Network marketing is a numbers crunching, sorting through the people kind of business.  Your are looking for those that want to go NOW!  Do not worry about those that say NO, just those that say YES.  Some of the NOs will come along later.  I call those ”checkers” – they will from time-to-time “check” on how that “thang your in” is going.  When they see you moving on without them, they will jump on board.  People are going to do what they are going to do.  And, for most of them, that means “nothing”.  Don’t get hung up on that.  Worry about what you can control and people “ain’t” one of them.  The number of exposures you make is all you can control and that will drive the number of recruits you get.  Learn this early and teach it to your team and you will explode in growth.  If you understand that you “are no gona save the world from poverty” by making everybody you know successful, you are way ahead of the game. 

Three Questions You Need to Answer

1.  Can I do this?  I bet you can hand out a tool and make a follow up call.  That isn’t hard.  What’s hard is working on the job for thirty or forty years working to make someone else a lot of money.

2.  Do I have the time to do this?  I think so.  Just turn the dang TV off and convert TV time into prospecting time.  Is that really a sacrifice?  If it is you really need to examine your priorities.

3.  Am I willing to sharethis with my family, friends, acquaintances, and business associates?  Oh, now this is were the rubber meets the road, because this is the only way you are going to make any money in network or direct marketing.  Let that sink in.  You have to tell somebody about what you have to offer!

Master the Mundane and Succeed

Recruiting and marketing our services is a process.  The process is simple and consist of the following four steps:

1. Market products or services
2. Sponsor new associates
3. Plug the new assoicates into a system that trains, motivates and helps them do steps 1, 2, and 3
4. Never, never quit and repeat these steps, over and over and …   

The number of times and the frequency these steps are repeated determines how long it takes to reach your goals.  This is the only “magic” to becoming successful.  It is simple, but not easy.  The hard part is that they are so easy not to do!  It is sad, but 95% will choose to “not” do them, and that is ok.  You make sure you are in the 5% that “do” them.

How to Market a Product or Service

Golden Rule #1 - The more you say, the less you make! 

So, ”say” very little!  Use a third party tool and get out of the way!  In other words, “Shut Up” and let someone else, or something, do the talking; a DVD, a 3-way call to your up line support team, a website, a recorded phone message, a business briefing -use anything but “your” mouth.  The reason is because if you “spew” all the knowledge you have at a prospect or have a slicker that grease sales pitch, they are going to leave you very confused and they are going to be thinking, “I could never remember all that information.  It is fine for him, but I don’t know how to sell.”  You want the prospect leaving your presence thinking, “I can do that.  All he did was give me a DVD to watch, or gave me a website.  I can do that.”  I know this works because my sponsor gave me a DVD – actually I grab-ed it from him and asked what it was.  He replied, “Oh, just something I am investigating.”  I watched the DVD and bought the service.  Two days later I ask him, “Can you make any money at this?”  He said, “Why yes, I think we can” and he gave me another DVD to watch.  I signed up as an associate to market the services through my own home business!.  Oh yes, he did ask me once a week at church, for nine weeks, “Rick, have you watched that DVD yet?  I need to get it back.”  Finally I felt embarased about keeping it so long and watched it the tenth week.  So keep it simple and use a third party tool and you must follow up.

Understand this and learn it well – “The fortune is in the follow-up!”  If my sponsor had not kept asking me for that DVD, I would have never watched it, probably.  If my sponsor had missed me, he would have missed one to the top six producers in a business that has approximately 200,000 associates; not me but someone I sponsored!  See how important the follow-up is?

The Approach – Keep It Simple Stupid

This is all you want to say.  The faster you master this, and it is difficult not to spew all you know all over the prospect, the faster you will succeed.

1.  I have something I want to “SHOW” you.

2.  It takes about 15 minutes.

3.  Oh, buy the way, you may or may not be interested, but is now a good time?

4.  What is the best way to contact you after you watch this information?  (As you hand them a DVD, or a card with a website URL, etc.)

Using a recorded call ( a SIZZLE CALL) - In step 1 above, if you have your cell phone, you might say as you dial the SIZZLE CALL number:  (Don’t ask them if they want to listen to something; assume they do.) 

1.  “I have something I want you to listen to real quick.

