Network marketing prospects are famous for declaring they don't have the time to start a business. They tell you they are interested and maybe at some point in the future they'll get started, but they can't do anything right now. But is that the truth? Are they truly interested and truly unable to get started because they "don't have the time"?

No.

Not having time is not the real reason.

The truth is they probably aren't interested but are afraid to tell you. (It doesn't matter why.)

Look, we're all busy today. Our lives are crammed with responsibilities. And yet we manage to find time to do things that are important to us, the things we need to do and also the things we want to do.

Yes, there may be other reasons they tell you they don't have the time. They may be interested but have doubts about their ability to build a successful business. Or, they may be interested but believe they have to put in twenty, thirty, or forty hours a week into building a business. Even ten hours a week may be too much to handle.

We need to educate people about what "part time" really means.

You can start a network marketing business in just an hour a day. People need to know that and they need to believe it. They need to hear how you (or others) are building your business in only an hour a day. Tell stories about how other (busy) people are building their futures in just one hour a day.

Look, if someone really wants to build a business, they can get started with just ten minutes a day.

Ten minutes a day!

Anyone can make a few calls every day and ask their prospects to "check out" their web site or dial into a recorded message. And, if that's all they can do, that's all they can do, but (as Art Williams says), all they can do is ENOUGH.

(Well, it's enough to get started, anyway.)

Who needs your opportunity? Well, according to the latest statistics, a lot of people. Look at this startling visual depiction of unemployment figures. No, really, go look. It's an eye-opener.

But there's a difference between need and want. Yes, millions need an opportunity to become self-sufficient by starting their own business. Millions are out of work and will not (for the foreseeable future) replace their income in the job market. Millions of newly unemployed people need your business opportunity but none of them will sign up unless they want to and a lot of people don't want to be involved in network marketing.

There are many reasons and most of them won't make a lot of sense to you and me. It doesn't matter. The customer is always right and if they don't want to to sign up, they won't do it.

You should spend no time convincing them otherwise.

Don't look for people who need what you offer. Look for people who want the benefits your company offers and are ready to take action to get them.  Look for people who are looking for an opportunity like yours.

How do you find them? The same way you always did–by sorting through everyone else.

Some will, some won't, so what. . . the pool is bigger today than it was a year ago–sort faster, and don't settle for anyone who isn't 100% excited about the opportunity to change their life through network marketing.

Facebook is a great place to meet prospects and potential referral sources. With a few clicks, you can find and connect with exactly the kinds of people you're looking for, at no cost whatsoever. The ease with which this can be done, however, too often leads otherwise smart business people to do things that actually chase prospects away.

Facebook is not an advertising medium, it is a networking medium, and the rules of networking are the same online as they are in the "real" world. Use Facebook to meet people, just as you would at a Chamber of Commerce or Rotary event, and then build a relationship. It's okay to let them know what you do–that is what people do when they meet, after all. It's not okay to assault them with self-serving promotional messages.

Just as it's easy to add friends on Facebook, it's just as easy for them to block your messages or delete you. Understanding and applying a few simple rules of networking etiquette will go a long way towards helping you use Facebook and other social media sites to build your business.

Make your profile about you. People want to be friends with real people, not companies or products or causes. Use your real name, and provide information about yourself–what you do, what you like, where you have been, what you think about the world.

You can describe your business in your profile and add links to your web sites. Think of this area as your online business card. If someone wants to see what you do, they can look in this section. If they want to know more, they go to your web sites. You can also establish a fan page or group for your business and link to this from your profile.

Your profile photo should be, not surprisingly, a photo of you. Photos of your dog or a pretty sunset can go in your photo album, but when I'm considering a friend request, I want to see who's asking. Use a decent head shot and don't clown around. You really do have only one chance to make a first impression.

Be appropriate. The world is watching –and judging you. If you use inappropriate humor, if there are photos depicting you as inebriated, if you are too extreme in your viewpoints–these can all have serious negative consequences.

