“Warm” or “cold” market…
Does it really matter?

By John Counsel

Most of what’s written about prospecting your “warm” and “cold” markets seems to rely more on emotional claptrap and appeasement than on any kind of objective reasoning. Here, John Counsel offers some useful, rational, practical suggestions.

There’s a lot spoken and written about the pros and cons of prospecting in either your “warm” market or your “cold” market.

Some people are adamant that the “warm” market – your family, friends, work colleagues, neighbours – is the logical place to start, because you know them and they know you, so they’re likely to give you a more sympathetic hearing.

Others are just as adamant that it’s more intelligent to prospect your “cold” market – people you don’t know – because there are no relationships under threat.

I get a lot of e-mail and bulletin board requests from around the world asking for my opinion, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to share my views on the matter in the hope that they’ll help you get better, more productive and profitable results... a lot faster and easier.

For a start, I regard the traditional “warm” and “cold” market categories as much too broad. They’re nowhere near specific enough. “When we deal in generalities, we will rarely succeed. But when we deal in specifics, we will rarely fail.” (Thomas S. Monson)

I teach my own people that there are actually FIVE markets out there, and they’d better know what they are and how to sort the people they meet into those five categories quickly and accurately if they want to prospect with genuine success, and minimise any wasted time.

Once you’ve sorted them into one of the five markets, you need to know what to actually DO with them, or you risk doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons – a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

Here are the five markets:

1. Your “Hot” market

These are people who are “hot to trot”. They may have even approached you, rather than the other way around. Regardless of whether they’re interested in your products or your business opportunity, all you have to do is give them good reasons to justify their interest.

2. Your “Warm” market

These are your family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues, and others who know you well. You have existing relationships with these people.

3. Your “Lukewarm” market

These are acquaintances – people you say ‘hello’ to, but don’t know more than superficially. They know who you are, but they don’t know much more about you than that. You have no real relationship with them.

4. Your “Cold” market

These are strangers. People you don’t know and who don’t know you.

5. Your “Frigid” market

These are people, friends or strangers, who are hostile to network marketing for one reason or another. It may be the result of a bad personal experience, a bad experience of a friend or relative, prejudice, hearsay or deliberate misinformation. Whatever the cause, the outcome is much the same: you risk frostbite by trying to prospect them. They need thawing slowly.
 

Next… What to DO with each of these five markets

     
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