A stranger was traveling in Mexico and was passing through a very small underdeveloped town.  He stopped to get gas at the only gas station available.  He noticed a stereotypical Mexican man wearing a very large brimmed sombrero and sitting on the sidewalk next to a donkey.

Not wearing a watch he asked the stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey what time it was.  The stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey looked at the stranger curiously and then lifted his donkey’s tail, looked under it, and then looked back at the stranger and told him; “Se senior, it is three o’clock.”  The stranger thanked him and walked back towards his car.

The stranger’s curiosity got the better of him and he walked back to the stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey and asked him what time it was again.  The stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey looked at him as if he were a little loco, then he lifted his donkey’s tail once again, looked under it, then turned back to the stranger and told him; “Se senior, it is three minutes after three o’clock.”  The stranger thanked the stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey again and, once again, walked back towards his car.

Not able to let go of it, yet again the stranger turned to the stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey and said “I couldn’t help but notice that each time I asked you for the time you looked under your donkey’s tail.  May I ask you why?”  The stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey looked at the stranger and smiled and said; “Because senior, when I lift the donkey’s tail, I can see the clock across the street.”

Is it possible that one of life’s stereotypical Mexican men with a very large brimmed sombrero and a donkey is stopping you from seeing what is right in front of you?  One thing that the MLM Critics say about network marketing is true; most people are not successful at it from a monetary standpoint.  However, it isn’t true that it is because only the ones at the top who get in early make money.

From a human nature standpoint, most people inherently look for what is wrong rather than what is right.  Most people look at problems, rather than solutions.  Most people are reactive, rather than proactive.  Most people tend to major in minor things.  Frankly, most people are destined not to succeed.  Most people spend too much time in their own way.  Then, when it all falls apart, they blame the industry, their upline, anyone but themselves.  Now, they can even blame the stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey.

I know it is difficult to see success.  Most of us are strangers to it.  It looks too much like doing a few simple things over and over and over again.  Success is boring.  Success isn’t a new plan each week.  Success isn’t a special product or special company.  Success isn’t joining a new MLM company every time something doesn’t go exactly as we want it to.  Success isn’t waiting for others to make things happen for us.  Success simply isn’t passive.  We have to make it happen for ourselves.  We have to stop looking at our stereotypical Mexican guy with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey and start looking past our rationalizations of why things didn’t work.

As humans we all have the marvelous ability to rationalize all our problems away.  There is simply a reason for every perceived failure and it’s never our fault.  Here is the problem with that…the pieces of the success puzzle are made up of what we learn from our failures and what we do as the results of what we’ve learned.  If we rationalize all our failures away, we can’t put the success puzzle together.  Even though it is right in front of us, we simply won’t see the clock across the street.

The bad part of life is that the roads are paved with failure.  ALL OF THEM!  The good part of life is, everything we ever wanted out of life comes from what we learn from and do about those failures.  If we embrace our failures, all our streets can be paved with gold.  If we blame our failures on other things or other people, all we will get is potholes and stereotypical Mexican men with very large brimmed sombreros and donkeys to tell us what time it is.

Disclaimer:
For those of you that tend to be hyper-sensitive in your striving for political correctness…and you may have let that hyper-sensitivity cause you to miss the message…the stereotypical Mexican man with the very large brimmed sombrero and the donkey in our story is purely fictional.  He could just as easily have been a stereotypical guy from Brooklyn with a very large brimmed sombrero and a donkey.  Also, no stereotypical Mexican men, donkeys or very large brimmed sombreros were injured or killed in the writing of this blog.

Greg Arnold is a successful network marketer with over 30 years experience.  During that time he has been a top level distributor, a company CEO, and a consultant.  He enjoys being a distributor most of all because of the time and financial freedom it provides.

Many network marketers are dismayed with the numbers aspect of running a successful networking business. Since it is a people business, some think it is somehow cold and impersonal to think of their business in those terms. While I feel you would be far less successful as a network marketer by concentrating only on that part of your business, I also believe you are reducing your effectiveness if you don’t understand and take advantage of it.

