[caption id="attachment_872" align="alignleft" width="125" caption="The Secret or the Key to success..."][/caption]

The show wrap-up however, was of Bill Britt, standing in front of a palatial home, explaining his key secret for why the Amway business model HAD worked for him!  It was about taking the action necessary to make things happen! Everyone always wants to know the “key secret” to success, and were probably surprised when he replied, “There is no secret. I simply showed the plan to 1200 people. 900 said, ‘No’ and only 300 signed up. Out of those 300, only 85 did anything at all. Out of those 85 only 35 were serious, and out of those 35, 11 made me a millionaire.”

[caption id="attachment_871" align="alignright" width="125" caption="All it takes is a "few good men.""][/caption]

My first inclination is always to bring people back to basic business principles.  The logic of mentoring a “few good men” prevails.  If you were growing a bricks and mortar company, you simply would not go out and hire 2000 people  in one year and expect to be able to mentor, train or support their endeavors.  Why should that process work any better for a home-based business?  It cannot work, and that it the key. 

• The early bird gets the worm – whoever first gets their product to the public eye will more likely be successful.
• The turtle wins the race – it is not how fast you race to the finish line; it is that you ultimately reach it.
• He who hesitates, loses.  Nothing will happen until you engage in some kind of positive action, strategically designed to move you forward.

• Counting your chickens before they hatch… reminds me of the greed that predominates Network Marketing.  Which is exactly why leaders in the industry so aggressively sought to modify the “label.”  

Enough with the cliches!  Except to focus on the last one for a few seconds before I call it a day.  Let me ask you a question.  If you were making wise decisions about building your business and expanding your staff – how many people who were solely interested in how much money they could make and how quickly, would you actually hire?  Why then, if you wisely build any business on best business practices would you engage as business partners people who are obviously only interested in how quickly they could rake in massive income?  Wisdom would tell you they are only there for the short term, taking the best you have to offer them in support and training  – eager to move on to the next most interesting and biggest offer that comes their way.  Pick and choose your future business partners with extreme discretion – give them ample support, train them well and watch the rewards; rewards that do not come with going crazy trying to meet the needs of too many people who are not as serious as you are in building a well-founded business.

Think over some of these cliche’s and ponder how they might modify the strategy you intend to use to build your business.  What would you do differently … today?

If you are interested in more support with your Network Marketing company, check out the many resources available at Vital Enterprises, LLC.  Not only will you find a plethora of vital essentials to life in general, you will find resources and connections specific to enhancing your business practices and building your home-based business, for example the Income Opportunity Marketplace where you can hold a premier listing for the company you represent, sign up for a 52-week eCourse, and receive weekly tips, tools, resources, and connections to help accelerate the growth of your business.

Jan Vitale, building your Network Marketing business – one great business building tip at a time.

“If I had to do it all over again, rather than build an old style type of business, I would have started building a network marketing business.”  ~ Quote by Robert T. Kiyosaki

Are you considering the importance of statements made by people like Kiyosaki?  What are they saying that is attracting you?  Is it the message that your job will be to share, not sell?  Or is it the easy methods of training - buying enough books and tapes and educate yourself with them to be vastly successful?  The unfortunate fact remains, less than 3% of those who aspire to succeed in Network Marketing really achieve that goal because they are looking at the opportunity from the wrong perspective.

Over the past several years top profile people such as Donald Trump and Robert Kyiosaki have stepped up in support of Network Marketing as a well-defined business model – seeking to remove the stigma of years of perceived MLM “scams.”  Robert Kiyosaki likens Network Marketing to being “The business school for people who like helping people.”  It is refreshing to see a different perspective is being offered to the business world – getting people off an age-old treadmill of distasteful MLM marketing methods.

Taking a new look at the success ratios of entrepreneurs choosing this business model, it becomes clearly evident that the number one reason people fail in Network Marketing is they are promised the opportunity of quickly amassing millions, but not told they must take their business seriously and engage in best business practices –  the same kind of processes and work effort that is necessary in any other kind of business.  Realistically, there is simply no business that can be free to join, require little or no effort – and still generate significant revenue.  The really unfortunate part of Network Marketing is the large number of people who still believe that fairy tale and still attempt to draw in large numbers of people who are looking for fast money, believing in the law of numbers rather than the law of relationships.