2.  It only takes a couple of minutes.

3.  Oh, buy the way, you may or may not be interested, but listen closely.  (After they have listened, go to 4.)

4.  On a scale of one to ten, where are you?  Ten being, ready to go, and zero being, I’m not interested at this time?

This works!  Don’t take it from me.  The number one money earner in our company uses this approach.  Learn from those that have “been there done that”.  I did.

Golden Rule #2 - Exposure is everything!

Our whole job is to properly expose (using third party and getting out of the way) a prospect to what we have to offer.  That’s it!  Give them the opportunity to say “YES” or “NO”.  You can not control what they say so get over it.  You can only control how many you expose. 

Never exposing them would be like opening up a store front, that might cost a half million dollars to do so, and never telling anyone you are in business.  You have a business, so treat it like one.

Please don’t be guilty of saying this, “Oh, I want to get all my ducks in a row and get everything planned out just how it is all going to work, and learn all the details so I will be ready to answer all my prospects questions.”  This is just an excuse to do nothing – you have to overcome your fear of failure.  So fail – yes fail your way to the top.  It is the only way you are going to get there.  Remember, Jim Rohn says, “You don’t have to bat a thoussand to make big money.  Talk to 10 get 1.  Talk to 10 and get two, two out of 10 will make you wealthy.”

There is an old Chinese proverb that goes like this, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”  Baby steps.  Take baby steps and get started, today, not tomorrow.  Time is wasting and there is too little of it to waste.

Here are a few principles that you must be aware of in order to succeed at your new home based direct marketing business.  They apply to us all and there is no getting around them, no shortcuts:

1.  Success is voluntary – It is a choice, a decision to take the “appropriate actions” to move forward. 

2.  The Decision is involuntary – You will either choose to “do” the things that make you successful, or by default, you choose not to do those things and fail.

3.  Not Wort Much -A decision to do something without “proper activity”, well, is just a decision.  It is not worth much.  It does not create success, only frustration.

4.  Proper Activity – Consistent, persistent “proper activity” over time is worth a fortune.  It is the only way to succeed in your business, in your life.

5.  Just Do It! - Nike did not think of this saying; it comes right out of the Old Testament of the Bible.  People who spend all their time learning all the details and trying to figure it all out before making a decision to do something and then doing it, are throwing up a smoke screen to hide their fear of getting started.  A fear of getting a “NO”.  A fear of “failure”.  Get over it!  Listen to the person that wants you to succeed even more than you do, your sponsor, your up line support team.  Your success is their success.  Trust them, lean on them, and learn from them.  Duplicate what they teach you and show you what to do.  Remember, you are not in your business by yourself.  Go up line until you find someone that is willing to help.

6.  Exposure is Everything!- This is the most important thing in direct marketing.  You must learn the proper way to expose your prospect to yor services/products and/or business opportunity.  The proper way is using a third-party tool, not your mouth.

7. Fail Your Way to the Top- There is no other way to succeed.  You must go through the “NOs” to get a “YES”.  The faster you go through the NOs the faster you will succeed.  I had a very good and successful friend tell me that when I got through eleven hundred NOs I would have a six figure income.  I am going through them as fast as I can!  “NO”!  So what.  Who cares!  Next!

So, succeeding is a simple, not easy, but a simple process.  If you expose your prospect properly to what you are offering and repeat it over and over and over, you will succeed.  I will take a person who will do that verses the person that just decides to do something, every time. 

In my next post, I will give you a very simple approach that works.  The questions is, “Will you”?

To sum it all up, “Just Do It”!  because a life time of regrets awaits if you don’t”.

Your Success is Our Success!

Sound familar?  If you have tried any type of network marketing in the past, I am sure your answer is, “affirmative”.  You may even be guilty of making such statements yourself – ouch!  So many let that “broke brother-in-law” or “best” friend steal their dreams. 

You might be able to identify with how I got started in my first direct marketing business in 1980.  I remember walking back from my parents home, about 9:30 pm, to my house next door, with a “decision kit” in each hand after a two hour presentation by their sponsor, “who drove all the way from Dallas to share this opportunity”.   Each weighed about sixty pounds.   I stopped walking for a moment, looked up at the stars and asked, “Lord, what have you got me into this time”?  The bad thing was, my mom wasn’t going to buy any soap from me; she sponsored me and I was going to have to pay her for those two decision kits after I signed up!  I was broke.  Then it hit me!  If this is going to work, then I am going to have to do the same thing that fellow drawing those circles did.  How am I going to do that?  I know many of you are chuckling at this very moment because you have “been there, done that”.  Right?  Well, to make a long story short, I sponsored approximately fifteen people and my organization grew to one hundred and twenty strong!  Not near enough.