Use spell check. Use correct grammar. Be judicious in your use of emoticons, abbreviations, and slang. Your real friends may not care about any of this but I can assure you, many of your business prospects do. All they have to go on is what they see on your page, so be careful about what you post.

As for invitations to join your cause or attend your event, please be aware of how your friends might perceive you in light of your activities. Are you involved in anything ill-suited to your profession or the image you wish to portray? Are you always playing games or taking surveys and, seemingly, never working?

Don't advertise. Don't post an ad (or a link to your website) on someone's wall. Ever. Disguising it as an offer for a free ebook that is part of your sales process doesn't fool anyone. Don't do it.

Look, you wouldn't like it if someone came to your house and stuck a sign in your lawn advertising their services, so why would you think anyone wants your ad on their Facebook property? If you post an ad on my wall, I will delete it. If you do it again, I will delete you.

The same goes for email. If I accept your friend request and you immediately send me messages about your product or service, that's a big turn off. You might have something I want, the best price, the greatest service, but don't be surprised if I don't buy from you.  It's not quite spam, but it's close, so don't do it.

Your status message is different. It's on your property–I only see it if my settings so allow. But don't abuse this by posting a never-ending stream of promotional messages. Once in awhile is fine. Do it every hour, like I see some people do, and we're done.

I change my status message usually once a day. That works for me. It's okay to change yours several times a day, but make sure you have something meaningful to say. Some say it's okay to make your status posts two-thirds about you, one-third about your business or offers. I say that's too much advertising. There are other, more subtle ways to spark interest in what you offer. (See below.)

Add value. Your profile, your status updates, your notes, your videos, your comments on others' posts, should be perceived, by and large, not as self-serving or frivolous but as adding value.  That doesn't mean you can't let your sense of humor show or that everything you do must render a benefit. It does mean that you should show people that you have something to say and something to contribute to the relationship.

You can offer tips and advice, share resources, or describe interesting experiences. I  try to post an interesting quote every week day, and I post occasional videos and links I believe my friends would like to see.

You could write articles ("notes" on Facebook), and provide helpful information. This note (which I have posted on Facebook) is an example. When you post articles, not only do your friends see you as making a contribution, they also get a demonstration of your expertise.

By contrast, updates about the sandwich you just ate or the movie you watched are of no value to anyone unless they come with a meaningful recommendation. I don't care that you are walking your dog or checking your email. You wouldn't call me on the phone and tell me these things, so why tell me online? Someone who posts something merely for the sake of posting isn't adding value, they are simply adding clutter to an otherwise over-cluttered Facebookisphere. [I just coined that word; feel free to use it.]

Adding value also means making an effort to patronize your friends' businesses.  You'd do that in the real world, wouldn't you?  And if you can't hire them or buy something yourself, provide referrals. When you do that, you help two friends and earn the gratitude of both. Be a matchmaker. If you have a friend who is looking for a new employee, for example, and you have another friend who might be a good fit, introduce them.

Add value and people will want to be your friends. Waste people's time with meaningless information and you might soon find that when you do have something of value to offer, nobody's listening.

Be yourself, but be normal. Don't hide your personal side. The things you do for fun–hobbies, games, surveys, widgets you post on your page, and so on, define you and make you interesting. When your friends see they share those interests it can strengthen your relationship. But if you are on Facebook to build your business, you must establish a balance between your personal and business identities. When in doubt, always lean towards your business persona.

In the real world, if you came to my office and I threw a sheep at you or gave you photo of a chocolate martini, that would be weird, wouldn't it?  And yet that's what people do online. Look, I do silly things on Facebook. I'm opinionated and have a profoundly warped sense of humor and I like to stir things up from time to time. But the majority of my Facebook friends who have an opinion of me would, I think, describe me in positive, business-like terms.

A little flair now and then is interesting. All flair, all the time, is clownish, and people don't do business with clowns.

