I have been talking about a number of misconceptions in network marketing and this time I’m going to cover one which is a very interesting one.  

Poor Image

In many people’s mind, network marketing is about chasing their friends and relatives.  ”Oh, I don’t want to do that!” The thought of being in this Network Marketing chasing gang can be daunting for a stay-at-home mum!

Professional Image

What if you can do network marketing professionally? You don’t have to chase your friends and relatives.

How are we going to promote products, services or business opportunity if we are not chasing them? Simple,  we just help them!

One of my favourite trainers Tom ‘Big Al’ Schreiter joked about that the mission of all professional network marketers is to promote World Peace.

When people are keen to know what you have to offer, you share. That’s it. And if people are not open to new ideas, not open to checking out what you have to offer, leave them alone.

Where to Find People to Talk To?

This is a common question for  serious network marketers. If I’m not chasing my friends and relatives, where can I find people to talk to?

A lot of people do network marketing by initially talking to their friends and relatives. This is mainly they know that the products and services can help them. Or, they believe that by promoting great products or services, they can bless their friends or relatives with an additional source of income. However, network marketing is not for everyone. Most people can only enrol just a few of their friends.

Asking for referrals is a very effective way of getting the network marketing business going. Yet, some people are actually loving the product so much that they would like to promote it. That is, they themselves goes into the business.  They are to build their own business. They are not going to refer people to you. In that case,  you will have to continue networking.  This is what most mums can do well.

When done professionally, you continue to enrol others or get referrals from others who may know some other people who need the products or opportunity.

Attraction Marketing?

There is also one other newer breed of network marketing called “attraction marketing”. Marketing is primarily done online. The whole online community knows what you are doing. If people are looking for opportunities or looking for products and services, they will resonate with what you have to offer. They will contact you. This is a whole new different dynamic. You definitely do not need to chase your friends and relatives if you decide to do network marketing that way!

If you  would like to explore a little bit about this online attraction marketing, send me an email or leave a comment below.  I’ll be more than happy to help you along this journey.

PS: While online attraction marketing is making a lot of buzz, attraction marketing can also be practised offline. How? Simply by doing network marketing professionally. Others will be attracted to you because of your professionalism.

No Chasing Any More!

You can probably appreciate that chasing friends and relatives may not be the smartest move. I hope my blog post can be the wake up call for network marketers who are still chasing others like crazy!

Welcome for another post focusing on dispelling some of the myths about Network Marketing. Today, I would like to cover the issue about seriousness in doing the business. That is, can people succeed using only part time efforts?

A Lot of Time & Effort?

A lot of people believe that they have to be serious enough to devote a lot of time and effort in order to make network marketing work. The reality is this doesn’t has to be the case.  If you want to work really hard and are able to commit to a lot of hours per week (say, over 30 hours),  you can certainly do that. However, this business model can also benefit part-timers.  Many network marketing companies have great compensation plan to reward part time network marketers too.

Part Timer Success Story

I’m going to give you a real-life example about a stay at home mum. When she first started, she worked part time when her children were at school. She shared the benefits of the products or the brilliant Network Marketing business as a way of earning extra income.  Over time, she gradually had a team of people in her organization who were continuing to share the products or the business. Her focus was in helping her team members do Network Marketing well. So, instead of she herself doing all the recruiting, she teamed up with her key leaders to promote either the product or business.

Some people want to build a big organization. Some would like to have an extra five hundred or a thousand a month. By helping the leaders to realize their individual goal, her team grew.

Did she have to do a lot of work? A lot of time and energy and effort? Yes! But not necessarily full time.  She was focused and effective working part time!

Now, she has developed many great leaders. Her role shifted much from direct enrolling to team building and mentoring. She has created a legacy and a fine example for others to follow.

Next Topic – Chasing Friends and relatives?

Next time, I’m going to talk about a much talked about challenge. This is about the having to chase friends and relatives into the business.

Until then, see you!

Hi, over these few weeks I’m going to cover some of the ideas that I’d say are wrong ideas that people believe in Network Marketing.

