The Friends and Family Myth

Today I want to expose what I call “the friends and family myth”. Network marketing is a great industry. There are several HUGE advantages to being a network marketer. However, if you think you are going to be successful just because you talk to a few friends and relatives you are probably very mistaken. This is the “myth” that gets told to network marketers around the globe and today I’m going to show you WHY it’s wrong and WHAT you can do to succeed anyway. Ready?

We’ve all heard it before: “Just share the business with 15-20 people a month and you’ll eventually become successful”

The question that never seems to cross anyone’s mind, though, is where to find that many people that you would want to be in business with? I would guess that even if you made a list out of all the people that you know, you would really only approach about 10-20 of them with any other business idea that you have. These 10-20 are your close friends and family members, the ones that already know, like, and trust you enough to call you a friend.

So where do you find the people for the second or third or fourth months? How do you expand your network?

Here are a some ways to expand your network:

• Start talking to everyone – the barista at your local coffee shop, the waiter/waitress at the restaurant, the person in line behind you at the grocery store, and everyone else that comes within 3 feet of you
• Start getting reacquainted with old friends – you can do this through social media, class reunions, or other events
• Get out more – break your routine. Put yourself in places where you have to talk to and meet new people
• Join networking groups – BNI groups can be a good way to meet new people and there are normally various other types of meet-ups close
• Pursue your hobbies – Find and join in with people in town who have the same hobbies as you

As good as these ideas are for building your network, they are not the most efficient things to do when it comes to growing your networking business. What we need is the second part of the term “Network Marketing”… marketing

Marketing your opportunity and/or your company’s products and services is arguably the ONLY efficient way to build your networking business. You can market your opportunity in several ways:

• Traditional advertising such as the newspaper or radio
• Through business networking and referral groups
• Through trade shows
• Online

A short glance at this list and it should be obvious that there you can reach more people through the internet than any of the other mediums. If you would like to learn more about how to do so, please sign up for our email newsletter so that you can start learning how to market your networking business online