Not everyone you sponsor will be successful…

The first thing to understand is, no matter how hard you try to help them, not everyone you sponsor will be successful. I know that is hard to believe but, sadly, it’s true! However, what you must be aware of is, everyone on your team is important to your business. They all must be treated as VIP’s with absolutely no exceptions, because about 85% of all network  marketing products are consumed by the networking distributors themselves. As we have discussed in the past, every distributor is an outlet for the products and every distributor is a consumer of the products. Most are much better consumers than outlets!

If you make it a personal and team goal to make ALL your team members feel good about themselves and their products, your volume of business will increase in direct proportion to how well you accomplish that team goal. Always be a sponsor first and retailer second, but never conduct a sponsoring interview without demonstrating some, or all, of your product line. You can never go too far to help someone feel good about himself or his product line.

Superstars have four things in common…

Secondly, one out of every 100 people on your team is a potential superstar, if treated right. All these superstars have four things in common. They all work very hard at their business, they all are very teachable and coachable, and they all make good things happen because they have a tremendous will to win or they always believe there is a way to win. In addition to the will to win, they have something only superstars have. Superstars have the will to work hard to prepare to win. Without the tremendous will to prepare, you will not have all the weapons needed if you must snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and then only luck will save you. Do you really want to leave those critical, make it or break it, moments in the hands of lady luck?

One out of every 30 to 40 recruits is a good, solid leader. These people are hard-workers, they are teachable and they have the will to win. While these people are a valuable asset to your team, do not mistake them for superstars. They need the aid of a local superstar to perform at their peak.

Three or four out of 25 are good followers and great assets to your team. They are teachable and they work hard sometimes. Like everybody, they want to win but it is not always a priority. You can count on them to do almost anything you ask of them, but they rarely take the ball and run with it and they are generally product-oriented.

And, 20 out of 25 will either forget they joined your team 10 minutes after they sign-up or be good consumers, depending on how you treat them. Again, the secret to making them good consumers is always treat them like the VIP’s they are, and always give them a product demonstration during the sponsoring presentation. If you don’t have a product per se, find a way to demonstrate your service. These people will lack in one or more of the essential things they need to win big. They will not be teachable or, they will not work hard and long enough or, they will not have the will to win or a combination of these things. Remember to always help them feel good about themselves and their products.

Depending on your point of view, the above numbers could be alarming or the best news you’ve ever heard in your network marketing career. The fact is they aren’t good or bad. It’s just important to understand and use them to your advantage.

Like all businesses, it requires knowledge, skills and work…

Thirdly, many people will have false notions about what networking is. Many will believe it is only a marketing technique or tool used to move products or services from the supplier to the consumer. Others believe it is a social club or religion to be attended weekly with little concern about profit. Both are somewhat correct. While it is important to remember it is a business and, like all businesses, it requires knowledge, skills and work to be successful doing it. It is also important to remember that it is a way of life. Something vibrant and alive. Like any living, breathing thing, it requires love and nourishment, and that requires an investment on your part.

You must be willing to consistently put in the time and effort required to make these numbers work for you and you must do it in a loving, caring manner. That is proof positive that networking is for real. There’s work involved! Networking is the only place where you can have 3 to 5 years business growth every month. In order to take full advantage of the numbers of the business, you must make a complete commitment to working your business and making your business work for you. You have to immerse yourself in it and become obsessed with it.

Compressing activity and collapsing time frames…

You must learn and practice the principle of compressing activity and collapsing time frames. Take your goals for the next year and compress the activity needed to accomplish those goals into the next month. Take your goals for this month and compress the necessary activity into this week. Take this week’s goals and perform the needed activity over the next 24 hours! If you were planning on sponsoring 12 people this year, go out and sponsor them this month. There is magic in doing this.

Imagine for a moment that it takes exactly one hour to cut the grass in your lawn. Let’s say you want it cut every week. Here are two ways you could do it. One is to cut ten minutes’ worth, everyday. The other is, of course, to do the whole thing in one day each week. Both ways get the job done but, as you can imagine, not with the same results.