Where Goes The Big Money?

Here is the Number 1 misconception – all the big money is being earned by the people who enrolled early. And I think this is the most ridiculous and discouraging one. I am with a company that has been around for over 25 years. I’ve seen so many people earning way more than their sponsor.

Network Marketing has a brilliant structure there. Anyone who joins the company owns their own business. They are much like independent franchisees. The success of their business is based on a proven system that works! Work hard, do the right thing, get the good results. No work. No results. Do the wrong things. Poor results. As simple as that.

Let me tell you the story of a truck driver who has been earning so much more than his sponsor because he shares his products and services like crazy, with a lot of people. At the early days, he had to sell the lower priced products in order to get some instant cash in.  He is now one of the top income earners with a huge organization. Many of his team leaders became successful and continued to share the company’s mission and/or products.

Let’s look at his sponsor. He was quite happy having a more relaxed lifestyle. He did not choose to go for another leadership level.  His monthly pay cheque would still be handsome one because he is receiving over-riding  commission that comes in every month through this ex-truck driver leader’s huge organization.

What about the bonus received by this ex-truck driver leader? HUGE cheque. Shouldn’t it be the case? He has been working hard consistently.

More Real Life Stories

There was this housewife who kept on improving and later earned enough to retire her husband. This couple has been continuing their empowering team training program to create ripple effects. This is another example of ‘ordinary’ people out-performing their sponsor.

In another case, this nurse ‘brought home’ this creating freedom idea, worked her way up the organization and eventually impressed her MBA husband to check out what was possible with building a successful distributorship business from home. This couple has now won awards from the ‘Most Improved Distributor’ to ‘International Distributors of the Year’.  They have been blessed with the stay-at-home option whilst their children are growing up!

Another key leader’s sponsor has even left the company BEFORE this key leader became hugely successful. If the sponsor were to stay, the cheque would probably be a much smaller one!

Conclusion

The point is, a lot of people think that they have to join at the top when the company first starts. The mindset is “Go in early, get a good position and then get paid by other’s effort”. The reality is the same compensation structure is there for everyone. Everyone is their own boss. In Network Marketing result counts. Not the position.

Next time I’m going to cover a point about “only serious players can earn big money in network marketing”. I hope you stay tuned for that. See you!

Welcome back to the last blog in this Network Marketing Challenges Mini Series. My purpose is to help those who are on this Networking Marketing Success Journey for an additional income stream or even financial freedom (which I like to call ‘repeat income’ or ‘monthly pay cheque’). I trust that my tips can assist you in saving  a lot of time, energy and effort.

The Common Leadership Challenge

This time I’m going to talk about a very interesting challenge. This is about not being able to recognize the greatness in others. For some leaders, because they are so preoccupied with what they are doing, they fail to recognize that each and everyone have the potential to be great leaders.

For example, when leaders fall into a management mode, they may be so focused on team training that they place less effort in providing individual attention and mentoring to potential team leaders. Very often,  in Network Marketing, we have people who initially do not believe they can achieve great heights. Those potential leaders are where they are because they have not yet met true leaders who can see their greatness and encourage them along the way. Let’s face it, we all have weaknesses. Leaders challenge potential leaders to step up. Step up, step up and up skill until they reach a level where they themselves realize that they have the ability to turn their dream into reality.

True Leaders Challenge Others

Here is one key element that leaders need to understand. For new network marketers, they might be a little bit challenged by the very idea of becoming a leaders themselves.  How are they going to help their team leaders?  This is a legitimate concern for most new team members. The leading journey involves ‘leading by example’. To the new team member, it is  ajourney of grodaul transformation. Yet, not all team members will choose to BECOME a leader.

‘Leading by example’ is a great way to inspire others. You can inspire some potential leaders by your own action – forward action. For those who are not inspired, it takes courage to ‘confront’ them in a nice manner. With your own sincere desire to help them as the foundation, leaders use skillfully structured questions to lead them back to their goals and dreams.

