Last November marked 22 years (1995) since I entered the network-marketing arena and my life took a crazy/awesome detour into the world of entrepreneurship, deep personal development and possibly experiencing more negativity than any human should have to endure.
The good news is that my story in this industry has a happy ending.
I joined network marketing in 1995 after being a customer of my parent company for almost a year. I hit the top level in a little more than 2 years and have made a multiple 6-figure/year income with this company, ever since. I’m now on track to becoming a 7 figure earner and love helping others earn the incomes and achieve the lifestyles they desire.
My journey however was not without many fumbles, embarrassing moments and more prospecting faux pas than I care to share and I hope my friends, family & strangers I attempted to prospect have long forgotten the things I did!! LOL
But here are a few of those moments, so you have an idea…
Have you ever invited friends over for dinner or drinks and very un-smoothly transitioned to introducing your business to a very unwilling audience? I have! (shoot…)
Have you ever tried to prospect your waitress, and have her respond with, “Is this Amway?” Yuck! I have.
Here’s a good one… have you ever prospected a guy, while on a date as a “test,” because your upline told you that if a guy is not positive about your business, he’s not a “keeper”? Yep… makes my skin crawl to remember…
And that’s about as much as I’ll reveal, because I’m starting to get really embarrassed remembering all this right now. Hahaha…
The point is, I’m about to cast some heavy stones at some networkers, but I just wanted to let you know that I’ve made mistakes too… but that doesn’t mean we should be going easy on those that are committing some MAJOR prospecting mistakes when recruiting with social media.
In my day, my fumbles happened offline and there is thankfully no record.
Unfortunately, today…
The Internet Never Forgets and It’s Ruining It for Everyone Else
I once heard that success in business is all about ‘time’ and ‘place’. As a professional marketer, I would add ‘message’ to the equation as well.
Unfortunately, network marketers today are being taught online prospecting methods, which include the wrong message, at the wrong time and most definitely in all the wrong places!
Here’s the truth!
There is a VERY fine line between recruiting with social media and spamming people. I’m sorry to say that most network marketers have been turned into human spam bots by following “trends out there”, their upline and company leaders…
Just recently, I asked affiliates of my company to share examples of the WRONG WAY to prospect online, by sending me screenshots of the poor attempts at prospecting they receive every day…
The WRONG Way to Prospect and Recruit
The screenshot above is a weak attempt from someone recruiting with social media…someone who hasn’t yet figured out that building a business is not about tricking people or finding the right copy/paste FB private messages to send to strangers.
Successful entrepreneurs and networkers alike eventually learn the true secret to success and it becomes the foundation upon which their entire prospecting, recruiting and business building strategy is founded.
That secret being:
It’s about actually caring about people, becoming a person of value and being someone uniquely positioned to help someone with their problems.
That last point is critical: “uniquely positioned to help someone with their problems.”
Any idiot can copy and paste a message into the Private Message function on Facebook.
What sets you apart from the rest of the desperate reps hitting people’s inboxes with their new “ground floor” opportunities or cash programs?
Now this doesn’t mean, prospecting online doesn’t work. I know some very skilled recruiters who are excellent at online prospecting, (My daughter Jake was and still is) but just like offline prospecting, they’ve devoted the time and effort to learn this very difficult skill and have mastered it. And if that’s the strategy you want to deploy, you need to do it right or else!
But if you’re still a little fuzzy on whether you are a spammer or not, here’s a guide of sorts…
Top 5 Warning Signs That Your Prospecting Efforts are Actually SPAM
1) Your first private message to a stranger on social media includes a link to join your opportunity.
2) You get angry replies via private messaging and/or you have been reported as a spammer.
3) You post links to your opportunity or website in the comments section of other people’s social media posts
4) You compulsively want to talk about your company or products, without anyone asking you to share.
Finally… this one is the most important one…
5) You engage in interactions online, with a hidden agenda, hoping to transition the topic to something that would get people interested in your opportunity, without caring about knowing the other person.
#5 is the very definition of prospecting (online or offline), which even when done right… can still feel awkward, result in people feeling under-valued by you and is the reason why I eventually decided to stop prospecting all together.
But here’s the interesting thing…
“When We Stopped Prospecting People, Our Business Started Growing Faster!”
I can’t tell you how relieved and at peace I felt, when I once again, was able to go out with my friends, visiting a family member’s home or be in a public place without having to think about prospecting anyone.
Just enjoying being normal again, was incredible, after years of being taught that “everyone was a prospect” and approaching every conversation with a hidden agenda, I was free!
That’s because when WE STOPPED this type of prospecting, our business actually started growing faster than ever before!
Weird, right?
At this point, you may be asking, “then how the hell did your business grow?”
Well before I answer that, I have to say that there are people who are very skilled prospectors and recruiters who completely disregard the issues I mentioned above.
They knowingly and without shame, approach every interaction with a stranger as a prospecting opportunity.
And just like doing it right offline, there’s a way to successfully do it online as well. After learning and becoming very good at prospecting, I decided that I didn’t want to build my business this way.
The problem with prospecting in general, as it’s normally taught, is that the mindset going in, is still about what YOU want people to do and about manipulating people into doing what you want them to do.
In other words, it’s about YOU, not them. I didn’t like that, but I still did it for a little while… until I found a better way.
The More Leveraged Alternative to
1-on-1 Prospecting, Which Won’t Make You Feel Like a Cheap Sales-(Wo)Man
Now, I am not trying to be high and mighty about all this prospecting stuff, because I’m not.
If it came down to feeding my family with ‘stone cold’ prospecting tactics or my kids starving, I choose stone cold prospecting every time, without remorse.
But the reason I was able to quit prospecting was because, with the help of some extraordinary mentors, I eventually discovered an online recruiting strategy, which…
Enabled me to recruit more people in 1 Day, than the most skilled recruiter in the world can do in 1 month I was able to passively generate leads, customers and new reps – even when I was out having fun with friends and family.
(Hence, why I didn’t have to worry about prospecting them!)
Rather than spending hours spamming or private messaging people on social media, I learned how to legitimately get Facebook and other networks to actually help me attract the people who are most interested in what I have to offer, using their ads platform! (i.e. going legit!)
In fact, every day we wake up to an email inbox full of notifications for new leads, new customers, new team members and commissions we earned while sleeping!
This strategy is called ‘attraction marketing’, which is an Internet marketing strategy designed for networkers and people in direct sales!
You see, if your business depends on you being on social media, sending private messages or commenting on people’s posts all day, you are NOT doing internet marketing… despite what you may have been led to believe.
Online prospecting and Internet marketing are NOT the same thing!
Internet marketing is a passive strategy, which works, even when you are not.
If you want to learn how it works, we actually reveal the entire strategy in a free 10-Day Online Recruiting Bootcamp!
You’ll also get more details about a book we use, which goes into the nuts and bolts of our recruiting & selling formula.
Now, if traditional prospecting online or offline is your thing and you want to stick to that, by all means, go for it!
There are many top trainers and earners in the industry that focus on warm & cold market recruiting skills…
For us, there was simply a certain way we wanted to live life and that was more important.
I would much rather make a ton of money in my business first and then have my friends and family beg me to tell them more about it.
It’s much better than begging them to join a business.
Which would you prefer?
Exactly!
Your Partners for a Life You Love!
Jake & Joy
www.jakeandjoy.com
Originally written by Ferny Ceballos. I, Joy Kelly, have written permission to adapt and revise the original article.
Click Below to Follow Exactly What We Did!
And here’s the Attraction Marketing Formula that we followed…