In 1995 I was sponsored into a vitamin company by you guessed it, mom and dad.  Won’t be selling them any vitamins!  Well I sponsored about twelve first level distributors and ended up with about sixty  distributors in all.  No near enough!

Well, how many does it take?  A lot more than twelve of fifteen first level.  Here is what the numbers show from over thirty years of data from the company I represent:

• Expose 10 prospects to your opportunity and/or product/services – You will get 1 assoicate and sell 2 or 3 plans/products (If you follow-up with in 48 hours; this is where most mess up).
• Sponsor 7 and you will have 1 that does something.  (Something means make a sale or two and/or sponsor a new associate each month).  In our business the average assoicate that does something sells 2 plans a month.
• That means you and/or your organization must expose 70 people to get one assoicate that does something. (10×7=70) or (10×7=1 that does something).

Well, just how many first level is enough?  I suggest you expose enough people to get five first level assoicates you are working with on a regular basis.  Five that are working the business will keep you busy because you will be working with them in the depths of their organization.  When one organization reaches a certain level of success, in most compensation plans, they break away from you (become a closed organization), you need to add another first level so you always have five first level, open organizations, you are working with at any given time.  Well, you say that looks like it is going to take 350 personal exposures to get those five (70×5).  Not really.  I consider the first person in any organization (leg), no matter how deep, that is doing something, my first level.  So it is you and your organization doing exposures. 

You work in depth where there is fire.  Work with the willing!  Spend your time with those that deserve it, not with those that want it.  Everybody wants to be successful, but not everybody is will to do what it takes to be successful.  Learn this early or late, but just remember it; you are not going to make anyone successful!  So, don’t single handedly try to make everybody you sponsor in your business successful.  It ain’t gonna happen!  That is something they have to decide to do.  Spend your time with those that follow the system; not those that do their own thing.  You help and support them in every way you can.  If they are “willing to work”, then it is your responsibility to do so, as their sponsor.  You are a bridge to their dreams and that is an ausome  responsibility.  Don’t take it lightly.  Too much depends on it.

Don’t get hung up on those that say “no”.  You are looking for a “yes”; those that want to go now.  Some of the ones that said “no” will come along later.  Some will be “checkers”!  They will from time to time check on how your business is going.  Many are not saying “no”.  They are saying “later”; not right now.  Life happens and things change in life, so I never take anyone off my prospect “list” unless they tell me to never mention it again.  That’s a “no”, but even then I leave them on the list.

Network marketing is like panning for gold.  A good analogy of prospecting for associates and finding the ones that really help your network marketing business take off is like “prospecting or panning for gold”; a precious metal for sure.  You may or may not have actually panned for gold.  The reason it works is that gold is heavier than soil and rocks that surrond it or keep it from being seen.  So, by taking the pan and scooping up a lot of muck, along with water, from a stream being prospected and continuously swerling it around and around, all the time letting some water wash the dirt and grime, along with the lighter rocks, over the rim of the pan, until all that remains is the precious mineral for which you were looking.

This is a great analogy of what it takes to build a successful netwok marketing business:

• Set a goal of finding some gold!  If you just wander around looking down into the stream every once in a while, you will not accidentally stumble across a fortune.
• You have to pick up the pan.  You will need tools to build your business just as you need the tools needed for panning for gold – a pan!  Very simple.  I really like this, because you need to keep it simple; something anyone can do.  Stick to the basics.
• You have to go to work and scoop up some muck.  You must get your hands dirty.  The multitudes will sign up for anything, go to all the trainings, read all the books, listen to all the tapes, and sit on their hands and wonder why it is not working.  Dumb.  Question.  Would you invest half a million dollars opening up a store front and not tell anyone you are in business?  This is what the majority will do in network marketing.  They get all prepared.  They will do everything that is necessary but the most important thing - tell more than two or three prospects what they are doing; what they have to offer.  There are many reasons for this, but the number one is the fear of failure.  You must fail your way to the top.
• Don’t give up the first week.  Prospecting takes weeks and months of constantly working and searching for the prize.  Consistent effort over time will produce favorable results. 

