Why Network Marketing Doesn't Get Respect

When I first joined the network marketing industry almost 7 years ago, I always wondered why network marketing doesn't get the same level of respect as other business models.

Here you have an industry that has millions of participants all over the world. Tens of thousands of people have been able to earn a full time income. Thousands of people have been able to earn a 6 figure income. Hundreds of people have been able to earn a 7 figure income. And a select few have even been able to earn an 8 figure income.

However, some events over the last several weeks and months have really allowed me to see why network marketing doesn't get respect. I believe it is the same reason why religious people don't get respect and why politicians don't get respect.

Network Marketers Don't Practice What They Preach!

Here we have an industry that is SUPPOSE to be about personal development. It is SUPPOSE to be about building people up. However, everywhere you turn, all you see is people engaging in behavior that clearly lacks the personal development we profess to preach. Everywhere you turn, all you see is people tearing people down instead of building people up.

Recently, one of my colleagues in the network marketing industry reached a certain milestone in her business and I congratulated her for it. She is NOT a part of my company. She is in a different company, with a completely different product line from what I am marketing. Yet it wouldn't surprise me if I was the only distributor outside of her company who congratulated her.

Why? Because instead of being happy for her success, many distributors would see her success as a threat to their success. ESPECIALLY if they are in a company that markets the same type of product that she does.

In addition to that, a number of people this year recently made a decision to resign from the network marketing company that I am a part of and work with other network marketing companies. It was very interesting to see responses as these people made their decisions.

Some people in my company felt that because these people left, they needed to DEFEND the opportunity available in my company. Some of the people that left felt the need to publiclly trash the company that they just left and even specific individual distributors within the company. Others felt the need to publiclly trash the people that left.

Is this what the network marketing industry is all about?

In The Business School For People Who Like Helping People by Robert Kiyosaki, chapter 5 talks about one of the values of network marketing. He identifies this value as "Friends Who Will Pull You Up, Not Push You Down."

Yet, to ME it seems like that friendship in this industry is conditional. I am only your friend if you are in the same business as me. If I leave to do another business, I'm not your friend anymore. If you leave to do another business, I'm not your friend anymore.

This is not what I was sold when I joined this industry. However, unfortunately, this seems to be the reality in this industry.

I have friends that are in different companies from the one that I'm in currently. I have friends in the company that I'm currently in. I also have friends that WERE in the company that I'm in that have left, but I still consider them my friends. I even have friends that have left the industry all together. That's because I was always taught that friendship was based on the quality of the relationship that you have with that person, not whether or not they agree to build the same business that I build.

If we in the network marketing industry ever want the industry to get the respect it deserves, we must first become WORTHY of that respect. It starts with actually PRACTICING the so called PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT that we preach!

I'll conclude this note with some thoughts:

#1 - People are going to leave your company. It's a fact of life. This doesn't make them bad people. It doesn't make them hypocrites. It simply means that they no longer have the vision for the company that they had when they first got started FOR WHATEVER REASON and have decided to part ways and go with something that they have a vision for.

So unless those people are raiding your organization in violation of their distirbutor agreement, wish them well and keep on moving. Because the bottom line is NONE of those people are responsible for providing for you and your family. That is YOUR responsibility and YOUR responsibilty alone. Your kids don't want to hear that the reason why you are getting evicted out of your house is because JOE HEAVY-HITTER left your company and now you can't make money anymore.

#2 - Making a decision to leave a company can be a difficult decision. If that's a decision that you choose to make, go ahead and do what you have to do and move on. It's completely unnecessary to publicly trash the company that you left or individual distributors within that company. I read "How To Win Friends & Influence People" many times and I don't seem to recall that being in one of the chapters!

Now you might have left because you saw some very serious concerns about the viability of the business model. Heck, you might not have even left on your own accord, you might have even been terminated. Quite frankly, you might have even been terminated unjustly.

You might have friends in your former company that you are concerned about. However, I can assure you, trash talking your previous company is NOT going to make your friends see your point of view. If ANYTHING it's going to make them MORE likely to RESIST your point of view.

#3 - To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose in heaven. Not everybody is going to be involved in a particular network marketing company or even the industry for the rest of their lives.

