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If you have a multi-level marketing (MLM) business or network marketing business you know that the most important thing you need to have is a list. Lead list, prospect list, “warm” list, whatever you want to call it, you must have a long list of qualified people who will buy from you and join your business. Without a list, you cannot sell anything or recruit anyone. But first you need to build your list. There are list building methods used in traditional MLM that are time-consuming and unprofitable. There are other methods that are highly efficient and effective. Let’s look at some of both.

Your sponsor told you on day one to make a list of one hundred people you know, used to know, think you know, or would like to know. You then contact them all and try to sell them on joining you in your “amazing business opportunity.” You no doubt found this to be a waste of time. The truth is, your friends and family just want to be your friends and family. And your fourth-grade teacher whom you have not seen in 25 years, and who may have thought you were cute when you were nine years old, does not appreciate being tricked into hearing about your “amazing business opportunity” over a reunion latte at the local Starbucks. 

You can do some prospecting or selling to a group of people at once, for example in a living room or conference room setting, or in a seminar-style presentation. This is another traditional selling method that can be somewhat effective, provided you have enough qualified people you can gather together at one time. This method can be expensive depending on the location, facilities needed, etc., so the more people you have in the room, the better your chances of signing people up. Providing, that is, that the people are not there just for the free food. Weigh the time and cost investment against the number and type of people you expect to attend.

Inevitably you end up buying leads from a lead service. These leads are expensive, costing hundreds, or even thousands of dollars, and are almost always not qualified leads, at least to the level they should be. So you take your very expensive list of names and cold call everyone, working first at qualifying them at some level, at least enough to add them to your lead list. Most of these people don’t want to talk to you, nor do they even know why you are calling them. For those precious few that you can actually add to your list, you then spend days, weeks, or months trying to convince them to join you in your “amazing business opportunity.”

Trying to build a list using these methods clearly demonstrates why 95 percent of network marketing businesses fail before they turn a profit. The countless hours spent prospecting people one-on-one combined with the high cost of buying leads from lead services add up to wasted time, wasted money, frustration, and eventually failure.

The solution this problem is to build your list yourself using the many technologies available on the Internet.

Web 2.0 is a catch-all term for websites that feature user-generated content. These sites include video submission sites like YouTube, Viddler, and dozens of others. Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Squidoo and many others are the most popular content-sharing sites on the Web. There are also hundreds of social bookmarking sites, E-zines, blogs, and article submission sites that you, being a savvy marketer, can use to distribute content to sell yourself, and position yourself as a leader in your industry and as a successful entrepreneur. Pretty much all of these content sharing sites allow you to place a link to your website somewhere in your profile so visitors can link back to your own website’s capture page where they can opt-in to your program. And the great thing about Web 2.0 is that it is free.

Learning search engine optimization (SEO) strategies will help you get your message to the top of the search engine results. There are several free keyword analyzers on the Web that will help you find the right key words to use in your content posts and websites. WordTracker and HexaTrack are two very good ones. 

If you have some money to spend on advertising, pay-per-click (PPC) is a great way to jump-start your lead generation and list building. Google AdWords is the best known of these services, although there are a few others. You have to know what you are doing to get the most out of PPC services, otherwise you will spend a lot of money on very little results. Get some training before you embark on PPC campaigns. But used correctly, PPC is the best way to start building a list quickly.

Another group of popular for-cost tools are services called List Builders. These services give you the ability to buy “ad credits” that allow you to place banner ads on targeted websites with a link back to your capture page. These services can also be used to send out bulk email ads to other members of the service. These services usually work very well, depending on the quality of your ads. ViralURL and ListJoe are two of the most popular list building sites.

Using the Internet to build your MLM business leads list is the way to bring targeted leads to you, rather than having to waste your time trying to prospect people one-on-one. When you build your list with people who found you, rather than you going after them, you have a list full of people who know you, trust you at some level, and are more apt to buy from you and join your business.

To find out more about how to build your own list and to gain access to free training that will teach you how to use Web 2.0 and other strategies visit http://www.MLMBusinessLeadsEngine.com.

Brad Roseborough