I've been involved with network marketing for some time now, and one thing that drives me absolutely up the wall is when a company or an upline encourages new distributors to formulate a "warm market contact list". This list is comprised of all of the family, friends, and acquaintances the new distributor has.

The newbie is then encouraged to go through the list and approach every person on it with details about their business opportunity. They are told to systematically go through it, and not to take the "nos" personally.

This is the absolute worst thing a new distributor can do. Why? Because it immediately sets the newbie up for failure.

The people the new representative is encouraged to contact know this person intimately. They know his faults. They think they know what he is capable of.

The newbie takes his unpolished presentation and his unconstrained enthusiasm to these loved ones, and what happens? More often than not, these people will think that the newbie is getting involved in a pyramid scheme.

Instead of joining his program, they encourage him to abandon it.

Knowing the distributor, family and friends do not buy into his program, as they realize that the distributor, who is just beginning, is not even close to being successful yet. Why would they suddenly change and become successful with this new "scheme"?

The new distributor starts to become discouraged. After all, if his family and friends say no, who will possibly say yes?

What follows is the new distributor becoming desperate. He pushes his opportunity nonstop to his warm market, and this can eventually destroy relationships. Even if some members of his warm market join, they only do so because they were badgered into it, and will not become valued downline members.

In short, this method of contacting your warm market leads in the beginning of your business is simply a mistake. It is depressing, futile, gives network marketing a bad name, and can permanently damage relationships with family and friends.

Instead of contacting a warm market first, let your warm market contact you when you are showing results. When you become a success with your network marketing business, family and friends will approach you to find out how you've done it. It is at this point that you involve them in your program.

So what do you do to build a business if you are not going to bug your family and friends about network marketing? First, get an education.

You need to educate yourself on network marketing and on starting a business. Most importantly, learn about niche marketing, find a niche, and promote your program specifically to that niche.

Take the time to learn about the industry, and have leads come to you. Don't chase everybody who breathes, encourage those who genuinely want to learn about your products and opportunity to contact you. It's a method that is duplicable, and that works.

Building a business on warm market leads may have worked 20 years ago, but times have changed, and those old school methods have given the industry a black eye. Newer methods work better. Learn them and succeed.