Trying to build relationships to recruit members on your team is a recipe for disaster.
Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. Team building is all about building relationships, but prospecting and recruiting absolutely is NOT!
Some of the worst advice ever given in network marketing is from those teaching how to build a relationship with a person before you share your business with them. This is wrong on multiple levels, let me explain.

Prospecting and recruiting is a numbers game! PERIOD! You are looking for the right person at the right time in their life. If someone joins your team because they like you, or you have a relationship with them then the odds of them doing anything after they join are slim and none.

Yes, many top network marketing recruiters are masters at making people feel good, telling them what they want to hear, and in general blowing smoke. Their objective is to become so friendly and likeable that people can’t say no. I call this the How to Win Friends and Influence people method of prospecting. Hey this is not politics, we are building a business. The goal is to put the best team on the court as you possibly can. You have to find people that want to play the game.

I want to throw up every time I hear someone try to teach network marketers how to “FORM” prospects. You know: Family, Occupation, Recreation, Message. Over the years I have been in the business section of bookstores, coffee shops, etc and have had numerous rookie distributors nervously try to FORM me. I normally will try to encourage them and then send them to mlmhelp.com for workable, practical and duplicatable training.

Building relationships for your own self gain is never a good idea. The major problem with teaching this method to your team is it opens people up for major REJECTION.
If I am sitting down at the tire store waiting on new tires, the last thing I want to deal with is some network marketing distributor trying to “chat me up” blowing smoke. The name of the game is to sort through people as quickly as possible. I call it the hit and run method.

I actually did a training video on this topic you can watch here.
http://youtu.be/DQY6yWvtGQo

You build relationship with team members, NOT prospects. One final word or warning, when someone joins your team you must maintain a student-teacher relationship until they are trained to a point where you can delegate to them.
You aren’t their buddy. Leadership cannot become part of the group. Leadership must lead the group.

The most powerful relationships you develop in your life will be with people you meet in this industry. However you cannot get caught up in the success or failure of other people. The only person’s success you can control is your own. “>

Dale Calvert started his first business from his parents home at the age of 14. For the past 25 years he has been supporting entrepreneurs and marketing professionals with some of the most powerful training programs in the industry.

MLMHelp.com is Dale’s Catalog site featuring training articles, quotes and poems, MLM greeting cards, and more. This is where you can subscribe to Dale’s Top Rated Ezine.

Are you the go-getter with your hand outstretched, reaching for new friendships any and everywhere you can find them? Or, do you hang back, watch, size things up, and then carefully select the individuals you’d like to include in your circle of friends? Either style of developing new friendships works wonderfully well as long as you are sincere in your intentions.

I don’t meet any strangers and I’ve been that way my whole life, but I am not always the first one to say hello.
The secret to my many good friends is not a secret at all. I approach every possible friendship with an open mind, an open heart, and with zero expectations.

Meeting new people is like opening a gift. While you’re taking off the ribbon and the wrapping paper you’re not sure what will be inside or if you’ll like it, but once you get the lid off and have a good look you’ll know what you think. I feel so sad for folks who aren’t curious enough to open the present of possible friendship.

Meeting new people is like getting to read a book jacket to find out more about what is inside the book. I am curious about people and that natural curiosity makes it so much easier to know people at a deeper than surface level fairly quickly.

I want to know where they were born, if they have moved, why they moved, and all about their family. I learned this approach from my mother, Jean Abernathy Ziglar. She knows every checker and bag boy or girl in her grocery store. She knows their name, if they are still in school, if they are married, how many children they have, how long they’ve lived in her area and if they have plans to get ahead in their jobs. It’s the same for wait staff at her favorite restaurants, the people at the dry cleaners and the carwash… my mother knows the people who work at her church as intimately as the people who attend and belong to her church. As you can well imagine, my mother is a much-loved individual.

My mother’s example of growing a relationship goes far beyond the initial “getting to know you” stage. Mom remembers to ask how the new grandbaby is, if someone’s feeling better since their surgery, and if the vacation to Disney World was everything they hoped it would be. My mother cares… and she remembers what is important to the individuals she chats with.

