Thinking of Quitting? Read This First.

How is your network marketing business doing?  Are you accomplishing what you set out to do?  Taking some little steps every day toward your goal?

Or are you getting discouraged and just about to the point where you want to give it all up and just stop?

I would like to share a story I read by Ramin Mesgarlou in a magazine that I subscribe to.  A network marketer was being asked about his success.

Here's the story:

“And you did really well right off the bat?”

“Not exactly.  Three months after I joined, my sponsor quit.  Soon after that, his sponsor quit, and I didn’t even know the guy above him.  Now I had no upline support, and was trying to figure this thing out on my own.

“I finally said, “That’s it - I’m going to stick to the restaurant business.  I quit!”

“Right around then some hotshot was coming in from Alberta to give a meeting, and he asked my upline if I would pick him up at his hotel to bring him to the meeting venue.

When I picked him up, he said, “So, I hear you want to quit?”

I said, “Yeah.”

“Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” I replied. “It’s just not working.”

“Okay,” he said, “let me ask you something.  Is this business holding you back from your current business?”

“I had to admit, it wasn’t; I was still running my restaurant.

“So do you have a better alternative?” he continued.  “Do you have something else as a backup plan?”

I didn’t.

“If this isn’t holding you back, and you have no other plan, then why quit?”

This made sense to me.  I went back to my restaurant and told my family, “I don’t care what I have to do, we’re going to make this happen.”

Three-quarters of success in this business is commitment.  This was the moment I decided I was going to do this.

So....what about you?  Do you have an alternative?  If not network marketing, what?  If your network marketing business is not holding you back, why not keep doing it?

It is worth thinking about.

-- Roger Cox

Is It Just Me, Or Does Everybody Fail With Network Marketing?

I recently read an article by one of my fellow network marketers by the name of Pete Zdanis that answers the question "Does everybody fail in network marketing?"

What would be your answer?  What answer would you give if somebody interested in your business asked you this question?

Pete says, "Yes, everybody fails in network marketing.  As much as 80 to 90 percent of the time."

Are you comfortable with that answer?

Here is Pete's explanation.  And I must say, I believe there is much value in this concept that will help set the new person up for success in this industry.

Pete says he fails most of the time.  He can talk to 100 people, and perhaps only 10 or 20 are interested in what he has to say.  But if you talk to enough people, those 10 to 20 people begin to add up and can potentially help you to earn an income that most people can only dream about.

The secret is to keep talking to people and promoting your product or service.  If you have a 10% success ratio, and over the course of a number of years you eventually talk to 2000 people, you will have 200 partners helping you in your downline.

And what if only 10% of your downline produce substantial volume?  Well.......you would have 20 people sending significant volume up your organization.

And it is quite possible that 2 or 3 of those will produce enough volume that you would be making a mighty nice income.

 But it starts with getting your product or opportunity in front of people.  Promoting yourself or your opportunity or income is the only way that income is earned in this industry.  That is the only income-producing activity that there is.

And that is where most people who "try" network marketing fails the most.  They have to talk or introduce their offering to enough people.  And most fail to do that.

There is no harm in promoting to a prospect and getting a "no" for your effort.  That is to be expected.  The harm comes when you are unable to get past the "no's" and stop trying.

Nobody said that it would be easy.  But if you are consistent, it can be oh so rewarding!

--Roger Cox  

Don't Speed Through Your Self-Improvement Reading!

In the network marketing industry, we are encouraged to develop ourselves and spend considerable time reading good books.  My first thought about this would be that the more self-development books I can read, the better.  So therefore, the faster that I can read, the more books I can read, and the faster I will grow.

Right??

Maybe not.

I read a quote from Chris Brady that challenges that viewpoint.  He said, "Someone once asked me about my method of reading, implying that I must naturally read quickly or have some speed-reading training.  I replied that I don’t read any faster than the average person, but my approach to reading has made all the difference.  In short, I don’t read-------I STUDY!  I underline text, write notes in the margins, fill the back pages with ideas and comments, and , if necessary, argue with the author between the lines."

He went on to say, "Books are to be devoured, recordings are to be memorized, and conferences are to be experienced to the maximum."

That quote has changed my way of thinking about reading as well.  I used to get a little stressed because I had so many things that I needed to be reading, but I didn't have near enough time to read them all.  I found myself flying through the books so fast that most of the time I didn't really remember what I read by the time I was finished with the book.

Have you ever read a paragraph, and as soon as you finished reading the paragraph, realized that you had no idea what you just read? Did you reread the paragraph or did you plow on to the next paragraph, hoping that everything will make sense when you finish the book?

I've changed the way I read for self-improvement now.  I follow Chris's method.  I don't necessarily write in the margins or argue with the author, but I read much slower and really try to understand what the author is trying to teach me.