We are ALL good enough to perform if we choose to step up. True leaders are here to help others see their own greatness. The choice to live out our greatness is always the individual team member’s own.

To summarize, A good leader is able to recognize people’s greatness even though that person doesn’t believe at all that they can do it.  When someone in your team have a strong enough reason why they will step up. It is their own internal desire that is motivating them to step up and reveal their greatness along the success journey.

In the next few weeks, I’m going to cover some of the wrong ideas about Network Marketing. I would really like to cover this because many people have those misconception that is actually stopping them from exploring further. No exploring. No possible future action. Talk soon!

We’ve been talking quite a number of challenges along the network marketing journey. And this time, I’m going to talk about going into management mode.

This might not apply to you if you are very new. This often happens when you have a few of the key leaders and you believe that these leaders would continue to develop other leaders. At this stage, the mistake is stop recruiting. You might be spending most of the reinventing the wheel, designing or refining the training systems, writing up new scripts and holding regular team training or mentoring sessions.  At one stage I was doing the above but not actively recruiting. My team members needed to be inspired to take action.  By me going into the management mode, the team went stagnant.

Continue What Worked

Instead of going into Management Mode, true leaders need to continue what worked and focus on teaching new members the skills. This way, new team members can taste their first success.

How to do that? By teaching new member what to do and what not to do! By you yourself continuing enrolling new team members into the team. This ‘leading by example’ way of team building cannot be underestimated. Over time, new team members can see themselves improving.

Inspiring Key Leaders

As you yourself developed into a key leader, you should be able to identify who are the  genuine players in your team. For some ‘leaders’, no matter how much you inspire or mentor them,  they are not producing results. My friend, that is when you know that he or she is not a true business builder. Save the time and energy to do more recruiting and get more serious people in. When there are about 20 personally enrolled team members,  there should be about 3-4 leaders. Start building the team with those leaders who are willing and happy to repeat what you have done. You recruit. They recruit. Build momentum from there!

You must be able to identify leaders, inspire them by action and continue the cycle.

What’s Next?

My next article would be about how to recognize people’s greatness.  Once you have identified those leaders who have a strong desire to succeed, you are there to help them and support them to go their success journey.

Your Contribution

Have you ever gone into management mode and suffered?

Ultimate successful network marketing business is to have a few of the key leaders becoming hugely successful. When you are doing the right steps at the beginning, new team members learn the right steps and succeed.

I have been covering a few of the key challenges along the network marketing journey in the past few weeks.

Self-Discipline

Today, I’m going to cover another very important challenge that a lot of people can relate to. It’s about self discipline. A lot of people are lacking discipline in doing the things that they know they need to do in network marketing.

Let’s have a brief check list here. First, you are embracing the brilliant Network Marketing business model. Second, you have done your due diligence and found a great company with great products or services. Third, your are in the RIGHT team – with proven training and marketing systems AND responsible and capable mentor. What is the defining ingredient for your own success? The YOU Factor, of course!

The Most Important Task

So, what is the most important thing that you need to do in network marketing? Talking to people of course!

This is what we call “prospecting”. If we don’t talk to people, we don’t have any result. Talk to a few people, just a little bit of result. Talk to a lot of people, a lot of results. Building momentum takes time and consistent effort.

Inappropriate Tasks & ‘Why’

Many people actually spend a lot of time on what we call “preparing to do the work”. They learn and learn and learn but never go into the game. They role-play, they just fiddle with the papers to get the script well typed out or even practise with team mates, etc. They do everything but not doing a thing relating to actually DOING network marketing.

Not talking to people is a sign, a symptom. It is a reflection that maybe the desire level is not strong enough. This is where having a mentor is very important. A mentor can look into your situation and help you re-focus on your goals and desires. Apart from the mindset issue, the mentor may help you with improving your communication skills, time management skills or other identified challenges.

For someone who is determined to succeed, there is no other option but succeeding because of the appropriate consistent action.

Success is a journey! 

What is Next?

Next time I’m going to  talk about another very common challenge that’s facing network marketers. This is when the network marketer has already got a group of business builders and is going into what I call “A Management Mode”. So until then, see you!

