Your list is critically important to your business. A fortune 500 company would refer to their list as their database and would value it as their most valuable asset.

All social media platforms built their real value on collecting peoples information. So in your business, your contact list has extreme value and is the x-factor for your network marketing success.

In my situation I had friends I grew up with, friends I went to school with, friends I attended university with, friends I played sports with, then people I personal trained, people that I did business with, and while building a fitness business I met many entrepreneurs that I was networking with.

My list was strong, big and most importantly my list had true meaningful relationship value. My entire life was built on strong relationships where I can pick up the phone to people from 20 years ago, and we will have a great conversation purely because I always provided value.

Without a list, you don't have a business.

How you manage your list will be the factor which decides whether you will succeed or fail. If you want to succeed in network marketing, pay attention to these 7 elements of list building and apply the principles to ensure the growth of your business.

​You want to format your list into categories. You should have a boiling hot market, a warm market, a lukewarm market, a cold market, and an icy cold market.

In each of these categories, I like to group them into sections like "open-minded", "successful", "entrepreneurial", "customers", and "referrers". For example, it might be that "Pete" is a great mate who has been personal training me for 5 years. He fits into the "warm market", is an "open-minded" business person with a good network and is a great "referrer".

The reason for the detail is essential for the way you approach each person. You see, it is not a one size fits all approach to your list. Therefore, take the time to physically create your list ON PAPER, not in your head. Then set up your categories and then put them into sections to assist you on how you are going to approach different people.

SUCCESS TIP: Start with boiling hot to warm markets first. If you are not prepared to do this, you'll need to review your business opportunity because it merely means you do not have belief in what you are promoting. (You'll see why below)

Boiling Hot Market

Your boiling hot market can allow you to launch your business fast. These are the people who are your nearest and dearest. The inner circle people who you would have on your wedding list.

Nine times out of 10 they are the type of people who you can just say, “Hey Pete, I have just launched a new side business promoting youth enhancement products. I am looking for 10 to 12 customers to try the products for the next 90 days to provide me with some feedback. Will you be one of them?”.

Warm Market

Your warm market is people you know and have some form of personal relationship with. It could be a friend you went to school with 30 years ago, or the sales rep that turns up on a weekly basis to drop off their products to your work. If you have spoken to them, you can consider them in your warm market.

The secret is to keep growing your warm market.

Lukewarm Market

A lukewarm market is its own category because of social media. With all the different platforms now you have lots of people on your list that you have a different relationship with. For example, you may have 5000 friends on FaceBook. These lukewarm friends follow you, and you follow them. You do know them through the stories they share, and they also know you through the stories you share. You may comment on their posts supporting them, and they are commenting on your post. However, your relationship is purely online.

You aim is to build your lukewarm audience, provide consistent quality content and build a relationship with your audience until they turn into a tribe. Then move these tribe members from an online connection to an online and offline relationship and into your warm market.

Cold Market

Your cold market is your social media network that is not engaging with you. The difference between cold and lukewarm markets is merely your online relationship. You might have 30,000 people collectively on your social media list. But 27,000 of these people are not following you, and not engaging in your content. Again your goal here is to provide value and turn these people into audiences of your lukewarm market.

Icy Cold Market

Your icy cold market is the remainder of people who live on planet earth that have no connection to you.

Your wealth will be reflected by your contacts list and more importantly the relationship with your contacts list. You need to ascend people from icy cold, cold and lukewarm markets to become warm market members. Your boiling hot market will probably always be your inner circle, but you want to have your warm market list big and growing. If you can master the art of this, then your bank balance will also increase.

Many great network marketers often say quality over quantity. However, by increasing numbers in your warm market, you can often improve your chance of finding quality people. When I mentor people, I use the farming analogy of planting seeds and harvesting crops. If you merely plant one to two seeds in the ground, you may have one to two plants that grow. Lots of seeds can lead to a crop that you can eventually harvest.

But your ultimate goal should be to set the bar high and strive for lots of quality, and you then get the best of both worlds. Again this happens by organising your list structure, and moving as many people from your cold market to your lukewarm market - and from your lukewarm market to your warm market.