The question you are probably asking right now is, “Can anyone every really make it in Network Marketing; can I?”  Absolutely!  If you decide you want to succeed, and the “vehicle” you choose for your journey is Network Marketing, educating yourself about best business practices and taking strategically planned actions empower you to be as successful as you determine you want to be.

If you want to learn more about taking educated actions in Network Marketing, read through more of the articles in this section of my blog, subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss future posts, or jump over to my main website and look at  Network Marketing 101 where I am constantly adding new tools, tips, techniques and resources… all for your benefit.

If you look at the power of using network marketing as a business model, it comes essentially from the basis of leverage.   It doesn’t matter if you are amazingly talented or get paid a huge per hour salary – there are still just so many hours in the day and you will only reach maximum productivity and profitablity if you learn to leverage your time, and benefit from other people’s efforts.

How do you effect that leverage?  In a number of ways that might surprise you – especially with the technology to which you most likely have access.   The fact that I can be on the beach at my favorite resort, and you can be reading my blog somewhere else in the world is a good example of how I can leverage my time and not be sharing your physical presence in order to bring value to you or teach you important lessons about building a business using a network marketing business model.

It is no longer necessary to build a business where the employees work hard to benefit the owners and stockholders; everyone has the same opportunity to succeed and invest only a fraction of the time and money of a frachise or bricks and mortar store.  Leverage happens naturally because you have a vested interest in mentoring and training others to succeed… leverage happens when you choose to receive 5 percent of the work effort of 100 people over 100 percent of the effort of one person.

• Leverage happens because your income is never dependent upon one person; your income is never significantly impacted because one person takes a long vacation, becomes ill or decides to retire. 
• Leverage happens as many frustrated professionals, overwhelmed by the lack of balance in their lives, decide to leave corporate responsibilities to pursue and live a different lifestyle – with you as their mentor! 
• Leverage happens… with a small network marketing organization created over time, through which you can ultimately produce the equivalant of working 24/7 putting in only a fraction of individual effort.

[caption id="attachment_691" align="alignright" width="125" caption="Leverage... the power of doubling"][/caption]

• Leverage happens… from geometric growth and the power of one.   My grandfather amazed me at age four with the math concept of doubling your money every day for 30 days.  He sat me down after breakfast and, having started with a penny – he added the second penny the next day… then four… then eight… quitting at the end of the week, having laid $128 out on the table and having some discussion with me that by the end of the month, if I was able to continue that doubling, I would have saved over $5 million.  Seemed unfathomable to me then… and I still have to do an Excel spreadsheet to validate the concept; a concept that is at the heart of network marketing. 

Does that seem strange?  Let’s look at it this way… if I teach you – I have doubled; if we each mentor another person, we have doubled again.  And the process continues naturally, and easily – producing results beyond your belief.

Leverage happens only when you use the process of building people, bringing them to their highest potential; it does not happen when the process is manipulated by working with people who look for the easy money and are not willing to build a successful business themselves.

Leverage.. is it worth the risk?

Are you intrigued by the potential of leveraging your time, talent, money and skills?  Check out my Income Opportunity Marketplace where you will find a plethora of information that will help you decide if this is a business model for you, a directory of the many opportunities possible in network marketing, and resources to help you with managing your business – using best business practices.

I have friends who are absolutely amazing at “telling little stories” as a way to teach through using metaphors and analogies; I do not have that skill!  My talent is remembering things I have heard throughout my life that left their impact on me… because, you see, stories have a way of being remembered for a very long time. My “frog” story is a prime example – I heard it a very long time ago, but remember it still. I am hoping it will leave an impact on you for a very long time.

The Story of the Deaf Frog…

Once upon a time in a land far away, hundreds of little tree frogs decided to hold a competition to see who could be the first to climb a high tower in the center of town. As the little frogs engaged in the competition, a large crowed gathered to watch, and began taunting them, shouting, “You won’t make it, it’s too difficult you silly frogs!”

Ten feet or so up the side of the tower some of the frogs dropped off, too tired to continue. The crowd continued to jeer and ridicule the frogs and at twenty feet up about half the frogs had fallen to the ground, only to have to listen to the crowd’s ugly recrimination, “See we told you it is just too difficult!”

