What Is An MLM Sponsor?

Are you a recruiter? Or are you a sponsor? There is a big difference. A recruiter is effective at “signing up” people, and then moving on to “sign up” others. The recruiter seems to be in a frantic search to find superstars among the crowd, and his way to “find” them is to “sign them up” and then watch and wait. The recruiter believes in “love ‘em and leave ‘em. He expects the superstars to eventually rise to the top, and the others to eventually quit. The sponsor has a different attitude. He believes that any person worth sponsoring is worth developing. The sponsor believes in “marrying” the people he sponsors. The recruiter believes in the “one-night-stand”.

Being a sponsor is an ongoing, continuing activity. It is this ongoing activity that creates loyalty to the sponsor, and gives the sponsor serious credibility. The recruiter is a traveling salesman; once he has sold you, he is gone. The sponsor is a helper/teacher who wants you to have the training and tools you need to be successful, and the encouragement to keep plugging.

There is also a transferable concept here. Your sponsor wants you to be a sponsor. A sponsor develops other sponsors by deliberate, careful help and encouragement. A recruiter expects a born superstar.

I have six sons. Each time that I went to the hospital nursery, I was a proud father of a baby boy. As I looked at those babies in that nursery, they each had a card that read either “boy” or “girl”. Not one of those cards read “superstar”. In all those trips to the nursery, I never found one superstar. Superstars are “made”, they are not “born”. They are “developed”.

Making a superstar takes training, encouragement, help, patience, and time. It takes being a sponsor.

What does it take to become a superstar? It take a lot of attitude-type things, such as confidence, commitment, determination, credibility, etc. Where do these “attitude” type things come from? They are learned. They are taught. They are “caught”. Here are the stages of the development of a superstar.

1.Have a real sponsor.
2.Learn to be a real sponsor.
3.Develop others who will be real sponsors.
4.Teach them to teach others to be real sponsors.

The secret to Networking success is found in this: the recruiter is not building a “multi-level” organization, it is all one level (and most of them will quit). The sponsor is building a duplicatable system that can run downline through his organization. This builds a powerful downline because it is built deep and strong.

What is the difference between a recruiter and a sponsor? It is the difference between “hype” and “help”. The sponsor’s job begins when you enroll; the recruiter’s job is done when you enroll. The goal of the recruiter is to sign up people. The goal of the sponsor is to train leaders.

Before asking yourself which you want to be, ask yourself which do you want your upline to be. Remember, you are the upline to other people. The key to success in Networking is found in two rules:

1.Be a sponsor.
2.Keep being a sponsor.

This article has been published in several Network Marketing magazines, both in the USA and in Europe, since 1986.

About the Author:
Paul Pierce has been a Networker for 25 years, 15 years full time. He is an ordained Baptist minister, a degreed Chemical Engineer, and has been one of the top distributors in five Network Marketing companies. He has built a 150,000 downline Team and another 100,000 downline Team. Paul’s website is www.mlmcoach.net

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