Build Your Downline Faster by Ignoring Them

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

Want to build your downline fast? Ignore them.

Everyone works hard to build their downline. So, logically, you should do everything you can to work with everyone you sponsor, and everyone they sponsor. After all, they need you. You’re their upline. You’re responsible for them. They need you. Right?

If you’ve been active in network marketing for any length of time and sponsored some people, you know what it’s like.

Hours on the phone, or at their house. Teaching them how to log in to their back office. Helping them when they want to change their autoship. Showing up or answering the phone to answer a million questions from their “skeptic” brother. Calling customer service for them when they can’t figure out if their credit card got charged twice.

How to not build your downline:

Well, here is the problem:

They STILL can’t figure out their back office. They STILL don’t know how to change their autoship.

Their brother didn’t sign up, and never will.

And you don’t have access to corporate’s computer to answer their billing questions.

You’ve spent countless hours. You’ve sponsored no new team members. Your downline sponsored no one new.

And the sad part? You didn’t actually “build your downline” at all, yet you’ll do the exact same thing tomorrow, thinking it’s going to work. (It isn’t duplicatable!)

You can’t build a downline, you can only let your downline build itself.

Think of it along the lines of the give a man a fish, teach a man to fish philosophy, along with a numbers game mentality, all wrapped in a lead by example style while realizing you can’t make a horse drink.

1. Don’t do anything for them that they could do for themselves. They can call customer service. They can watch the training videos. They can figure it all out, just like you did. If you do it for them, they won’t learn it. They’ll expect you to do it, and they’ll have their downline calling you too!

2. Don’t teach them anything that there is already training videos for. Direct them to the trainings. Every MLM has a comp plan video. Why would you spend an hour explaining it? Tell them to go watch the video! There are videos on the products, the comp plan, how to do home parties… everything. If they want to know how to approach their warm market, for example, send them to the bookstore to learn from some of the greatest experts in our niche.

3. Concentrate on your front line recruiting. You need lots of people. Period. If you’re spending all your time on one or two who are already in, you aren’t recruiting, and aren’t building a downline. It’s a numbers game. You need to get a lot of people in, to get a few who will succeed in MLM. You want killers who will get out there and sponsor. If you are focusing on someone who takes all afternoon just to log in… enough said.

4. Don’t waste your time. If someone isn’t motivated enough to figure it out, they’re not going to go build their own downline. They’ll probably do nothing. You can give opportunities to people, but you can’t make them drink. This is the hardest one to understand.

5. Lead by example. Think about it. If you show everyone how to waste their time by letting them waste yours, what’s gonna happen? If you show everyone how to recruit, by recruiting, and giving that example to follow, they’ll actually know what to do.

So believe it or not, ignoring your downline, at least in part, may be the best way to build your downline fast and grow a great team.