In the case of sponsoring twelve people in a month verses in a year, one will create momentum and excitement and potentially a business explosion. The other will create some activity, some excitement and some momentum, but only in little inconsistent spurts and you will have little or nothing to show for your efforts at the end of the year.

If you spread out a small amount of gun powder over a large area and ignite it, you will get a fizzle. It makes a good show and can be impressive but nothing really happens! If you take that same small amount of gun powder and compress it into a tight small space before you ignite it, you will get an explosion. The same principle applies to your business activity. If you spread it out over a large time frame you may give a good show but you will only fizzle and probably move on to the next “hot” networking opportunity before you’ve gotten warmed up with the last one.

If you compress your activity into a collapsed time frame, you may be providing the spark to touch off the next truly “hot” networking opportunity for thousands, even tens of thousands of people searching for a way to make their dreams come true. In the process, your dreams will come true also!

Greg Arnold is a successful network marketer with over 30 years experience.  During that time he has been a top level distributor, a company CEO, and a consultant.  He enjoys being a distributor most of all because of the time and financial freedom it provides.

Network Marketing is ever evolving.

In the past it truly was possible to be in the right place at the right time.  A little work applied to the mix and BOOM, instant organization.  Today, Network Marketing has much more to do with being a good businessperson than positioning.  The fact that it takes hard work applied consistently and persistently over time to build a winning business is a real plus for the industry.  The very fact that it isn’t “get rich quick” is a better perspective for those participating in Network Marketing and those watching it from the sidelines.

Attitude is important, but skills are king.

You don’t have to be great at every aspect of the business but you do have to be skilled.  You do have to know how to use the telephone as a tool.  You do need to know how to use direct mail.  You do need to know how to do home meetings and face-to-face one on ones.  Yes you should know something about prospecting and building on the Internet too.  These skills are important because your organization will not all fit into one mold.  If you ignore developing these skills, you will lose whole segments of distributors.  Remember, you don’t have to be great in all these areas, just skilled.

How do you obtain skills?

The best way is to have somebody with these skills teach you out in the field, where it counts most.  In the absence of that, attend a few seminars to learn the basic techniques.  The best teacher of all is to just do it.  Activity will breed knowledge but knowledge won’t necessarily breed activity.  You can’t find your own personal greatness in a book.  Get on the phone and make a bunch of calls.  Set some appointments and do some one on one, face-to-face prospecting.  Give presentations until your face turns blue.  Hold a bunch of, in home, opportunity meetings.  Mail cassettes to strangers and follow up on the phone.  Learn something about direct mail.  Put up a web page or have a web designer do it for you and ask your friends to go look at it.  Email your friends to go look at it.  Learn something about how the Internet works.  Get skilled in all aspects of your business.  As you build your team, they will be asking you how to do these things.  Have the answers.  Greatness comes from you stepping outside your comfort zone to learn how to do the things you don’t know how to do now.

Network Marketing is not a thing you learn to be great at overnight.

It may take you years.  It took me 17 years before I overcame my own pig-headed limitations enough to ask for help.  I could have done it years earlier, but I must have felt it was important to explore failure from every angle possible.  Some would call this stupidity, I couldn’t agree more.  However, while I was out there failing, I was also learning.  I began making money in the industry when I finally decided to sell out to my dreams.  Yes I learned from the person I asked for help, but frankly, because I was really ready to start winning, all it took from him was a gentle push in the right direction.  It is because of these experiences that I strongly believe Network Marketing is a career, not a company.  Companies come and go.  You can’t let that stigmatize you as you are learning the skills needed to win.

When things are bad you have to work doubly hard to turn them around.

