MLM Recruiting | 4 Steps To Crush It In Your Business

MLM recruiting is one of the most important skills to learn if you want to build a long lasting, profitable network marketing business.

The problem is, most new networkers are quite intimidated by this… MLM recruiting has a negative connotation to it. 

When many people think of recruiting, they picture high-pressure sales and closing tactics that often require the recruiter to stretch the truth and take advantage of human emotions. 

But in this business, that style of recruiting will never work.

In fact, it’s often counter-productive. 

Here’s what you must understand about MLM recruiting:

You are not in the business of convincing anyone.

Do not try to be the expert. Even if you know the answer to every single question that your prospect asks, positioning yourself as the “expert” is not going to convince anyone to join your business. 

Especially if the prospect happens to be a family member or close friend. 

You likely don’t have the credibility to be viewed as an expert… and that’s OK!

You will find that the top earners in MLM never position themselves as an expert. They simply use the tools that do all the explaining for them.

Again, MLM recruiting is not about convincing anyone. 

Instead, you use third party tools, provided to you by your company, to deliver the information for you.

You simply need to guide your prospects to the information. And let your prospects convince themselves.

I know, I know… positioning yourself as an expert might be good for your ego. You’ll feel good about yourself if you feel that you have all the answers.

But you know what feels even better?

Big, fat, inflation-proof paychecks mailed to you every month by your network marketing company.

MLM Recruiting Mindset

In order for you to be effective at MLM recruiting, you do not need to have all the answers. In fact, you don’t need to know anything at all…

But here’s what you do need:

Posture.

You need to have an underlying belief and confidence in the business that you are promoting. If you don’t, your prospects will see right through you. They will feel your doubt and lack of confidence… and it will make them extremely skeptical.

But if you approach your business with an unwavering confidence, your prospects will be intrigued. And they will likely want what you have.

Listen…

Why did you get into network marketing?

It’s probably because of the potential income. Or time freedom. Taking control of your own life. Your destiny.

Whatever the reason, keep that in mind when you’re inviting people to check out your business. 

Remember, your prospects are not doing you a favor by checking out your opportunity.

Not at all. 

In fact, it’s the other way around!

You are doing people a favor by sharing your opportunity with them.

This is the attitude you must have as you’re building your business.

Check Your Expectations

Before you really start working on your new business, it’s important for you understand what’s coming.

You may have been convinced that MLM recruiting was going to be easy. That you only needed to share your business with 3 people… who would each get 3… who would each get 3.

You know the deal.

But this business is not easy.

It’s simple, yes. But do not confuse that for easy.

There are a few things that you need to mentally prepare yourself for before you get started.

I. You might be ridiculed.

Many people will not understand the business model that you’re in. Or they may have had a negative experience in the past. Some might even make fun of you for getting involved. Don’t let this hold you back. Just be ready for it.

II. Most will not join.

Don’t expect that you will recruit everybody you talk to. The reality will be quite the opposite. Most people will not join. And that’s OK. It’s a numbers game and you simply need to work through the numbers.

III. Most will quickly quit.

Many of the people that you bring into the business will not last very long. Don’t let this discourage you. Understand that all of the top earners dealt with this same thing. The difference between an MLM top earner and an MLM quitter is that the top earner persevered despite the challenges.

Finding Prospects

Everybody wants to make more money. Everybody wants more personal power and freedom. And nobody wants to be slave to a corporation or government bureaucracy.

These desires are completely universal.

And network marketing is the solution for these problems. 

Everybody can benefit from this business model. This means that there are prospects all around you. Every single person you’ve ever met is a potential candidate for your business.

But there is a right and wrong way to approach people.

Today’s article will not talk much about finding and approaching prospects for your business. If that’s what you’re looking for, check out this full guide to finding unlimited MLM prospects.

You can also learn about some powerful prospecting techniques in this article.

For today, we are going to assume that you already have a list of people that you can talk to about your business. 

So let’s get to it!

MLM Recruiting Rules

Before we talk about the step by step MLM recruiting formula, there are 6 rules you need to understand. If you approach your prospects with these rules in mind, you’ll have a much higher conversion rate and you won’t jeopardize your relationships in the process.

