This mega-post is about How to Build a Big MLM Team. Please take out your pen and paper, take notes, and then implement what you learn. This information can shorten your learning curve and success curve in the MLM Industry.
Several days ago, I did a Facebook live training for my team about How to Build a Big MLM Team. Due to the popularity of that training, I decided to write and publish this article covering what I talked about.
If you’re willing to put in the work and stay the course, this industry can change your life for the better. While I cannot guarantee you will build a big MLM Team or make millions of dollars, it is possible! Many people have done it. That is the beauty of our industry. Anyone CAN do it, even though most people WILL NOT do it.
Success will not happen by accident. Why? Success never goes on sale. You must pay the full price. Success requires 100 percent commitment.
When you look at the top earners in any company in our industry, you will quickly discover they did certain things in a certain way. They did not leave their success to chance. They mastered a few basic fundamentals, they put in the work, and they stayed the course UNTIL they reached their goals. You must do the same thing if you want to achieve lasting MLM Success.
What is a Big MLM Team?
Before we dive too deep into this topic, I think it would be best to define “what is fast?” and “what is a big team?”.
In my own words, I would define a big MLM Team as a team that generates you at least $10,000 per month in passive income. The number of reps to get there will vary by company and compensation plan, but in most cases it’s somewhere between 1k and 3k ACTIVE reps. Furthermore, I would define fast as two to five years. It takes time to build a successful, profitable business of any type. Network marketing is no different.
Four Strategies to Build a Big MLM Team
When it comes to building a big MLM Team, there are several ways to do it. The four most common strategies I know of include:
# 1: Mass Recruiting
Mass recruiting is my favorite strategy to build a big MLM Team. It’s what I do. It’s not something most people can do, but influencers and people with a large sphere of influence and lots of credibility can do it successfully.
This is where you personally recruit several hundred people as quickly as you can. Basically, you throw a lot of mud against the wall to see what sticks. You work with the people that “stick” and forget about everyone else.
This isn’t unethical or bad. It’s no different than what most real estate brokers or insurance brokers do. They hire 20 agents to find one good one. Everyone gets the same training and support, but the broker lets the agents sort themselves out. The non-serious people weed themselves out and drop out.
I like this strategy because you don’t waste your time with the wrong people! If you’re wondering how you can use this strategy, it’s probably not the right strategy for you or you would already be doing it. This strategy works best with social media influencers, bloggers, YouTubers, or someone with a large email list.
# 2: Taprooting
Taprooting in MLM is really simple. When you sponsor someone you help them sponsor one or two people as quickly as possible, ideally in their first 48-hours in the business. You tap into their warm market right out the gate.
Once you do that, you pick the most excited person that they just sponsored and repeat the same process with them. You keep doing this over and over and NEVER stop doing it.
You ALWAYS work at the bottom most point of your team with the newest, most excited distributor.
That quote above is the most important tip on this page. Write it down and remember it.
By the time you drive a leg twenty to fifty levels deep, you should have two or three solid leaders. These leaders will “lock in” that leg and make it stable. They will “take the torch” and keep driving the leg deep, with or without you.
Everyone you work with in depth, you treat them as if they were personally sponsored by you. You help them. You train them. You support them. You coach them. You build a relationship with them.
Don’t put your success in someone else’s hands. Take responsibility for your business and drive it deep. If you build your taproot legs right, you will always have new distributors in your organization to help and work with. Think how busy you could be if you were doing this process in three to five legs of your organization each month!
I learned about this process in Amway and I have to tell you it works. There are people in that company who have organizations THOUSANDS of people deep in their tap root legs. Within each tap root leg are hundreds of leaders each doing the same thing. Talk about a win-win proposition.
What’s the secret to taprooting? SPEED and EXCITEMENT. You help each person sign up ONE person. You do this QUICKLY by helping each new person making their name list and contacting their first three to five people. Your goal is to drive a leg 20 to 50 levels deep within 30 to 90-days.
SPEED is essential. Have a sense of urgency and move fast. Everyone has at least one person they can sign up. If you keep doing that over and over, at some point you will stumble across a STUD, just what you want. You just don’t know WHEN they will show up. It might be the person on the 10th level or it might be the person on the 100th level.
# 3: Product Focus
I love the product focused people (most of the time). They also drive me crazy. Products are important, but people are more important. In network marketing, people are our real product, not the company’s products. We build people and people build the business.
Yes, products must sell. Yes, customers are important. But MLM is much more than just selling a product. Please understand that BEFORE you choose this business building approach. Network marketing is about leverage. It’s about a lot of people each doing a little bit. It’s not about one person selling a lot of product.