You can’t go home and plop down on the couch and lick your wounds.  You have to work through the slumps like you have never worked before.  When you do, things can turn around fast.  When things are good, you have to really turn it on and get all you can get while you can get it.  When everyone is telling you yes, you’re in the zone.  It is in these moments in the zone that you can define the size of your success.  If your goal is to sponsor 30 people a month, you might think; one a day and I can quit.  But if you ask anyone who has ever sponsored 30 people in a month they will tell you something very different.  They will tell you a story of going days of working hard but never sponsoring anyone.  They will tell you a story of getting one or two a day.  And, they will tell you about moments in the zone when they got 7 or even 10 in one day.  On those days, when the gods of the zone let them in, they simply got all they could get while they could get it.

It is in these moments in the zone that we need to perform like champions.

It is in these moments in the zone that the world stops turning and we do the impossible.  Would you like to experience what it is like to have these magic moments in the zone?  If the answer is “yes, I want some of that” then here is what you will have to do.  Acquire the skills needed to win, use them often and work as if you really want to escape the rat race.  It is in doing the hard work that we find these moments in the zone.  When you get there, go get all you can get while you can get it.  Then work hard again until the next zone arrives.  You will be shocked how often the zone likes to visit those who use it wisely.

Greg Arnold is a successful network marketer with over 30 years experience.  During that time he has been a top level distributor, a company CEO, and a consultant.  He enjoys being a distributor most of all because of the time and financial freedom it provides.

Vince Lombardi, coach of the Super Bowl I & II champion Green Bay Packers, once said that: “Championships are won on fundamentals. Football is two things: it’s blocking and tackling…If you block and tackle better than the team you’re playing, you’ll win.”  The 60’s Packers won five NFL championships over the seven years Lombardi coached them, yet they had very few plays in their playbook.  Lombardi believed that repetitive precise execution of a limited number of plays was far more powerful than mediocre execution of a large number of plays or worse, the lucky execution of a trick play.  He drilled his team over and over on a selective few plays week after week, year after year, championship after championship.  Many times his opponents knew exactly what he would run next but precision execution made the Packers extremely difficult to stop.  Lombardi’s record speaks for itself.

Your MLM Playbook – Boring Is Better

Do you subscribe to the plan of the week club?  Are you consistently looking for fancy new ways to build your business?  Are you promoting a new super growth plan and method to your downline each month?  This is dangerous to the success of your business and to the opportunity for success of those who look to you for leadership.  Find something that works for you consistently and call that play a lot.  If handing out a cd that has a 15 second message on it that says “My MLM is really nifty, you should join me” drives new distributors to join your MLM, then do a lot of it!  Hand that tape to all your friends, relatives and co-workers.  Mail it to everyone you know.  Put it in with every bill you pay.  Attend PTA meetings and give it to the other parents.  Attend football games and hand it out to all the people rooting for the losing team as a condolence gift.  Hand it to the winners as a congratulations gift.  Hand it to the guy who pointed his flashlight to where you should park your car as a reward for a job well done.  Hand it to the guy who sells you hotdogs and popcorn to make room in your hands for snacks.  Forget everything else but getting that powerful tool in the hands of your prospects.  Become boring; repeat the same play over and over again until you become perfect at it.  Then do it some more.

Teach Your Distributors To Be Boring

When training new distributors, teach them how to be good quarterbacks.  Tell them that their technique in handing off the cd that has the 15 second message on it that says “My MLM is really nifty, you should join me” to their prospects is very important to the success of the play.  Help them practice their handoff over and over and over again to dozens of their warm market prospects until they can do it perfectly.  Teach them that championships are not won by those MLM teams that have fancy new plays put into their playbooks each week.  Teach them that champions run the same successful play over and over and over again, week after week, month after month until they perfect the art of being truly boring and then they do it some more.  Teach them how to pass the cd on to everyone they know first, then to people they have associations with, then to people they do business with and finally to total strangers until they have perfected the art of passing.  Then teach them to do it some more until everyone in their rapidly expanding downline says “their goes the most boring distributor I know.