You Don’t Need Credibility

Don’t think that you need widespread respect or credibility to be successful in network marketing. Remember, every single top earner started with nothing.

They were not born with a successful personal brand or a big downline.

Do not fall for the temptation to feed your ego by demonstrating how much you know. Understand that for the people who already know you, this will simply not help your credibility.

Additionally, new people that you bring into the business will think that they will need to know all the answers, too. This will hurt duplication in the long run.

Do Not Pitch Your Business

Don’t ever pitch your product or business opportunity. Never ever.

Instead, simply invite people to check out a presentation or event. Your company will have third party tools available such as CDs, DVDs, online videos, or even live events.

Use these tools.

Your goal in MLM recruiting is not to immediately recruit everyone you talk to. That is simply not a reality.

Instead, shift your focus to cultivating relationships and just educate them on what you have to offer…

Using the third party tools.

Emotionally Detach

As we talked about already, most people will not be interested in starting a business. And that’s OK.

You just need to be ready for it.

So you have to emotionally detach yourself from the outcome. Keep your expectations in check.

The goal is to help your prospects understand what you have to offer, using the tools provided to you by your company.

Keep your expectations in check so that you won’t be devastated when you’re told “no” again and again.

It’s normal.

Be Yourself

Many people turn into a different person as soon as they’re talking about their business to a prospect.

And I get it.

You’re excited and passionate.

But you need to be careful. Just be yourself. Don’t be weird.

Be the best version of yourself that you can be.

Bring The Passion

It might take some practice for you to be passionate about your business while simultaneously not being weird.

But passion is important.

You believe in what you have to offer, right?

Well that needs to come across in how you speak about your business. You have to be excited and passionate about what you have.

It’ll rub off on the folks you speak to.

Have Posture

We talked about this already… but you need to have posture when you’re presenting your business.

Be bold.

Be strong.

You know what you have. Don’t allow yourself to crumble like a wet cracker every time somebody asks you a difficult question.

For example, what if somebody asks you the dreaded question, “Is this MLM?”

Don’t go into hyperdrive defending the business model and explaining why it’s different from a pyramid scheme…

If your prospect is already convinced that MLM is no good very bad, you are not going to change his or her mind.

Instead, reply with something like, “Yes, absolutely. What’s been your experience with MLM?”

This shifts the power back towards you instead of having you on the defense.

If your prospect asked the question and you’ve detected a lot of negative emotion, perhaps you can answer it with something like this: “Whoa, whoa, hang on… I sense there’s a story here. What happened with you and MLM in the past?”

Whatever you do, don’t get yourself in a situation where you’re emotionally defending what you do. 

You will not convince anyone.

Trust me on that.

So now that you know the 6 basic MLM recruiting rules to follow, let’s talk about the step by step recruiting process.

There are 4 steps that you need to follow:

1. Inviting
2. Following up
3. Handling objections
4. Closing

1. The Invitation

There is a powerful 8 step invitation formula that is outlined in Eric Worre’s book, Go Pro. This book is a must read for anybody that is ready to take their business seriously and become an MLM recruiting powerhouse.

So let’s talk about the 8 step invitation process.

I. Be In A Hurry

There are 2 reasons that you need to be in a hurry when you’re inviting people to have a look at your presentation.

One, people are more attracted to someone who appears to have a lot of things going on. It signals success and ambition. And everybody wants to be surrounded by successful, ambitious people.

Second, you actually have a lot of things to do. When you’re extending invitations for your business, you’re working on a serious enterprise. You really do not have time to waste!

You can visit another time. But if you’re speaking to someone about your business, you’re in work mode. And you have things to do.

II. Compliment People

Find an opportunity to extend a few compliments to your prospect. Don’t overdo it. It needs to be sincere and not done out of vanity.

Remember, don’t be weird.

Extending a sincere compliment will help to build trust, likeability, and rapport.

III. Invite

When you find an appropriate opening in the conversation, extend the invitation to check out your presentation or event… 

Don’t be shy about it. Be bold. 