Currently, as of November 23, 2008, I have 532 associates in my organization in 43 states plus Canada and over 7,100 plans sold.  Of the 532 associates, 221 are active, many have quit and most of my production comes from one organization.  It does not take very many that do something.  That one leg has produced over 2,300 plans this year so far.  I had two other pretty strong legs, but for one reason or another, they fizzled.  Because I have not built enough strength in width, over $100,000 in overrides have passed me up in the past three years.  I am making some decent money, but it could have been a lot better.  You never know who is going to be a superstar.  One couple I sponsored, and placed under my nephew to help him out, turned out to be the sixth top producer out of 200,000 assoicates for the past three years.  Be sure to learn exactly how your compensation plan works and build width and depth at the same time; width for profitability and depth for security, like there is no tomorrow.  (I will have another post on compensation plans later).

So,don’t wait on anyone and remember this; the three most important things in network marketing are “recruit, recruit, recruit and don’t get them out of order”!  Exposure is everything!  One last thing – you have to go through the “NOs” to find a “Yes”.  The more “NOs” you go through, the faster you get to a “YES”!

Your success is our success.

You will have to learn to “put the blinders on” and move forward toward you goals.  Remember this one thing if nothing else; building one networking business is tough enough and being involved in more than one at a time is not a good idea for many reasons.  Once you have started building your network of associates (distributors) do not be fooled or swayed into “selling this product or service to your existing team (down line); they all need it”.  That is a sure fire recipe for failure and probably, in most cases, having your business taken from you by the company you have decided to go with for your first business.  It is tempting, but do not attempt it.  It will kill your business.  It will leave your team wondering:

• If what we are selling is so good, why are they now pushing this stuff
• What are they going to push down our throats next
• How serious you are about your business

The reason most MLM or network marketing companies do not let you do two things at once is that from years of experience they know:

• it divides the time you need to sell their product or services in to too small an amount of time; they want you to “focus” on their business with the time you have so you will succeed
• they know that if you start pushing other products and services down into your existing organization that it will soon kill that whole organization; I have seen this happen in the Amway business which I participated in from 1980 to 1995.  I saw my up-line go from Triple Diamond in three years to nothing.

If you divide your precisous “spare” time up, it is like dividing your forces and you will lose the battle.  You will quickly become a “wondering generality” ,not particularly good at any one thing.  You must stay focused on the task at hand.  You must stay focused on your goals and your dreams.  Too many things depend on your success.  In our business, “you become the steward of other people’s dreams”.  And that is something you should never take lightly.  So “Focus”. 

Focus is an important direct marketing success principle that is key to reaching your goals in your new home based business.  I found that in business, as in my personal life, the world has a way of getting in the way!  Once you receive your marching orders and you know what it is that you must be about doing with your life, it seems that the world conspires to do you harm.  It will throw eveything it has at you to rob you of success.  It happened, and continues to happen, to me and you can expect no less.  It is a test.  Your faith , determination and resolve will be tested.  Many times it will come from a direction you would never have thought about.  Many times it is from those that are closest to you; those who know you the best.  The bigger your goals or purpose, the more difficult the test.

Here is the best way to stay focused and is one piece of advice you need to learn early.  It is simple.  You know, one of those semmingly insignificant things that don’t seem to make any difference today – “Write you goals on a piece of paper and place it where you can review them every day”.   This acts as a homing device, a servomechanisim that keeps you on course when you begin to stray or are pulled off course by well meaning family members, friends, of ground floor opportunities.  I am not talking about a goal of making one million dollars my first year.  I am talking about writing down realistic goals you can achieve today:

• I will make two exposures by 12:00 PM
• I will read ten pages of “Think and Grow Rich” today
• I will follow-up with two prospects I exposed less than forty eight hours ago, by 10:00 AM
• I will tell my wife, my sweetheart, how much she means to me today

I am not suggesting that you become so focused that your loved ones are neglected, or that your family takes a backseat to your ambitions; never, even if what you are doing is for them.  Look at your schedule each week and find what time you have to devote to your business after you have considered your family time, church activities, community obligations, job, etc.  Find that time and let nothing else get in the way of that time.  “If you work part-time on your fortune and full-time on the job, one day you will be able to work full-time on your fortune”.  Jim Rohn

It is interesting, and this includes me, that at first you fit your new business into the time you have left over from everything else going on in your life.  But as you begin to have some success and see that you really can make some money, part-time from home, soon you begin to build everything else around your business.  Your focus changes as your belief level changes.

