by Lon Lindsey

Are you a struggling networker because you have "lacka time" to get everything done? Let me ask you something. Where do you find you are spending most of your time?

(1) setting goals and determining strategies?,
(2) continuous learning about your chosen business?,
(3) working a variety of strategies to generate leads?,
(4) working the leads by following up a variety of ways?,
(5) interacting with your prospects?,
(6) training and working with your downline?

Wow! That sounds like a full time job to me . . .and did I hear you may be only a part-time networker at this point? Hmmm . . . . sounds to me like something has to give . . . BUT, the tasks mentioned above have to be done if you are to build a network marketing business and an eventual business empire. In fact, if you are only interested in building a small business, you are going to have to do the above tasks just to lay the foundation of your business. So, when I ask the question "where do you find you are spending most of your time?", I hope the answer is "I'm doing all of the above things.

Obviously you need to be doing all of the above, but you are only one person. If your boss told you to do such things at work, you would complain about being over worked. What does that say? Doesn't it say you can't do it all and if you are doing this part-time, which most networkers are when they start out, that is more of a reason for you to plan a strategy that best utilizes your time where it should be used most.

It is very difficult to be an expert at everything, but networkers are known for their independence and their desire to build their own business. After all, one of the biggest incentives for networkers to build a networking empire is independence and freedom from the things that tend to lock us into dependency.

What I am going to mention in the rest of this article may be foreign to you based on what you thought network marketing was going to be. I, again, want to emphasize something to you. It is very difficult to be an expert at everything, so it makes sense to focus in on a couple things and become quite good at them and then assign the others to the experts. I've heard that the way leaders of companies become CEO and owners is that they surround themselves with experts as they build their company.

You, as a beginning networker or business builder, must do the same thing. Perhaps one of the things that attracted you the most to network marketing was the relative inexpense necessary to get started. After all, you can join networking company after networking company for less than $200.00 and most you can become distributors for under $50.00 and still others do not even require a purchase to become a distributor.

This is where most networkers go wrong. They think in terms of start-up cost being only the cost to become a distributor . . . or some may consider expenses for products or some advertising expenses. Have you considered the cost for you as a person? Have you considered your worth in time when you do certain business tasks? Don't let anyone tell you that you can't factor in your time, because your time is valuable . . even if it is at minimum wage. You see, if you are not working at your business, you could be working at something else . . . something else that may pay you an hourly wage. The difference is, you want to work for yourself rather than someone else, yet your time must be worth something . . . even working for yourself.

What I am getting at is if you spend a lot of time doing the right things, but do not get the right results, then you are costing yourself money. Why might you not get the right results? Because you may be doing things that you don't know how to do . . things that someone else could better do for you, which would produce the results you need.

So . . . what I am getting at is the cost of building a business is more than purchasing a distributor kit and products. You MUST factor in other expenses, but the key is to know what the RIGHT expenses are. This is where I can be of some help to you.

Let's take a look at the services that can best be done by someone else so you can focus on what you need to be doing so that you are rewarded with business-growth results.

I'm going to focus in on four areas that can be of help to you.

(1) lead generation;
(2) contact management;
(3) converting leads to prospects via interaction;
(4) choosing the right business.

First of all, I feel like I can discuss lead generation based on my years of networking experience. A major part of what I have done throughout the years was to generate leads for my businesses. I'm talking about classified advertising, display advertising, card deck advertising, postcard mailings, advertising co-ops, copywriters providing professional lead-generating letters and flyers, voicebox attracting advertising . . .and now with the Internet I can add search engine submissions, banner advertising, free for all links, ezine advertising, targeted email marketing, third party bulk mailers, I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine . . and it goes on and on.

There is no question, I have been able to generate leads, but the question now becomes, what kind of leads am I generating? What I am getting at is, if you spend most of your time generating leads, yet the leads are not good serious leads, what are you really accomplishing? How much is your time worth? Might it actually be less expensive and more productive to let the experts generate SERIOUS business leads FOR YOU so your time can be utilized doing what others can't do? I'll talk about what you should be doing . . . below.

So . . . .even though I am considered quite good at generating my own business leads, I have actually found out that I could have been using my time in another area that would have given me better results if I simply was provided good serious business leads. Keep in mind . . . I've been in this business for fifteen years. I have had the experience of generating leads, but consider a person relatively new to network marketing who does not know how. Even so . . .there is now another issue that has developed that was not a major part of things back ten or fifteen years ago. Today there are so many networking businesses. The competition is fierce and things are not the way they used to be. I remember the days when you could generate a lead and sign them up all in one mailing. Then came the days when we generated the lead and then sent them requested information and then signed them up. Folks! Those days are gone. People who are serious about building a legitimate networking marketing business are now more sophisticated and you will find that they will decide whether to choose you rather than you choosing them. That is why you need quality leads . . .not tire kickers . . not general information seekers . . .not program jumpers . . but people who are seriously considering network marketing as a legitimate approach to building a business.

The second area of information I want to discuss for you is "contact management". I mentioned, above, the difference in networking today vs ten years ago . . .or even five years ago. It's now all about follow-up and interaction. I'll discuss follow-up here and interaction in the next section.

Did you know it now takes seven to twelve follow-ups . . on the average . . . to sponsor a person into a business? People who are doing this correctly are sponsoring 60% of the prospects they get. Those who are not doing this correctly are sponsoring 1% - 3% . . thus it is a random act of sponsoring with these people. Business builders take the randomness out of their business-building based on diligent follow-up. Since 98% of the networkers do NOT follow-up more than one or two times, it leaves those of us who follow-up consistently, as the ones who build our businesses. How would you like to be one of that 2%?

The main purpose of your initial follow-ups should be to turn a lead into a prospect. A lead may be looking for a business, but a prospect has shown some interest in YOUR business. You will know when your lead becomes a prospect based on when interaction takes place. See the section on interaction.

I've got some good news for those people who are also on the Internet. Because you are on the Internet and because of new technology, it is now possible to follow-up numerous times . . ..automatically.

There are two ways to follow-up:

(1) the old way . . . copy and paste messages to your leads when you get a chance . . .or

(2) utilize a contact manager program in which your follow-ups will go out automatically on a timed interval basis based on how you program it. The problem with the first way is people just don't follow through. They have good intentions, but due to time or loss of motivation or whatever, they end up quitting after the second or ] third follow-up if they even get that far. Remember, it takes seven to twelve follow-ups and interactions to sponsor people . . .and if you do it correctly, you will sponsor 60% of your prospects