For instance, I can tell you right now, I will NOT be actively involved in network marketing forever. I love the industry. I love the relationships that I have built because of it. I love the personal development that I have experienced because of it.

However, some of the goals that I have in life, being a distributor for a network marketing company isn't going to be enough to make these goals a reality. My wife and I plan on being on the Forbes 400. Everybody on that list is either the owner of a billion dollar business or a billion dollar investor, NOT a distributor for a network marketing company. So in order for that goal to become a reality for us, we will have to eventually make the transition to a vehicle that can make the Forbes 400 a reality.

I hope that when I do make the decision to leave that my relationship with you wasn't based on my allegiance to a company or an industry.

Finally, recongize that opportunity is unlimited! Opportunity is not ONLY found in ONE specific network marketing company. Opportunity isn't ONLY found in JUST the network marketing industry. When you have TRUE opportunity, it does not get diminished just because others don't value the opportunity. In fact, some of the greatest opportunities in world history were not recognized by the VAST MAJORITY of people.

Let us practice what we preach in network marketing. When we do this, I believe the industry will get far more respect than it gets now.

And if you agree with me, please share this with your colleagues in the industry. The more people that embrace this message, the more attractive our industry will be to the masses.

The Death Of Hype In Network Marketing Online?

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It's no secret that there has been a lot of hype in network marketing online. Some of the claims that people in the industry out there are making is absolutely ridiculous. Because of this, I believe that prospects and distributors in the industry are at a point where they are beginning to start tuning out the hype and looking for leaders who can demonstrate value that is realistic and achievable.

I recently got invited to a webinar discussing this exact topic. If you are a network marketing distributor that uses funded proposals and affiliate marketing as a front end to your network marketing opportunity, I believe that this can be one of the most important videos that you will ever watch this year.

Even if you are a traditional network marketing distributor, this video can help you. You're not going to want to watch it from the standpoint of the particular online marketing tactics that are discuss. Rather, you will want to watch it to identify some of the common themes being presented that have application even if you are using a traditional network marketing approach. Themes such as creating value, demonstrating leadership and other principles that apply regardless of marketing approach.

I really want you to pay close attention to this information because I believe one of the reasons why network marketing has such a bad reputation is because of the hype, the exaggeration and the "fake it till you make it" philosophy that has permeated the industry. It's ridiculous and it gives us all as an industry a bad name.

Mike Klinger is a sharp guy and the real deal. He addresses this issue in the online context, but I believe that even if that is not your context, you can get a lot out of the video.

So check out The Climate of "Hype" is Changing (Make More With Less Marketing) and let me know what you like about it.

And if you haven't yet checked out my free report on the 7 strategies that I personally use to build an unlimited list of prospects for my network marketing opportunity, go ahead and check that out as well. It is free after all!

The Importance Of The First Pay Check

Would you like to have a larger amount of your organization stick around and build the business? If so, the best way to do this is to focus on getting your new distributors their first pay check. This one simple action is in my opinion the biggest contributing factor towards retaining distributors on your team.

In the 5+ years that I've been involved with my particular company, 38% of the distributors that have joined my particular downline still have an active distributor status. This means that they have remained a customer with the company, active doesn't mean that they are still out consistently doing business.

However, when I look at all of the distributors that have signed up at least ONE customer since they joined the business, more than HALF of those distributors still have an active distributor status. The number is actually 54%. If you take a look at all of the distributors in my organization who have signed up at least 5 customers personally, almost 70% (69%) of those distributors still have an active distributor status.

What would your business look like if 7 out of every 10 distributors that joined your organization at a bare minimum, remained an active customer with you to a minimum of over $400 per year?That would be a very nice business for you indeed! That's why it is important that you have the devotion of a devote religious person towards getting the distributors in your organization their first pay check!

So what can you do to increase the amount of distributors in your organization that get their first check? Here are some pointers:

#1) Take personal responsibility for the distributors that join your team, not just the ones that you personally sponsor. If their sales are commission-able to you, it is your responsibility to reach out to them and make sure they are on the right track.

#2) As you teach them the business, use the TELL-SHOW-DO-REVIEW approach to train them. For example, let's say you are teaching a new distributor how to invite their prospects to take a look at one of your company's marketing tools. Here is the best way to teach them this process.

TELL - Explain to them how to invite their prospect to look at the marketing tool.

