Meredith - I'm super excited to be streaming live with all of you today, talking about a topic that is critical for you in your home business which is list building and prospect engagement. So, Adam, I know that you love this topic too when it comes to building lists like what are some of the biggest problems that you feel like entrepreneurs and network marketers have right now that they're facing.

Adam - Well, I mean, you know, I think that most people don't like they don't really see the value in building a list right like like, you know you. It is like list building the idea of building a list is like, it's like, it's kind of a long-term thing right you've got to be. You've got to be thinking somewhat long term to see the value in building a list, because it's not something that like, you know, you know, I was just taught like very early on in my whole business career that like, you want to, like, there's three steps to making money online to jabbing like a thriving online business right and it's building a list, build a relationship with the list, and then make offers to the list, right, and that is how I have built my businesses over the years.

You know I came into, you know my first opportunity happened to have like a very strong like online lead generation system and training attached to it, so I got you know I started, you know, learning about about opt in pages and lead magnets and stuff like fairly early on, and I feel like the, you know a lot a lot of newer network marketers, they're like, they're like well I just want to make sales, why do I have to build a list, and I think that was kind of your mentality for a while, too.

Meredith - Oh, for sure, that was totally my mentality because, in my mind, I was just looking for four people, you know I was just looking for four people and I thought oh gosh you know I'll find those four people and then I'll help them to find four people and help them to find four people, and, and generally yes that that is the simplicity of this business model, and absolutely the way that your business will grow. However, the piece of the puzzle that was missing for me that I didn't understand was that as soon as I found more people I would want to go on site for more, and then I would want to go and find for more than I would want to go and find for more because some of the people that start with you, don't finish.

Some of the people that start with you don't have the same aspirations that you do, they may stay with you, they may love the products they may add a few customers a partner here or there, but they're, they're not trying to build a significant business the way that you probably are. And so, there's a misnomer out there that I think sometimes that you don't have to keep going. And the reality is just like any business you have to keep going. Well, what would you rather do constantly be trying to talk to new people, or would you like to talk to people that have already at some point said yeah you know that might be right for me, someday, or I might want to get to know you a little bit.

I was telling a group of our clients the other day that I used to work in direct response marketing for about 13 years. And we were a massive direct mailer. I mean, we're talking 80 million pieces of mail, a year. And what were we doing to be a what was one of the goals of sending that mail out, it was actually building our own, what we called our in house list our internal database. And unbelievably, two thirds of our business came from the in house list that we developed, and only a third of the business each year came from the 80 million pieces of mail.

So it just shows the value of building a list and I thought this business was different and won't you know what it turns out it's not. So being able to have a list build relationship with people over time is critical, becomes your biggest asset because then if you decide you want to offer them something different or something new. You own the relationship, not your company, not Facebook, not LinkedIn or Instagram, you're in control.

Adam - Exactly. And, you know, so it's like a list is like, it's like an insurance policy in case something happens to your current business I had a client a few years ago who she told me she built up she built her network marketing income up to over $70,000 A month like putting her blood sweat and tears into, you know, building this business to a $70,000 a month income.

One day one of her top leaders, who was like very present and very you know like, they're very, very present in the organization right decided to leave the company, and she took 80% of my clients organization with her when she left, right, bringing her income down to $5,000 a month, like almost overnight she went from 70,000 a month down to 5000 a month, and she in, because she had only focused on building a downline and I and this is a big thing that we teach, it's like, we feel like network marketers have a very like one track mind it's like, I can only sell this like no, I you know I don't want to offer anything else I can only promote this one thing, well what happens if something happens to that one thing.

What happens if you know like my client, somebody sent me you know you have a top leader that we use, and you've got to rebuild right that's it's one of the big reasons why you want to have your own distribution channel right that you own and that you control not owned and controlled by your company right and this in this way like Meredith said it's like you can build a relationship with you know you want them to build a relationship with you, not with the company so that if something does happen in the company, you can say hey guys we're moving over here, right, and take, you know, take your organization with you.

You know when you pivot your business in which you know which you most likely will have to do at some point, if you plan on being in this game for a long time, maybe you do maybe you don't but it's like, it's a distribution channel. It's a, it's an insurance policy, right, and it's, it's just a great way of, you know, it's like, we want you to think like a real entrepreneur and this is what the real entrepreneurs think they think like if somebody doesn't join you right now. And I mean, how many times have you heard somebody say, like, yes, this sounds great, um, you know, just not right now. I mean, most, most home business owners that person just goes off into oblivion, If they're like, maybe they will be released three months from now six months from now, if you have no way of constant of being in consistent communication with them, then you know you're not building your business like a real business.

