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community college before dropping out, and had a total of 18 jobs—all before the age of 23. Do you think I had a lot of respect in the community? I had zero. And since I was a $5 to $10 an hour person, all my friends were the same so they weren’t much help. Most of them were still living with their parents.
     
    But I was desperate and I was scrappy. In the beginning, I made up in numbers what I lacked in skill. I called everyone I knew and gave them my pitch. A few of them joined. Most didn’t. I placed ads in the local newspaper. I gave all of the people who responded my pitch. From all of that activity, a few joined. Most didn’t.
     
    I tried everything. I was like a hunter with the goal of bagging an elephant. I went around with a gun/opportunity in my hand and shot at everything that moved. I didn’t really care about relationships. All I cared about was getting that new recruit. My attitude was, “Some will. Some won’t. So what? Next!”
     
    But because I was a hunter, everyone around me felt hunted. And they started to avoid me. And it wasn’t fun. Even worse, the people I did get to join my business tried to do the same thing I was doing, failed, and then quit.
     
    After three or four years of frustration, I came to my defining moment, and started studying successful people in MLM to see what they did. What I found surprised me. They weren’t hunters. They were more like farmers. They built relationships. They built friendships. They learned how to build trust with the people they met and were able to skillfully transfer the belief they had about their products and opportunity. Their goal wasn’t to immediately recruit their prospects. Their initial objective was to educate their prospects on what they had to offer and then let those prospects decide if it was something they wanted to do.
     
    This was a HUGE switch in strategy for me and I began to look at things differently. I put myself in the prospect’s shoes and thought about what would be attractive to me and alternatively, what would cause me to put up my defenses. I realized why the pros had such great results. Instead of acting like sharks, they were more like coaches or consultants. They built relationships and then offered common-sense solutions to people’s problems. Who wouldn’t like that?
     
    The other thing I noticed with the professionals is they didn’t “pitch” their product or opportunity. Instead, when the timing was appropriate, they just invited people to do one of two things, based upon the individual prospect’s situation.
     
    The first thing they did was to invite people to attend some sort of event, such as a one-on-one or two-on-one meeting with another member of their team, a three-way phone conversation, a small group presentation in their home, an online webinar, a local hotel meeting, or some larger company event or convention. Professionals understand that personal interaction is a critical component when it comes to building trust and transferring belief, so they try to connect with people as much as possible.
     
    The second thing they did was to invite people to review some sort of tool. I’m a BIG believer in using tools to help educate a prospect. Tools take many forms. There are CDs, DVDs, magazines, brochures, websites, and online presentations. With some companies, you can even let people sample the product and treat that as a tool.
     
    There is no question that technology continues to evolve, offering more and more convenient ways to help educate prospects, but I have to interject a personal opinion based on experience. While technology allows us to get people quality information quickly, there is nothing like a physical tool. In a world of bits and bytes, and in a Network Marketing world where it’s important to build trust, a physical tool makes it real.
     
    Of the two methods used to help educate the prospect, events are the most effective. There are lots of reasons. There is physical