Part of the guide: Network Marketing Lead Generation
Vision.
When I got started in my network marketing business, I literally was in the dark. The funny thing is, for some crazy reason I just wouldn’t quit. I got started with the same advice that most of you did – and it goes something like this:
“Make a list of EVERYONE you know, call ‘em up, and pound them to death until they either join or die…”
Lol.
Ok – maybe it wasn’t that bad – but it kind of was… For some reason – for the next 5 years, I hung around in this business and just kept on doing the same thing over and over again – ‘WISHING’ that it would work.
Five years later – it didn’t work any better than it did when I started doing it in the first place. It’s funny a lot of times how we get in this industry and we try and do things that massive, huge companies with 10 million dollar advertising budgets do. Small business IS NOT large business, and it needs to be treated differently.
So what’s the difference between marketing for a small business? What you do has to be created with one goal in mind – responsiveness. How does the right market respond to what you’re doing – and does the response end in profit or loss?
Looking at it like an intelligent business person who is in a ‘for profit’ enterprise – Network Marketing really only has 3 goals:
- To sell products, services, and marketing tools.
- To recruit distributors to sell products, services, and marketing tools.
- To help your team sell products, services, and marketing tools.
That’s really it. So rather than sticking to one particular strategy – why not just look for the most effective, efficient way to make that happen?
For example – with the ‘friends and family’ approach – it just begs the question: Do friends and family respond well to home meetings – or not? If not, then why bother?
What I’ve found is that home meetings work well in some markets and not in others. Certain people have spheres of influence that respond well and others don’t. A lot of people with a non-responsive sphere of influence keep hammering their relatives to death again and again.
The reality is that in Network Marketing, you have to move a massive amount of people to action to create any kind of sustainable, BIG result – so why play small, anyways?
I remember when I got into this industry, they told me to sponsor 2 people a month to go diamond in 2-5 years. Funny enough – there’s almost no one in this entire industry that worked with such tiny numbers to create any kind of massive leverage. MOST network marketing leaders making six-figure residual incomes have sponsored well over 100 people, some of them have sponsored 200, 300, or even 500.
The fact is – that rather than dilly-dallying around with small, ineffective approaches, and when something doesn’t work – just smashing your head against the wall harder, doesn’t it make sense to find out what works and stop doing what doesn’t – and stick with what’s effective?
I started this article off with one word – VISION. Funny enough, though, that is NOT what is going to make the most difference in your business. You can have huge dreams and still beat your head against a wall. The thing that is going to make the biggest difference is learning the simple ACTIONS that WORK to create the results that you want – and then having the VISION to follow through with them.
Your vision will keep you around and motivate a team once you get one – but if you want results – you’ve got to learn the skill of direct response marketing, and you’ve got to THINK like a small business entrepreneur who only has time to do something that’s going to create and increase bottom-line profits.
You have been paid late before
You have watched the number on the dashboard not match the number in your account. What is different now is simple: it settles on a public contract you can check yourself, not a dashboard I control.
Read the contract →Most participants earn little to nothing. No income is guaranteed. You can verify every payout on the public smart contract.
What do we make money for in MLM? Selling, recruiting, and our team selling and recruiting – that’s it. Let’s not make this industry mysterious, because all of those things are easy to learn when it’s all your focused on, and you look past the hype.
One more story and then I’ll let you go. I had a team member just the other day who told me that they had to unsubscribe from my emails because they get anxiety every time they go to their inbox. They said they never know if there’s going to be an emergency get-together – or some kind of promotion, or what’s going to be there. (I cycle through periods of promotion and value).
It kind of made me chuckle – because for me – I’m only doing things that work. If that kind of email didn’t make massive amounts of sales, I wouldn’t write it – and if you’re not in this to make sales and profits – why are you doing this at all?
Just make sure that you keep focused on what MATTERS in your business – to your business, and you’ll be off on the right foot.
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions below.
In prosperity,
David Wood
Maria Sánchez, August 15.
This post really resonated with me. I’ve been struggling with my network marketing business for years, and your insights into focusing on what works rather than just sticking to old strategies have given me a fresh perspective. Thank you for sharing such valuable advice!
Jorge Lopez, August 16.
