I know this has absolutely NOTHING to do with network marketing, but she IS my baby sister! Check it out!

As a counselor for network marketers in all types of MLM organizations, I have found that building a strong and viable downline fast can be the difference between great success and tiny MLM bonus checks. Additionally, I have found that the overwhelming reason for those that are successful is that these MLMers have taken the time to qualify their prospects prior to making their opportunity pitch. Qualifying is a fantastic way to save your time, your money, and your sanity, so that you can focus on what really matters in your MLM organization.

What does it mean to “qualify?”

The term “qualify” as it applies to network marketing refers simply to the process of determining whether or not the prospect is a good fit for your organization. On one level, qualifying is listening to the prospect to identify his or her needs and desires. It is discovering whether the prospect is truly interested in your opportunity, and, if so, what the prospect hopes to gain from participation. On another level, qualifying is identifying the prospect’s readiness to move forward. It’s determining whether you have a potential “eager beaver” or merely a tire-kicker. In short, qualifying is determining what category to place your prospect in, and you will see that this will have a great effect on what you do with the prospect from this point forward.

Why does it pay to qualify your prospects?

Prospecting is the single most important part of building your network marketing organization, and if you’re serious about building your downline fast, you will spend more time prospecting than any other active task you complete. Therefore, it makes the utmost sense to become efficient at prospecting so that you don’t waste your time. What do I mean by “wasting your time?” Here are some activities that, unfortunately, many network marketers continue to engage in that produce very little return on investment:

• Distributing flyers in public places
• Cold-calling random people using the phone book
• Pasting leaflets on car windshields
• Calling multiple family meetings to pitch your MLM opportunity
• Spamming your online social network friends with links to your MLM opportunity

If you are engaging in this type of prospecting, I urge you to cease and desist! Not only is it annoying to the people you come in contact with, it is absolutely a waste of your prospecting time and efforts. The people you come in contact with while engaging in these activities are not qualified in the least, which means that your chances of actually sponsoring these folks are slim to none. You are going to work extremely hard for little to no results, and your plan for building your downline fast will go right out the window. On the other hand, if you focused your efforts on targeting only the people that are truly interested in your opportunity, your chances of building your downline fast improve exponentially.

Qualifying is also about being a great salesperson. Let’s face it people. If you are involved in network marketing in any way and you intend to rise in rank from bottom feeder to top dog earner, chances are that you are not going to get there by simply sponsoring or selling to your friends and family members, so you had better become a good salesperson. The best salespeople use qualifying questions to learn more about the prospect so that an effective sales pitch can be created, and an effective sales pitch is one that presents the prospect with a product or service that will solve (or prevent) some problem the prospect has. Yet how can we show the prospect that our wares will help them if we do not understand what will motivate them to buy? We learn this through qualifying, because many of our best customers eventually become our downline reps.

Your chances of getting a "yes" are higher the deeper the prospect is.

Finally, it pays to qualify your prospects because a qualified prospect is further along in the sales funnel. As network marketers, we have a higher probability of making a sale or getting a sign-up the deeper the prospect is within the sales funnel because the prospect (by now, he or she is a “lead”) has already let you know that he or she is looking for what you have. You spend less time trying to convince the person to sign up, which frees you to recruit and train more and builds your downline fast.

How do we qualify a prospect?

Qualifying is done largely in part by asking the right questions. What are the “right questions?” The right questions are those that help you identify interested parties so that you are only pitching to those who are “ready to buy” so to speak. Remember to remain focused on the end result, which is showing your prospect how your MLM opportunity solves his or her problem. But be careful that you remain easy-going and allow your conversation to flow smoothly; otherwise, you run the risk of sounding like you’re gathering information for a survey (and survey-takers are not very endearing!).

The bottom line is this: qualifying your prospects is an excellent tool for building your downline fast. You make easy sales, get easy sign-ups, and create space for a positive experience for everyone involved. But as usual, don’t just take my word for it…take it for checking!

