The law of averages work with the law of high numbers.  In your first year in MLM you are learning how to get good at what you do.  I guarantee that my numbers are much higher than yours are.  Why?  Because I can read the defenses.  

A quarterback in a new system spends most of his time learning the plays.  When the plays are second nature, he starts learning the defenses and how to spot what the other guys are going to throw at him in that particular play.  When he gets real good at reading those defenses, he can call audibles if everything doesn’t look right.

MLM is the same thing.  Have you read Dale Carnagie’s “How To Win Friends And Influence People”?  If not, you should make that a career priority.  In fact I read it at least once a year.  

Also, you need to fail a lot in your first year.  I am not saying try to fail, but talk to lots and lots of people your first year.  There is no substitute for experience.  Most people make the mistake of wanting to be perfect before they talk to anyone.  It should be just the opposite, talk to lots of people and you will get very good at what you do.

Knowledge won’t breed activity but activity will breed knowledge.  Don’t worry about the numbers now as far as success ratios go, go out and get a lot on you, talk to lots of people, fail several times each day.  You will get good and you will start to earn a great deal of money while you are learning to get good.

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.

So in one of the forums I participate in some one said:  “There is NOTHING you can do (legal or illegal) that will allow you to lay on the sofa sucking down Cheetos and beer and still make an above average income! Anyone telling you that it’s THAT easy is trying to CON you.”

How about mixed nuts and beer? I don’t really think giving up laying on the sofa watching Sunday NFL football and drinking beer is a viable proposition! I’m a guy, it’s like part of my genetic make-up.

There has got to be a way to be profitable in the other six days of the week!  Even God sits around drinking beer on Sundays.  Or at least that’s what I envision that he does.  And if he’s any kind of real God I’m sure he’s a Packers fan too!

Best of success to you,

Greg

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.

So we’re just off the elections and more money was spent on negative ads than ever by both sides.  Frankly I wanted to know what was right about both guys.  This year was more sickening than ever for me.

So I’m an MLMer.  One of the things that is so prevalent in our industry is distributors trying to put others down rather than highlighting what’s right about their own.

My MLM fantasy would be a world where we love our own products, our own pay plans, our own companies and promote what’s right about us and forget about everyone else.  Bashing other’s products, pay plans and companies is amateurish.

Products:  They are all about the same.  Nutritionals have been studied and tested for thousands of years.  Just because a company chooses to do a new round of studies on various ingredients doesn’t mean they are any better than a company that relied on the tens of thousands of studies that were already out there.  The FDA doesn’t approve ANY products.  

Pay Plans:  If you work you get paid, if you don’t you won’t.

Companies:  More money is better.  More time in business is better.  Larger is generally better.  Percentages will always be on your side to recognize that.  But every once in a while, a new start up makes it.  

First guy in makes all the money:  Bull!  First person who explodes the business makes all the money.  Example; Dexter at Amway came along in 1965, 7 years after they started.  Unless you sponsored Dex, chances are you made very little at Amway by joining before Dex.

Be good to each other, this is a great industry.  The more we do to help each other win, the greater our industry becomes.

To your success,

Greg

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 was asked the other day about certain elements of pay plans.  All this might sound a bit like rambling, but a lot of it was important so I posted it here too…

There really isn’t any such thing as an infinity bonus. They sound good on the surface but since you qualify to get them, then others can qualify too. So as soon as someone below you qualifies for the same bonus, they cut you out of that bonus on that leg. Long story short, your leaders will always cut you out of your infinity bonuses. Since virtually all of your downline comes through those leaders, infinity bonuses don’t really exist. This type of plan forces you to go very wide to make any real money. Again, lessons you learn with experience.

With a breakaway you can get payed six levels (or what ever the plan calls for) of groups deep. So you pop off a direct, or what ever the company calls it, and you get paid a percentage of that group’s total volume. Then so on and so on as more leaders develop. Theoretically you could get paid 1000 people or more deep.

With a unilevel if it paid six levels what that is saying is you will get paid six people deep. In other words, I sponsor you (that’s my first level) you sponsor Jane (your first level my second) Jane sponsors George (Jane’s first level, your second, my third) down to six levels of people. It isn’t paid on group volume it is paid on individual’s purchases. A plan might pay 7% through all six levels.

In the end, all pay plans are the same in that if you work you get paid and if you don’t you won’t. But company’s drive how you work with your team by how they pay. Some plans are better than others but generally, not much better. When I see people trying to sponsor others by saying something like; you should join me because we have the best pay plan in the industry, all I can think is that guy is clueless.

The reason I say that there is no “best pay plan” isn’t based on math. Math is a useless indicator because people have different passions. And network marketing is after all a people business.

A guy/gal who is passionate about helping people to “buy term and invest the difference” wouldn’t be a very good distributor for NuSkin no matter what the payplan was because NuSkin simply doesn’t sell insurance.  Also, someone may be passionate about working with binary pay plans. Anything besides a binary wouldn’t be right for this person no matter what the math was.

So all I have to say is there are a few really bad pay plans out there but there isn’t a best one. Or a pay plan isn’t a good reason to join a company. Passion for the products, compatibility with the team and company philosophies and values, ability to work with and learn from a mentor who is successful with that company. I’d start there, then look at company history, owners, and the reasons people have been terminated from the company.

My point is comp plans aren’t what you should consider first, and for most perhaps not at all. If you have find products you love, a value system that matches your own, a successful mentor who will teach you how to succeed, honest competent owners, then what would it matter if you got paid 2% less than with a company that doesn’t have all these things?

To your success,

Greg

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.

Is personal contact dead in the MLM industry?  Have the old fashion ways passed away?  The fact is, personal contact holds the highest percentages in the industry. People respond face to face with someone they know and like far better than through receiving an email or phone call from a stranger.

When a room full of people were recently asked how did you join your first MLM, over 90% answered through personal contact from someone they knew.  I have a friend who meets people at a coffee shop every morning. He has built a business of over 25,000 distributors in just that last 18 months.

I am not against the internet, telephone, other technologies, in fact I use them for most of my business. But I wouldn’t want a person who is new to the industry to believe that tried and true methods of building their business are somehow out dated today. They aren’t.

Best of success to you,

Greg

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.