Friends first. There is a maxim in marketing that says, "All things being equal, people prefer to do business with people they know, like, and trust." Be that person.

"How To Win Friends and Influence People," written decades before the father of the founder of Facebook was born, offers great perspectives on how to do business on Facebook.

Dale Carnegie counsels us to focus on other people,  not ourselves. Talk to your Facebook friends (through messages (email), IM (instant message), and, eventually, by phone and in person) about themselves. Ask questions and listen. Let them do most of the talking.

What do they want in their business or personal life? What problems do they wish to solve? Look for ways you can help them. Provide advice or information or referrals, if you can. Just listen if you cannot. Again, that's what friends do.

If your products or services can help them solve a problem or obtain an objective, offer them. If not, don't. And if you do offer them and they aren't  interested, drop the subject. They may come back to you some day, when they are ready, or they may not, but they will never buy from you if you pushed them or annoyed them to the point where they deleted you.

I work with a lot of people in my businesses and I'm always meeting new ones. But not everyone I meet is someone I can help or someone I want to help. We get to choose our clients and partners, just like we choose our friends, and I'm not looking to meet everyone. Here are the people I'd like to meet:

People who know they have greatness in them but haven't yet achieved their potential.

Successful people who are ready to take things to a higher level,

People who take personal responsibility for their lives and believe we create our own reality,

People who are ambitious, have a positive outlook on life and goals that excite them,

People who want to help others by empowering them to reach their potential, and

People who can laugh at themselves and don't take life too seriously.

In short, I'd like to meet winners who have not won yet and winners who want to win again.

David Ward

The discussion about warm market versus cold market recruiting continued on the forum. As I watched folks weigh in on the subject, I had to add my 37 cents. I'm sure it's not the last word on the subject:

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I've always been amused (confused?) by the dichotomy between the statements, "your list is the best place to start" and "friends and family will probably give you the hardest time". Napoleon Hill said something along the lines of, "the biggest cause of failure is people listening to the opinions of friends and family".

And yet. . .

1. I started building my business in the warm market
2. My organization starts in their warm market
3. We are extremely successful

Key point: We don't alienate our warm market because we don't "convince" we "educate". We let people know what we do and invite them to get more information. [Note, several who said they didn't use/teach warm market did so because they had lost friends, had bad experiences, etc. Others said that's because they were taught to do it wrong--and that's why their friends ran from them.]

There is a thread here about "why newbies don't work their lists". I haven't read it, but I suspect the consensus is that they are afraid of what their friends will think of them. It's fear. Their friends will laugh at them, try to talk them out of it, and so on. And we can all understand this. We can also understand why people would think that "talking to strangers" is easier than talking to your friends and families. But it is not. If you're doing it correctly, it's much easier to talk to friends and family.

If you're pestering your friends, trying to convince them, asking them to sign up because they "owe you" or telling them you'll "pay them back" or "put people under them" or other such nonsense, that's as ill-conceived as it is difficult. But if you're merely showing them your new business, with no strings attached, no commitments requested, no sales pitch and no agenda other than sharing the information, what could be easier? "Mom, I'm sending you a video about my new business. I'm excited and want to show you what I'm doing." Piece of cake.

The cold market is not a piece of cake.

In the warm market, you can ask people to look at the information and give you their opinion (not sign up) as a favor. Not so in the cold market. Why should a stranger do a favor for you?

In the warm market, you can say "I don't know, I'm new" and defer to someone else. Not so easy in the cold market.

In the warm market, people trust you. They won't hang up on. They will be curious about what you're doing. The cold market doesn't know you or trust you and they don't care about what you're doing and in addition, they will lie to you ("No I didn't fill out a form, why are you spamming me!")

In the warm market, you don't need skills to get started, you need a system. In the cold market, if you don't know what you're doing, if you don't have "posture," if you don't know how to control the conversation and deal with objections and be the rejector instead of the rejectee, you're going to get beaten up, chewed up, and spat out.