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People who work together will win, whether it be against complex football defenses, or the problems of modern society.

Vince Lombardi
American Football Coach

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When it comes to network marketing prospecting, I’m not very different from many folks out there. Between my personal interactions and my online marketing, I probably “show the plan” about 2 dozen times a day. And just like the average network marketer, I am confronted with the following statement again and again:

“I’m just not into doing pyramid schemes.”

Now, normally, I respond to this comment by educating the person about legitimate MLM companies versus illegal pyramid or Ponzi schemes. But recently, while speaking with a family member about my business opportunity, the similarities between his job as a salesman for a semiconductor firm and my network marketing compensation plan became apparent. During our conversation, I became aware of a startling revelation, and here it is:

If you have a job, you are already participating in a pyramid organization!

I mean, think about it. The only major difference between my cousin’s sales job and my MLM company is that he has absolutely no leverage to build his income, and I have unlimited leverage. What do I mean? If he wants to make more money at his job, he has to go out and sell more. When I want to make more money, I can sell more product OR I can recruit other distributors into my organization and teach them to sell more product. I can leverage the time, experience, talent, and skills of others and reap the benefits of doing so; my cousin has no distributors. He only has himself. So if he wants to increase his income, it’s all up to him.

One of the major complaints about MLM is the idea that the people on the bottom level don’t make much money. But this is not very different from any average American job. In corporate America, the people at the highest levels of the company make the big bucks. That’s just the way it is. The CEO is compensated on a much higher level than, say, the guy in the mail room. And all the people in between the mail room clerk and the CEO make varying wages dependent upon the value their job brings to the company. But the huge difference between the average company and my MLM company is, for the most part, the only way for the mail room clerk to move up the ladder to a higher salary is for someone above him to create a position for him, either by firing someone else and re-allocating that person’s spot, or creating a brand new position and then choosing Mail Room Guy from a list of other competing applicants. Mail Room Guy has very little control over his ability to ascend the ranks in this company.

On the other hand, if I want to ascend the ranks, I can sell more product or sponsor more distributors and teach them to sell more product. My ability to ascend is completely up to me.  I don’t have to wait for a position to be created for me before I can get out of the “mail room.”  Furthermore, I don’t have to compete with my colleagues for a limited number of middle- and upper-management positions.  Upper-level positions in multi-level marketing are created by the reps themselves, not by some number-cruncher in a suit.

Another complaint is that much of an MLM organization’s profits are built on the efforts of the underlings.  Again, if that doesn’t sound like corporate America, I don’t know what does.  Let’s use my cousin’s job again as an example.  He’s a salesperson for a semiconductor company, and he reports to one of twelve area managers.  These 12 area managers report to 4 territory managers, who report to the VP Director of Sales.  And this VP reports directly to the CEO.  Now, tell me.  Within this convoluted organization, who is actually driving revenue?  In other words, who is actually bringing money into the organization?  Answer: the salespeople, like my cousin; and yet, all those folks up above him are drawing their salaries (which are much larger than what my cousin brings in) from his efforts.  Not one single person up above my cousin’s level is actually responsible for SELLING!

Now, parallel this with my MLM organization.  In my organization, every single person in my upline is responsible for driving a minimum amount of revenue each month.  Every single person has to be selling, teaching, sponsoring, and/or recruiting.  Which one sounds more like riding the backs of the underlings to you?

And I can go on and on with the parallels between traditional businesses and MLM organizations.

The bottom line is this: MLM has always gotten a bum rap for being a “pyramid” type organization.  But if you have a job, you already work for a pyramid organization, and chances are, that job brings you financial value in the form of income, just like my MLM company does for me.  So the next time your friend or loved one asks you to join his/her “pyramid” group, try to have more of an open mind about it.  After all, you’re probably already in one!

And, as usually, don’t just take my word for it…take it for checking!

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