You know what you have and you’re doing the world a favor by sharing it.

IV. If I ___, Would You___?

This is a powerful way to format the question you use to extend your invitation. For example:

“If I were to send you a short video, would you watch it?”

“If I gave you a DVD, would you listen to it?”

This is a psychologically powerful way to ask a question because it’s reciprocal. It presupposes that you will do something only if the prospect agrees to do something in return.

It implies that you have something valuable to offer and puts you in a strong position of power.

If instead you beg the prospect to “help” you by checking out your presentation, it puts you in a very weak and unattractive position.

V. Confirmation #1

Don’t just assume that the prospect will watch your presentation just because you asked them to. 

You must get them to commit verbally. For example:

“When do you think you’ll watch the presentation for sure?”

VI. Confirmation #2

People are busy and it’s easy for them to forget commitments that they made. Especially if they do not yet see the value in it.

So getting a second commitment from them is a powerful way to increase the odds of your prospect following through.

Nobody wants to slump on commitments that they’ve made… 

That’s what makes this approach so powerful.

So for example:

“So if I called you tomorrow night at 8 o’clock, you’ll have watched it for sure, right?”

The prospect will either agree or adjust the time slightly.

VII. Schedule The Next Call

This is where you arrange an exact time for you to call back and follow up on the presentation. 

Call exactly when you said you would… no earlier, and no later. 

If your prospect actually spent time watching the presentation, do not insult them by calling them back at a time that you didn’t agree upon. 

If you need to reschedule, do so well in advance.

People are busy. You want them to respect your time, so you need to respect their time in return.

VIII. Get Off The Phone

Do not linger on the phone with your prospect. Keep the call short and punchy. You’re busy and this is a work call, not a call for visiting.

Besides, if you spend too much time talking your prospect’s ear off, you are more likely to undo the progress that you’ve made.

Remember, you are not in the business convincing anyone. The goal is never to recruit them yourself. You are in the business of directing them to third party tools that will do the convincing for you.

Look, people do not care what you know. So don’t try to be too smart. Do not try to be an expert just to feed your own ego… nobody cares about your ego except you.

But people do care about your story, so feel free to share a condensed version of your personal story and how you were led to network marketing.

2. The Follow Up

The fortune is in the follow-up.

That is a concept that needs to be burned into your brain. Permanently.

Most people need an average of 7 exposures to a product or business opportunity before they will ever consider buying or joining.

This is why the follow-up process is so crucial in network marketing.

Let’s talk about the 5 rules to the follow-up process in MLM recruiting.

Do What You Say

Be the person that does what you said you would do.

If you tell your prospect that you will call back at a specific time, then do it. You are a professional network marketer, so you have to act like one.

This is a serious business, not some cute little side gig.

So you need to treat it as such.

Your prospects and customers will respect you for it and will be much more likely to join you in your enterprise if they can trust what you say.

Keep Them In The Pipeline

After somebody views your presentation for the first time, your goal does not immediately become recruiting them into your business.

Even though you’ve successfully enticed them to watch your presentation, you are still not in the business of convincing anybody.

Your goal is simply to create another exposure. Here’s your main goal during the follow up process:

To keep the process of exposing somebody to the opportunity alive.

Perhaps your prospect has another question after viewing the initial presentation…

For example, they might want more information on the compensation plan. Instead of launching into an explanation of how it works, send over some more information (provided to you by your company) and schedule another follow-up call.

Never finish one exposure without setting up another exposure.

Ever. 

Keep the follow-up process alive until your prospect unequivocally says they’re not interested or they join your business. 

If you allow the follow-up process to end without getting a yes or no answer, then you’ve likely lost that prospect forever. 

If you shift your focus from recruitment to simply setting up another exposure and follow-up call, it will really take the pressure off. You have a simple goal of getting somebody to review materials and videos, which is a much smaller commitment. 

This way, you’re not setting yourself up for constant rejection.

Don’t Get Emotional

When you follow up at the agreed upon time, it is very likely that the prospect will have watched the presentation like they said they would.

