Grow Your MLM Business Fast! (written October, 2009)

You are always in control of your own success. Would you like to be successful the fastest possible way? Then follow these tips for growing your MLM fast!

Tip #1) The more you give, the more you receive. This has been my business building philosophy for my entire career in this industry. The more support we give our new reps, the faster we grow. I’m not talking about giving away new reps and placing them under others. That can have a negative effect on the person being given away who feels you don’t care enough about them to work with them on your front line. I’m talking about offering your resources to leverage your time and money. If you and I formed a partnership and opened a restaurant, how would you feel if I asked you to put up all the money to build the building, yet I wanted half the profits because we are partners, each working equal hours? Do you think that’s fair? Of course not! The same holds true in MLM. We must be willing to share our time and money to help our new people grow. You must treat your MLM business like any other business partnership and leverage time and money to the benefit of all.

Tip #2) It’s not the company, it’s you. Over the years, I have been surprised at how many people promote products and compensation plans and fail to promote what really matters to the new prospect – it’s you! I shake my head when I read through the various trade magazines and see page after page of ads that read, “Why our compensation plan is better than yours” or “Our company did $50 million in sales last year” or “We will be the next giant – don’t miss out.” Who cares! This type of advertising does absolutely nothing to motivate a prospect. What the prospect is really looking for is, “What’s in it for him?” “Why should he work with you?” “What do you offer?” “Are you a mentor?”  The representative who best answers those questions will enroll the most people. It’s not the company – It’s you they are evaluating. Are you the person they want to work with? Do you have a plan of action? Can you deliver on your promises?

Tip #3) Share the product with friends and the business with strangers. It took me many frustrating years to finally learn this important lesson. For the first few years of my MLM career, I would make a list of friends and family and attempt to recruit them into my program based on the business opportunity. That was a huge mistake. To begin with my family and friends had never been in business before and had little or no interest in contacting their friends to attend a business opportunity meeting. They also knew that I had not achieved success in business before so why should they have an interest in what I have to say? In a nutshell, sharing the business opportunity with friends and family can kill your business and destroy the confidence of your new distributors. Lead with the product with friends and family and the results will be quite different. Share product testimonials, audiotapes and product brochures and you will find a great deal of interest with your friends and family. Let friends and family ask you about the business after experiencing the products. Look for business builders outside of your center of influence. I have found that business people who have a large center of influence are the best prospects for my business. People who solicit me on various opportunities are rather easy to “reverse prospect” when I sell myself and my MLM opportunity. Strangers can’t judge you the same way friends and family can and are more willing to listen and take your opportunity seriously.

Tip #4) Focus on the success of others. It is my goal to help each of my first level distributors earn an income of $200,000 per year. Nothing would make me happier than to have each of them earning more than me. That’s what I call security. A phrase I find particularly powerful is: “others, others – let this my motto be: more of others, less of me.” Inside each of us is a spark of greatness. It is very exciting to see this spark develop in others as they achieve higher levels of success.

Tip #5) Offer a duplicable system. There are hundreds of systems being taught in the MLM market place today. Unfortunately many of these systems focus on expensive cold mailing techniques that offer minimal returns and as a result, hundreds of frustrated distributors in debt. We try teaching our people simple, low-cost systems that really work. Mass mailings can be very expensive. You must have a system that is easy to follow and is affordable. The results will be happier distributors who are achieving success without risking thousands of dollars on literature that gets thrown in the garbage.

Try following these ideas and you will see your MLM business grow fast!

The author of this article is Larry Costello, President of All-American Print & Mail, 2200 Wilson Blvd #102-57, Arlington, VA 22201.