SHOW - Have them call one of their prospects and introduce that prospect to you. Then get on the line and invite that prospect to look at the marketing tool. The new associate should be taking notes on how you do it.

DO - Have them call another prospect and invite the prospect to look at the tool themselves. You watch them while they do this.

REVIEW - Give them feedback on what they did. Complement them for taking action. If they did anything wrong, provide correction. Then complement them again.

If you follow this process, the distributors in your organization will get their first check faster. They will be excited. Their belief level will grow and they will want to repeat the activity so they can get another check and another one. The more checks they get, the more checks you get! That's the power behind getting one of your new distributors their first pay check and why it should be your mission in life!

The Tortoise and the Hare In Network Marketing

Have you ever heard of the children's story called The Tortoise and the Hare? If you haven't, I've included a link to the story. Please read the story first and then continue reading this blog because you will need to be familiar with the story first before you can understand the points that I'm going to make as to how this correlates to building a network marketing business.

There are a lot of "hares" in network marketing. In the almost 6 years that I've been involved in this industry, I see them all of the time. One of my mentors Jeff Olson tells a story in his training about the "insurance guy" that is very typical in network marketing.

You recruit a guy who is the #1 insurance salesperson in his company. You are very excited because this guy has a sales background and a proven track record of being successful in sales. This guy goes out and in his first week he sponsors 5 of his sales buddies. The very next week his buddies each go out and sponsors 5 of their friends. Now you are so excited! You say to yourself "I am so happy, I finally found one of my A players"

90 days later, none of them are in the business anymore and you are standing around wondering what happened.

Anybody can get off to a fast start in the network marketing industry. However, the real question is, are you able to build a sustainable business that is going to spit off cashflow to you and your family for the rest of your life? Only a select few are able to do that because only a select few have the discipline and the fortitude necessary to build and create that type of business.

I've seen people in my company race through the compensation plan. Some of them have even created checks of $2,000, even $5,000 their very first month in the company. However, because they had the mentality of the hare, they weren't able to build a sustainable business and as a result, they are no longer involved in the business.

In fact, I know of a number of people in my company who were able to earn a $100,000 income over a 12 month period who are either no longer with the company or if they are still with the company, they aren't earning anywhere near that amount right now. I've even seen people who were able to earn a $250,000 income over a 12 month period who are either no longer with the company or are not earning anywhere near that amount.

It doesn't matter if you build this business slow or fast. What really matters is your ability to build this business steady. The person that is able to engage in a steady consistent stream of activity over a sustained period of time is the person who will be able to build the lifetime residual income that we all dream about in this industry.

So which one are you? The tortoise or the hare?

What Does A Day In The Life Of A Part Time Distributor Look Like?

One of the most common questions asked by distributors is what should your day look like when you are building your network marketing business on a part time basis? I decided to give you some insight into a typical day for myself and many of my fellow distributors who are building a business successfully part time.

Monday through Friday you likely have to work at your full time job. You will need to factor in time for commuting to and from work. If you have kids, you are likely involved in getting your kids ready for school. So generally speaking, you are probably not going to do a lot of business related tasks in the morning.

However, some tasks that you still might do in the morning include checking your commission statements from the day before (if you get paid daily), checking your genealogy reports to see how your organization grew from the day before, checking email, reading a personal development book and listening to a personal development audio. If you come across any good prospects during your commute, you might pique their interest and get their contact information or share with them a marketing tool.

During the day you are likely working on your job so there is no activity done during that time. The only exception might be lunch time where you might be taking a prospect to lunch to present to them your opportunity or using a portion of your lunch time to make follow up phone calls to your hottest prospects and distributors on your team.

After getting off work is when the bulk of your network marketing activity takes place as a part time distributor. If your business or team does weekly opportunity meetings and in person trainings, you are likely going to be at one or both of those events one or two nights a week. The best use for your time besides those events is doing presentations for distributors who are on your team. It is my experience that it is 20 to 100 times easier for you to recruit a distributor for one of your team members than it is for you to get your own recruit because your distributor can edify you.

If you don't have any meetings, trainings and your team members aren't putting you to work, your evenings should be spent on your own personal prospecting. My preference is to work the phones and use websites and/or presentation phone recordings to make the initial exposure. Prospects that are interested in more information, I then direct them to either an opportunity meeting or I might sit down with them in person and do an in person presentation. If they are long distance, dropping a marketing tool in the mail is also an option for me as well.