When you join a company, the honeymoon period is your first 90 – 120 days where you are working your way through your boiling hot and warm markets. One of my most significant pieces of advice when mentoring leaders is to encourage them to work on list building from day one. That means getting social media working, it means going out and actively meeting new people, it means having lots of conversations and putting a rock solid referral marketing strategy in place.

It is like hitting a brick wall when you run out of contacts to speak to. If you have not been building your list from day one and then get to the end of your warm market and have nobody else to talk to, then you will face one of your first significant hurdles in building your business. Because your business may start to drop off, you will find you will be getting a lot more disappointing results because you just do not have the relationship with the potential prospects. If you can work your way through this phase methodically by moving cold markets through to your warm market, then you will be set up to win.

People that do not believe in what they are doing, and who do not have a great plan in place will often fail in network marketing.

One of the biggest secrets to building a big global business is to have a rock solid follow up strategy. It is alarming to hear people that get rejected by the same person 1-5 times and then give up on them as a potential customer.

My number one distributor I sponsored said NO to me every month for 11 months and then finally said yes. We have been building an incredibly huge international business together for over 6 years and have travelled the world together both living life by design. Imagine, if I gave up after 5 or 6 NO'es.

You see, timing is often the key to whether someone will join or not. I was prospected for years every week before I entered the industry. The reason for me not joining and building a business earlier was because I was focused on other business ventures at the time. I was a customer first, and then when the timing was right, I was ready to build and build big.

All prospects will be victims of something preventing them from joining at that time of your offer. However, people lose their jobs, people may be looking to improve their health, people may have a moment where they are sick and tired of being sick and tired, and start actively looking for a business opportunity.

Therefore, my suggestion is to have a 90-day cycle in place for your follow up strategy. Leave every conversation with these words:

“thanks for taking the time to chat today - I really appreciate you listening. Our company continually brings out new cutting-edge products and are opening some big markets. I will keep you updated with any of our exciting announcements. You never know, you may have an interest in one of the new product lines or your circumstances may change. If you do know anyone who may be interested I would love to connect with them”.

The conversation may vary, but the key is to:

1. Advise them that you will keep them updated, so they are aware you are going to call, so you do not feel like a pest.

2. Always ask for referrals.

According to a network marketing survey, the number 1 reason someone will join a company is the launch.

So if you are launching anything from new products to new markets, to new marketing tools, then you need to go back to your entire list again. Remember you are in business, so you need to act like a business person and treat it like a business. If you treat it like a hobby, it will be a hobby.

Construct a global dream team out of your warm market. This will be your warm market A-graders. If your potential A-graders do not inspire you, then that is giving you an indication of what your list health is like.

Some of these potential dream team members in your warm market will be daunting people to approach. Do not avoid your dream team prospects. You have to contact these people without fear.

If they trust you, like you and respect you, then they should at least listen and potentially help you. Remember some of the most prominent business leaders are owners, investors and endorsers of this 180 Billion dollar industry, so your A-list prospect should also see the potential.

A soft approach may look something like this, “Hi Pete, I was wondering if I can get your help with my new business venture. I know you are extremely busy, but I was wondering if I could take up 10 minutes of your time to provide a bit of an overview of what I am launching. I highly respect you as a business person and would love your advice and also if you know anyone that can also help”.

As highlighted many times your wealth will be reflected by your contacts list. Therefore, do not forget anyone. Write a list of areas where there are people that you know - this is called a Memory Jogger. For example:

Family (who are extended family?)
School (who went to school with?)
Current Work (who working with?)
Former Work (who have worked with?)
Business (who have done business with?)
Services (who provides to me?)
Products (who sold to me?)
Hobbies (who has mutual?)
Sport (who play with?)
Local Groups (who meet with?)
Social Media (who connect with?)
Location (who lives interstate or overseas?)

Your list is critically important to the success of your business. How you manage and grow your list will be the factor which decides whether you will succeed or fail.

Start building your list by working through the steps to categorise who you know and record as much detail as possible to enable you to work out customised approaches for different markets in your list.

Always market your opportunity straight to your Boiling Hot and Warm lists

List building never stops - you want to ascend as many people as you can into your warm market by giving them valuable information that helps them on their journey, then select from your warm market the ones who show potential to be A-graders in your business.