Most network marketers keep talking to the same tired pool of unqualified prospects. They wonder why their team never produces. The problem isn’t their pitch. It’s who they’re calling.
Ray Higdon sat down with industry legend Todd Falcone to break down the exact strategy that changes everything: recruiting professionals.
Todd Falcone has 36 years in network marketing. He built in the field for 17 of them, then transitioned into training after his company went under. Twenty years later, he’s still teaching the same core method because it still flat-out works.
Here’s what he shared.
Step 1: Understand Why Professionals Are the Right Target
Not everyone deserves your time.
Todd put it bluntly: after years of working business opportunity leads, he realized most people couldn’t even carry a conversation. Out of 100 leads, maybe 20 could talk. He’d recruit three.
That math gets exhausting fast.
Professionals are different. Realtors, insurance agents, financial planners, and commission salespeople already share the DNA of network marketing:
- They’re already paid on commission
- They prospect, sell, and lead teams daily
- They have a moderate to high tolerance for risk
- Their center of influence is vastly different from the average prospect
Posture Check: When you recruit professionals, you stop auditioning and start selecting. You’re not begging someone to believe in your model. You’re asking if they want another vehicle for income they already know how to earn.
Ray said it himself: “I always preferred recruiting business owners or commission salespeople. I didn’t want the ‘is this a job’ argument.”
The conversations are also just better. Todd described it this way: when you’re only talking to sharp, skilled people, you can’t wait to pick up the phone again.
Step 2: Use the Peak Interest Question
After five years of testing, Todd landed on a single question he would not change today.
He calls it the Peak Interest Question.
Here’s the scenario: you drive by a for-sale sign, pull over, write down the realtor’s name and number, and call.
“Jan, Todd Falcone. How’s it going? I just drove by your listing. I’m an entrepreneur. I love working with people in the real estate community. I just have a very straight-up question for you. Do you at all keep your options open in terms of making any money outside of what you’re currently doing as a real estate professional?”
That’s it.
No pitch. No hype. No explaining the company. Just a clean, direct question that respects their time and intelligence.
Posture Check: Professionals respond to professionals. The question works because it assumes they’re capable, not desperate. It opens a door without pushing them through it.
Todd’s student Scott M. tried the method his own way, failed, then came back and did it exactly as taught. First dialing session: 12 calls, 12 yeses. Second session: 9 for 12.
The script isn’t magic. The precision is.
Ray reinforced this with the Nike principle: “Amateurs practice until they get it right. Professionals practice until they cannot get it wrong.” Todd had made that call thousands of times. It flows because he owns it. You can too.
Step 3: Stop Prejudging and Start Prospecting
Here’s the invisible wall most network marketers never break through.
They see a successful real estate agent or a well-dressed insurance pro and immediately think: they would never be interested.
So they don’t ask.
Todd calls this moving down the socioeconomic chain by default, chasing broke friends because the rejection feels safer. But here’s what actually happens when you call a professional and they say no:
“No, I’m totally focused. I appreciate the call, but we’re crushing it over here.”
That’s it. No drama. No offense. Professional nos don’t sting.
Ray shared a story from his own company: a man with 76 Domino’s franchises, worth a quarter million dollars each, doing nonstop presentations because he believed in residual income. He prospected himself. Then there was an insurance professional at one of Ray’s events who said point-blank: “I love network marketing. No one has ever prospected me.”
Posture Check: Your job isn’t to decide for them. Your job is to flip the rock over and see what’s underneath. Never prejudge a prospect. Especially the ones who look like they don’t need you.
The professionals you already know, the ones you’ve been too intimidated to approach, many of them would say yes. You just haven’t asked.
The Posture Check: Stop Waiting. Start Calling.
You don’t have to be experienced, successful, or already making money to recruit professionals. You just have to stop eliminating exit options.
Todd’s advice on staying consistent was simple and final: don’t give yourself a time limit. Give yourself a commitment. “Give this everything you’ve got until you succeed.”
Jim Tanner drove a furniture delivery truck when he first connected with Todd. He built an entire seven-figure network marketing business doing exactly what Todd teaches. Nothing special. Just consistency and the right target market.
The phone call is the skill. Repetition is the teacher.
If you want to go deeper, Todd Falcone’s free training on how to recruit high-caliber professionals into network marketing is available at higdongroup.com/professionals. It’s step-by-step, word-for-word, and worth your undivided attention.