Reading Is Boring – Do A Lot Of It

My book “The Multi-Level Mangler In King Arthur’s Court” (shameless boring plug now available on cd too!) bored me to tears writing it.  You should read it or listen to it on cd and become bored too.  Read lots of boring MLM books.  Read till you are bored out of your mind.  Learn your boring craft until everything you do is totally boring second nature.  Attend boring MLM seminars and meet other boring MLM people.  I am boring in person too, you should meet me.  You only meet boring MLM leaders by getting out among them.  So quit watching your exciting TV with its 800 exciting satellite stations and go to a boring MLM training seminar as soon as possible.

Focus Is Boring – Be Focused

Know where you want to go and methodically, boringly move toward it day after day, year after year.  Never lose sight of where you are going.  The more boring you become by doing the same things over and over as you move toward your vision, the more likely it is you will get there.  Vince Lombardi said the harder and longer you work, the harder it is to surrender.   People follow boring committed leaders.  Always be totally and completely committed to getting where you want to go and move towards it consistently and it will give you the opportunity to bore thousands.

Bore Others By Taking An Interest In Their Lives

No one wants to be bored by how much you know until they know how truly boring you are.  Get to know people, get to know their families.  How will you be able to really make a difference in their lives unless you get right in there and bore them silly.  Always let them know how much you appreciate them, how much greatness you see in them, how excited you are to have them on the team.  Bore them with it.  People hunger for a feeling of importance, a little sincere appreciation.  They will follow you anywhere if you will only bore them with how wonderful you think they really are.  You know you have arrived when even their kids think you’re boring.

Boring Is As Boring Does

When you have come to the point where you have become famous for your boring training techniques.  When you command stadiums full of people you bore to tears with your simple boring message.    When people all over the world want to come and be bored at the master’s feet.  When they offer you a boring book deal to tell about your boring MLM philosophies, then you will be ready to win the MLM Super Bowl.  The art of creating a boring legion of followers will be tough.  You must practice being dull every single day for the rest of your life.  When your competition fears you because you bore them to death, you will have arrived.

Greg Arnold is a successful network marketer with over 30 years experience.  During that time he has been a top level distributor, a company CEO, and a consultant.  He enjoys being a distributor most of all because of the time and financial freedom it provides.

Winning isn’t so hard.

It’s easy, just do what everyone else isn’t, all the time. The hardest thing about getting to the top is breaking through the crowd at the bottom or at least walking up that long hill if you’re old like me. Most people aren’t moving toward winning, you can’t allow yourself the luxury of spending a lot of time doing the same things they do.  Losers never compete to get to the top.

All you have to do is refuse to accept losing.

People generally get what they expect and are willing to accept. What you want out of life usually has little to do with what you get out of life. So expect to win and accept nothing less. Oh, and don’t mistake the outcome of the first battle for the outcome of the last. The war ain’t over till you say it is. In a pie eating contest, you just have to take one more bite than the other guy. Expect to win and don’t ever accept losing even if you have to hang in there a little longer than it is comfortable. Losers accept losing all the time.

When you start something, finish it.

Distributors often join a MLM company and quit ten minutes later to join another one. You might say they finished what they started but a more accurate description might be that they finished before they started. In MLM, people buy your commitment before they buy anything else. They want to know that you are going to be there for them over the long haul. They want to name their children after you, and ask you to baby-sit a lot over the next 18 years for free. Yes they want your body. If they perceive you as the wham-bam-thank-you-Sam-kinda-upline, they won’t join you. Finish what you start. Losers almost always quit, but they never finish.

Do what you say you’re going do.

Always tell the truth. If you say you are going to be there, BE THERE! If you say you will call, call. If you say you will get it done, get it done. Always do what you say you are going to do. If people know that they can count on you, they’ll join you, they’ll be loyal and they’ll invite you over to dinner once in a while (bonus, free meals!). If they see you backing out of commitments all the time or worse, just not showing up, you’ll never build a big organization and you’ll miss out on Mrs. Harvey’s peach cobbler. Under promise and over deliver. Losers don’t keep promises.

Never quit.

