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Ten Common Mistakes Made In An MLM Business
From Someone Who Has Made Them All

1. We don’t treat our MLM business as a real business.
Many people treat their MLM business more like a hobby instead of a business.

We don’t become familiar enough with:

1. Our products; technology, capabilities, color selection, etc.

2. The policies and procedures; ordering, financing, credit card processing, bonus requirements, compensation plan, and on and on…

SOLUTION: Designate space in our home for your business. Set aside specific hours and days to work our business. Study your product catalogs, corporate web site, listen to all your tapes and training materials. Become an expert in your business, whatever it is.

2. We try to reinvent the wheel instead of following PROVEN methods.
We develop our own marketing systems and plans instead of using proven methods.

We focus on a few large sales, you know, the one that’s going to enable you to retire, instead of offering our customers personal one on one service, even if it is only for a $15 item.

SOLUTION: Ask your sponsor, upline Manager, (or whatever you call them) top dog, what is working for them and let them assist us in duplication what is successful.

3. We think we have to succeed personally in our mlm business BEFORE we recruit others.
This is the biggest mistake you can make in your MLM business. If this were true, no one would ever succeed in network marketing.

We fail to appreciate the networking aspect of this business. We don’t realize that our goal is to build a team and that our success is dependent upon helping others succeed.

SOLUTION: Leverage your upline. Use their stories, their bonus car, their success until you have your own. Tell people where you are going, not where you are. Recruit people to be part of a team and tell them you are committed to succeeding together whatever it takes.

4. We don’t take advantage of the available MLM business training.
Conference calls, seminars and meetings tend to be attended by the same people. There is usually so much free training available you can over do it but, it seems like the people who need it the most are usually the ones who don’t take advantage of the available training.

SOLUTION: Budget a portion of your time and money for training.

5. We don’t do trials or demos of our products properly.
I’m in the air purification business and many distributors leave machines with potential customers too long which devalues them in the customer’s mind.

We don’t monitor the trial and follow-up to answer questions and disarm any problems.

We give products, or in our case air purifiers, to prospects instead of placing them ourselves. Educate your customers properly about your products, don’t just hand them something and say, “Would you like to try this?”

SOLUTION: Determine to only do trials if you can do them properly. Follow the proven methods of retailing.

6. We don’t follow up with retail prospects or prospective Dealers.
This is different than number 5. Our company president says that our headquarters receives calls every day from people who have had a purifier or a company manual forever and want to buy or join as a Dealer but don’t know how to contact the person who originally gave them the machine or materials.

I have sponsored several dealers who originally heard about the business from someone else, who never followed up with them and can’t be contacted. They go to the web and find me and sign up immediately.

SOLUTION: Always set a follow up appointment to either pick machines back up from retail prospects or to pick up materials from Dealer prospects. When presenting the business opportunity via telephone set a follow up phone appointment.

7. We try to recruit people who are not ambitious and aren't right for an mlm business.
We say to ourselves, “Joe has never held a steady job and has been on welfare for two years I should approach him.” Folks, I don't need to tell you this but, these are not the kind of people you want in your business.

SOLUTION: Look for people who are:

• Ambitious.
• Self starters.
• Motivated.
• Successful
• Hard workers.

8. We try to “help” people get started.
I have wasted so much time and money with this one it’s unbelievable.

Here are some of the things we do:

• We pay for someone’s $25-$75 dealer fee for them.
• We loan them machines or products.
• We do all the work for them.
• We fail to realize that they must have sufficient motivation to get started with their own resources.

While in exceedingly rare occasions I will loan products to someone, this is generally not the way to get someone to invest in their business. If your prospect is not invested financially in his or her business, they are not invested mentally either.

SOLUTION: Make people prove themselves. Give people assignments. Only work as hard for them as they are willing to work.

9. We don’t talk to enough people.
Enough said, everyone knows this is a numbers game.

SOLUTION: Constantly develop and review your prospect lists. Advertise to find more people. Expand your warm market by including the warm market of your new dealers.

10. We spend too much time talking to the same people who aren’t interested in an mlm business.
We take the posture of trying to convince people to join us rather than convey information to people.

I have distributors who when I ask, “How’s your business going this week?”, they tell me about the same person they told me about 2 months ago. You can continue to keep people on a list who are really good prospects and send them something every month or so but, you need to be talking to lots of new people every week.

We target people who may have the right skills but fail to realize that they must be interested in our opportunity.

SOLUTION: Go fishing where the fish are biting. Listen to your prospect and determine their interest by what they say, not by what you think they should say.

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My wife and I were involved in the air purification business, EcoQuest International for over for almost 3 years. I was able to leave my job back in April of 2004 to work this opportunity full time but I am no longer involved in EcoQuest and no longer promote MLM as a viable business option.

Because of our differences on marketing on the internet with EcoQuest I now promote building web businesses instead. However, the 10 principles you read about still apply.

To your success,

Alan LeStourgeon