I also find myself rereading a book more than once.  I usually get something different from each reading.  Sometimes it's a minor difference, but some times it's a whole new perspective.

At any rate, I am internalizing the information.

So I am reading fewer books.  But what I am reading is sticking to my soul and changing me in little ways.

And isn't that the point of reading self-improvement books?

-- Roger Cox

Another Easy Tip for Gaining Self-Confidence

Would you like another tip for gaining more self-confidence?

When you go to a meeting, a conference, or church.......where do you sit?

Do you sit in the back, so that you can avoid being noticed?  Or in the middle, so that you can blend in with the rest of the people?  Or....do you sit right up front, in the middle, right in front of the speaker?

Sitting right up front will give you the appearance of being a confident person.  However, I believe that sitting up front habitually will actually help you to develop more confidence.

There is one other advantage to sitting in the front.  In my experience from sitting in church, I find that it is much easier to be distracted when I'm sitting in the back.  I can even zone out and be thinking of other things.  I don't get as much from the meeting if I'm not paying attention to the speaker.

Sitting in the front row, right in front of the speaker, helps me to be more engaged in what the speaker is saying.  It is much easier to stay focused, and I actually learn more than I would if I had be sitting in the back.

I would recommend that you give it a try!  At the very least, other people will subconsciously consider you to be a confident person just because of where you sit in the meeting.

--Roger Cox  

Are You Making Your Dreams Come True? Or Someone Else's?

You probably spend a lot of time making someone else's dreams come true.  Do you ever spend some time making your own dreams come true?

If you are employed by someone and spend a large part of your day working, you are actually spending much of your time helping someone else's dreams come true.  Whoever owns the company is getting their dreams fulfilled by hiring employees to do the work for him.  That would include you as one of the workers.

That is not necessarily bad.

But what about you?  What about your dreams?  Are you also working to make YOUR dreams come true?

Maybe.  Maybe not.

What do you do when you come home from work?  Do you watch a little television or watch a ballgame?  Watching a baseball game on television is very relaxing for me, and I watch a game on a regular basis.

But.......when you are watching ball players or actors, you are still making SOMEONE ELSE'S dreams come true.  They get paid because you are watching the show or the game.

If you are employed, the hours between the time you get home from work and the time you go to bed are your best hours to work toward YOUR dreams.  Spend some of that time working for YOU.

Think about what you want for yourself and think about what you need to do to accomplish your desires.  Break your desires down into small steps that you can do in the time that you have available. And then do it.....consistently!  Use the Slight Edge concept that I talked about in a previous post.

It is a great time to work on personal development.  Read some good books or watch some good self-improvement videos.  If your goals involve working with people, begin working with people during those hours by networking with those who can help you make YOUR dreams come true.

Television is a great way to relax.  But spend some of that time in the evenings working for you.  You deserve it!

--Roger Cox

Residual Income Without Work?

Want to know how you can be sure that you will fail at network marketing?  There are actually a number of ways; but for the purpose of this post, I will concentrate on one.

When you first began network marketing, were you told about residual income?  Residual income is income that continues to come in even after the work that created the income is finished.  Residual income can be compared to the royalties that an author or a songwriter might get.  The song is written once, but the songwriter continues to get paid whenever someone uses his song.

Residual income sounds like a great thing.  And it is!  Don't get me wrong!  But it is dangerous to think that you can get a customer or a recruit and then just sit back and watch the money come pouring in.  Sometimes we get that idea and some times we are even taught it from our upline.  It's an exciting to think that with just a little bit of work, we can get greatly rewarded for an indefinite amount of time.

It doesn't really work that way.

Once you have a customer, treat him like gold.  Cultivate the relationship.  Make sure that you meet his needs.  Then once you are satisfied that you are doing all that you can to nurture that customer, go get another one.  The same principle applies to business recruits.

Don't subscribe to the thought that once someone has signed up with you, your work is done.  Yes, that person might be the one that brings you in considerable income, but circumstances change.  People change.  For whatever reason, that customer may stop buying.  Or that business partner may drop out, or just become inactive.

Continue to build.  Continue marketing both your product and your opportunity.  Keep learning how to do it better.

Even if you have ample residual income coming in, don't stop working.  Because contrary to what you may have been taught, residual income is usually not permanent.

Network marketing is NOT an easy, get-rich-quick plan.  It is not even an easy get-rich-slow plan.  It is a business.  It works in direct correlation to how much and smart you work.  If you don't work, you will not have much residual income.  And if you don't work, what residual income you do have will not last.

Treat your network marketing business AS a business.  You won't be disappointed if you do.