On the weekends you can go crazy and work your business like you are full time and I know a lot of distributors that do that. I personally prefer to try to keep my weekends open for my family and my spiritual development. That doesn't mean that I never work my business on weekends. If I have a team member who I working with, I will absolutely make myself available to them on a Saturday or even a Sunday after church.

I might also work weekends if my company is having a big regional event on a particular weekend. However, I prefer to limit my own personal prospecting to Monday through Friday so I can leave the weekend for my family. I don't want to be one of those husbands or fathers that spend so much time working my wife and kids never see me. The good thing is that even though I'm technically not working, there are opportunities that present themselves to get some productive activity done even while I'm supposedly not working. My family isn't going to kill me if I have a couple of prospects to follow up with that it is easier to reach on a weekend.

Notice nowhere in my schedule do I have things like labeling my marketing tools, pushing papers or working on my website and designing pay per click ads. While I do engage in those activities, none of that I count against my hard core network marketing time of 10 hours a week. I do that stuff above and beyond if I have time to do it. I have enough prospects that I could recruit forever if I never exposed a new prospect again.

This is what the time of a part time network marketing distributor should look like. Now evaluate your time and see if this is what you are spending your time doing. If not, I recommend that you make some revisions and that you do them quickly!

Should You Get A Job?

A lot of distributors get started in the network marketing industry because they want to quit their jobs and create a lifestyle of time freedom and financial independence. However, when you are first getting started in the industry it can take some time before you start to experience the success that you are looking for.

Jeff Olson, one of the most successful network marketing distributors in the history of this industry got started many years ago in NSA. Within 2 years, he had gone from brand new to one of the top distributors in the company. However, he acknowledges that in the beginning, he didn't make any money because he reinvested his commission checks back into the business in the form of tools, meeting rooms, etc.

Olson is the exception in many cases and not the rule. In my dealings with many of the top distributors in many network marketing companies, whether it is in person, listening to their story or reading their books, the overwhelming majority of them report that it took them about 5 years of struggle before they were able to put the pieces together and really begin to build a financially successful business.

That means unless you prove to be the exception and not the rule, you cannot rely on the commissions from your network marketing business for several months in the best case scenario. More likely, it's going to be several years before you will be in a position to use your network marketing commissions to support yourself.

If you are in a position where you need your network marketing income to support yourself, I would answer "YES" you should get a job if you are building your network marketing business. Some of you might actually need two jobs depending on how much money you make in your chosen profession.

While many network marketers love to bash jobs, the fact is, jobs provide a number of benefits. If you have a full time job that covers your living expenses, the first and most important benefit is that the job gives you the income that you need to support yourself and your family. Try turning that negative spouse around when you have to pawn the television to make your minimum product order because you don't have a job and business is slow!

Another benefit that jobs provide is networking opportunities. My strongest organization to date came from two former co-workers. If I never worked at that job, I would have never met those co-workers. If I never met those co-workers, my organization would be a fraction of the size that it is today. Working with the same group of people 6 to 8 hours a day gives you a tremendous opportunity of relationship building. I'm still friends with many of my former co-workers today!

A job also serves as a great recruiting tool. The late great Jim Rohn use to talk about this a lot. He said when he first got started, he was working full time in farming and part time as a network marketing distributor. He use to tell his prospects "I am working full time on my job and I'm working part time on my fortune." Eventually, he got to the point where his part time network marketing business was making over $1000 a month.

Here were his comments...

$1000 a month on a full time basis, NOBODY wants to hear your story. $1000 a month on a part time basis, EVERYBODY wants to hear your story.

Finally, if your job provides you with income in excess of what you need to support yourself, the job can be an excellent resource to generate income to re-invest back into your business. Your business will grow much slower if you have to depend upon only your commissions to re-invest in your business. Having excess cash flow allows you to make investments faster and thus enjoy those return on investments faster.

So don't feel ashamed if you need to get a job. You might even need to get two jobs! Just know that you aren't the only one. I know distributors who worked as many as three jobs, continued to build their network marketing business along side of those three jobs and eventually was able to make more money in their network marketing business then they made from their three jobs combined! So it can be done. You just have to be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make it happen and be willing to put in the time.

