Network Marketing: One Company Mentality

Some changes will come from outside your sphere of influence and seem beyond your control. I want you to be prepared for any and all diversions and challenges that threaten your downline. The amazing truth about network marketing is that once you have established yourself with a company, you can literally waltz through decades without anyone trying to lure you away.

Yet in the first year you become an affiliate, the competition will come out of the woodwork and beg you to switch companies. Success and perseverance will earn you respect, whereas your newness makes you vulnerable. I have a saying, “The grass is always greener, until it’s time to mow.” I can guarantee you, just as certain that the sun will rise, that your new affiliates will be courted by other network marketing companies in their first years as distributors. It’s a certainty and must be addressed in the training process of all new affiliates.

A good thing for affiliates to always keep in mind is that the trickle-down theory works better in our network marketing business than in economics. Teach your leaders anything and if it works, everyone in your organization will learn it rapidly. Those of us who have been in this industry have learned a very real success principle: perseverance. Affiliates who have stayed with one company for many years, and built new legs in each of those years, are now very wealthy. Those who think the grass is greener soon learn that true, lasting wealth can only be achieved through long-term participation in one company.

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Network Marketing: Temptation To Change

More than likely, one of the first manifestations of the Scatter Bomb will be the temptation to change, even just slightly, the system of recruiting, you were taught. For example, your sponsor might tell you the critical importance of approaching your warm list by expressing your desire to have a business relationship with each of them and sharing your excitement about the potential of big money and free time because of the universal appeal of both.

And while you are nodding your head in agreement, what you are really thinking is, “I can’t approach my friends and family with an idea as outrageous as earning such extraordinary income.” So you begin changing the approach: you avoid your best prospects or mention a smaller income figure or none at all in favor of promoting your products. Never mind that your sponsor insisted that you need to use the big-money, free-time approach, you know in your heart that your friends and family members simply cannot relate to that kind of money.

You don’t argue with your sponsor because you’ve already promised to use his system, but you think you know what’s best. And guess what? If you think that way, so will all your recruits. I don’t know what there is about network marketing that makes it seem so easy, but all who sign up immediately begin to believe that they know more than their sponsor or, for that matter, more than anyone who’s ever been in network marketing. The greater their innate leadership skills, the more likely they will want to reinvent the wheel.

The way to prevent new affiliates from changing the approach is to anticipate their notions during training. New affiliates may not understand the importance of starting their network marketing business with relationship marketing or quoting large income figures in order to create a conscious shock. So teach them how easy it is to get sidetracked. Tell them right up front.

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Network Marketing: Put On Blinders

The metaphor of Scatter Bomb also refers to the inability of new affiliates to ignore all the inevitable distractions in the first year of network marketing  and maintain a clear vision of where they are going and how they are going to get there. New affiliates become scattered very quickly by a variety of companies, recruiting systems, videos, manuals, and numerous other sales systems available to them.

New affiliates must be warned to put on blinders during their first year. Consistent duplication of one simple success system is essential in order to avoid confusion in one’s entire downline, which is precisely what occurs each time a leader changes systems midstream. Even worse, some overzealous entrepreneurs jump right into recruiting without any goals or systems around which to base their business plan.

Network Marketing: Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

There are countless affiliates who want to work the network marketing business in ways that are more comfortable to them, more fitting to their self-image, more in keeping with their old work habits. If your goal is to achieve financial security and personal freedom, you may have to get out of your comfort zone. The good life will come soon enough if you pay the price the first year.

What keeps me me going on those ugly days when nothing seems to go right is to believe that inside all of us there is a driving force that will help us just as long as we stay focused on our goals. I teach my new affiliates not to give up. no matter what. I tell each affiliate, the longer you stay and continue talking to people, the closer you will get to your goal. Never lose sight of that light at the end of the tunnel.

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Network Marketing: Keep The Same System

I have personally lost some great frontline affiliates, may of whom could have become great network marketers, because they just couldn’t stop changing systems. In fact, in one case, I lost the leaders of an entire foreign market.

Just imagine the possibilities if: you started on the ground floor in a brand new country with 1,500 serious prospects who came to learn more about your network marketing business on opening day; the company you represented was a billion-dollar MLM company already successful in twenty other countries; and all the new affiliates signing up were within your first five levels.

Also, assume that your sponsors were extremely well known and had all the training manuals (audiotapes, videotapes, books) translated into every language on your continent and then set up a second home in your part of the world in order to spend significant time supporting you. Under these circumstances, failure seems impossible.

Believe it or not, failure was the end result: the key leaders quit the network marketing business within eighteen months. They failed because they changed their name from one name to another unknown group, gradually eliminated every system I taught them, and consumed much of their training materials–it was the ultimately Scatter Bomb. Every one of my systems had proven success, and every one of theirs rapidly failed.

Network Marketing: Scatter Bomb

But they still maintained that their network marketing organization collapsed because because they just didn’t have a good enough compensation plan. And I provided them with many other forms of support, financial and otherwise, that I haven’t even mentioned. The truth is that they and all their downline were victims of the Scatter Bomb. But frankly, as their sponsors, we have to accept a great deal of the responsibility for their failure because each time they made a system change, and it was very frequently, we protested only gently.