However, sometimes they don’t hold up their end of the deal.

It’s really important that you do not show your displeasure when this happens. If you get grumpy, it will seriously hinder the cultivation of that positive relationship that you want and need.

Instead, say something like, “Oh I get it, sometimes life gets busy. When do you think you could watch it for sure for sure?”

It’s OK to be firm, but do not allow your emotions to get the best of you.

You have to emotionally detach yourself from the outcome if you want to be effective at MLM recruiting.

Ask Specific Questions

When you speak with someone after they’ve watched your presentation, don’t ask open ended questions. Be specific. 

Don’t ask a question like, “What did you think?”

This type of question invites negativity into their mind. They’ll be focusing on all the doubts and misgivings they currently have… this is not where you want your prospect’s attention to be.

Instead, ask questions like, “What did you like best?”

This will cause the prospect to rack their brain for what they liked about what they saw. They’ll be more likely to push some of the negativity aside and discount some of their doubts.

If they answer that they really love the product but have no interest in the business opportunity, then just go with it!

Look, sales volume is important for your business. MLM recruiting is a large part of your success, but you also want a loyal base of customers.

Don’t push them to do more than they already want to.

Again, you do not convince anybody. Use the third party tools to educate and let the prospect convince themselves.

Don’t Drag It Out

Make sure that not too much time passes between follow-up calls. 

People are busy and if you give them too much time to think about your proposal, they will simply forget about it as their interest and excitement dwindles. 

A month is way too long. As they lose excitement, they will talk themselves out of joining your business.

The follow-up process is a very important part of MLM recruiting and you must keep your prospects engaged.

3. Handling Objections

It’s very important for you to understand that you will receive questions and objections when you’re doing your MLM recruiting.

It’s natural and normal.

Everybody deals with it, including the top performers in network marketing.

So you know that these objections will come. Don’t be caught off guard. Do not get defensive and never, ever get into an argument. If you get defensive, that seed of doubt will grow in your prospect’s mind. If you are too offensive, you’ll chase them away.

Instead, just be empathetic. Learn to be a good listener and hear their concerns.

Feel, Felt, Found

You need to think back and remember that you likely had the exact same questions before you got started in network marketing. 

Your prospect is not weird or stupid for asking these questions. 

It’s natural and even healthy to be skeptical, especially when most of society feels that the financial system is rigged against the everyday person.

Let your prospect know that you understand their objections and that you had the same doubts and questions when you were first getting started… 

But you overcame them.

The feel, felt, found method is a great template for you to follow when you’re dealing with network marketing questions.

For example:

“I know exactly how you feel. I felt the same way when I was getting started. But I found that I was able to overcome this.”

The good thing about dealing with objections while MLM recruiting is that you’re going to get the exact same ones over and over again throughout your career.

So once you learn how to overcome the handful of questions you get, you’ll be off to the races and it will become downright easy over time.

There are 2 main categories of common objections that you’ll get:

• Prospect’s limiting belief in themselves
• Doubt about the MLM model

Limiting Belief Objections

These are the most common objections that you’ll get in this category:

• I don’t have the money
• I don’t have the time
• I’m not a salesperson
• I’m too shy
• I don’t know anyone
• I’m too old or too young
• I have no experience

No matter what you do, do not ever make your prospect feel stupid or degraded in any way.

For example:

“Oh, you don’t have any money? Really? Do you have a Netflix bill? Would you rather be lazy in front of your TV or go out and change your life?”

Just imagine if somebody had talked to you that way when you were recruited into the business. It’s insulting and will only drive people away from you.

Instead, be relatable. Relate to the person’s objection and tell your own story. 

“Yes life is expensive and it often seems like there’s too much month left at the end of your paycheck. I felt the same way. But I found that my business helped me to fix that problem so that I don’t have to obsess about money as much anymore.”

If you don’t have a personal story that relates to any particular objection, you can use somebody else’s story. That’s perfectly fine.

Doubt About MLM

These are the common questions or comments you’ll get in this category:

• Is this one of those things?
• Is this MLM?
• Is this a pyramid scheme?
• I don’t wanna bother my friends.
• How much are you making?

