This is such a great question and I am always curious as to why so many people when they are either enquiring or getting started in Network Marketing ask this very question. I was spurred to write a blog post on this as I recently listened to a Facebook Live from – whom I believe – to be the top income earner in our industry here in Australia say that “if you don’t recruit your friends and family – your business is dead”. Well sorry mate – but I disagree.
Arrogant you say? Well maybe. But seriously, people are people. What difference does it make if you recruits your family, your friends, your warm market, cold market, the local Butcher, your neighbour. Whoever! Whatever! Should your success hinge on ‘who’ you recruit? Absolutely not!! I have NEVER recruited a single family member into my business (and neither do I want to, to be perfectly honest). I think I’ve recruited maybe two friends’, but in my first 6 months with my current company, I went to the Diamond level building a business entirely from ads and people I had never met. I built business in 6 countries and was recognized on stage, earned a reward trip, several bonuses and met the company Founders. So sorry sunshine – but I have smashed that myth completely.
But, I will say one thing. Everyone’s journey is different. Some people have all of their friends and family in their team and that is absolutely sensational. If that works for you. To be frank, there is NO WAY I want my Mother on my team! LOL We just can’t be in the same room together for too long, if you know what I mean.
The point I think this guy was trying to make is that practising on those you know is exactly that – great practise. Sometimes they will ‘see’ it and want to either get started or buy your products. More often than not they won’t. And that is perfectly okay. What you are wanting to do is expose what you have to as many people as possible. You never know when Great Aunty Doris says “I know someone looking for something like that”. And obviously, if you were opening up a restaurant, you’d be telling everyone you know, wouldn’t you? And Network Marketing should not be any different. Forget about other people’s opinions. After all, that is all it is – their opinions. Opinions are a bit like being offended – how do they affect you? They don’t – so long as you don’t allow them to. People choose their opinions and people choose to be offended. It says nothing at all about you – it says everything about them. Never take either personally.
So no matter what company you are with, who you are upline are, how long they have been in business, how much they know, who they know, who they listen to etc etc etc – refuse to believe that if you don’t recruit your friends and family your business is dead. It is complete and utter rubbish and if you tell your prospects and new recruits this, you will scare most people away. Most people I talk to are truly relieved when they hear this. I have to be honest, I don’t have much to do with my family – and for good reason. I left living where I was living because of the people that I associated with – I didn’t want to associate with them anymore. Now I’m not justifying here – what I am saying is that there is no ‘one size fits all’ ‘cookie cutter’ approach to Network Marketing. I view this in the exact same way as I view scripts – we are not robots and no-one wishes to be treated thus. We are independent business owners and wish to run our businesses independent of dictatorial direction, bullying, threats and manipulation. There’s enough of that in the corporate world. Let’s leave it there and transform the image of our industry by breaking some moulds.