Example – I have a couple on my team that have built a part-time home business in twenty eight months.  They are both professionals and have a young family of two children and are number six in production out of over two hundred thousand associates.  I asked them how they did it.  They said they simply convert “TV Time” into “Telling Time”-telling others about what they have and are doiing.  That is now worth between fifteen and twenty five thousand dollars a month to their house hold income.  Would you turn the TV off for that kind of income?  You may find it suprising to find how many pople will not do that simple thing to be successful.  “Stupid is, stupid does, mama always said”.  Go figure and then go do it!  Too much depends on it.

Remember, if nothing changes, nothing changes!

Your success is our success.

How much is your time worth?  To a corporation or small business it depends on how much value your work (your time) adds to the company’s bottom line.  A CEO adds more value than the janitor, so that is why the big difference in pay.  You may be thinking, “Oh yea, wait till the CEO needs some toiletries!  I bet he would pay big money for a roll of toilet paper.  Supply and demand don’t you know”! 

What is needed is a way to “shrink the time” it takes to reach your goals.  For those in my age bracket, we need all the “shrinkage” we can get in the timeline to reach our goals before it is too late!  What we need is a “lever”.  Most have used “leverage” at one time or another to move a heavy object that we could not move without a lever and a fulcrum.  The closer the fulcrum is to the object to be moved and the longer the lever, the less effort it takes to lift the object.  From a business model perspective there is no better lever than a network or multilevel marketing model and I am not the only one that thinks so.  Ask Richard Poe, co-editor of “SUCCESS” magazine and author of the “WAVE” series of books;  WAVE4 being the latest.  He states that if you are not marketing you products or services through MLM or Network Marketing you will be out of business.  That is pretty powerful.  I highly recommend the book and Mr. Poe is not in MLM or Network Marketing.  He wanted to keep his opinion unbiased.

The “leverage” comes from you not having to do all the work.  The lever is the team, the fulcrum is the system.  It is very simple.  Find something you can do with the time you have to devote to it (and do it) and show someone else how to do the same thing.  It has to be simple enough for that person to then be able to show others how and so on.  It is called “duplicating” yourself in others and them doing the same.  With a concerted, consistent effort at repeating simple task over time, your organization, your business, will grow far beyond you.  It will grow without you and that is exactly what you want to happen.  The “leverage” is a geometric plot instead of a linear one.  Once it starts, you can not stop it and who would want to?  Residuals are really nice. 

If the business model you choose is all bout you, then your success will be limited to just what you can do.  That’s ok.  But, in network marketing or multilevel marketing, it is not about you!  It is about the system.  The system will help sponsor, train, and motivate your team members.  All you have to do are two things to be successful, once you have found a reputable MLM company to hang your future on:

1. Sell (tell others about) a product or service that has great value and is something that everyone needs
2. Sponsor new associates or distributors and plug them into the “system” that shows them how to do the same thing

You must learn to be “system dependent“, not independent.  Remember, it is all about the system.

A home based business operated on a part-time basis can get you to your dreams and it will pay dividends the rest of your life and save you from paying so much income tax, as well.  So what are you waiting on?  Get started today.

Your success is my success.

So, I encourage you to share your experiences in this area or a traditional business, that apply to building a home business, so all will benefit.  I will be speaking from nearly thirty years of experience on pursuing the dream and there is so much more I need to learn.  So please chime in and share your knowledge and lets learn from those that have “been there; done that”.

Of course, this is a forum for asking any questions you wish on the subject.  No question is a “dumb” one, so ask away and we will make every effort to get you an answer ASAP or point you in the right direction to a resource that will know the answer.

I will close with one of my favorite quotes from my favorite business philosopher, Jim Rohn;

“It is not the blowing of the wind that determines where you end up, but the setting of the sail”. 

And I will add that before you set that sail, make sure you know where you want to go or you may not like where you end up.  In short, set some attainable short term goals, go for them with all you have, and don’t let anyone steal your dreams.  Too much depends on it!

So, join us in our journey of failing our way to the top.  That is the “only” way to succeed.

Your success is our success,

Rick Holloway, Sole Proprietor, Home Based iNternational

email:  rick@HomeBasediNternational.com