When I started online network marketing my sponsor told me how to recruit. He taught me so well that my record was pretty good and I started to rise up those rankings and money started to pour into my account. I though, “This is easy. Money for old rope.”

But then, the cancellations started to arrive and I soon saw that many people just were so impatient to succeed that they never gave the opportunity a chance and ran off somewhere else, probably to do the same thing!

Now, you can’t resolve all of these problems, so you do have to continue recruiting, but the real money in MLM,Network Marketing, is in the retention. Keeping people in the system for the long haul!

Network Marketing Is All About Relationships!

Look at it this way. Think of it as your own retail business. If you had a shop, how would you treat your staff? They would be making money for you, right? So would you treat them nice, especially the hard workers? Most of us would, I am sure.

Well our network marketing downline are going to do exactly the same for you as your shop staff would. They will make you money if you treat them right.

I decided that the only way I could rise to the top of my MLM business is to be a really good sponsor. I would go the extra mile and then people would feel they have the support to stick around. It is hard sometimes. A lot of people joining my group are absolute beginners so it takes a little time and patience to get them to a position where they can manage on their own.

But I hearken back to my humble beginnings in this game. I really didnt have a clue! So I remember that and it helps me to find the time for the simplest of queries.

Let’s Start With The Follow Up

Now I am the first to admit, I started online network marketing because I really didn’t want to get dragged into bothering my friends, neighbours, personal contacts, and I certainly didn’t want to go down the brain numbing monotony and disappointment of telephoning bought leads!

So I was happy with my email marketing and responding by email. But then I find that things work much better when I talked to my prospects also.

SKYPE as a Support and Information Tool

So now, I offer my SKYPE i.d. to just about everyone on the internet! I get to talk to lots of people from my computer…. mostly they call me rather than me call them, and it works a treat.

I love skype. It is a fantastic free service from http://www.skype.com  It allows me to screen share. So this way I can show my recruits our system on their own p.c. or laptop and I can support beginners and experienced marketers alike by showing them how to do cool stuff that will help their business. This would include setting up blogs, facebook fan pages etc

This approach has been going on for about two years now. Whilst I didn’t have a lot of experience people understood that I was there to help them and now I have got people still with me that were there right at the beginning.

It pays to have decent email copy in your auto-responder to follow up your list. For my main opportunity I have over 30 emails all primed to upsell my business. Then I always intersperse these with broadcast emails with special offers, my blog posts and maybe a video or two that I think will help people get more positive or enthusiastic about the internet or home business.

I learned a little while ago that you kind of attract similar people to yourself in your business. So it means you need to be who you want to recruit. That’s not to say you should be faking it, but that you should just be a positive, supportive and driven network marketer and then you will find people just like you.

M,y sponsor taught me that I should broadcast emails in addition to my opportunity follow up emails. Offer incentives and unique advantages to joining you and your group in particular. What can you offer that others are not? How is your team the best team to join? Who is your sponsor? Are they some success guru who offers webinars etc? What is your attraction?

Finding The Need – Fill It

This is true of retention as well as sales. You find the need for your market and you sell people that you can fill it. That is the easy part. Once you have made a sale, you have to deliver!!

I get people wishing to change into my team quite a lot. It is a great compliment to our special group of people. But one thing is for sure, it is not the opportunity is it? The same opportunity looks very different when sponsors or teams work together for mutual success.

So if you deliver on the need. If you truly support your team, then you retain the willing and only lose the people who would never make an effort and expect something for nothing.

Business works with hard work. Yes, you need to set goals and make a plan,  but you are not going to get anywhere unless you put bags of effort in. That could be very part time effort and that is where most of us start, but the effort needs to be consistent and dogged. That way your team will follow you.

So if you make a promise, KEEP IT. If you say you will do something, DO IT! Your team will appreciate you for it.

Inspirational Quotes Don’t Make You Money!

I see a lot of marketers plastering inspirational quotes all over the internet on Facebook and Twitter etc. It won’t make you any money, or even make you feel good, if you don’t do something about it.

Keeping your team active is all about helping, supporting, training and delivering on promises. It is about communication and being available as much as possible. Reassuring.

Beginners in network marketing get discouraged quickly. If they do not see fast results then they question the opportunity, the products and their own ability. A sponsor needs to provide encouragement and do all that they can to ensure quick success for their new member.

For example, my online business opportunity only needs two referrals to break even. So we focus on them getting two. Then they get our products for free!

To start that process I try to supply leads for them to follow up. I provide them follow up messages. I provide weekly webinars. I am available to ALL of my downline on SKYPE. I provide one to one support as often as I am able.

This ensures that my team are ALWAYS somewhere in the leaderboards of my business opportunity. To stay there we need to ensure that we do not give up! That we continue the way we are, improving our strategies along the way, always moving forward.