Most people believe you can't build a successful MLM business without strong telephone skills. Yet many people say they hate using the telephone. Does that mean they'll never succeed in network marketing? Not necessarilyit all depends on what exactly they dislike, and what they're willing to replace it with.

In reality, telephone skills aren't an integral part of network marketing. Communication skills, however, are critical. Network marketing is about creating relationshipssomething you can't do without communication. The telephone is a tool for communication, but it's not the only one. You can always communicate face-to-face with people you already know. For those you don't, many MLMs can now be run completely onlineso if you're confident communicating by e-mail, this might be worth considering.

WHAT'S THE REAL PROBLEM?

Of course, often the phone isn't really the problem. Most of us will happily phone people we know. It's only when we have to start talking about our business to complete strangers that nerves kick in. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone. Cold calling (calling someone who hasn't approached you first) is something that unnerves most of us.

Luckily, cold calling skills are far from critical to building a strong MLM. Internet marketer Daegan Smith built a team of over 1,800 downline in less than 7 months without once making a cold call. Frank Rumbauskas, author of 'Cold Calling is a Waste of Time' states that cold calling actually does your business more harm than good. While not everyone agrees, facts are that cold calling simply connects you with new people who might be interested in your MLM (prospects), and there are many other ways to do that.

WORKING WITH YOUR WARM MARKET

This is the basis of 'grass roots' network marketing, and the way many MLM companies suggest you start. All other things being equal, people prefer to do (and go into) business with people they know, like and trust; so it makes sense to start with people you already know (your warm market). To do this, just make a list of everyone you know, then tell them about your opportunity and what it can do for them.

Be aware, though, that experts disagree about whether this really is the best place to start. If you were hiring for a traditional job, you wouldn't take someone without the right skills just because they were a friend (and if you did, you'd probably regret it!) While network marketing isn't a 'job', it still requires a certain mindset. It can't hurt to give friends and family the option to get involved, but unless they're seriously interested in what your MLM can do for them, they probably won't put in the time and effort it will need.

REFERRAL MARKETING

The next technique for generating prospects is 'Referral Marketing'basically, asking people you already know to refer you to people you don't. For an example of why this works, imagine you've just been called out of the blue and asked to buy a widget you weren't looking for. Chances are, you'd say no, right? But what if you'd recently told a friend you wanted a widget, and the caller (who'd spoken to your friend) mentioned your friend's name? You want a widget and here's someone contacting you offering to sell you one. Wouldn't you at least think about it?

To use the power of referral marketing, go back to your warm market, and ask each person who they can think of that might be interested in your opportunity, and why (not everyone will know someone, but many will) Once you've got their contact details, contacting them becomes much less daunting, because you already know there's a chance they'll be interested. And if they're not, don't forget to ask them for names of people who might be!

INTERNET MARKETING

Lastly, there's the interneta tool that's totally revolutionised the network marketing industry. Instead of limiting our prospects to people we know personally and their networks, we now literally have the entire world at our fingertips. This allows interested people come to us to ask for more information, instead of us having to contact them.

Internet Marketing just requires you to have a good website that sums up your MLM's benefits (a sales page) and lets interested visitors give you some way of contacting them (a lead capture page) For an excellent example of a page that does both these things, please see the resource box. Any good MLM should provide these as part of your business toolsall you then need to do is get those visitors.

Of course, getting visitors can be a little trickier than it first seems, but there are many resources out there that will help. Learning how and where to advertise, how to work with forums, blogs and search engine optimisation is beyond the scope of this article but training tools exist. And, as with referral marketing, once you know someone's probably going to be interested in your opportunity, it's a lot easier to phone or e-mail them back to talk to them about it.

BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS WITHOUT COLD CALLING

So there you gothree simple ways to build a strong MLM without having to cold call, and potentially, without having to use the telephone at all. Different techniques will work better for different peopletry each and see which brings you best results. Good luck!