I have been sharing with you some Network Marketing tips using the alphabets  A – Z, In my last post, I talked about viewing our network marketing business as a Gift for blessing our prospects. I would like to start with a mini series to highlight some common challenges that we may face when sharing our gift with others.

At the end of the day, we want our prospects to know what we know. You can watch a short video that covers the number one challenge, even before a person joins a network marketing company!

The  challenge is listening to the wrong people. I bet you have come across some people who have tried network marketing but it just didn’t work out. Why? Main reason being they listened to friends and relatives who have never had any success in network marketing.

If you want to be successful in network marketing, wouldn’t it make more sense that you CHOOSE to seek the advice from leaders who have achieved great success? What I mean is that you will benefit in having a mentor who can lead you the right way, step by step rather than listening to the wrong crowd.

Often our close friends or relatives are not qualified to give you any advice about network marketing success.

I congratulate you for listening to what I’m saying because I have been there, I’ve gone through it. I saw people come and go. I am glad that I stayed on when I was facing challenges. By following the leaders who have done it, you literally have a success path to follow. Success is then predictable. I am glad that I stayed on when I was facing challenges.

Next time, I will be covering another key challenge that you must avoid.  Otherwise you will end up wasting a lot of your time doing the wrong tasks. Until then, we will talk about how we’re going to do network marketing in a professional manner.

What I’m talking about in this series of my articles are the challenges that you will be facing along the network marketing journey. If you don’t know the challenges and fail into the common traps, you will be be frustrated. If you know the challenges up front and you know the way to avoid  it, there is a greater chance that you will stay happy and relaxed. You create small successes from the start!

Professional Network Marketing

I believe some of you have been chased by network marketers to join their business or use the products that they love. Some persistent friends can be chasing you for years! I did that to my friends too.  This is because I was not taught how to do network marketing in a professional manner. By professional manner, I mean, we do listen and respect others’ personal choice. If people are not ready to make a change or not ready to listen to anything, we leave them alone.

Network marketing can be a very enjoyable journey as we explore other people’s circumstances and see if there is a way that our products and services might be a match to help them. If we know that whatever we have in hand can help our prospects, say, something that can relieve their medical condition, we could share, couldn’t we?

If people keep on doing the things that they are doing, they may stay in their predicament for life!

Be a Genuine Giver

Doing network marketing professionally means that our motive is right. It is not about the money or other rewards.  It is about how we can make others’ lives better. It is through our care and skillful questioning that others feel our love and concern for them. When we have this caring mentality in mind, prospecting is easy and full of fun. We are connecting with another human being to see whether our services can help them. Simple as that.

Respecting Others’ Decision

Being professional can be tough as we really need to respect others’ choices in life. Letting go of the outcome of prospecting is one of the skills that we must master.  As much as we would love others to embrace the products or business opportunity, there is no way that we could ‘impose’ our choice for them.

Be professional and move on to help others who needed our help AND are ready to be helped.

What is Next?

So next time, I will be talking another challenge which is a very interesting one. Network marketing is called ‘network marketing’ for a reason. We have to create ‘network’ AND to do ‘marketing’. We cannot just network or just do marketing.

Until then. See you!

Network Without Marketing?

In the past articles, I’ve been talking about the key challenges along the way when doing network marketing professionally. This time, I’m going to cover another key points. I’m going to talk about the network marketing profession.  It is Network AND Marketing.

In my early years, I did a lot of networking but had not developed the skill to ask for the sale. I got ZERO results in my first year! The point is, we are in a business that is rewarding us by results (the sales volumes that we have created for the network marketing company because of our marketing efforts). If you are going to do a lot of networking, making a lot of friends but never share how the products and services might be able to help others, you’re never going to get paid because you have not introduced any customers or business partners into your team.

Marketing Without First Done Networking Well?