Meredith - Exactly. And the other piece that comes into this is that if you don't have a way to maybe you have a list, or maybe you want to build a list, you do need systems to help you manage that list, like an asset, you know, think about probably everybody watching this video for the most part owns a car.

We can't just drive the car and not change the tires and put gas in it, you know, maybe get washed or detailed every so often, change the oil you know do all the things to maintain the car. Well, it's the same with your list you want to be able to maintain your list and you want to be able to have a system where you can manage the list, and that's what lets you build a relationship with the prospect. So the second mistake that I made is that I did start building a list and I did start building leads, but I didn't stay in the relationship with people I was like, Oh, if they don't respond and you know the first five emails that I send to them then I'm moving on to the next person, without really understanding, you've got to stay in the game, you've got to stay in the conversation.

So with a great system, you can do that. The second thing that we wanted to talk about today, which is really building the relationship with the prospect, you can you can target that. So imagine, you know you've built a list of people you're sending them some information, and you want to know who opened those emails, and you want to be able to see who clicked on the different links Well, you can't do that if you're managing your communications from your Yahoo or Gmail account. And so you've got to step it up. If you're thinking that you really want your network marketing business to be the thing that's going to bring you more than a couple 100 bucks and some great products each month, then you've got to step it up and treat your business like a business, and I don't know anybody that's running their business from a Gmail account that's, that's hitting six figures, you know, they have a different system and a different way of doing that.

So then imagine being able to follow up with people that did open the email or the did click through and having that data. Once you have information, then you can actually manage the business like a business. Once you have data. Once you have, you know clues as to who's the most interested, then it really makes who you're going to talk to, first, a pretty simple process to figure out, You can then go through and start prioritizing you can look at your leads and really understand who's engaging with you the most. And those are the types of systems that we want to encourage you to put in place when it comes to managing your list.

Adam - Yeah exactly, you know, I was, I was actually building out some new chapters in a book that I'm writing early, earlier today. And one thing that I would that I started talking about, you know, that was relevant to this section of the book was the fact that we're currently running a messenger campaign like a Facebook Messenger campaign right. And one of the first things that we do once we have them engaged, is we ask them for their email address to get our lead magnet, right, and we and we even ask for their phone number, and it's not like not everybody is providing this information but like, you know, two out of the out of 10 people are giving us their, their email and you know and their phone number, right, which means that we can now text them like their friend would write right like that, you know and we can also, you know drip email content on them over time.

One of the things that we're doing, you know, with, with the email drip, is inviting them to a Facebook group, right, like we're inviting them to our private Facebook group. Now, you may have a Facebook group, you know of your own, you may not. We definitely recommend you know for most of our students and our clients, we recommend having a Facebook group because it's, it's a way of positioning yourself as a leader and authority, right, up, you know, of course, there's, you know, it's another degree of responsibility that right but like if you're the kind of person who's looking for the six figure results, then you're probably not the kind of person that's going to shy away from a little bit of responsibility right.

But like, you know, then, then, in another email we ask them to book a call on our calendar right and that's when the actual selling happens, but But it's like, you know, think about all those touchpoints they, you know that we send them an email with the same you know with it with the lead magnet we you know we sent them a text message we you know we invited them to the Facebook group. Now they may, might be consuming content and engaging in the Facebook group, then we invite them on the calendar, it's like five touchpoints before we ever, You know, talk to them, and then that is about you know the prospect that books, a call on your calendar is just about the highest quality lead that you could possibly have. Because, because there, they wouldn't book a call on your calendar unless they see you as an authority as somebody that can help them solve a problem, straight complete strangers on the internet.

Do not book calls with complete strangers, unless there is an element of trust, right, and that is a great way of building that trust, but one of the things that I you know that I want to mention that I mentioned earlier, is the fact that I feel I feel like most marketers like most, most home business owners would probably just stop at that at the messenger and they just try to sell people over the messenger conversation, whereas we're going way beyond that and building the relationship through multiple, multiple touchpoints. And that's how we're, that's how we turn a complete stranger into an engaged prospect who knows, likes, and trusts us, and you know it just, you know, it's like, and I mentioned this in the book too. It's like, I call it the lubricating the selling process, right, it's like you're breaking down the resistance you're breaking down any, any resistance that they might have, by building trust.

Meredith - For sure. And, and that's such an important thing, I mean you can go and you can search all sorts of studies that have been done and the ones that I have looked at, say that the average person needs seven to 14 exposures before they're going to make a buying decision, but that the average salesperson only follows up one time. And so by the time you get to the number of salespeople that are following up and it doesn't have to be you personally picking up the phone and you know and calling the person all seven or eight or nine or 10 times, it just needs to be touchpoints, and, and I think that this is one of the things that has shifted in this industry where the industry hasn't necessarily caught up with it yet. You know back in the day you used to be able to invite people to an in home meeting or to a hotel meeting, you would do a presentation you would talk about your products you would talk about the compensation plan and they were either in or they were out.

