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