Monte writes on a variety of network marketing topics.
She finds the new one-a-month approach very intriguing and
has dedicated a section of her website to writing about it.
Find it at www.WiseNetworkMarketer.com