How To Increase MLM Retention

In MLM, retention is keeping new business partners active for the long haul.

A sad fact about our industry is that on average, three out of four new distributors stall out in their first 90 days and quit the business. A staggering 90% of new business partners do not make it through their first year!

This leads to a major drain on your income because retention is where the long-term residual income in the MLM network marketing industry comes from. The good news is that even a modest increase in your retention rate can lead to a dramatic increase in your income.

It is important to note that of those who do quit, better than half of them do so in the first 90 days in business. This is why it is so important to start new team members the right way on day one and help them have success in their early days in business.

For many years, I focused on prospecting and sponsoring, and became known as a top enroller in the MLM network marketing industry. But, for the last several years, I focused more on retention. I found the results to be almost immediate and long-lasting, too. Increasing retention has had a greater impact on increasing my monthly check than the number of new people I recruit each month.

Much of our team training now focuses on retention. Here are the keys to increasing retention in your MLM.

1. Enroll the right people the right way. We teach our team to enroll prospects that ask to join the business. We do not teach our team to use warm-market tactics like pitching friends, neighbors, and relatives who are not even interested in the business. We do not teach our team to sell or close prospects on the business. When you have to close people to get them in, you’ll have to close them every time they hit a small obstacle. They are the first ones to become quitters.

2. Have new team members define their personal goals on their first day. Make sure their goals are realistic. Both you and your new business partner will need these goals to measure their success. Each team member’s success is measured against their own goals.

3. Get new team members off to a fast start. New team members need to make money early in their career for both their belief in the business and for credibility with others. Nothing helps retention more than making money quickly!

4. Be a true servant-leader. Helping a new team member is more important than even your own prospecting. Live up to your commitment to be available for your new business partner. Make it easy for business partners to reach your upline in your absence.

5. Effective and regular communication. Provide essential information, without flooding new partners with information overload. Regular emails from an autoresponder have proven to be an effective way to keep partners in the game and help them get back in the game if they’ve become sidetracked.

6. Recognition. For many people, recognition is an even bigger motivator than money. Recognition can be as simple as a personal email or phone call. For some, edification in front of a group can bring huge rewards. Look for ways to recognize even the smaller accomplishments.

7. Training. Effective training should be available by several means, both live and recorded. We’ve had best success offering training via a mix of live webinars, recorded webinars for playback at the team member’s convenience, training videos, email series, and personal one-on-one coaching.

Shift more of your focus to retention in your MLM network marketing business. It will lead to a big increase in your long-term residual income.

To your success,

Joe Barclay
Online MLM Mentor