If you choose the product first approach, just know this strategy will be slower than the other methods I shared. Yes, it works and it works well. But if you simply talk about the products, you will mostly find customers not business builders.
With this approach you simply share the products with everyone and anyone. You build up a customer base and serve your customers well. You hope that some of these customers will fall in love with the products and become product advocates. Some of them will. A few might turn out to be serious people, too. But most will simply be customers.
My best tip for people using this strategy is to also mention the business. Let your customers know both sides of the story, not just the product story. And then let them decide which course of action they want to take.
# 4: Recruit Network Marketers
Without a doubt, the fastest way to grow a big MLM Team is to recruit other network marketers. Now, before you get mad and say this is shady or unethical, please hear me out for a moment.
Imagine you owned a professional football team. At the end of the season, you had some openings on your roster. Some players retired, others were cut, some were traded, etc.
Would you go down to the local unemployment office to fill your open positions? Would you look for someone who has never played football before and HOPE that you could motivate them and train them properly for the season? I highly doubt it. I’d argue that if you followed this strategy, you would probably lose your football franchise (and rightfully so).
If you were smart, you would either draft a talented player with a ton of potential, or even better, you would look for a qualified free agent, and sign them to your team. Why? Because these two options are just smart. They come with a high certainty of success. And it just makes business sense.
Let me give you another example to really hit my point. Let’s suppose you are a real estate broker. You own your own office selling high end real estate in Beverly Hills, California. We’re talking about million-dollar homes. You want to expand your business because the housing market is booming. You want to level up your business.
Would you visit the local unemployment office or go to the town’s bowling alley to find new agents? I hope not. If you were smart, you would seek out EXPERIENCED realtors who are looking for a new opportunity. Why? Because they have the contacts, drive, skills, and experience to be successful. There is a short learning curve, if any.
This is just smart business. I know what I would do if I was the broker looking for new agents. I would seek out the most talented free agent realtors I can find and recruit them to work with me.
So, why should network marketing be any different? Why should you focus on friends and family who are probably not entrepreneurial, highly motivated, or even like our industry? Why would you approach people who have never done the industry before?
I can’t speak for you, but that just doesn’t make sense to me. The fastest way to build a big MLM Team is to recruit people with MLM Experience. You want people who already have the skills, desire, hustle, and experience in the industry. You want people who believe in the industry, know what they are doing, and already know how to build a big team. This makes building your business fast and allows you to work smart.
If this doesn’t make sense to you, I want you to look at the top 20 earners in your company. If I was a betting man, I bet at least 18 to 19 out of those 20 people have PREVIOUS MLM Experience, prior to their current company. And I bet their best people also have previous MLM Experience.
As a disclaimer, I am not telling you to go out and poach people from other network marketing companies. There’s no need to do that. It just makes you look bad when you do that. Instead, you should look for free agents. You are looking for people who aren’t currently in a network marketing company or people who are unhappy with their current company. You should look for people with experience in the industry who are looking for a new home.
There are THOUSANDS, probably tens of thousands of MLM Reps, in this situation as we speak. You must get creative, think outside the box, and find ways to recruit them.
How to Build a Big MLM Team
Now that we’ve covered the four strategies to build a big MLM Team, I want to cover the mindset, steps, and process of doing it.
# 1: Decide
Success begins with a decision. You already know that. You will never build a big MLM team by accident. It’s not about luck either. At some point, you must draw a line in the sand, eliminate your option to quit, and DECIDE that you will build a big business no matter what.
Most people never make that decision. They just go with the ebbs and flows. They dabble. Or even worse, they try it to see how it goes. Success never works that way. Once again, success begins with a decision. You must DECIDE you will build a big MLM Business no matter what. Once you do that, things will start to fall in place for you.
My best advice is to act as if you wrote a check for ONE MILLION DOLLARS to start your business and you only have one year to earn it back. If you adopt that mindset, you will do very well in our industry.
# 2: Create Your Game-Plan
Without a game-plan, your goal of building a big MLM Business is nothing more than a fantasy. Your plan is your road-map that will help you get from where you are to where you want to go. Your game-plan should include your long-term goals, short-term goals, marketing plan, and daily routine. In other words:
- How much money do you want to make?
- How much volume and what rank do you need to achieve that?
- Who will you approach?
- How much time will you commit to your business each week?
- What type of marketing budget do you have?
- Who is your target market?
- What will you do each day to grow your business?
- What is your ultimate goal with the business?
