Sponsor Shopping - Right or Wrong?

I will be the first to admit that I am guilty of sponsor shopping.  In fact, I've done it in almost every opportunity that I have ever joined.  Yep, I was a "junkie" at one time so...it went on quite a few times.  Was it the right thing to do?  In my opinion...sometimes yes...and sometimes no.  I suppose it depends on which side of the action you were on when it happened.

When I joined my primary company, I did a lot of sponsor shopping.  But, I didn't do it at any one's expense.  First, I did a search on the company.  Then, I searched out the top earners.  But, keep in mind that, I didn't click on any paid ads that would cost anyone money.  If I saw a pay-per-click ad that caught my eye, I would copy and paste the url into my browser instead of clicking on the ad.  This way, it didn't cost anyone any money.  I was also careful not to opt into any one's capture page because I knew that I could possibly be tied to someone that I was not sure I wanted to be tied to at that point in time.

Only when I had found the person that I was sure that I wanted to join with, did I opt in to his page.  So far...so good.  But, that's only the beginning of the story.  This technique had worked for me many times in the past.  So, I had no reason to think that this time would be any different.  Basically, what I did was, I researched to see who was the top earner of the company...and I joined under him.  Everything was good...so I thought.

Naturally, like most all businesses, there was a learning curve that I needed to go through.  Of course, there were things that I didn't know that I needed some help on.  So, I went on to do what I think anyone would do if they were in my position.  I decided to call my sponsor on the phone.  This was all taking place on a Wednesday.  As expected, I got his voice mail.  I wasn't surprised.  I left a short, detailed message and waited for my call to be returned.  What happened next was "not" what I expected.  Nothing!  Yep...that's right!  Nothing happened!  I waited 2 days...and still...nothing.  Wow!  Now, I was starting to wonder if I had made such a great decision about who to join with.  Now, it was Friday afternoon and I knew that I was not going to receive any help until at least Monday.

It was Monday afternoon when I sent an email to my sponsor expressing my disappointment and explaining that I was stuck and that I needed some help.  Finally, on Tuesday afternoon, I got an email from my sponsor's "Blackberry" telling me that he could give me 15 minutes at 3:45PM on Thursday.  You can't even begin to imagine how disappointed I was to receive this news.  Not only was I going to have to wait for 2 more days, putting me exactly a week behind.  But now, I was only going to get a measly 15 minutes!  As you can imagine, now I was having serious doubts about who I had decided to join under.

Now, I'm sure that you're wondering how this finally worked out.  It was 2 years ago when this happened.  To be completely honest, I don't remember what it was that I thought was so important that I needed to call my sponsor.  What I do remember is that I did indeed solve the problem on my own. And to tell the truth, I am sure that I became a better marketer because of it.  I'll also share another truth with you.  I never tried to contact my sponsor again after that and have not to this very day.  So what we have here is...a classic case of sponsor shopping backfiring.

But that's not the end of the story.  I want to tell you what happened to me a few months later.  Then, you can decide for yourself if it was right or wrong. I started doing PPC advertising for my business.  My leads were costing me an average of about $5 each.  One day, I see a person's name that I recognized come into my back office as a lead.  I was happy to see this person as I knew that he was a good marketer.  Since my business pays me a residual on my teams sales, I knew that this guy was a very good prospect. 

After a few weeks and numerous auto-responder messages later, it was obvious that this guy was not going to join my team as, he had not signed up.  It was not the end of the world.  After all, it was only one person.  But, my disappointment came when a week or so later, this guy showed up on the leader board.  Wow!  Now, I was even more disappointed.  Our system has components built in that are supposed to keep this from happening.  This guy was supposed to be tied to me since he had opted into my list first.  It had been mentioned on numerous training calls that the company was against this and that the system was supposed to prevent this from happening. 

Of course, it was a simple thing for this person to get around.  All he had to do was create a new, free email account and opt in to another person's list and he could then join under that person instead of me.  I didn't spend a lot of time dwelling on this.  But, I did call the company and ask if there was any recourse.  I also sent this guy an email and asked politely for an explanation.  But he didn't bother to answer me.

I was new to the company at the time.  I often wondered if he shopped for someone with more experience than I had at the time.  Or, if he contacted someone else and they told him how to get around the system.  Now that I look back on what happened, I have no bad feelings about it.  But, I will be honest and say that I am still curious to know what the real reason was...that this guy clicked on my ad, opted into my list...and then joined with someone else.  What are your thoughts?  What do you think about sponsor shopping?

Now, let's look at one more scenario.  I'm one of those guys that make themselves available to people.  I think it's because of the frustration that I went through when I couldn't make contact with my own sponsor.  I put my phone on my website and on a lot of my other advertising.  As a result, I get a lot of people that call me up for more information.  There are other guys in this business that are difficult to make contact with.

So...what if a person opts into your list from an ad that you were running.  Then, it was impossible for the person to get in contact with you for more information.  As a result, this person calls me on the phone and I spend a lot of time with them and anser all their questions.  Perhaps they even call me 3 or 4 times.  Now, they feel like they know me, they like me, they trust me and they want to join with me.  What do I do?  Do I tell them how to get around the system and join with me?  Or, do I tell them that I'm sorry but they are stuck with the person that they can't make contact with?  What would you do?

As you can see, it's a touchy situation.  It's a subject with so many different possibilities that I don't know if there is a simple solution or not.  What do you think?