Where do you acquire those skills and that posture? Yes, you can develop them in the cold market but most people won't stick around long enough to do so. That's the primary reason why those of us who say the warm market is the best place to start (if you're doing it right) take that position.

As for the notion that "the best prospects are those who have been in network marketing"

1. None of the hundreds I have recruited were experienced in network marketing
2. As far as I know, this is predominately true for my organization

In other words, we built a large organization with people with little or no network marketing experience. And, after reading some of the posts, here, I'm thinking that's a good thing! The more experience someone has in network marketing:

1. The less coachable they are likely to be, in terms of following the systems we use, and
2. The more likely it is that they have "burned through" their warm market.

The latter is undoubtedly one of the reasons why many experienced networkers look to methods other than warm market–they don't have one. (Well, they do, but it's easier to talk to strangers than to talk to the people who watched you mess up in five other "deals".)

If you don't have a warm market, either because you've "burned through it" or you just don't know a lot of people, that's one thing. You have no choice but to talk to strangers. You'll get good quickly or you'll become a statistic. But if you do have a warm market and you choose not to approach them, that says something about (a) the way you've been trained, or (b) your belief in what you're doing. Yes, there are many ways to get information in front of people, and yes, it's your right to build your business the way you choose to, but why would anyone choose to NOT show their information to people they know?

We all know individuals we don't want in our business, or even as customers. They are disagreeable, complainers, or we just don't like them. Whatever. That's legitimate. Don't show them. But the majority of the people you know, I hope, don't fit that description. They might not have money to be a customer or they might not believe in vitamins if that's what you sell, and they might not be entrepreneurial. But show them anyway.

(a) they know people and can give referrals;
(b) those factors could change, over time; and
(c) you could be wrong in your assessment. (That's why we say, "don't pre-judge".)

When I begin working with someone and they tell me they don't want to make a list, I have a heart to heart with them and if they still feel that way, I'm done with them. I probably won't tell them that, but I'm certainly not going to invest a lot of time and energy in someone who doesn't believe in what they are doing. It's no different than someone who signs up in the business but doesn't want to buy your product/service. We all know that these people don't make it, don't we?

In the beginning, I don't expect people to have the level of belief they will have later on, but if they don't have enough belief to make a list, or enough trust in me and my ability to coach them to success, that tells me I'll probably have to push them, and I don't want to do that.

You do have the right to build your business your way, but so does your sponsor. And that's something I think we can all agree with.

I was visiting a network marketing forum last night and someone asked if anyone had a good "memory jogger". There ensued a lengthy and somewhat passionate discussion about the value of warm market recruiting. Frankly, I was surprised by what some folks said.

A good number of participants felt that warm market recruiting was not the way to go. In fact, some felt it was a bad idea. It was "old school," "too hard," and "unlikely to find leaders". They felt that online lead generation was the way to build the business today and they wouldn't approach their warm market.

Most of the participant agreed with what I believe: warm market has worked in this industry since the beginning, many fortunes have been made that way and continue to be made that way. Warm market is easier than trying to teach people how to generate leads online, let alone asking new distributors to recruit those leads. Warm market is a place everyone can start. Cold market is great but it should come later. And online lead generation can be excellent but it's not a sinecure and it's not for everyone.

I responded (below). One thing I didn't mention is that we start people in their warm market so that when they recruit someone in the cold market, they know what to do to help those people recruit in their warm market. This is important because it allows new people to recruit new people and teach them how to recruit and help new people.

By the way, if you would like one, here's a memory jogger I have used (I don't recall where I found it).

Here is my post on the subject:

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"I was an attorney for twenty years and have been full time in my network marketing company for the last eight years. I have recruited hundreds of professionals, mostly from warm market, and built a six-figure residual income from scratch in just a few years.