What if you are really bad and it takes you 20 years to build a passive six figure income in network marketing? Would it be worth it? You're already going to work on your job for 40 years and 98% of you reading this will not retire to a six figure income from your job pension or social security. So it would be worth it if it takes 20 years.

However, if you don't have a job and you are unable to make the investments necessary to build your network marketing business, you could end up a casualty in the industry.

What A Balanced Network Marketing Compensation Plan Looks Like

This weekend my company just announced some modifications to the compensation plan that I am very excited about. I've noticed over the last couple of years that the compensation plan, although great, could have been a lot more motivating and rewarding to the sales force, if a few simple modifications were made.

This might come as a shock to you to hear me say this. The reason why is because when you read most network marketing distributors blogging about their company, they will tell you nothing but the positives about their company. You will never hear from them what they don't like about their company.

If you're ever evaluating a network marketing company, do you want to know a good question to ask? Ask what that person doesn't like about the company. Watch how they try to skate around that question or try to say something like "there's nothing they don't like about their company."

Here's what I didn't like about my company, up until this weekend.

To me, the compensation plan wasn't very balanced. The way the compensation plan was structured previously, a new person could move up three levels in the compensation plan with as little as 15 people. However, on average, you probably needed a few hundred people on your team to generate the volume necessary to get to the higher levels in the compensation plan.

This created two challenges:

#1) A new person could move up three levels within a few weeks. However, it might take them months, if not years to get to the next level. They get frustrated from a lack of progress and quit the business.

#2) A new person could move up three levels within a few weeks. They get stuck there because it takes a while to get the team and the volume necessary to move up further. Their best people also move up three levels within a few weeks. They only get to enjoy that override income for a few weeks and then the income gets cut off because their most productive people catch up to their level.

So what my company did is they made two modifications. First, they increased the requirements to move up. This makes moving up the compensation plan more balanced and by the time you get up to the higher levels with the new requirements, you will have the production necessary to move up because you needed it to get to those levels to begin with.

The second thing they did was they created more bonus opportunities at all levels of the compensation plan. The end result is that the people at the lower levels could make the same type of money, if not more than the people at some of the higher levels make now. The bonuses are based on the best activity in my opinion, the ability to help new people get started and make money.

The end result is that the people at the higher levels get to make money on the production of their team for a longer period of time because it's a lot more difficult to move up the compensation plan in a few weeks than it is now. Although it's more difficult to move up, the distributors are making more money at the lower levels so that they don't need to be at as high of a level to make the same type of money.

That's great for me because I now have a compensation plan that is very motivating to build into. However, unless you plan on joining my company, that doesn't really help you.

So how can you determine whether you are looking at a balanced network marketing compensation plan? Ask yourself the following questions:

#1 - If you are just getting started, how many customers will you need in order to make your money back? If it is a lot, or if it is a little but you have to sell them a lot, you are probably working too hard. This isn't a franchise. Making your money back should be very easy. You should be able to do it within your first month and it should be possible to do within your first couple of days if you want.

#2 - What does it take to move up to the higher levels? Is it too easy? If it's too easy, you are going to get to a point that everyone gets stuck at and you are going to see a lot of people drop out of the business at that level. If it's too hard, people will get frustrated and quit.

It is NOT a good thing to go to an opportunity meeting, see a few people at the bottom, A LOT of people at the middle and a few people at the top. It's also NOT a good thing to see everybody at the bottom and very few people at the top. There should be a balance, a few at the bottom and a few at the middle. There will always be less at the top because most people aren't willing to do what it takes to get to the top.

#3 - Does your company pay bonuses in addition to the commissions you make for product sales? If so, what are those bonuses based upon? The best bonus, in my opinion is one based on new people within an organization getting their first sales and/or recruits. It should reward the sponsor as well as the people higher in the compensation plan. Bonuses for reaching organizational sales volume are not a good idea because people will tend to hit that volume and then fall back.

Taking a look at these 3 areas of evaluation will help you to determine if your compensation plan is a balanced one. If it isn't that doesn't necessarily mean you should quit. Mine's wasn't, but all of the other areas that made up the opportunity were strong enough to deal with the limitations. There's no such thing as a perfect company so evaluate the other areas as well.