Today, I want to teach you how to follow up with your MLM prospects.
You’ve probably heard that the fortune is in the follow up. It’s true. Other than generating leads, following up with your leads after you’ve introduced them to your products or business opportunity is the second most important skill you can develop to succeed in your network marketing business. The follow-up includes staying in touch and CLOSING the sale.
Please realize MOST people you talk with will need you to follow-up with them at least ten to twenty times BEFORE they ever join your business opportunity or sign up as a customer. Very few people will just sign up on the spot. Most people I sponsor take minimum 30 to 90-days (from the time I first talked with them) and 10 follow-ups before they join my team.
The purpose of following up with someone is to give your prospect additional information, to answer their questions, overcome objections, and collect a buying decision.
If left to their own vices, most people you talk with will do NOTHING at all, even if they really are interested in buying or joining. The most important part of the follow up process is to collect a decision. It’s when you look them in the eyes and ask them to buy or join. You don’t want to use pressure or hype, but you must ask them to buy.
Most network marketers SUCK at following up with their prospects. They either don’t want to do it, don’t understand the importance of following-up or don’t know how to do it the right way. Most people share their business opportunity with someone one time and if that person doesn’t sign up on the spot they forget about them and move on to the next person. That is foolish.
If you never follow up with people you will have to work through an INCREDIBLE amount of prospects to build your team. If you follow up with people the right way, you can reduce that number by at least 70%, maybe even 90%.
Following up with people is an art form that must be learned and mastered. It takes time to learn. You can’t just wing it, either. You need to have a follow up process that is systematized, simple and effective, AND you need to follow up frequently.
In the rest of this article, I am going to teach you HOW to follow up with your MLM prospects so you can get better results in your network marketing business.
Key Points to a Good Follow Up
- Every prospect is a prospect for life.
- The fortune is in the follow-up: the average person needs to see your message 7 to 20 times before buying or joining.
- Follow-up with people until they buy, die or unsubscribe or ask you not to.
- Never use pressure, hard-selling, or hype, be a professional.
- Anyone can generate a lead, even a one-time customer, but to build a long-term sustainable business, you must master the follow-up.
- You need a simple system you can follow.
What we’re going to cover next is the exact process you can utilize to follow up with your MLM prospects.
How to Follow Up with Your MLM Prospects: The 4-Step Process
To keep things simple, there are four steps you must follow. They are:
- Step # 1: Standardize Your Follow-Up Process
- Step # 2: Pick Your Lead Management System
- Step # 3: Choose Your Follow-Up Methods
- Step # 4: Keep Following Up
# 1: Standardize Your Follow Up Process
What you want to do first is draw out your entire follow up process on a piece of paper. This is where you identify what steps you will use, when you will use them (the timeline), and HOW you will do it. Keep in mind you are only following up with people you have invited to take a look AND with people who have already been introduced to your products or company, but have not purchased or got involved yet. You are NOT sending these emails/texts/messages to random strangers.
Example Follow Up Process
- Day 1: Introduce yourself (phone call)
- Day 3: Company overview (text)
- Day 5: Product Testimonial (YouTube video by text or email)
- Day 7: Distributor Success Stories (Private Message on Facebook)
- Day 10: Company Overview (email)
- Day 30: 10 Reasons to Join Your Company (Text or email)
- Day 45: Top 10 Company Products (share a link through Facebook)
- Day 90: Offer a Free Gift to Activate (Phone Call)
- Plus, send a weekly email newsletter on the same day each week
Keep in mind your prospect might easily ignore your first 10-20 emails or texts before they take action. Do not get frustrated. Just stay in touch until they tell you not to.
# 2: Pick Your Lead Management System
The next thing you need to do is develop a lead management system. You need a lead management system so you can be organized and work smart. If you don’t keep your leads in one tracking mechanism, you will be inefficient and confused!
Ideally, you want to use a CRM Program. Stat Trak Pro is great. It sells for about $30 (one-time cost). A cheaper alternative is to use a simple Excel Spreadsheet. Create a blank spreadsheet with the following categories:
- Name
- Phone Number
- Address
- Date First Contacted
- Date Last Contacted
- Date for Next Follow Up
- Notes
Print out a blank spreadsheet (with these category headers on it) and hand write in your leads. Each page holds about 30-50 leads, so you may need to print out a few spreadsheets. This keeps things organized.
Whenever you get a new lead, add them to the spreadsheet. Whenever you follow-up with someone, update your spreadsheet. It’s really that simple.
Having a lead management system might not sound like a big deal if you only have a few leads, but I can assure you that it is mandatory if you have a lot.
