Hotel meetings have been used by network marketers for decades, and some very successful network marketers swear by this technique of recruiting new team members, but I believe that it is actually one of the worst ways of building your business.

 

Here’s why:

 

1. Hotel meetings go against the fact that network marketing is a people business – inviting prospects to a large, impersonal meeting contradicts everything you will then try to tell them about how network marketing doesn’t involve selling and is instead focused on meeting people’s needs.


2. Hotel meetings cannot be duplicated – most guests will be watching your presentation and thinking how they couldn’t lead such a meeting. More people are scared of public speaking than they are of dying! If you hold a hotel meeting you will absolutely lose potentially successful team members because they think in order to be successful, they would have to be standing at the front of the room speaking to a large group!


3. Hotel meetings are expensive – one of the great advantages of network marketing over other business start-ups is the low cost. But leading a hotel meeting each week, fortnight or month significantly increases the cost of running your business. Depending on how much you charge guests, and how many people turn up, you either lose money (which most people can’t afford to do regularly) or make money (which isn’t the idea of network marketing).


4. Hotel meetings create dependency – network marketing works best when independence is encouraged. Leaders succeed based on their ability to develop independent leaders within their team. By having a prospect attend a hotel meeting that you organise, pay for and lead, you send out the message that all they have to do to become successful is invite people along to the same meeting each week and let you do the work for them. There are a number of problems with this. Firstly, if this new team member has joined on the basis of not needing to do much work, they probably won’t continue inviting people to the meetings after having a couple of people say they’re not interested. And secondly, the whole thing collapses whenever you go on holiday, fall ill or decide to take a few months or years off.


5. Hotel meetings can cause embarrassment – low turnouts at hotel meetings are not uncommon, and it’s easy to see why. Even if you are expecting a full house, the temptation for your guests to stay home will be very strong. They’re probably already working 40 hours a week and – if they’re honest – all they want to do on a Thursday evening is grab some dinner and relax with their family. Maybe it’s a cold, dark evening; maybe petrol prices are on the increase; maybe they didn’t sleep too well the night before. If you’ve ever arranged a one-to-one meeting with someone at your home, you know how frustrating it is when they don’t turn up. Imagine how much worse it would be if you had hired a room for 100 people and had just 2 turn up.


6. Hotel meetings are not private – it’s estimated that around 25% of people will not attend a network marketing hotel meeting even if they are seriously interested in the opportunity. Doctors probably won’t attend in case they bump into patients, lawyers won’t want to see their clients at the meeting, teachers won’t want to risk running into their pupils’ parents. Some executives may be worried about their employers finding out they are considering a business. This is particularly true in smaller communities where everyone seems to know everyone else, but even in large towns or cities, many people will want to make a decision about joining your team in private, not at a large, public event.