Unlike the typical recriminations in traditional network marketing business after such a collapse, I am still friends with this group of affiliates despite the failure. This experience was an important and painful lesson for me, so I want to pass it on to you so that you might avoid my mistake. And here’s the primary lesson: New affiliates must literally be indoctrinated into duplicating your system. They must be taught in the beginning to follow the system of their sponsor and not deviate from it.

What I’ve learned is that even if you handpick the best recruiters and most committed people in a newly opened foreign market, set them up with all the training tools they need, help close their best prospects, sign them up during an opening day launch attended by the company’s highest dignitaries–even if you do all that–if those people are unwilling to duplicate one simple system that has proven itself elsewhere, they are destined for failure. That’s the frightening reality about the Scatter Bomb.

Network Marketing: Stay Focused

Another obstacle in the battle for success probably afflicts every single affiliate who ever enters the network marketing industry. I call it the Scatter Bomb. It is quite easy to fall into this booby trap because of the very changeable nature of our business. Simple put, the Scatter Bomb is a mental explosion that diffuses the focus of affiliates, causing them to stop using the system they have been taught and to frantically follow any and every new network marketing system that comes along.

The Scatter Bomb occurs frequently in the first year, sending new affiliates in search of any new leader, company, sales aid, or system that might enable them to succeed more rapidly or more easily. It is deceptive because it comes disguised as the ultimate new tool or as the perfect strategy for success. Sometimes it’s a new manual or video, which many new affiliates assume will be more effective than the work program currently used, merely because it’s new.

Other times it’s a new leader who comes to town with a brand new way to do the network marketing business, and since he’s making more money than you, his system must be better than yours. When your spirits are really down, it can even be a new company with a ,better compensation plan. whether the Scatter Bomb takes the form of a person, system, or company, the very worst thing you can do in your first year is yield to the temptation to change direction every time a new system comes along.

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Network Marketing: Do Not Pressure Friends

Another mistake made by a new affiliate is to pressure twenty to get into the  network marketing business, then the new affiliate spends the next six months trying to drag those people across the finish line. For many, many well-meaning people, network marketing is the process of selling people on our industry, then doing everything possible to make those people successful.

Unfortunately, that’s literally the antithesis, the exact opposite, of what our business is all about. Our job is not to do it all for them. It is to teach them how to do it for themselves. We are educators. We teach people a new way to buy and sell products and services and a new way to make a living. The more people we educate (by getting them to review an audio-visual package and then sit down with us and hear the whole story), the more money we all earn. The more people we approach with extreme enthusiasm about partnering in a network marketing business that will generate big money and free time, the more people we get to meet with us in the first place.

So make absolutely certain that you leave no one off your warm market list. And when you begin calling them–on your own, remember, no three-way, gang-up calls–make certain that you are in an enthusiastic frame of mind. Share your desire to be involved in business with them and focus your prospecting question around big money, free time, and a lifetime partnership.

Network Marketing: Awaken Your Prospects

The philosopher Maurice Nichol used to say, “All people are asleep. And in order to awaken them from their stupor long enough to introduce them to a new idea or way of doing things, you must give them some sort of conscious shock.” I agree. What we’ve got to recognize is that unless you use high income numbers, most people will remain asleep. The promise of $20,000-$30,000, even $50,000 a month–income levels actually achieved by top earners–is usually enough of a conscious shock to awaken most folks to your presentation.

Then, if the time is right, and if they’ve been thinking about changing careers or feared being laid off, they might respond affirmatively, listen to an audio presentation, and actually come to a meeting. That’s one of the keys to effective network marketing. Many people have the leadership potential to do this business, but may not reveal it to you unless the timing is right.

Network Marketing: Enthusiasm

Because attitude rather than ability leads to real success in network marketing, your biggest asset is enthusiasm. But I’m not talking about some fake excitement that is a learned behavior, or following some script written by your upline associate. I’m talking about natural enthusiasm, that is, your excitement after realizing you could be only months away from earning $20,000 a month! Whatever strategy works to motivate you and get you in a positive frame of mind prior to calling warm market prospects, employ it. The deeper your belief level, the greater your chance of success in network marketing.

It also helps to realize that you are first and  raise their curiosity over the phone foremost an educator. You are not a salesperson, nor are you a professional recruiter. Your job is to teach as many people as possible that there’s a better way to live and to earn residual income. When you call your warm market leads, your only objective is to get them to seriously consider your network marketing company. It is hard to convince prospects over the phone in their very first call to change jobs and join their company. Nor is it easy to consistently sell products or services over the phone. So don’t try!

Network Marketing: Education

Network marketing is a business of education. You may want to begin by having your prospects review an audio-visual package, but eventually you need to interact face to face. It is about teaching people how to teach others to build an organization of people who use and share products and/or services.

Keep in mind, the more information you give to prospects over the phone, the less likely they will be willing to listen to an audio or attend a network marketing  business presentation. Try to raise their curiosity over the phone rather than satisfy it. Do not give information out during your first call or answer a lot of questions. Share your enthusiasm and set a time and place for the meeting to which you are inviting them. Make sure you are talking from your heart, inviting those with whom you truly wish to associate.

In network marketing, people usually make decisions based on certain emotions. A desire for more money is one of the reasons you can count on to motivate prospects to attend meetings. No product or service, except perhaps a lure to a better career, is exciting enough to cause people to want to change professions. But the possibility of having total control of their time and a monthly income of $20,000 to $30,000–maybe even $50,000!–gets the attention of most people, even the most cynical.