A friend of mine once told me the story of his first two years in MLM. He attended every company function and meeting and he regularly prospected and made follow-up calls. After two years in the business, he had no customers and no distributors. He says he never quit because no one told him he could. I suspect he is telling the truth because those kind of numbers are fairly easy to remember. He later went on to build an organization of over 100,000 distributors. Had he done what most would have done, it would have never happened. Never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never, never quit! Ya ya , I know someone already said that, but it doesn’t make it any less valid now. If there is going to be a fight, winners pack a lunch, losers make a habit of quitting before the job gets done.

Accept responsibility.

I did it. I screwed up. It’s my fault. What can I do to help resolve the situation and turn it into a win for you. If you stepped in it, you might as well fess up, it’s on your shoes anyway. Accept responsibility and always be accountable for your actions. It’s the only way you learn, and grow and get better. Don’t point fingers at others, they will only resent you for it, and they may not let you date their sister. Losers don’t get dates with anyone’s sister.

Don’t let it get you down when people say bad things about you, and if you’re winning, they will.

People will always talk about other people. Unfortunately, sometimes they feel a need to pump themselves up at your expense. And yes, they may even fib a bit to make you look bad. Don’t get too wrapped up in what people say. If you work hard, keep your promises and help others win, their words mean very little in the long run and only serve to hurt their own credibility. Losers talk too much and accomplish very little.

Have a vision and keep moving toward it.

People with vision are rare. People who are committed to their vision and hang on to it and consistently move toward it are jewels in the crown of life. While these people are preciously rare, what they do is very simple. They simple identify what gives their life meaning and forever after that move toward it and share the joy along the way. If something gives your life meaning, you may be shocked at how many others can benefit by it also. You may find that as you move toward your vision, many others will want to join you along the way. Life can be a long endless walk through a bunch of cow dung. Visionaries tend to see their dreams and move toward them, losers tend to see the cow dung at their feet and remain motionless.

Be consistent and persistent.

Have a plan and work your plan every day. Move forward every day. Prospect every day. Use your products every day. Share the dream every day. Be persistent. Be consistent. Inconsistency will kill your momentum every time. Nothing great happens overnight. Winners work month after month after month, making it happen. Even though the world doesn’t always see the progress or acknowledge the growth, the victory always goes to those that never venture off the path. Overnight success generally takes about 15 years. Losers are always too busy getting rich quick to put in the time and effort to build wealth.

Sweat a lot.

Life is tough then you die. Hard work never killed anyone. The worse that will happen is you’ll pass out and get a little needed rest. Someone once said “Never let them see you sweat” MLM is sweat equity, that’s why most people don’t have any. Someone told them work smart not hard. That’s bull! Work hard till you get smart, then work hard and smart. Let them see you sweat, good people admire hard work and tend to copy your efforts. Hard work is fun too. Frankly there isn’t a better feeling than working hard all day and knowing that, when your head hits the pillow, you had a perfect day because you did everything you could. Winners work hard and let their deeds speak for themselves, losers never let you see, even a little, sweat.

Be everyone’s biggest cheerleader.

People don’t get inspired or motivated by money. People will do more for recognition than anything else on the planet. Never let an opportunity go by to tell someone you appreciate them. Simple appreciation of others is one of the greatest gifts you can bestow on another human being. A feeling of importance, we crave it, want it, lust after it, have to have it. It drives us, frustrates us, moves us, stirs up our passions. Those that wield the great sword, dubbing all they see with the title VIP are kings among men. Winners offer a kind word and sincere compliment. They always support those that look to them for leadership. Losers are constantly patting themselves on the back.

Swear, smoke a cigar and spit sometimes.

Sometimes you just have to let it out. We are all human! Heck, you just can’t get any closer to perfection unless you remind yourself, once in a while, how bad you are when you just let it loose. You might even find out that being a well rounded, down to earth person is a good thing after all. Most people like other people that are real. A vice or two shows character, not weakness. Winners win in spite of what they are, not because of it. People can spot a phony a mile away but they never even have a twinge of suspicion about a guy who is just being himself and having fun doing it. Deep down inside, losers have trouble accepting themselves, so it is very hard for them to just let their hair down and relax. Winners swear, smoke a good cigar (ladies too) and spit sometimes.