At the thirty feet mark, all but one of the frogs had eventually fallen. This one little frog continued to the top of the tower even though the crowd kept jeering and yelling about the impossibility of completing the task. The frog climbed back down and of course all the other frogs gathered around him, wanting to know how he had gotten to the top when none of them had. The questions flew fast and furious and in all the clamor of noise, the little frog finally put his front leg up next to his ear and said “I’m sorry I can’t hear a word you are saying because I’m deaf!”

Turning a deaf ear to negativity…

Deciding to use a Network Marketing business model sometimes requires that you become a deaf frog!  Over the years a number of unscrupulous people have left a taint on what is truly only a “different” business model. This taint, however, puts you in a position of having to hear a constant barrage of negativity. Turning a deaf ear may be the only way to still that pessimism – those voices clamoring around you. It might be the only way to keep going regardless how many people are taunting you with negative admonitions that you can’t reach your objective. Creating a mental picture in your mind about being a deaf frog might be the only way to set your sites on the top (of the tower) and just keep climbing until you are successful!

Two of the characteristics of being successful include:

1. continuing to do what others will not – in order to have what others cannot – and
2. looking at adversity as an opportunity, not an obstacle.

Because mindset is at the base of these two characteristics, you have to decide early on to ignore the shouting, the taunting and the negativity and keep moving in the direction you want so that you can continue in the direction that leads you, ultimately to the top of that impossible tower.

If you are reading this post, you probably are curious about what exactly Internet Marketing DOES have to do with a Successful Network Marketing Business… let’s explore that.

Your company provides you a website where you can send your customers and potential business partners to see the product… plus all the marketing spiel on making money marketing them – and you probably feel that is all you need.  This is probably not a sound business observation.  Unless you want to pay a lot of money using other media to market that site, you need to better understand the interplay between Network Marketing and Internet Marketing.

The newest bells and whistles in internet marketing come and go more quickly than we can manage to embrace them, and some of the search engine standards shift with some frequency as well.  There are, however, some basics that hold fast and true.

Content is King!

Check with your company to confirm what steps it takes to consistently keep adding good, fresh content to the site.  If the primary function is to give you a simple sales driving template site and leave it static… you need to explore other options to get that fresh content out to the world.  A couple of options include creating a blog or a Facebook Fan page that provides the content… and drives the reader back to your site. 

Cross Links are Keen

Having the ability to cross link with other sites who share your common market is also important.  Check to see what options you have to add those links – and whether you have permission to allow other sites to add yours.  In working toward adding members to my directory, I am finding all nature of oddities in the constraints Network Marketing companies are putting on their representatives.  I assume it is in the frame of mind that they don’t want to have their message diluted by eager marketers, but if you are serious about using the Internet as one of your marketing vehicles, you have to find a way to ethically get around these constraints!

Keyword Search Terms are Killer

You might want to use one of the free services and run several keyword searches on your site URL to determine exactly how search engine friendly the copywriting your corporate marketing department has crafted those flashy messages.  The freshness of content and the relevancy of the keywords in that content are what will drive the right traffic to your site.  If those two things are not appropriately built into the site – you might be wasting a lot of marketing dollars.

Become the Expert in Your Field

Publishing ads and sitting back to wait for business to come to you just won’t cut it in today’s economy.   That is a fact and we have to deal with it in a positive manner, one of which is using article marketing to create the perception that you have an authority status in your field, and are willing to share valuable information that will benefit your readers.  The intent is never to use this platform to go all aggressive with your sales pitch – your readers will see right through it – never to return.  However, if you draw people to you with great content, as you slowly build trust, they will naturally be self-engaged and compelled to take action based on your advice and recommendations.

Consistency…It is KEY!

Whatever marketing campaign you plan to engage in will only be as successful as the consistency with which you apply it.  Don’t take on ideas that are so exciting they make your head spin… unless or until you can complete tasks on a regular daily basis.  It is this consistency that builds momentum, and after a while will take on a life of its own – allowing you to engage in another campaign.  It is important to track your success in a campaign.  There is an age old marketing adage that notes, “If it is working – do more of it; if it isn’t bringing you profit, try something else.”  The only caution I would note here is to not give up too quickly – it is just as dangerous, and far too wasteful, to skip from one thing to another because you expected faster results.  Check out what the standards are and set a benchmark that is realistic so that you don’t overreact and kill a campaign just before it is ready to take hold.

I trust these thoughts have planted seeds that will shake up your thinking.  Sign up for the RSS feed so you don’t miss future posts.