You will be tempted to get into a debate or argument. You’ll feel the impulse to get defensive. For example:

“Pyramid scheme? You mean like big corporations? Or like the government? Is that what you mean?”

Instead of getting emotional, you need to understand where they’re probably coming from. Odds are, they’ve had a bad experience with MLM in the past, or they know somebody who did.

Rather than trying to debate or convince them of anything, just get them to open up about why they feel the way they do. Tell them your own story and the doubts that you had. Lower their defenses.

After listening to your prospect’s story, you could consider saying something like this:

“So do you think that you gave the business a fair shot back then?”

They might reply with, “No, I probably didn’t.”

You might say, “Do you think network marketing itself was the problem, or was it just bad timing for you back then?”

What about the dreaded “pyramid scheme” question?

This is pretty simple. 

“No. Pyramid schemes are illegal and I would never be involved with anything illegal. It is MLM though. Have you had any experience with MLM in the past?”

There truly is no need for you to become pushy or defensive in order to overcome any of these objections.

MLM recruiting is not about “getting” anyone. It’s more about educating and listening, then guiding people to a good solution for their problems.

It will take some practice for you to learn how to comfortably overcome these objections. But as we mentioned already, there are only a handful of objections you’ll ever hear in your MLM recruiting career.

There’s nothing new here.

They are common objections and we all face them every single day.

4. Closing

Most of the work in MLM recruiting is in the follow-up process. If you did that correctly, the closing process becomes quite easy.

This does not mean that the prospect will outright ask you for an order form or application… It’s your job to guide them to that decision.

If you have the right posture, your prospect will feel it and be attracted to working with you.

Be bold. Be confident. You understand that network marketing is a great opportunity, and you make no bones about it.

But if you’re trying to “get” them by being pushy or arrogant, nobody will be attracted to working with you.

Focus on educating and guiding your prospects, strongly and confidently, and you will have much more success.

Don’t be needy.

And do not be emotionally attached to the outcome.

Look, it’s ultimately not about you. It’s about the prospect.

Do not try to be interestING… try to be interestED in the needs of others.

The people who are most successful at MLM recruiting ask a lot of questions and are really good listeners. They take the focus off of themselves and put it onto the prospect.

They behave like a consultant rather than a salesperson.

So if you feel as though your prospect might be ready to get started, consider using this 4 part question formula:

I. Based on what you’ve seen, if you were to get started with this on a part time basis, how much would you need to earn per month to make this worth your time?

Don’t ask this: “How would you like to earn 10 thousand dollars per month?”

Instead of trying to prescribe what you think they want, simply let them tell you what they want.

II. Roughly how many hours could you commit each week to build that kind of income?

This will have the prospect digging through their own mind to figure out how much time they could free up to make that kind of income.

III. How many months would you work those kinds of hours in order to build that level of income?

This will get them consider the level of long term commitment they would be willing to make in order to make the income from question 1.

IV. If I could show you how to build an income of (answer from question 1) working (answer from question 2) over the course of (answer from question 3) months, would you be ready to get started?

You will often get a positive answer to this question, especially if you did the MLM recruiting follow-up process correctly.

At this point, you could pull out a chart of your compensation plan and outline out a real roadmap to get to the level of income in the specified time frame.

Then simply ask them to fill out the application form.

Let’s Wrap This Up…

This MLM recruiting process will take practice. 

If it were easy, everybody would be a network marketing millionaire, right?

The truth is, network marketing is not complicated. It really only comes down to a few simple steps that you need to do over and over again.

Real, long term success in network marketing comes down to your ability to get a large group of people to do a few simple things for an extended period of time.

Don’t overcomplicate it.

The difference between you and the top earners in network marketing is that they created an MLM business plan and followed through with it. They are just a few steps ahead of you…

And there’s no reason that you can’t take a few steps forward yourself.

I hope that this MLM recruiting guide helps you out. You may also want to read this full guide to MLM success to get a big picture view of what it takes to make it in this business.