Smile a lot. Laugh a lot.

Try it, you’ll like it. Laugh at yourself every chance you get. If that’s a little tough, try laughing at me for a while. When you get good and worked up, turn that laughter back at you and see if it doesn’t make you feel good. The best part of insanity is you are free to laugh often and hard and you don’t get embarrassed by it. Successful MLM requires a high degree of professional insanity and a rich sense of humor. Try giving the CEO of your current MLM a hot foot, he’s probably a worthless son of a gun anyway and needs a little laugh himself. Losers NEVER give their CEO’s a hotfoot, well neither do winners, but I have this small evil streak.  I just have to let out once in a while. Write me, I’ll send you a book of matches!

Learn to Drive.

If you already know how to drive, then take a drive in the country once in a while. Also, pick people up for opportunity meetings, or coffee table discussions, or what ever you call them. Listen to cd’s that help you grow personally in your car too. Oh and pick up your sweetie and go park on top of a hill someplace on a moonlit night and neck a little. Winners pick people up for special occasions that can make their businesses grow.  Losers scrunch their noses up against the window, in that special nose scrunching line, waiting for their prospect to arrive.

Always believe you will win. Prepare to win.

Never think, for even a moment, that there is the slightest possibility you could lose. Always know that somehow there is a way to win and you are going to find it. Prepare for your winning moments. Read books, listen to cd’s, go to meetings, talk to everyone you meet, practice your craft, practice your craft. Practice your craft. Monster MLM is a skill developed by those brave enough to always workout. Winning is something you do everyday a little bit at a time. Losers simply don’t prepare to win.

Call your Mom.

She told me to tell you that.

Use your products. Give some product to a needy friend.

Be a product of your products, use all of them you can. It will make a believer out of you and belief is powerful. Also, not everything you do should be for profit. Share a product with a friend in need, just because it’ll make you feel good. Winners find creative ways to use and promote their own product lines, losers often complain about their purchase requirement.

Ride a big, mean, ugly, nasty, fun roller coaster.

It’s fun and reminds you that even though you go through a few ups and downs, you always survive (even though you don’t believe it when you’re going through them). Winners always want to go again, losers usually don’t get in line.

Win!

Losers don’t.

Greg Arnold is a successful network marketer with over 30 years experience.  During that time he has been a top level distributor, a company CEO, and a consultant.  He enjoys being a distributor most of all because of the time and financial freedom it provides.

I’ll start of by telling you it took me almost 17 years to wake up in this industry and begin to build it right but that wouldn’t exactly be true.  In fact, I only built my business completely wrong for one year…and then repeated those blunders 17 times.   After hanging around in the business for what seemed like a lifetime, I woke up one morning and said to my self; “Self, maybe you don’t know everything there is to know about MLM.  Maybe you know some stuff but not the important stuff…like how to actually make money in the MLM business.”

I was reading an article in Success Magazine written by then contributing editor, Mark Yarnell, and noticed that he too lived in Reno Nevada (I lived in Reno in the early 90’s for about 5 years).  So I picked up the phone book to see if he was listed.  Wow, there he was, right there in the “Y” section listed right along side of all the other mere mortals in the phone book.  I was shocked!  So I called him.  Then I got my second shock;  Mark answered the phone himself.  I had practiced for almost an hour on the message I was going to leave on his voice mail to get him to call me back, and then he went and screwed it all up by answering the phone in person.

I hadn’t even begun to practice what I was going to actually say to this living MLM legend, so I began by very smoothly tripping all over my own tongue several times.  He was gracious enough to wait a few minutes while I breathed into a paper bag to stop hyperventilating and then we got started with our conversation.  Knowing he would turn me down, I asked him if I could buy him lunch and pick his brain for a couple hours.  To my surprise he said yes!  I guess even MLM gods like to eat.

