The dreaded F-word, failure — it is so important, so common, and yet so misunderstood. Succeeding in Network Marketing depends on knowing how to apply the same leverage principles that make the business model work to the failures you’ll encounter in your day-to-day experience as a Networker.

Few people choose to study their own failures except to lament the consequences and formulate what they believe to be corrective solutions. Most of us have strong tendency to concentrate on the negative side of failure — it’s all bad. (This is terrible., I was counting on Bill to join! It’s no wonder, I must have sounded so stupid on the phone. . . . The meeting was awful! This one prospect just wouldn’t shut up about pyramids so it got all tense and no one signed up…. Oh my God, the company’s gone bankrupt, how am I going to explain it to my group ?!) While the experience of a failed effort can range from mildly unpleasant to devastating, in focusing on the experience alone, we miss the significant positive contributions. The fact is that, like it or not, it’s impossible to be successful without experiencing some degree of failure. Of course we want to avoid it, but how many of us avoid it at such costs that we end up avoiding success with equal determination?

By promoting a more informed and tolerant opinion of failure, I hope to counter the pressure that causes people to respond to failure in ways that inhibit progress and spawn more of the same.  I suggest instead that failure can be a compass for day-by-day progress as you build your Network Marketing business.

Your Failure Guarantee:
Perfectionism Read the rest of this entry »

We know we need to talk to people, so let’s look at a situation we all find ourselves in when we attempt to speak with someone we don’t know.

Place and time: an elevator in a professional office building, late afternoon.

You get on the elevator, push the button for your floor, and watch the numbered lights flick on as you climb.  What’s on your mind? Things you need to take care of at work before 5pm; what you might have for dinner that night; weekend plans. . . .

Then suddenly the elevator stops. It’s not your floor.

The doors slide open and there is a woman:  “Going up?” she asks, as she steps in. You smile politely and nod. She pushes the button for her floor, and the doors begin to close.

The woman looks very professional and carries a stuffed briefcase. She leans back against the wall and sighs. “What a day,” she says.

You smile politely. “Yes, yes, what a day,” you respond, and then you look away.

Suddenly your mouth goes dry and your mind goes blank—you stare up at the numbers above the door. Yikes! It’s like you’ve completely forgotten how to speak. You know you’re being rude, but, well, you don’t know what to say anymore.

The elevator continues to climb: 6…7…8…

All you can think about is your MLM business, and the fact that you know you should try to contact this woman — she’s professional and sharp-looking; who knows, she might be interested. You’ve read all the books and listened to the tapes.  You know you should — but your heart is racing.

9…10. . . 11 …

You smile in her direction. She’s watching the numbers. You think: This is the longest elevator ride of my life!

A voice inside you — the brave, confident, I’m-a-leader voice — whispers: Just talk to her, get a business card, do something.

But you’re frozen. Because there is another voice inside you — the scared, embarrassed, I-can’t-do-it voice — yelling:

Don’t say anything! She wouldn’t be interested? She’s too corporate, she’s not the Network Marketing “type,” she doesn’t need it. She would laugh at you.

12 … 13 … 14 … the elevator stops. The doors part, and the woman steps out and disappears. You lean back against the wall.  The doors close, you are alone.

And you . . .feel horrible.

Where The Action Is

Welcome to the Frontline — the Frontline of Networking.

Of all the “lines” in the world of Network Marketing — upline, downline, crossline, bottom line — the Frontline is perhaps the place of greatest fear and greatest productive action. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you worked like crazy in your Network Marketing opportunity for months or years, talked to hundreds, maybe thousands of prospects, and achieved very little result? Ever wonder why those ex-truck drivers and ex-welfare moms posing next to their Lamborghinis and million dollar homes can do it and you can’t?  Have you ever thought “What’s wrong with me?”

If so, you’re in good company. Thousands of would-be successful distributors are giving up or starting over yet one more time, and most of them are headed for a familiar dead-end result. You see, they lack one little piece of vital information. If they knew and accepted this little morsel of truth, a futile and continuous round of failure would be transformed into a path of assured success and fulfillment. It would transform their hours of teeth-clenching and gut-wrenching “working the numbers” into pleasant exchanges with interested and qualified prospects, many of whom would join their organizations. Knowing this tidbit can do the same for you!

What is this closely held and much-denied secret? It is that effective Network Marketing requires selling!

Horrors! You say they told you that you didn’t have to be a salesperson? There it was, right there in their ad: “No Selling Required!” They said, “Just share the products and the opportunity with a few others, help them do the same!” They may have overstated the simplicity and ease just a bit. Read the rest of this entry »

If I mention the words “photocopier” or “overnight delivery” or “personal computer,” chances are that a specific brand name immediately pops into your mind. When you go to the grocery store, don’t you gravitate toward certain products over and over because you know them by name and think to look for them each time you walk down the aisles?

In each of these situations, you’re activating “mental shelf space” — the automatic association of a product or service with the person or organization delivering it. That is the kind of powerful mental connection that each of us needs to develop for our MLM business. If you’re an expert Networker, not only will the people you know think about you when the MLM product or MLM service you’re associated with comes up in conversation, but your name rolls off their tongues as quickly as the recognized brand of overnight delivery service.

Please understand, we’re not talking about a right or wrong way to network. Even a broken clock is right twice a day; however, different Networking styles produce different results. Is your Networking style appropriate for you, your Networking partners, your markets, your MLM products and services, and your own goals and objectives? Will it bring you to the results you’re after? Only you can answer these questions.

Take a moment to think — when your network of acquaintances thinks about you, what do you guess comes to mind? Analyst, insurance person, that guy from the office, international marketer? You know the saying, “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know”? Ask yourself who knows you. Do they know what you can do for them? When they think of the MLM product or service you provide, do they automatically pull your name off the shelf? There’s no reason they shouldn’t; you need to decide what perception you want to create of yourself.

I tell my prospective MLM distributors that passively thinking about something does nothing for their wallets. Remember when you were growing up, and people told you to “think before you speak”? Sage advice to be sure, but focused, targeted action must follow the thoughts!

You and I will work very hard over our lifetimes. Hard work is not the challenge. Working smart is. Short of scientific inquiry and space exploration, there’s not a lot of “new” information; this means it’s in your power today, through your choice of a Networking approach, to create mental shelf space for yourself in enough people’s minds to build a booming MLM business.

What style are you employing and what methods are you using to become known to your MLM target market? Read the rest of this entry »

Most of us think we listen. We do — to ourselves. We have a “listening repertoire.” We listen “hurry up; get to the bottom line; yeah, yeah, yeah; been there, done that; who do you think you are? yeah, right; prove it.” A speaker has as much opportunity to be heard in a roaring crowd of football fans as he or she would standing in front of someone listening with their “listening repertoire.” Whatever we’re listening to, it’s rarely the speaker.

MLM Leaders who listen allow the speaker to recognize and experience being fully heard, to fully unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow and come to life in the presence of listening.

Who are the MLM leaders you go to for advice, coaching, feedback? Not to the “practical ones” who tell you exactly what to do, how to do it, when to do it. You go to the leaders who listen, brainstorm without censorship, are the least bossy. It’s because by discussing your problems and circumstance with them, you then know “what to do” about it yourself. Read the rest of this entry »