Blog Post #4 - Things I've Learned (Part 2)

Mistake #3: GIVING UP TOO SOON

This one kind of ties in with my previous post about not treating your business like a business but I feel like this point needs to be highlighted regardless. I have seen people, time and time again, enroll in a network marketing business, work really hard for a couple months but when that 2 or 3 month mark gets there and they are still only making a couple hundred dollars a month, they get frustrated and walk away. Again, it's this weird mentality that a network marketing business should be easy and should produce fast money. These people assume after 2 months that no one can make money in network marketing and they start to believe that their enroller lied to them about the financial opportunity. Well, obviously, this isn't true. Just like any other business, it takes time for you to build it until it starts being really profitable (I say REALLY profitable for a reason. You can still be making decent checks starting in month one). Those first several months in the business are spent planting seeds with people.

You are contacting and inviting, contacting and inviting, contacting and inviting over and over again. Most people are telling you no. Other people are telling you that yes they're interested! So you send them a video to watch but when you follow up they have joined the witness protection program and have disappeared from the face of the Earth. Everyone goes through this and everyone gets frustrated! You're not alone! But the difference between the unsuccessful distributors and the successful ones is that they keep going. They keep pushing. The successful distributors understand that even though their checks might not show it, great things are happening with their business as a result of planting all of those seeds and receiving all of those no's.

Let me explain further: Even though most people are telling you no, that seed has been planted and it will begin to grow without you knowing it.

Many of those exact people that told you no will start to see the potential with what you're doing. They'll see your Facebook posts about the money you've earned, they'll notice an improvement in your health, they'll lose their job and be looking for a financial opportunity, etc. Even if they don't ever want anything to do with your mlm they might think of someone else they know that may benefit from whatever it is that you're offering and send them your way. It is literally impossible to know how your message will influence people and their actions later on. As long as you are constantly sharing your message and planting your seeds then it will eventually pay off for you. It's just the way things work. The problem is that this takes time. In my experience I would say it takes 3 - 6 months of just planting those seeds before you really start to see your business begin to pick up speed. Referring back to the book "The 45 Second Presentation," Don Failla explains that as you get started in mlm you need to liken your business unto an office building. When you see an office building first being constructed it seems like it takes forever for those guys to level the ground, dig the hole, and pour that foundation. However, once they start on the parts of the building that are above ground it seems like they throw up 2 or 3 stories a day! That building is then completed before you know it and you can't believe how fast it was built! It's the exact same idea in network marketing. You have to spend several months in the beginning planting seeds and pouring your foundation. Once you have a good solid foundation, your business begins to grow at a much faster rate. I've seen this exact thing happen many times with distributor-run businesses so the trick is to just keep pushing yourselves and don't give up. Once it finally starts raining, it starts pouring.


Mistake #4: FAILING TO TEACH DUPLICATION

The vast majority of people have absolutely no idea what they are doing when they join a network marketing business. A huge chunk of your success will depend on how well you teach duplication and SIMPLICITY to your team, Duplication is EVERYTHING.  If you don't have duplication then you won't have a successful business. Period. Your team needs to be able to watch what you do and think to themselves that they too can do that. As a matter of fact there's a acronym in network marketing that sums up this point perfectly: KISS. It stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. You'll find out very quickly that people need you to take them by the hand and guide them every step of the way - especially in the beginning of their journey. Make things easy to understand. Keep explanations in bite-sized chunks. If your team members see you doing a bunch of complicated tasks or you tell them to do a bunch of complicated tasks then they will become frustrated very quickly. The beauty of network marketing is that anyone can do it and be successful. The savvy network marketers recognize this and that is why they make everything extremely simple to duplicate.

For example, top network marketers will tell their teams to use a tool when introducing people to their company/products/opportunity. A tool can include a brochure, a video, a CD, etc. The reason for this is because anyone can do it! Anyone can hand someone a brochure, send them a video, or give them a CD. That's duplicable! Here's another example: On my team we tell all our new enrollments that their goal should be to enroll two people in their first two weeks and then teach their two new people to do the same. Now it's not a perfect system and not everyone does it perfectly but people believe that they can do that. That's duplication! If I were to tell them to find 100 people each then they would immediately shut down and give up. Most people can't do that. They don't have the time, they don't have the energy, they don't have the belief in themselves, etc. However, if you tell them to just get two, then you've created duplication and you're on the right track for success. The lack of duplication is why the "salesman" mentality doesn't work in this business. People with a "salesman" mentality believe that in order to be successful they need to go out there and sign up as many people as they can as fast as possible. This might benefit them in the short term because they'll get those commissions off the initial enrollments but those people will begin dropping off as fast as he/she can sign them up. 99% of those new sign ups will look at what that person is doing and say, "nope. I can't do that" and they'll disappear. Duplication is so vital to the success of your business so KISS!

Comments on my blog are always welcome. However, if you'd like to reach out to me privately my email address is kalfreedomgroup@gmail.com. Thanks for stopping by!