MLM Recruiting – The 7 Deadly Sins Of Recruiting & Sponsoring
Often times, in the excitement and nervousness of sharing your Home Biz Opportunity to a prospect, we forget the fundamentals of MLM recruiting, and as a result… big mistakes happen.
We’ve all been there before (I know I certainly have).
However, if your home based business relies upon you successfully finding and recruiting other people into the company…
… there are some critical sales and MLM recruiting fundamentals you must know in order to effectively grow your MLM business.
Earlier today Michelle and I went to our local coffee shop to hang out for a bit.
After getting our order we sat down to enjoy our coffees and discuss work stuff.
Sitting next to us were two ladies having a conversation.
We immediately realized that one of the ladies was a MLM/network marketing distributor.
The other lady was the prospect and they were having the over so popular “company presentation” meeting.
[From here on out I will refer to the network marketing distributor conducting the meeting as “Lady A” and I will refer to the prospect listening to the presentation as “Lady B”]
Seeing that Michelle and I were dialed into the Network Marketing industry so heavily for several years…
… and seeing that we still serve the mlm/network marketing and Home Based Business industry with our training and coaching, we couldn’t help but perk our ears up and eavesdrop on their conversation.
To say that Lady A made a few mistakes in her presentation is an understatement.
For your benefit I have listed “The 7 Deadly Sins” that occurred during this coffee shop “company presentation”.
Hopefully you can learn from this lady’s mistakes and won’t fall into the same trap when speaking with your prospects.
MLM Recruiting – The Seven Deadly Sins
1.) Spoke 90% Of The Time
Imagine having a conversation with someone where they spoke 90% of the time and you only spoke 10% of the time?
How would that conversation make you feel?
If it was me, I would feel that the other person didn’t care much about me and just wanted to talk about themselves the whole time.
Well that’s exactly how this conversation went.
Lady A just blabbed on and on and on and hardly let Lady B get a word in.
One of the basic fundamentals of sales no matter what industry you’re in or what you’re selling, is that you should listen to your prospects more than you speak to them.
They say we have two ears and one mouth for a reason…. so it might be wise for you to consider listening twice as much as you speak when you’re in a sales meeting or while MLM recruiting.
2.) Feature Dumped
“Feature Dumping” is when you only talk about the features of the product(s) and not the benefit or better yet the benefit of the benefit.
In this case specifically Lady A was going through her flip chart of products and spewing out all of the ingredients contained within the products as if Lady B knew what they were or how they would benefit her.
But Lady A hardly ever shared or explained any benefits.
In particular, she never explained any benefits that would specifically help Lady B.
At one point Lady A did mention…
“Oh this product here is great for the hard core weightlifters! Those guys love it! It gives them a boost during their work outs so they can lift more and get ripped!”
Now I don’t want to get too judgmental here and come across the wrong way but…..
Lets just say Lady B didn’t look like she exercised very often.
And she certainly didn’t look like she was hitting the gym to pump out some deadlifts and squats with the fellas.
So the point here is this… how is the weightlifting product going to benefit Lady B?
What’s in it for her???
If you’re going to discuss the features of your product be sure to tie in a benefit that your prospect will receive as a result of the feature.
Otherwise, there is no point in listing out feature after feature.
You’re just “feature dumping” and this is a very ineffective way of selling and your MLM recruiting will suffer.
3.) Never Asked Questions
While we were sitting there eavesdropping on our unsuspecting coffee shop neighbors, Lady A not once asked Lady B a question about her pains, struggles, or goals.
Lady A didn’t ask…. “Are you hoping to lose weight or get into better shape?”
She didn’t ask…. “If you were able to earn some extra cash each week… what would you do with that money?”
She didn’t even bother to inquire into her situation…. for example:
“Hey if you could change anything right now in regards to your current situation, what might that be?”
Nothing, nada, zip!
Instead Lady A thought it would be more effective to verbally vomit all over Lady B while flipping through her flip chart sharing all of the features of the products intended for 18-30 year old men who want to blast their biceps until they look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.
(Btw – I’m talking The Terminator “Arnold”, not Jingle All The Way “Arnold”. You know… Conan the Barbarian “Arnold”… not Twins “Arnold”. I think you get the picture.)
In any case, asking your prospect questions so that you can uncover their pain is critical if you want to successfully sell more product or recruit more distributors.
You’ve got to become a solution provider!
You (or your product) has to become a “pain pill” for their pain.
But in order to first identify their pain you’ve got to ask them questions and get them talking.
4.) Never “Checked In” With The Prospect
“Checking In” with your prospect is similar to asking questions but it serves a slightly different purpose. “Checking In” in this sense is really more about trial closing which is a critical element to successful MLM recruiting.
So back to our coffee shop where our fabulous Lady A has already violated some of the most basic fundamentals of selling and/or MLM recruiting.
She now proceeds to continue with her gouging of our profession in yet another way.