-- Roger Cox

Develop at Least 100 Retail and/or Wholesale Customers

You should make developing 100 customers one of your highest priorities.  While it is nice and exciting to add another distributor in your downline, your personal customers, and the customers of your downline, will be the bread and butter of  your business for several reasons.

It is often easier to find someone who will buy your product than it is to find someone who will commit to creating a business.  Launching a business is a far greater commitment than buying some product.  The thinking in the back of a potential customer's mind is that if he is not satisfied, he can just stop buying the product.

There are some things that you can do to ensure that the customer DOES continue to buy from you, but that is a topic for another day!

If you treat your customers properly, the dropout rate can be much lower than the dropout rate for your partners.  A stable customer base will give your business stability and will give you a solid level from which you can build your business.

A network marketing business should be built on customers.  Customers are what gives the business credibility.  It also makes the governing bodies happy.  One of the field marks of a "pyramid" scheme is the absence of real customers.

And you know what?  Some of those customers that are very happy with your service just might someday become your partners in your downline!

So work to develop 100 loyal retail customers that continue to purchase your product month after month, or wholesale customers who are not currently distributors, and see if that does not make you excited about your business!

- Roger Cox

Do You Want a Slight Edge in Your Network Marketing Business?

Lately I've been thinking about a concept that I learned from the CD "The Slight Edge" by Jeff Olson.  It is a simple concept, but, oh, so powerful!

The Slight Edge is composed of consistency of doing the small things over a long period of time.

Suppose you have an assignment to read a 1,000 page book.  There is no deadline, but you MUST read every page to complete the assignment.  Now, you might look at that book and decide that the task is impossible.  There is no way that you would ever be able to read all 1,000 pages so you don't even begin.

Or you might be really motivated to read the book, and the first day you read 300 pages.  The next day you don't have quite as much time to devote to the task so you read 100 pages.  The next day you don't read at all.  The day after that, 25 pages.  The pattern that follows is one of reading a few pages once in a while with large gaps between days where you read at all.  Eventually, you give up on the assignment.

However, suppose you only read one page the first day.  That is NOT a big step.  But the next day, you read another page. And the day after that, another page.  The pattern is one page a day, consistently, for a long period of time.  You would finish the task in 1000 days.  Approximately 3 years.  It took you a long time to do it, but.......You did it!

For another example, think of your exercise program.  You decide one day that you are going to get in shape because you don't want to die young.

You could go to the gym daily for a few days and spend many hours working out.  Are you in better shape now?  Not if you only do it for a few days.  There isn't much improvement if you give up.

But what if you can only exercise 30 minutes a day?  But you can do it EVERY day?  Or at least quite consistently.  Are you in better shape one day as compared to the previous day?  Not that you can measure.  But what about after a year of exercising 30 minutes a day consistently?  Would you be in better shape compared to where you were a year ago?  Most likely.

What if you miss a day or two of exercise during that year?  Are you going to be healthy one day and then the next day not healthy because you missed a day?  Only if that missed day becomes a pattern over a period of time.  A simple task, like a few minutes of exercise, done consistently over a period of time produces results.

A seemingly impossible task becomes a completed accomplishment if broken down into small, simple steps done consistently over a period of time.

Any application to your network marketing business?  Some people have an amazingly high rate of activity when they start their network marketing business. Then some of them burn out.  When the results don't come in soon enough for them, their activity drops off.  With no activity, there are no results.  Then they quit.

I would rather see a new person apply the Slight Edge concept and contact as little as two people a day, either by phone or email or however they can make the contact.  Two contacts per day equals over 700 people contacted over the space of a year.  That excites me more than a big burst of activity at the beginning and then nothing.

What about you?  Do you agree, or do you think I am off-base?

- Roger Cox

One Way to Gain More Self-confidence

What is holding you back with your network marketing business?  Is it a lack of self-confidence?

I am going to give you one simple suggestion that will help you gain more self-confidence.  It has really worked well for me.

When you are talking with someone, or when you meet someone for the first time?  Where are your eyes?  What are you looking at?  Are you making eye contact?

Making eye contact is a sign of self-confidence.  When your eyes are down, off to the side, or in other ways avoiding making contact with the person you are talking to, they are going to notice and most likely determine that you have little self-confidence.

A leader in the network marketing industry needs to project confidence in himself, or he will struggle with attracting people who would want to join him in his business.

Learning to look people in the eyes need not be a hard thing.  Practice looking at their nose or look just above the eyes until you feel more comfortable with looking directly at their eyes.  Look away occasionally so that it doesn't appear that you are staring at them, but maintain a lot of eye contact.

In time, you will feel more sure of yourself, and perhaps you will see your conversations be more productive!

- Roger Cox