The Top 4 Dangers of Cold Market Recruiting
Cold-Market Recruiting….
To make things clear, what we refer to as “cold market” here are those people who you don’t know and you don’t have any previous relation or acquaintance with.
The “warm market” refers to your friends, family, and even acquaintances. This will also cover people who used to be in your “cold market”, and who have become part of your warm market.
When you are networking or promoting your own business, you would normally start with your warm market, right? They are the first ones you would go to, and it is easy to approach them because they already know and trust you.
However, we all know that a time will come when your warm market is already spent. It is time to move on to the cold market.
Now, this is tricky. These people don’t know you, and you don’t know them all your life. So how are you supposed to approach them the right way?
Needless to say, lots of networkers have had a hard time when it comes to cold market recruiting. Even now that things have gone digital, a lot of things can go horribly wrong when you recruit people from the cold market.
Before we discovered attraction marketing, we were told to go to our cold market in around 2014-2015, by buying lists of networkers and cold-calling them. Ouch. We did this because we were told to, but it felt horrible, and it did not work well. We had the same bad experience with buying email lists of so-called leads, and blind emailing them – aka, spam. Ouch again. It was not a smart way to build, but it is what our “uplines” recommended at the time.
But here’s the deal….
Offline, people don’t like it when you just show up and pester them about your business, or call them out of the blue. It is the same online too – people get annoyed when you show up in their inbox, only to be asked if they ever heard about your business.
Aside from the fact that cold market recruiting rarely works, it is also the fastest way for people to lose respect for you and your business. It’s annoying, and it makes anyone sound desperate. Overall, it just leaves a bad impression.
So the best thing to do is to actually stop cold market recruiting and prospecting. Yes, you heard that right. Below are 4 reasons why:
1. Cold Market Recruiting is Opportunistic
Yes, this is reality.
It’s difficult to build a rapport with friends and strangers when all you are really doing is looking for an opportunity to sell yourself and your business. You cannot fully serve these people if you are also being opportunistic at the same time because we are only humans – and we all have our self-interests at heart.
In moments wherein you are in dire need of cash, you will eventually sound desperate. Many networkers don’t really realize this until they have made great results and established themselves within the business.
2. It is Agenda-Oriented
This is closely related to the first one. Since you view friends and strangers as an opportunity to sell yourself and your products, that only means that you have a hidden agenda. You reach out to them – precisely because you want to achieve a business-related result.
You attend events, go to lunch or coffee dates, and go to family gatherings with the ulterior motive of prospecting and recruiting friends, family, and random people that you meet.
That agenda will eventually drain you, and you also run the risk of losing the respect of people you love and care about.
3. It Will Lead to Misunderstandings and Isolation
When your friends and family start losing their respect for you, they would eventually avoid you. They will stop inviting you to events, lunches, dinners, and other occasions. Friends and acquaintances that you attempted to prospect will awkwardly avoid you and refuse to associate with you. That’s definitely not good.
It is the same with these people you try to prospect in your cold market, except they don’t know you so they have less reason to listen or even try to be polite to you….
4. Facebook Hates Cold Market Recruiting Too!
Yes, Facebook heeds the complaints of its users and cold market recruiters are usually blocked and suspended when they get reported.
People hate it when you go to their DMs, and they also hate it when you add them to your groups. When you do that, you are just spamming – and Facebook would certainly flag that (especially if you are just sending the same message over and over again).
This does not mean that you should not do your business on Facebook. Of course, Facebook is a good place to generate leads and exposure, but you have to do it the right way.
The right way is definitely not cold market recruiting or prospecting for that matter. The right way is called marketing!
Notice how most businesses market their products? They just put up their ads and show off the products, right?
That’s what you are supposed to be doing! Network marketers have been so caught up with the traditional style of networking that recruiting and prospecting are still being seen as a huge part of the deal.
In reality, the traditional style does not work anymore. What works now is what we call “Attraction Marketing”. By the name itself, this means that what you should be doing is to attract people to try your products or join your business.
It’s just like the usual advertising tactics, but you do it with an engaging post that can pique your audience’s curiosity and initially build rapport.
You don’t have to operate with a hidden agenda or try to find new prospects for your business. All you have to do is to share the good things about your product and business – like what usual advertisers do! No more stressing out about who to recruit and how to approach people. Provide value, create curiosity, and just let the interested ones come to you.
Find better ways to promote your business other than cold-marketing by joining our FREE 10-day online marketing bootcamp.
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Email: globalone2one@gmail.com