Some people, on the other hand, very much focused on marketing to such an extent that and they forget about that network marketing is a people business. Do you just market… and market… and market without actually going into why others want your services? Do people REALLY want your services? Are there emotional reasons for people wanting your services? You’re going to face challenges if you have not found out the deeper reason(s)!

To be successful in network marketing, you need to be very good at people skill. That means that you get good at really connecting with people, really listening, asking great questions and asking for the sale when it is appropriate. And, you really have to learn how to market. By this I mean, you really need to learn ways to expose your products or business opportunity to more people. This can be done by referral, can be done online, can be done by going day-to-day networking.

Network + Marketing = The Way To Go

Whatever the situation is, you got to be networking (online or offline) AND marketing. You can’t do network marketing well by just networking OR marketing. It has to be both.

Simply networking? No or little results.

Simply marketing? Not effective if marketing is not based on established relationship first.

What is Next?

Stay tuned for my next post. I will be talking about one very common challenge – lacking discipline.

Meanwhile, I would appreciate your generous sharing.

Been in a position when you market without first establishing great relationship?

What about having challenges coming up with asking others to sign up (as customer or business partner)?

A while ago, I started a blog post talking about Network Marketing as “A Better Way” for the future. Yet many people still have quite an attitude towards this industry. I truly believe that some people do not choose to embrace this business model simply because of their perception of what Network Marketing is.

Ignorance Is The Problem

Here are some of the most common MIS-perception about what it takes to be successful in Network Marketing:

1. Annoying or Chasing Friends

I must admit that this is, sadly, a general image of a Network Marketer. More than once, I was being chased. I also chased or annoyed my friends or relatives when I joined my current company nine years ago. It took me a long time to realize that chasing may not be the most effective way to educate others about what I was passionate about.

Now I would only share what I have with others who would like to hear about it (product or business opportunity). I believe that although there are more and more network marketers doing business like this (professionally), people’s perception of what Network Marketing is still have not changed much.

Questions: Is Network Marketing an ‘annoying’ industry? Or, is it the individual’s way of doing business annoying?

2. Have to be Good at Selling

To be honest, products needed to be moved for the Network Marketing Company to make any profit. The question is: do individuals SELL their products and make a profit (as in the case of a traditional retail business)? While some traditional business owners (eg those who sell skin care products in their beauty salon) prefer to run their Network Marketing business that way, most people do business quite differently.

How do they ‘sell’ then? Typically, they SHARE.

What this means is that once they have experienced great results with the products, they CANNOT WAIT to share with others!

By sharing from personal experiences and from the heart, they can create some ‘sales’ and got commission from the company’s Marketing Plan (sometimes called the Compensation Plan).

For people with an entrepreneurial mind, they would take on the business opportunity after hearing a lot of testimonials and doing some research on the company and products.

By now, you can probably see why this ‘Word-of-Mouth’ Marketing is so powerful. We have here good products that are recommended by trusted friends or relatives. And, there is a choice to open an account and buy wholesale. PLUS: an option to go into business with a very low start up ‘capital’ and extremely low risks (no employee, no large overhead).

Selling? Not really. It is sharing. Some very business-focused network marketers may call it ‘sorting’ – sorting through who want the products or business opportunity. I like to call it ‘serving’. Some people benefit from the product use, say, getting rid of common ailments by nutritional support. Others may benefit from having another $500, $1000 or even more extra family income. Isn’t that considered a service to others?

If you enjoyed this discussion, you may want to check out my previous post ‘Selling? Sharing? Serving?’ too.

More Sharing is Coming

I have covered these two most controversial issues in Network Marketing to illustrate a point – Ignorance can keep us away from reaching our full potential. It can also keep us from reaching out to help others.

Stay tuned for my next post. I will be sharing more ‘I for Ignorance’ perspectives relating to this situation:

‘Okay,  know that Network Marketing is a legitimate way of marketing products or services. I do not think that I can successfully build a Network Marketing business because __________________’

Your Thoughts?

“I don’t have time.”

“I don’t have money.”

“I don’t have a lot of friends.”

These are the most common reasons for people NOT joining a Network Marketing opportunity…