What is an MLM Lead? And Where to Find the Best Leads

What is an MLM Lead?  Great question and you would think the answer to that question would be very straight forward, however the truth is that if you ask this question to different people in the industry you are going to get a variety of different answers.

The fact is there are many people in the MLM industry that actually don’t truly understand what a lead is.

Many think that leads are only something you purchase when you run out of people you know to share your opportunity with. 

However the truth is that even the people you know, i.e. your warm market are also leads for your business.

So the simple answer is it is anyone you prospect or wish to prospect for your business.

However the more in-depth answer requires that you understand that there are two methodologies in the MLM industry in regards to finding prospects for your business.

In this post we are going to look at both methodologies for lead generation and then towards the end of this post I am going to share with you my favorite and most powerful MLM lead…

Methodology #1 – Burn & Churn

The first is the Burn & Churn and it is all about working the numbers.

It requires you working high numbers of prospects…  Burning and churning through people looking for those who are interested.

Calling or contacting lots of people with no to little thought given to building rapport with them.  The purpose of the call or message is to simply see if they are open to looking at an opportunity.

This method requires you get into serious action…

Contacting at minimum 20 people per day.  You need to have tough skin and be able to handle rejection as you are going to get a lot more people telling you no then yes.

In many cases the people who focus on this method would consider a prospect for their business to be absolutely anyone with a pulse.

Some examples of where you can get leads using this method are as follows:

Buying Cold Leads

There are companies out there that generate list of people interested in a home based business and then sell them to business builders.

This is a tough racket and it is a very difficult way to build your business but many people have been successful doing it.

As I said you really do have to have tough skin and you will need to work high numbers.  You have to call a ton of people in order to get a few good prospects.

Lists of Realtors.

This is a popular strategy for the smile and dial folks.

They locate lists of realtors and they start calling them and advising them they are looking to expand their business into their area and were wondering if they would be open to looking at an opportunity outside of their real estate business.

This is also a tough gig, but the quality of the leads is much higher than buying cold lists.

If you recruit a realtor they can blow up your business for you as they have a very large network and are typically very motivated people.

Messaging Strangers on Facebook.

This is also a popular strategy that a few “goo roos” in our industry train on.

Basically what is involved is you go out and join some groups on Facebook.

They recommend you focus on groups were motivated people hang out.  These could be Realtors like we just talked about, or people who follow success leaders like Tony Robbins or Robert Kiyosaki.

You go into these groups and start sending private messages to other members of the group.

Message them and let them know you are a members of the same group, you enjoyed something they said or something you saw on their profile and wanted to know if they were open to looking at an opportunity.

MLM Genealogy Lists.

You can buy what is referred to as genealogy lists.  These are lists of people who were previously involved with a network marketing company.

The company most likely has gone out of business and the people who sell these lists were somehow able to get their hands on a list of the distributors who were with the company.

The people who buy these lists, call the people on them and say something along the lines of… “they are contacting them because they knew they were with so & so company and are wondering if they are open to looking at a new opportunity”.

Years ago I thought this would be a great market to target but it is tough.

You get lots of people disgruntled with the industry.  You get lots of people demanding to know how you got their contact information, etc.  Again it will work as people have had success focusing on this method but it is a hard go.

Personally I am not a huge fan of any of those methods.  It is just not fun prospecting strangers.

If I were to choose any of those methods to use it would be the Facebook method I discussed.  As there are techniques you can use with that method that do make it work quite well.

However when it comes to prospecting and generating MLM leads I prefer the following methodology…

Methodology #2 – Build Some Rapport

Here is the thing you need to understand when it comes to achieving success in the MLM or Multi-Level Marketing industry.

Success is achieved by simply finding a way to meet new people on a regular basis, develop some rapport with them (become a friend) and asking them if they are open to taking a look at your opportunity.

So when you ask what is an MLM lead my response is it is simply a friend who you wish to share your opportunity with.

That is it…

When you have this type of mindset prospecting and recruiting becomes much less stressful and a very straight forward process.

I always recommend that people start out with their warm market.  Your warm market is the people that you already know and who know you.

This is the cornerstone and foundation of any successful network marketing business.

There are a whole host of reasons why this market is so important to your success.  The following is a link that explains why it is so important and the best approach to maximizing your success with it. Check out that post here!

