Do you belong to the 98% of network marketers who are trying to attract people with no experience to their business? Are you experiencing poor results and a high attrition rate in your organization?

One of the most common mistakes made in network marketing is to try to target everyone. Very often you might hear that “Everyone is a prospect”, but this could not be further from the truth. What happens when you try to target too wide of an audience with your network marketing strategies? Well, no one really feels that they are special, that you connect with them or that they can connect with your product or service, and that you are answering their questions and addressing their specific concerns. Moreover, you will lose your focus because it is impossible to have one central focus when targeting a wide range of people.

Go watch this video first: How to get qualified, targeted MLM Leads & Prospects

Your market is the target at which you aim all your marketing efforts. The market you are trying to reach are people with common characteristics that set them apart as a group. The more you know about a target market, the more precisely you can develop your marketing strategy.

What you should definitely NOT do:

- targeting friends & family: they are NOT targeted prospects, they do not care about your business opportunity, they have no prior marketing experience and you are basically loosing your time.

- prospecting complete strangers: they are not looking to start their own business, and if they are open to the idea, chances are they are actually only looking for a J.O.B.!

What do you have to do then?

You really need a more targeted niche of people with which to work on. When you know what your target market is, you will be able to get into their minds, think the way that they think and you will know how to properly market to them. You will know how to answer their main question: “what’s in it for me?”.

Your #1 target market includes 2 groups of people:

1. Current network marketers, already involved in another opportunity. They are either having success, which is good for you because if they join you they can be successful within your team, or they are struggling to make money, and you have a solution for them: they can use your system to learn how to market and build their business.

2. Former network marketers who want to come back to the industry

Your #2 target market includes people actively seeking information about getting started in the industry: you have a solution for them: they can join your business, be mentored by you and use your system to learn how to market and build their business.

When you approach this target market, keep in mind that anyone who has shown an interest in a home-based business opportunity has one burning question: “what’s in it for me?”. People are not asking themselves if your product or your business opportunity is great, they are asking themselves how it can benefit them, what they can get from it. I think we actually always make our decisions on this basis, and different people will be seeking different benefits.

This is a very important point that you need to understand about marketing to people who want to start their business; you are not trying to sell your business opportunity and convince your prospect of how great it is. Instead, what you want to do is answering the questions of your prospects, meet their needs and show them that your business opportunity can benefit them in some way. Again, you must show them what’s in it for them.

Then, ask yourself this question: are the marketing and prospecting methods you are currently using the best, the most professional and the most effective they can be in order to bring your target market into your business?

Is everything you do in your lead generation focused on showing prospects how it can benefit them and how it is going to work for them?

When you take these proper steps and formulate a marketing strategy that is centered on your target market, you will be successful. You will see that your prospects are people who are actually interested in your business opportunity and you will make more sales and higher profits.

One of the main reasons why people fail in the MLM and network marketing industry is because they are left on their own and don’t have a system to build and grow their business. It is essential to keep in mind that the most successful business models rest upon very strong systems.

In the network marketing industry, you can have the best product in the world, along with the best compensation plan, if you don’t have a system to market your product efficiently, you will never make a dime. And that’s actually why 95% of network marketers make no more than $10 a week.

Now there are many different systems out there and everyone of them claims to be the best. So how do you choose and what are the criteria you should look for in a good MLM lead generation and marketing system?

First, it is important to understand that there are 3 basic principles behind a MLM lead and marketing system that top earners follow to build their businesses online. And the right system for your MLM business must enable you to apply these 3 principles:

1. Build your own list of targeted prospects: marketing a replicated website will never work out for you because you would not be branding yourself and you would be building someone else’s list. The lead generation system that you use must allow you to generate your own leads through proper marketing strategies.

2. Build a relationship with that list: you do business with people and people will only buy from you if they like you and trust you. That’s why it is essential to build a relationship with your list. This is usually possible if the system you use has integrated autoresponder series. This way you can give your list access to free marketing training, tips, so that you provide people value and have them like and trust you.