Over the next few months, I had the opportunity to meet with Mark on more than one occasion.  He really is a nice guy who cares about other peoples’ success.  The simple things I learned from him helped me to build an organization of over 11,000 distributors over that next year.  It only took another year for my company to completely screw that up and go out of business.  So here we are over a decade later and my message to you is; MLM is a career, not a company or a product.  If you build your career right, YOU are the company.

Too many distributors live and die by the words and actions of their upline leaders or their company owners.  Distributors often believe their success is dependent on a hot product or a strong pay plan or a celebrity endorsement or a company that is now in super momentum.  Way too many distributors put their success in the hands of these factors or even fate rather than taking responsibility for their own success.

Well, companies come and go and mere humans who can make mistakes that affect us as distributors often run them.  Government authorities seem to take great pleasure in killing evil MLM opportunities.  This is often justified, but sometimes it just doesn’t make sense.  Sometimes your upline leader decides he or she wants to go to another company and they want to take your organization with them.  On occasion, after two years all the bottles of your favorite product explode.  It works great for everyone who uses it but if the bottle sits on the shelf for two years and 7 minutes, all of the sudden, it explodes!  Of course we can’t have that so we need to shut your MLM opportunity down.

My point is, you can’t control the environment that you work in.  The only thing you can control is your own actions.  So, I would like to submit to you that from this day forward, YOU are the company.  No I don’t mean go start a MLM company.  I mean, YOU are in control of your destiny.  How would you build your MLM career if you thought of yourself as the company, rather than leaving it up to factors you don’t control or pure fate?

Here are a few things that I do knowing that I am: “The Company” 

I work at making friends with good people in the industry.  These friends consist of top level and not so top level distributors.  They are company owners.  They are MLM lawyers on both sides of the isle (corporate and distributor practices).  Yes, many are representing the companies in the wrong color jerseys, known as my competition.  I do what I can to enhance the careers of my friends, even when they are competing with me.  I do this because, as “The company”, I know this enhances my career.  It is smart business…and, you can’t have too many friends.

I also look for slightly more conservative pay plans when choosing a MLM company to represent.  If they can’t afford the payout, they won’t stay in business (rule of thumb; if they pay out more than 40% or 45% they probably won’t be in business long term).  I also look for company owners who don’t view themselves as all knowing and all powerful.  Those omni-potent guys scare me.  When choosing a company, I also try to align myself with distributor groups that best fit my goals, standards, and ethics.  I just don’t want to have to fight with the company, its owner or my own values when it is my job to build an organization.

I also look for products that don’t cure cancer.  If they cure cancer they won’t be here in a year.  I look for good products that do what they say they will do and people like to use them and buy them on a regular basis…like me, they may be boring.  But the Feds don’t often shut down companies with boring products that people use every day.

I write articles, I publish a newsletter, I write books, I speak in public, I write good ad copy, I market on the Internet, I build websites, I understand search engines and one or two other helpful things.  I can do all this stuff because I took the time to learn the skills to do them.  I am “The Company” and it is important that I do a good job of promoting “The Company” and building it into a household MLM name brand.  Developing skills that support your business is important.  It doesn’t hurt your bottom line either because you can then sell those skills to those who haven’t taken the time to develop them (multiple streams of income the right way).

To sum it up; if you look at your MLM business as a career and not a company or product, if you see yourself as “The Company” and act accordingly, then you become closer to being bulletproof when personal MLM flame out type disasters come your way…and they will.  If you do this, it will become almost impossible for outside circumstances to completely shut down the income that you worked so hard to build (I am sitting here amazed at the moment because my spell check just verified that I spelled circumstances correctly.  Sometimes it’s the little pleasures in life that mean the most.).  Remember; All greatness is achieved while working outside your comfort zone.  It won’t be easy or comfortable to reinvent your MLM career, it will take courage.  It is worth it, start today.

Greg Arnold is a successful network marketer with over 30 years experience.  During that time he has been a top level distributor, a company CEO, and a consultant.  He enjoys being a distributor most of all because of the time and financial freedom it provides.