After you have gone to your warm market there are 2 other methods of finding more people to prospect that I recommend…

Living Your Life

This is a very simple strategy.  All that is involved with this is as you go about living your day to day life you keep your eyes open for sharp people.

People who would make a good candidate for your business.

Now do not misunderstand what I am saying.  I am not saying you go out and start trying to recruit people off the street.

What I am saying is simply be social with people when you are in an environment to do so.

Let’s say you are invited to a party or any sort of function.  Simply be a human being and socialize, get to know new people.  Then when you are back at home add them on to your social media account.

Let’s say you are at your kid’s basketball game…

Get to know the other parents, talk to them instead of hiding off in the corner by yourself.  Become friends.  And again later on add them to social media to continue to develop the friendship.

Join a gym and meet people.  When at work meet your other colleagues.  At church get to know the other people who attend, etc., etc., etc.

I could go on and on with examples of how to meet people living your life.

This strategy is a very simply way of generating at least 20 – 30 new leads per month.  It is a mistake to ignore this strategy.

Make Friends on Facebook

So unlike in the other Facebook example this strategy does not involve messaging strangers from groups; but rather it has you going into the groups and developing relationships with the people in them.

This is accomplished by contributing to the group and providing value.

As you provide value day in and day out people will notice you; they will then come to appreciate you for all of the value you are providing and a relationship will start to be formed.

I’ll give you an example of how this works:

Step #1 is to pick a target market.  What type of people are you going to prospect?  Who are they?  What are their interests?  For this example let’s say we choose entrepreneurs as our target market.

Step #2 is to go and find the groups where entrepreneurs hang out in.  Join at least 3 – 5 groups.

Step #3 is to go into the group daily and provide value.  Value can be many things.  In this case I could provide marketing tips, sales advice, social media business building tips, motivation and inspirational thoughts and quotes etc.

Step #4 is to engage in the groups.  When someone posts something in the group comment on it and provide your thoughts.  When someone posts a question answer it.  When someone posts something give it a like.

Step #5 as you continue to do this people take notice of you.  They start to see you as an authority and they start to know, like and trust you.  They will start to follow you and add you as a friend.  You can also send friend requests to the people who you are developing a relationship with.

Step #6 now they are back on your personal page and you have developed a very highly targeted warm lead.

If you want to learn more about this strategy and the right way to go about sponsoring your new Facebook friends into your business the following trainings will get you started:

How to Generate Leads for a Network Marketing Business

MLM Recruiting Online

Attract Prospects to You

Alright this is the last strategy we will look at today.  It is a very powerful strategy for generating a never ending list of high quality prospects who actually reach out to you wanting to know more about your business.

It is called Attraction Marketing and basically it is internet marketing with a focus on building a MLM business.

Instead of actively going out and meeting people or prospecting them you use internet marketing techniques, systems and funnels to passively attract them to you.

You create daily content such as blog posts, videos and Facebook ads that are geared to helping your target market solve their problems.

Over time as you continue to put out valuable content people are going to start noticing you.  You blogs and videos are going to start getting ranked by the search engines and you are going to start to become known as an expert in your field.

Example of This Strategy in Action

Let’s say for example that you are in a Health and Wellness Company and you want to promote your company’s weight loss product.

You could position yourself on the internet as a weight loss expert.  You would create blog posts, videos and Facebook ads all around helping people lose weight.

Over time as you continue to create this content about weight loss your prospects are going to start to notice and eventually come to see you as the expert in the field.  As someone who can help them achieve their weight loss goals.

And when that happens they become very interested in any product you promote to them, in this case your company’s weight loss product.

You can do the same thing with people who are looking to build a home based business.  You become known as the expert and when you recommend they look at your MLM business they will.

It’s a very powerful strategy that I personally very much enjoy using.

If you want to learn more about attraction marketing you can do so here!

I Hope That Helped

Well I trust this helped answer your question of what is an MLM lead my friend.

If you have any questions about what we covered in this post by all means ask me in the comment section below and I will do my best to help you out.

Cheers to YOUR Success

Robb Corbett

P.S. If you want to get very good at being able to generate hordes of leads and learn to easily sponsor 5 – 10 new team members every month into your business I recommend you sign up for my FREE Prospecting Boot Camp.  The sign up is on the side of the blog.