Actually, I’m thinking Mom would really do well in direct sales! She is a natural network marketer. Hum, I’ll have to suggest that idea to her; she wouldn’t run out of prospects or connections… EVER! Maybe we should all consider my mother’s approach to friendship… she’s always open to loving one more person. “>

Julie Ziglar Norman shared the Get Motivated Seminars platform with her legendary father, motivational icon Zig Ziglar, for several years before becoming the dynamic, disarming and refreshingly transparent motivational speaker and author she is today. Her unique experience of being raised by the motivators’ motivator has given her a perspective on life and work that keeps her audiences laughing, crying, and taking notes.

Carrying her father’s Legacy of Encouragement into the next generation is an honor and a privilege that Julie never expected or sought but her willingness to accept the challenge is inspiring audiences in America and abroad. Her vibrant style of delivery, her honest and transparent assessment of life, and her willingness to share intimate details of personal failures, as well as personal triumphs, has made her a popular crowd favorite.

While there are few businesses that can succeed without the power of relationship… it’s likely that there is no success without relationship in network marketing.

Relationships may be the very root of success for network marketing, above all else.

Why is that? Well we’ve often heard that network marketing is a relationship business.
The very word “network” in the name tells us that we will have to establish connections within our business. Connections in network marketing start and end with relationships between people, and without these relationships success is not an option.
So many newcomers to the network marketing scene go through their days trying to find ways in which to market so that they don’t have to create and maintain relationships… but it’s those folks who understand this power who are raking it in, and succeeding beyond their wildest dreams.

Relationships are necessary in nearly any business, but especially in network marketing.

Why Are Relationships the Cornerstone of Network Marketing…
If you’ve been trying to build your network marketing business without building and maintaining relationships with both your downline as well as your prospects then you’ve probably been noticing very limited results.

That’s because that’s exactly what avoiding relationships does to your business… it limits it.

You see, people don’t buy or join a business like network marketing, they join the PEOPLE that have introduced them to that business.
Sure, there are ways of automating your marketing, to where you’re eliminating as many tire kickers as possible, until you’ve got a red hot lead. But closing that red hot lead is determined by how that red hot lead thinks about YOU, not your business.

Your business opportunity is nothing but a variable in an equation. But YOU are the answer to the equation.

What do people want in a business opportunity? They want someone who’s going to be there for them. They want someone who’s going to help them, and show them the ropes. They want someone who they know that they’ll be able to get a long with. They want a connection. They want a relationship.

It’s the same in any business really. A person will go to the pizza shop where the workers are the friendliest. A person will go to the corner Starbucks where they get the friendliest smile. A person will go to the doctor that they can talk to and who listens to their problems the best (or at least pretends to).
But the point is that most people will go with the connection. All Starbucks coffee tastes about the same, but not all Starbucks employees are as nice or personable.
This shows that relationships count in any business. But when it’s business where a person is coming in, not knowing their head from their elbows… and looking for direction… he/she who connects the best and is the most human wins.

And as a person who’s creating true genuine relationships, you’ll win almost every time over the marketer who is trying to hide behind their computer and staying anonymous. Let that marketer put out all of the anonymous content. In fact once you’ve built a relationship… which ultimately does start with “hello” (remember “you had me at hello”)… then you can even point to this other marketers content online where they’re posting anonymously and be quite certain that you’ll be the one closing this prospect.
Once you can show that you’re a person, that you truly CARE about your prospects success, and that you can be trusted, you’ve already won 99% of the battle.

David L. Feinstein has been published by Pro-Publishing Company of California, for a series on Leadership books.
Exposure to business at an early age along with cultivation of artistic talent in writing is the background that David Feinstein brings to his business associates, prospective candidates and audiences alike. His experience throughout his career in sales and marketing and having owned and operated his own international accounting & financial management services company, is a key success factor in helping develop his international notoriety in the network marketing industry.

David and his wife, Ann have been significantly involved in direct marketing and direct sales for 21 years, serving as a distributor (team member), speaker, trainer, Top Leader, and author in the industry on a worldwide basis. Working together, they coach, mentor and train those seeking empowerment, greater self esteem and branding image, and training people seeking financial success and personal life freedom. David and Ann have grown their business that today spans over 40 countries with over 65,000 team members.

For more information go to: www.AnnandDavidFeinstein.com