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What Color are Your Marbles?
© 2001 by Chris Bradford
cbradfo901@earthlink.net

We all know that network marketing is a numbers game. But I really don't feel too many of us truly understand the numbers. The purpose of this article is to try to put things into perspective.

According to various sources, 3% to 5% of the population are good prospects for network marketing. It is easy for us to translate that into three to five people out of a hundred prospects should join our team. So, we get us a list of leads and go at it. We spend days calling them, or hours e-mailing them. We contact all 100 people, but with no success. What is wrong?

Probably, nothing.

The three to five people out of 100 people who might be interested in joining your team applies to the entire United States population, not just the 100 leads you have sitting in front of you at the time.

Let me explain it a little better. The United States has an approximate population of 285,000,000 people. If 5% of the population are good prospects for network marketing, this
calculates out to be 14,250,000 people.

Now, imagine you had a swimming pool in your back yard, and you filled it up with 285,000,000 marbles. Of those marbles, 270,750,000 were white marbles and 14,250,000 were red marbles.

Now, put on a blind fold, and pull out 100 marbles. Is it possible that all the marbles would be white? Yes, there is a probability they would be. Worst case, you could pull out 270,750,000 white marbles before you pulled out your first red marble. With the 100 leads you contacted, what you had to offer probably was not the problem. Instead, you probably just pulled out 100 white marbles.

The key is to either reduce the proportion of white marbles in your pool as compared to the red marbles, or to get the red marbles to jump out of the pool into your hands.

You can reduce the white marbles very quickly by not wasting your time trying to convince a white marble it is really red. You want to get the quickest "NO" you can from a white marble, so you can get on to finding the red marbles. If you spend a lot of time with a white marble trying to make it turn red, you will never find the red ones. A marble is either white or red, don't try to change its color! 

You can also reduce the number of white marbles in proportion to the red marbles by buying good leads from lead providers. Many of these leads will still be white marbles, but the odds of pulling out a red marble is much greater.

Instead of reaching into the pool and trying to pull out red marbles, you may want to try to make the red marbles jump out at you. This is done through marketing. By putting your opportunity in front of the masses, the red marbles will jump out of the pool into your hands. 

Some red marbles are tougher to get to jump than others. This is why you need to fine tune your marketing efforts over time, to achieve the highest efficiency possible. You have to tease the red marbles out of the pool by offering what they want or need in a manner which they can easily understand.

Some red marbles are pretty stubborn and will never jump. Others may just not like your bait. But those red marbles that do jump can make your efforts very worth while.

When you are giving thought to making your organization grow, remember the marbles. Try to grab the red marbles, and leave the white marbles alone. You will find it much more rewarding.

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Chris Bradford and Brande McCree are the publishers of MLM Success Today, a weekly newsletter offering original articles written by its publishers for both the experienced and the beginner network marketer. The publishers offer unique insight into the network marketing industry, not only based on their network marketing experience, but also their experience in other business ventures.
http://www.brandesdreamteam.com/mlmsuccesstoday/