She never “checked in” with her prospect.
She never stopped to ask….
“Does this make sense?”
Or…
“Are you getting this?”
Or….
“Can you see how this would help you to achieve ________ ?” (the desired result Lady B wants to achieve if only Lady A, in all of her unbridled enthusiasm, had actually pulled her head out of her own “you know what” long enough to ask Lady B one… stinking… question!!!)
But no.
This never happened.
Instead, we have Lady A with her brand new Ladies fitted company t-shirt, with the bedazzled company logo pasted across her chest, and in the company colors, which just happened to exactly match the colors of Lady A’s fresh mani-pedi she got just prior to their coffee shop meeting…
… because Lady A thought Lady B would be SO impressed by Lady A’s style and “togetherness” that Lady B would whip out her credit card, buy 1000 units of product on the spot, and immediately drive over to the nearest Gold’s gym…
… so she could interrupt all of the roided out gym rats in the middle of their “power set” and pitch them on “a better way to get your complete protein synthesis and complex amino acid mix.”
(Wow my high school English teacher Mrs. Edwards would hate me for that last run on sentence)
Anyway….. Lady A never once “checked in” with Lady B and I could tell that Lady B’s eyes were starting to become more glazed than the half eaten donut sitting in front of her.
5.) Made Medical Claims
Yup… you guessed it!
Lady A committed one of the biggest no-no’s in MLM recruiting especially for the Health & Wellness segment.
She made some blatant medical claims.
Now I’m no doctor and I can assure you that Lady A with her Ladies fitted (and freshly bedazzled for extra “pop”) company t-shirt is no doctor either.
So when Lady A started saying things like….
“People who are taking this (points to product in her flip chart) no longer have to take their high blood pressure medicine.”
“and this one here…. (more flipping and pointing) this one cures fibromyalgia.”
She’s making blatant medical claims that may or may not have the same result for other people.
So as it stands right now, these products (according to Lady A) are curing high blood pressure and fibromyalgia!
Not “helping” or “relieving symptoms of” or “some people have experienced a decrease in blahbity blah blah”…
Nope… according to Lady A the products are curing, in fact they are eradicating high blood pressure and fibromyalgia.
These are the kind of claims that can get a good company into a lot of trouble.
So please…. be very careful with the any medical claims. In fact, it’s better to steer clear of making medical claims altogether.
You’d be wise to even contact your company headquarters and speak to someone about what is and what is not appropriate to say about the health benefits of your products.
6.) Didn’t Have A Story or Testimonial
What was amazing to me was that the entire time Lady A was jabbering away about the company product’s she never once shared a story or provided a testimonial about people who have had success with the products.
Not one comment about how real people are feeling after taking the products.
Not one mention about “this lady in Cleveland who lost 20 lbs. as a result”.
Not one story from Lady A about how “I took this product for 4 weeks and I lost 4 inches off my waste line and as a result I can finally fit back into my favorite pair of jeans again!”
Stories and testimonials are very powerful ways to illustrate to your prospect the benefits of the products.
It demonstrates that there are other people just like your prospect who are out there right now achieving similar results because they said “YES” to the decision you’re prospect is about to make.
So if you really want to take your MLM recruiting to the next level then you need to start incorporating stories into your presentation.
It’s called “social proof” and there is almost nothing more effective then social proof when it comes to getting someone to say “yes” to your offer.
7.) “I’m Not A Fan Of This Product”
Yes, Lady A actually said this about one of the products.
Now maybe you’re thinking….
“But Bill, she’s just being honest!”
You’re right, however in this situation Lady A’s honesty is directed in a negative slant towards her own company products.
Lady A would’ve been better off focusing more on the products that she really likes rather than point out one that she doesn’t.
Furthermore, what if this was the one product that Lady B was starting to resonate with?
If so, then Lady A just effectively squashed perhaps the one reason why Lady B was interested in being a distributor or a product user.
So instead of saying “I’m not a fan of this one”, Lady A could’ve said….
“I don’t use this one in particular but I know a lot of people who do and really like it!”
The bottom line is this, if you want to get really good at MLM recruiting then you need to only speak positively about your company products, even if one of them may not be to your liking.
MLM Recruiting: Final Thoughts
Now that you’ve read the 7 Deadly Sins of mlm recruiting you can see how mistakes can happen.
Excitement alone won’t cut it if you’re serious about building a successful home based business.
If you want to build a successful, long term, profitable business you’ll need training and you’ll need to have a system that will show you how to bring in distributors consistently and profitably.
Recruiting new distributors doesn’t have to be hard.
By avoiding the 7 Deadly Sins of MLM Recruiting you’ll ensure that mistakes like this won’t hurt your chances of recruiting your next All -Star.
To get access to a free marketing bootcamp that will show you how to attract prospects and customers to you, without having to chase down deadbeat leads click on the image below!