As a final note, you can also use an auto-responder. This will save you a ton of time, plus it will automate your follow-up process.
# 3: Choose Your Follow Up Methods
Most people follow up by email only. That is better than nothing at all, but you should use a combination of follow-up strategies, such as:
- Face to Face
- Phone or SKYPE
- Facebook Messenger or Facetime
If possible, ask each person what is the best way to communicate with them. Use their favorite method primarily, and a mixture of these other methods.
# 4: Keep Following Up
People join or buy when THEY are ready, not when you want them to. It is not abnormal for your prospect to procrastinate for 6-18 months before they make a decision. You must stay in touch with your prospects at least 1-2 times per week FOREVER (until they die, buy, unsubscribe or tell you not to). The better you get at your follow up the fewer leads you need to build a big team.
And remember, every prospect is a prospect for life! Some of your best people will take you YEARS to recruit!
Hypothetical Example
I want to take a moment and share a hypothetical example with you. Let’s suppose you made a commitment to generate two new leads per day, seven days a week. If you did that for a year you would have 730 leads. Do it for five years and you would have over 3,600 leads.
If you simply had a good follow up system in place, and followed the advice mentioned in this article, there is no doubt in my mind that you could find at least 200 to 300 of these people who join your business as a customer or distributor. That alone would allow you to build a huge group.
On the other hand, if you just prospected those same 3,600 people, but never followed up with them, you wouldn’t get anywhere near the results. Does that make sense?
The MLM Pipeline
I learned about the pipeline concept several years back. Think of your pipeline as an inverted pyramid. The big part of the pyramid is on top and the little part is now on bottom. Some people call this your sales funnel. Your job every day is to add new people to your pipeline.
As people enter your pipeline, they are introduced to your products and business opportunity and they start receiving your follow-up process. Some people will buy right away, most people will never buy , and some people will take months, even years before they do so. Your follow up process helps you work smart, so you can identify who is ready right now.
You really can’t control who upgrades and buys and who doesn’t, but you can keep adding people to your pipeline daily and you can follow up with everyone consistently. That alone will lead to higher conversions.
The more people you add to your pipeline, and the better your follow-up process, the more leads you will have, the more reps you will recruit, and the more money you will make with your business.
The number one question I ask myself each day is “how many people did I add to my pipeline today?” You should strive for 2-10 new leads daily, minimum. I would suggest two for hobbyists, five for part-timers, and ten new prospects per day for serious reps.
Final Thoughts
In summary, these are my best tips on how to follow up with your MLM prospects. The money really is in the follow up. I suggest you develop a follow up system you can use, and teach your team members how to do it right, so you can manage your leads effectively. Doing so will definitely give your business that added boost, and help you convert more leads into reps and customers.
What are your thoughts? What do you do to follow up with your MLM prospects? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts. I look forward to hearing from you.
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Network Marketing Professional (21+ years)
Top Recruiter & Top Rep
mrchuckholmes@gmail.com
Glad I could help.
Will somebody give me a sample script in following up?
I don’t believe in using scripts. I think that makes us sound like a telemarketer. The real key is to get good at asking your prospect questions. Find out what they want and why? Find out why they are looking to start a business? Find out what type of experience they have? When you ask questions you are in control. When you read a script you will annoy people. Just my two cents.
yes, me agree too.. some scripts can’t fix to all people. More questions that lead to YES answer, will get the best result. Just my two cents too.. 🙂
Good points, Syed. Asking questions that leads to a YES is a good strategy.
Consistency is the key when it comes to keeping in touch with prospects. One and done simply does not work here. I had someone tell me once that chasing a prospect is kind of like chasing a potential mate in the sense that you have to regularly check in on them. See how they are and make them feel significant. A no the first time can easily turn into a yes after a few times of reaching out.
Good points. You don’t need to chase, bug or annoy or pressure people, but you do need to follow up until they make a decision. Even if they tell you NO, you should still stay in touch because there is a good chance in the future they will change their mind. It all comes down to timing.
The follow up is, I feel , even more important than the first contact. Most people will say no the first time, but follow ups usually generate more if done correctly. I agree that email is one of the worst. Most people will send it directly to spam or trash without even reading. I think the telephone or face-to-face are the best follow up systems. It is also good to have the follow up approach down where you are not just “winging it.” When we “wing it,” we will usually say something wrong or we will leave something important out. A follow up script is a good idea.
Definitely, most people I bring in to my business take at least 10 exposures and normally take 60 to 90 days from the time I first introduce them to my business until the time they join.