I just finished reading an excellent short paper on direct marketing titled "Building Competitive Advantage on the Internet using Relationship Marketing". If you really want to stand out in the crowd and attract tons of hot prospects for your MLM / Network Marketing business, building relationships should be one of your primary goals.

MLM / Network Marketing Is a Relationship Business 

Relationship Marketing is a not new within the online MLM marketing discipline -- but you should take it very seriously if you want to attract lots of prospects and rapidly build your MLM / Network Marketing on the web. Relationship Marketing iemphasises long-term relationships with your visitors/leads/prospects/customers over short-term marketing transactions. It has naturally emerged as a result of an increasingly competitive, over-agressive and almost "spammy" market saturation and cluster that we're facing today where 10 distributors fight and rival for attention of 1 prospect.

How does the concept of relationship marketnig applies to MLM / Network?

Rule #1: Give Before You Ask 

The key to your success in today’s MLM over-crowded marketplace is to stand out and be different. You'll want to get invited into your prospect's world as a welcomed guest, instead of yet another selling pest. (Hint: use Magnetic Sponsoring techniques). When you're invited into prospect's world:

1. You automatically and instantly bypass all of the barriers and defense walls that must be broken down by everyone else!
2. Your prospect is basically asking you to sell him your goods or services, or to join your team!

If you want to break through the infinite noise in today’s MLM market place, it's vitally important you position yourself as a person who "gives before he asks". When you "give before you ask", you can rapidly build trust, bond, relationship and attraction with your leads. This puts you into the "friends" zone, because you're so different than 98%+ of distributors, reps and networkers in this industry who "ask before they give".

Have a geniue desire to help people with their problems, needs and wants -- before they even join your downline or even if they never join your downline at all! Here's why...

Rule #2: Build a List

Rule #3: Develop Your USP 

There's a well knwon marketing term that you should seriously think about when you are building your MLM / Network marketnig business: the Unique Selling Proposition, or shorter just USP.

When large companies are planning how to market their products and services, they're focusing a lot of their time and energy on their Unique Selling Proposition -- the one thing that makes them, their product or their service different or better in some way than any other in the marketplace. It's the one reason they think consumers will buy the product even though it may seem no different from many others just like it.

Stop for a second and try to think about what is your Unique Selling Proposition. Answer the following questions:

1. What is the one thing that makes you different and unique than other peddlers on the Internet screaming and spamming the world with their "world's best opportunies"?
2. What makes you better than your competition?
3. Why should your leads open your emails or messages on Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc?
4. Why prospect should join you?
5. What can you offer that your competition can't?
6. What is the one reason the prospect should want to join you or your team above all other distributors?
7. How are you attracting (and with what) your prospects?