They were either going to sign up or they or they weren't. And because things have shifted so much because there's so much more noise I mean this isn't the 1970s right, where there are a few opportunities to run a business or there are many many many opportunities to run a business from home. It is a crowded and noisy marketplace. And so if you're kind of doing a one and done touchpoint with people and not getting the results that you want it. Do you see why that's happening, you may be doing everything right, you're just simply not doing enough of it, and you're not doing it consistently enough to stay in front of people and build that relationship I mean you know if you're if I mean I'm married, I, my husband didn't ask me to marry him, it's like on the first date.

It's the same kind of thing you're just getting to know that person, they're not going to, they're not ready to say yes to you yet. And more importantly, you shouldn't be so eager to say yes to them because they might not be the right fit for what you're doing, but if you don't take the time to develop the list communicate with the list, and develop the relationship with the people that are most responsive to you, then you just put yourself in a position where you're just saying yes to any warm body that you know occupy a spot on your, on your organizational tree, and then you're disappointed when you don't get the results that you want. So I don't think Adam or I are here to say that word of mouth marketing traditional ways of reaching out, don't work, obviously there do, maybe there are people that are have built in our building businesses that way.

However what we're here to say is that we don't think that your business should be like a one trick pony, where the only thing that you know how to do is to prospect people and bring them to opportunity meetings and get them to enroll right you should have a, you should have multiple eggs in your basket when it comes to ways to exposing people to your offer to building your list to building a relationship with them. You should have multiple ways that you're bringing them in to eventually see the opportunity that you have.

Don't put all your eggs into the old school basket, you've got to start modernizing your business a bit.

Adam - Even if you are doing you know old school like in person prospecting and things like that, I mean why not, you know, just ask them for their email address, add them to an email list, that way you are, you know you're kind of getting the best of both worlds, you're, you're, you know you're using you know the traditional means. But you're just bringing in a new element of, you know, technology and leverage because now you're building a list, rather than you know operating your business, you know on like a notepad or, you know, you know Rolodex.

Meredith - Right, right, yeah Excel spreadsheet, you know, whatever, whatever it may be, and if you already have something like that then honestly, you know, if you're doing it kind of manually, You're ahead of most people. To be frank, you're ahead of most people, that are in this industry, and most people here also, you know, want to have that part time income so how are you is the person that really wants to build a larger business.

To make it simple and easy for people who are following you, the people that do join you. It is by having that system in place, and by having a method that you can teach them, where there is some automation where there is some, you know, technological components to it that are not complicated, confusing or expensive, but that are things that can make it easier for that part timer to make the money that they want to make part time.

So recognize a lot of the people that you're going to work with are going to fall into that bucket, and you're going to want to get them to do what it is you're doing, but they're going to have to do it faster and quicker because they're not willing to work as hard as you are, they don't have as much time as you do. So if you can put in place a system for yourself that you can then turn around and teach the to the people that join you around, okay this is how we're going to build our list and this is how we're going to do this. And if you want to start out by asking people to you know go to their warm market.

Awesome, that's fine, that's great. There may be some opportunity for you they're in a warm market situation. But eventually, everyone's warm market is exhausted. You only know so many people. So ask yourself, Am I putting in place the steps they're gonna allow me to build a list of people, either through word of mouth, or online or through whatever you're going to do, all coming back to the biggest asset that you can have in your home based business is your list. And the most important service that you can have is the tools that you use to manage it.

And that's really what we offer here at the Digital upline Adam has taken his 10 years of experience, and he has created an incredible tool that's called the Digital Copilot and the Digital Copilot takes all of the things that you as a marketer need from list management to funnels with opt in forms to automated emails automated text messaging, even an online calendar for you to use for that booking system, all under one roof with templates that are specifically built for the network marketing, and direct sales industry. So rather than going out and buying all these you know desperate or desperate, whatever the word is separate systems and trying to get them all to talk to one another and pouring your heart into technology pulling your hair out feeling like you want to quit.

He's created something for you that you can tap into right now, that within, honestly, a matter of days you can have set up a functioning digital marketing system not only for yourself but for your team as well.

Thank you for listening to the Digital Upline show. Adam and the D U team are committed to leveling up the network marketing profession by equipping distributors with 21st century systems and skill sets that decrease resistance and increase cooperation with prospects and team members, visit Digitalupline.com/subscribe to get notified when we release new podcast episodes and to get exclusive access to our weekly live trainings.