- What is your why?
You must take some time to answer these questions. Your plan does not need to be perfect, but it must be written down on paper. You should refer to it daily. By all means, tweak and adjust your plan when needed, as you learn new skills and figure out what works. And make sure you share your game-plan with your coach, to get their input.
# 3: Launch Your Business
Amateurs start a business. Professionals launch their business. If you were starting a traditional business, you would do a proper business launch. You would advertise. You would tell everyone you know about it. You would share it on social media. You want to do the same thing with your new network marketing business.
It’s much better to start your business the right way, so you don’t need to start over! To launch your business properly, you must create your name’s list of at least 1,000 names. You need to invite these people to watch a third-party business presentation (ideally a webinar or video) or purchase a product from you.
You must purchase your starter kit and be on auto-ship. You need to go through your name’s list as quickly as possible, so can sponsor a bunch of people right out the gate, and create some momentum in your business.
I highly recommend you commit to doing a 90-Day Blitz as well. This is when you 5x or 10x your efforts to create rapid growth and momentum in your business.
# 4: Make Your First Circle Work
The only thing you control in this business is what you do. It’s vital that you make your first circle work, so you lead by example at all times. This means you do the following things:
- You buy a starter kit.
- You sign up for auto-ship.
- You talk to minimum 5 to 10 new prospects daily.
- You maintain 2-10 personal retail customers at all times.
- You sponsor 4 new business builders monthly, every month.
- You attend every event.
- You stay plugged in to your team’s or company’s training system.
- You work on your personal development daily.
- You talk with your coach daily.
- You are persistent and consistent, day in and day out, no excuses.
If you’re trying to build a big MLM Business, these things are MANDATORY! They are non-negotiable. You must do the things you want your team to do! Set the pace and you will inspire the right people. Be someone worth duplicating!
# 5: Recruit One New Business Builder Distributor Every Week
This might sound extreme, but it is very doable, even for the part-timer. To sponsor one new business builder distributor each week, you must approach approximately 5 people per day. Anyone can do that, even a part-timer, if they decide to!
By doing so, this gives you new people to work with, but not too many people at one time to make it overwhelming. When you sponsor one new distributor (business builder, not wholesale customer) each week, you have enough time to help them launch their business properly. Learning how to recruit will help solve almost every business problem you can think of.
# 6: Launch Your New Reps Properly
As you sponsor new distributors, it is VITAL that you take them through these exact same steps. Your number one goal is to help them sponsor a few people right out the gate, so you can start taprooting and building depth in your team. It makes no sense to sign up a new rep and just hope that they will follow your system. They won’t!
You must give them a sense of urgency. You must HELP THEM launch their new business if you want them to succeed. Spend some time with each new distributor during their first few weeks in the business and it can really pay off. Plus, as you help them sponsor people, you will anchor them into the business. You can then start working with THEIR new people and simply repeat this process in depth.
# 7: Be a Student of Your Business
Every successful entrepreneur, in every endeavor, is a student of their business. They study their industry, they know their products, and are constantly fine tuning their skills. This business is no different.
You must learn everything you can about leadership, sales, and network marketing. You need to work on your personal development daily. You should listen to audio programs, attend events, read books, and listen to your mentors so you can fine tune your skills.
Most importantly, you should get in the trenches and stay in the trenches. That is the best way to learn and fine tune your skills. Remember, skills pay the bills in this profession! To make more money, talk to more people and improve your skills. Set aside at least 30-minutes per day to improve your skills.
# 8: Stay in the Trenches for Two to Five YEARS
Never, ever go into management mode. You must stay in the trenches for MINIMUM two to four years. This means you never stop sponsoring new people and finding new customers. You stay plugged in. You keep recruiting one new business builder distributor ever week. You keep talking to minimum FIVE new prospects daily. You keep taprooting and driving depth. You keep doing the things you want your team members to do!
Most reps make the mistake of sponsoring a few people, and then they stop their personal recruiting to go and manage their team. If you do this, you will fail! Stay in those trenches until your foundation for your business is so solid, and you no longer need to recruit. For most people, that will take minimum two to five years.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, these are my best tips on how to build a big MLM Team. None of this is rocket science, but it does work. If you follow these steps, I can’t guarantee you will build a huge team, but I do believe the likelihood of you doing so is significantly higher.
What are your thoughts? What are your best tips on how to build a big MLM Team? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.
Chuck Holmes
20+ Year Network Marketing Professional
Top Earner & Top Recruiter
Email: mrchuckholmes@gmail.com
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