Network Marketing Prospecting

Back in the olden days of network marketing, prospecting caused most of us a lot of grief. If it didn't cause you a lot of grief, it's either because A) You had a sales mentality and rhino-thick skin, or B) You were lying.

This was because of the methods that were available to us. Honestly, most people were not cut out for doing those kinds of things.

When I think of prospecting, the first thing that comes to mind is the old gold prospectors. I see them wading in a stream panning for gold, or maybe digging into a side of a mountain with a pick and shovel. Hard, hard work.

These guys had to sift through tons of worthless rocks, pebbles and sand in the hopes of finding just one or two gold nuggets.

Why did they do it? They had a dream, a goal. They knew that gold was not going to come knocking on their door. They had to go out and get it.

This is very similar to the old school network marketing methods. You had to tell people, everybody you could, about your company, products, etc. There was no way to target your market back then, so we just accepted and taught that everybody is a prospect.

Here's some of the stuff I actually did:

I made 2 to 3 trips to the grocery store every day, just to prospect. How many gold nuggets did I find that way? Zero

Whenever possible, I'd put flyers on cars. I remember sneaking around at 2 o'clock in the morning putting flyers on car windshields that were parked at apartment buildings. Gold nuggets? Zero.

The very first thing most companies tell you to do is to make a list of all the people you've ever spoken to, look them up, and pitch your business. I actually did this. You want to talk about uncomfortable? Gold nuggets? Zero.

Another method, probably the most popular, was calling prospects from a leads list. This list was typically a list of names and numbers of people who had requested more information about starting a home based business. I called dozens of these every day. I got hung up on, cussed out, and ignored. Gold nuggets? Zero.

So I started thinking to myself: Why am I not having any results? What am I doing wrong?

Not long after that I discovered that my upline was doing only marginally better than I was. The stuff he was teaching me wasn't even working for him. So, I knew there had to be a better way, only nobody was talking about it.

Instead, everybody I talked to told me the same thing: Just go out and talk to people, which was exactly what I was doing with zero results. This was insanity!

It wasn't until I discovered Internet marketing that it all started to fall into place. Ann Sieg's, Renegade Network Marketer opened my eyes to how things really were in the network marketing industry. Then I came upon Mike Dillard's Magnetic Sponsoring, and that book helped me grow my business to the next level.

Rather than prospecting, today it's more like fishing. With attraction marketing, instead of going out and finding people, you cast your line and watch them come to you.

Actually, you'll want to use several lines.