We start everyone on our team with warm market, and if they're lucky, they never have to go into the cold market. (Professionals tend to know a lot of people). A memory jogger is an excellent tool. The yellow pages is also excellent. The white pages can also be used.

The cold market is harder (even when they contact you). In the warm market, they may not respect you in your new business (and that's why we use third-party) but they trust you. They'll probably look at what you have. Will they be any more likely to get started? No. Will they be any more likely to be a leader? No again. But neither will they be any less likely.

Why assume that because they are your uncle they wouldn't be interested or they wouldn't be very good. Is someone a poorer prospect because they know you? Doesn't that sound silly?

I understand the value of getting someone to raise their hand and express interest before you expose them. That's good and I do it, too. But that doesn't mean approaching someone who hasn't expressed interest isn't a viable method of operation. You could argue that it takes more work or it's a longer process or that it's finite compared to the cold market, which is infinite, and these are valid arguments. But they don't negate the value of a warm market.

I can't understand why anyone would choose to not share their business information with people they know. Would you tell them about your new shoe store or donut shop? Of course you would, even if they don't wear shoes or eat donuts. You'd do it because you were proud of your new business and because even if they aren't interested in anything you have to offer (product or opportunity), (a) they might know someone who is, and (b) their interest might change over time.

A lot of people tell me that had they known me when I was practicing law, they would not have approached me. They would either have been intimidated or they would have assumed my success as an attorney meant I would have no interest. Well, that would have been a mistake because I was interested. (I made a lot of money as an attorney but had no time.) I would have been on their warm market list but if they pre-judged me or believed "warm market doesn't work" they would have lost out on a very big, and very productive organization.

You too are on someone's warm market list. If they thought warm market doesn't work and didn't approach you. . . wouldn't that have been a mistake?

Warm market works and everyone can start there. And they should. If anyone doesn't agree, please send your warm market list to me."

Last night I visited a network marketing forum. I've never done that before but I wanted to see what other networkers talk about.  What are they concerned about? What do they want to know? But also, what can I learn? (One never stops learning. . .) And, since I spend most of my time with distributors in my company, I thought it might be fun to meet some folks in other companies.

I registered and scrolled through some of the posts. There was a question posed by a self-proclaimed newbie. He said he didn't have a lot of money to invest in his business, and wanted to know how he could earn his first $500. I posted a response which was well received by other members.

As The Twilight Zone's Rod Serling used to say, "Submitted for your approval. . .", here's what I said:

"Some people have more time than money, so use what you've got. Also, why $500? Right now, you need to get something to happen, even if it's signing up one distributor or earning $25. A small success will lead to bigger successes. Build your belief and the money will come.

Here are some more tips:

1. Start with a warm market list; contact everyone you know and get a tool (DVD, web site, etc.) into their hands. Ask for their opinion. If you were opening a shoe store or restaurant, you would invite everyone you know to come see what you offer.

2. Training: go to events, get on conference calls. MLM is different and you need to immerse yourself in learning.

3. Focus on activity, not results. Have enough activity and over time, the results will come. If you focus on results, you'll ride an emotional roller coaster. If you set activity goals and reach them, then every day is successful.

5. Get a workout partner. Someone who will hold you accountable to the activity goals you set.

6. Do three-way calls with upline. Your job is to deliver the information (always use tools) and if they are interested or have questions, get them on the phone with someone else. It's all about third party.

7. Show up. Get around others in your business on a regular basis. Associate with people who have what you want and can serve as models for you.

8. Personal development. Work on yourself more than anything. Read, listen to tapes, practice approaches and responses and everything else.

9. Commit to a year. "The first 18 months are crap," said Art Williams. Prepare to go through whatever it takes to make it.

10. Have fun. Yes, you'll get out of your comfort zone, but if you're not enjoying the business, if it's not fun and exciting, you're doing something wrong. Enjoy the journey!

When you focus on the fundamentals and have a long term perspective, instead of focusing on the short term ($500), you'll increase your chances of success for the long term."