3. Monetize your list: the system should enable you to make money through different good affiliate programs, so that you can start making money off the 95% of networkers who will say no to your MLM business by giving them what they want…the principle behind this is that your long-term money is in your list.

So when you do your research and are evaluating different systems, you should ask yourself those 4 questions and the answer to each one of them should be positive:

- Is this system CUSTOMIZABLE? You must be able to design your own personalized capture pages, this without having any particular technical skills. The customization enables you to brand yourself as the leader people want to follow and generate your own leads.

- Is this system AUTOMATED? The system should feature built-in sales pages, email autoresponder series, as well as tracking and split testing technology. The automation will save you valuable time.

- Is the system EASY TO USE? You should have access to a comprehensive library of video and audio tutorials to set up the system, as well as technical support for your system. This way, you don’t have to take care of technical issues.

- Does the system include a hands-on MARKETING TRAINING? Make sure the system you choose features a complete marketing training center, with weekly live and recorded training sessions and webinars. It is best when the weekly training sessions are done by top producers willing to share their success secrets with you. This way, you can have access to cutting-edge marketing techniques and you learn how to market the way all industry leaders do.

There are tens of thousands of people who start in the network marketing industry each month. If you are one of them, it is important for you to really understand what you should look for and what mistakes you should avoid.

I would say that there are 4 main reasons for failure in network marketing.

1. Getting involved in the wrong company

Most people who want to use the same marketing system that I am using to build my business first tell me about the company they are involved in and ask me if I think they made the right choice. They are completely right, because they know that choosing the wrong company will highly jeopardize their chances of success.

What’s a wrong company? There are different variables here, but the main ones are the products, the management, the compensation plan, how many years the company has been in business and its financial strength.

There are companies who have strong, effective products but whose management is poor and finances are bad. They have a higher chance to go out of business. Some companies have a good financial strength, a good management, but the products are not competitive or effective, or the compensation plan is lousy, and the distributors will then go through a lot of struggles and most probably leave the company within the first one to two years.

Then, if a company is less than 5 years old, statistically the company is still at great risk of going out of business. On the contrary, if the company is over 25 years old and financially strong, the company should stay around but the momentum phase may be so advanced that the opportunity is not as great as it once was.

2. Having the wrong upline

Even when distributors find a good company, it is nearly impossible for them to build a successful network marketing business without an upline offering weekly training and support. Without training and support, new distributors are left on their own and there is a 95% chance that they will fail.

3. Not having any system

Most people I talk to are very excited about getting started. They don’t always realize that they will not make it on their own, though. And in this industry, even very determined individuals will usually fail within their first year if they don’t have a system that will save them money and effort and help them leverage time.

4. Not developing persistence and being committed

A vast majority of the people who want to start a network marketing business are actually looking for some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, and want to take the easy road. It’s hard to find people with the determination and persistence necessary to build any business. And lack of persistence is the number one reason for failure in MLM. Quitters don’t succeed. And without a strong commitment, even the best company, upline, or system will not be able to help you.

If you are persistent and ready to do what it takes, if you can find a good company, with a strong marketing system and a personal mentor, you will dramatically increase your chances of success in the network marketing industry.

There are a ton of books, courses, seminars, marketing gurus, all of them claiming to reveal the big secrets of success in Network Marketing. Many of them are really good and will bring you a lot of value. I am not going to promote any of them today, instead I am going to share some of my experience with you.

You can attend the best seminars on earth, read the best books, learn from the best mentors, and do it if you have the opportunity, but you will never learn to ride a bicycle in a book, in a seminar or by watching a video, you will learn by Doing It Yourself. You will fall from the bike, get back on it, learn how not to fall again until you can ride. Because success is nothing more than learning from your failures.

Applied to network marketing, this means that you have to TEST. Testing means to develop an idea, implement it and measure the results, with numbers and percentages.

Over the past 2 months I have been split-testing 2 landing pages on one of my websites, and one has proved to convert much (70%) better than the other (of course I would not have imagined this). Conclusion: if you don’t test, you don’t know anything.

So make sure you do TEST your landing pages, your sales letters, your ads, the position of your opt-in form on your page, your video on the left or on the right, etc. And you will become a master!