I’m not entirely sure I agree with everything mentioned here. How can you be certain that these approaches will work for everyone? Do you have any concrete evidence or case studies that prove these methods are effective across different markets?
Andrea Morales, August 17.
This was an eye-opener for me. I’ve been trying to apply the same strategies to my business with little success. What would you recommend for someone just starting out in this field? Any particular tools or resources you find indispensable?
Carlos Ramirez, August 18.
While I appreciate the effort and thought put into this post, I feel like the advice might be too generic. Every market is different, and I think this post could benefit from more specific examples or tailored strategies for different industries.
Ana González, August 19.
Hey David! Long time no see. I’ve been following your blog for years now, and it’s great to see you still going strong. Let’s catch up sometime soon—maybe over coffee? I’d love to hear more about what you’re working on these days.
Luis Martinez, August 20.
I had a similar experience when I first started in network marketing. It’s true that trying to use big business strategies in a small business environment just doesn’t work. Your post really hit the nail on the head for me—thank you for sharing this.
Patricia Herrera, August 21.
I recently came across a tool called ClickFunnels that helps with direct response marketing. It’s been a game-changer for my business. You might want to check it out or recommend it to your readers. It aligns perfectly with what you’re advocating here.
Raúl Ortiz, August 22.
I really appreciate this post, David. It clarified so many doubts I had about where to focus my efforts in network marketing. I’ve been wasting time on strategies that don’t work, and now I feel more confident in directing my energy where it matters.
Three posts a day. One email a day.
Everything I publish, in one short daily email. Real numbers, no hype, unsubscribe in one click.
Get paid 100%, on-chain, the second the sale clears
Most affiliates earn little, and that is disclosed up front. The difference here is not a promise about what you will make. It is that you can verify every payout yourself, on a public contract, in about twelve seconds.
See how the payout works →Most participants earn little to nothing. No income is guaranteed. You can verify every payout on the public smart contract.
The bit that stopped me was the story at the end — a team member unsubscribing because the inbox itself gave them anxiety, and the response is basically ‘well, it worked, so I kept sending it.’ That’s a business point, and I understand why it’s being made that way. But it’s also worth asking plainly: if the only way a message performs is by keeping someone off balance about whether today’s the emergency, what does regularly choosing that do to the person sending it, apart from the sales it produces.
Look, the ‘vision isn’t what matters, actions are’ framing is tidy but false. Without vision nobody sticks around long enough to learn which actions work. Fine, name the actions. Don’t pretend the thing you opened the post with was decorative.
Hollis, that’s the part that sent me somewhere else entirely, actually. Manufactured uncertainty in an inbox isn’t unique to this industry — every retailer with a countdown timer on a sale that mysteriously resets Monday morning is running the same play. What’s different here is the post admits it out loud, ‘I cycle through periods of promotion and value,’ like a chef telling you exactly which ingredient is doing the cheap trick. I don’t know if honesty about the tactic makes it better or just better documented. Either way, at least you can see the gears turning for once.
Declan, seeing the gears is useful, but the post assumes the whole team is fine being on the receiving end of that cycle. I don’t send urgency emails and don’t want to be sent them either. The plain version works too.
I think what’s being missed in Marla’s read is that the post doesn’t actually say vision is decorative — it says vision alone, without learning what works, isn’t enough. Those are different claims, and the difference matters more than it looks like at first glance. Vision keeps you in the game long enough to find the actions that work, the post says as much directly, and I don’t think that’s a small point to concede. Where I’d agree with the pushback is that ‘the actions that work’ is never actually specified beyond selling and recruiting, which are the goals, not the actions themselves.
Ade, to pull this together: the post makes three real claims — one, small businesses need a different approach than large ones with big budgets; two, network marketing reduces to selling, recruiting, and helping your team do both; three, responsiveness should decide your strategy, not tradition or comfort. Each one stands on its own and I don’t think anyone in this thread has actually disputed them. The gap, for me, is that ‘find what works and stop doing what doesn’t’ is offered as the answer without a single method for testing responsiveness in the first place. Ade’s right that vision isn’t the point. But the post never hands you the measuring stick either, and that’s the piece I’d have wanted.
Ade, fair, but which specific action moved him from five years of nothing to something that finally worked?