WHY YOU ALWAYS WANT TO START WITH YOUR "WARM MARKET"
The veterans in this business will always tell you that the first place to start in prospecting is always with your warm market, those people you know best. Survey any group of successful business builders and ask them how many came in as a warm market contact. You'll always find that well over 80% came in that way.Contacting your warm market first is always the best, most efficient use of your time, especially at first.
What you risk by ignoring your warm market
Most experienced leaders have learned by sad experience not to neglect their warm market. When most leaders have built a good team and have started making significant money, they inevitably meet one of their friends they didn't contact. They exchange success stories, and this comes up: "I thought we were friends, and you didn't contact me." True leaders learn to approach everyone they know...no judging.It's also a shame when two people in the same family or two close friends each get recruited by someone outside the family. You always want close friends or family members to have the strongest possible incentive to help each other out.
Some people you recruit may think, "I don't have anyone to contact. I belong to the NFL club, the "No Friends Left" club. You've already pitched all your friends and relations for 2 or 3 business deals that haven't worked out.
They may have let you know that they never want to see you again if you approach them with another deal. Go see them anyway. You're friends. You're family. You have to let them know about this record-breaking company. This isn't like other companies. This company has something special. Should we hold back if we have the greatest news they've ever heard?
Some leaders are even so bold that they tell their most committed team members that they won't work with them if they're unwilling to contact their warm market. Contacting a warm market is where the greatest, fastest success is in this business.
You'll find disaster stories everywhere in this industry about people who started by contacting a cold market or began by handing out fliers, advertising on the Internet, or running ads in a newspaper. Thousands of dollars have been wasted chasing these so-called "easy" ways of building the business.
Occasionally someone will find a cold-market trick that works for them. But it won't be easy to duplicate 3 levels down your organization, a thousand miles away, by people you don't even know.
ACTION STEPS:
- At your next Corporate Event or conference call, ask fellow Executives how many came in as "warm market" contacts? Prepare your own story for anyone you bring in who doesn't want to contact their "warm market."
- Try some "cold market" contacting of your own for a little while and see for yourself if it's a harder route to success. Your people can learn as much from your failure stories as they can from your success stories.