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Think As If It Really Were Your Business
by Greg Arnold
One of the
things that I find most interesting that people say about MLM or Network
Marketing is that "Most people fail!" They say, "I don't want to
do MLM because the failure rate is too high and most people lose
money." In today's article, I am going to address these things
because I believe that fact is stranger than fiction.
Let's look at "most" network marketers under a
magnifying glass. The statistics I have kept over the years
indicate that most network marketers aren't marketers at all.
They tend to be network wholesale consumers instead. In other
words, the reason they join is because they like the product or
service you are offering and they want to buy it at the lowest price
possible.
We once had a couple as part of our
organization that, for this article, we'll call Bill and Sally. Bill and Sally
loved our product line an used many of our nutritional products
everyday. Now, Bill and Sally weren't your typical retired
couple in that they had enough money set aside to do pretty much any
thing they wanted to. One of the things they wanted to do was
have their favorite products shipped to them each month automatically.
Bill and Sally had a standing autoship order of about $700 per month.
They bought and used $700 per month worth of products every month for
years. Best I can remember, they never got a generational bonus
for sponsoring anyone during that whole time. They were simply
very happy wholesale consumers.
Some would call Bill and Sally MLM
failures. Most MLM antagonists would say they lost thousands and
thousands of dollars in MLM. Frankly, neither one of those
statements are true. Bill and Sally were winners by every
definition of the word. They found products they liked.
They requested and received their products by their delivery method of choice.
AND.....they paid the price for those products that they felt
represented a fair value for their dollar. They won on all
counts. My statistics show that Bill and Sally are part of the
85%ers club. The club is made up of those 85% of the people who participate in
MLM who are simply wholesale MLM product consumers. Not business
failures, just honest consumers!. Calling them MLM business failures is as ridicules
as calling someone who buys a gallon of milk and doesn't get a check
back from
Safeway, a grocery business failure. So some say most lose at
MLM, I say, 85% overwhelmingly win!
Let's talk about the other 15%. Of those,
over half see the business as a way to retail a product that they
enthusiastically like and personally use. These people too,
rarely get an over-ride or generational bonus check. The money
they earn is made from the margins between wholesale and the suggested
retail price. Let me give you another example. Mary, not
her real name, became a part
of our organization to consume our weight loss product and to lose
weight. She was successful at both. In a few short months her
before and after pictures looked like something out of a TV
commercial.
Mary became very
excited about the "MLM Opportunity." Which in her mind was the
opportunity to retail the weight loss product. All of her
over-weight friends, relatives and co-workers immediately started
buying from her. Yes, I agree, that was a no-brainer. Then
she made up flyers and posters with her before and after pictures on
them, posted them all over town, and her retail customer base expanded even further. Then
she started participating in trade shows, garden shows, home shows,
any place that would let her set up a booth, and, you guessed it, her
customer base grew even more dramatically. Mary never got a generational
bonus either. Yes, even though she replaced her full time job
with her new found passion, those MLM antagonists would again say,
Mary was a failure.
The last
group I will talk about makes up only 5% or so of the people who
sign-up to be MLM distributors. These are the people who sign-up
to build a business. Many of these people fail. When they
do, most of the time their reason for failure is obvious to everyone
except them.
Let me
ask you some questions. If you had just paid a million dollars
to buy a McDonald's franchise, would you....
Quit to buy a Burger King franchise two weeks after
you started with McDonalds?
Quit because you didn't get rich in your McDonald's business after two
months?
Quit McDonald's to
join Berger King because BK introduced a revolutionary new food
product that was going to change how Americans eat?
Would you, in addition to buying a McDonald's, buy a Burger
King franchise because you don't want to put all your Egg McMuffins in
one basket?
Last but not
least, would you not go into your million dollar franchise because your favorite soap is on, or
you want to watch Monday Night Football or you don't feel like working
this week?
From what I've
seen, the only two
reasons there are for people to fail in MLM is they either, quit too soon or
they never really get started. If they were to treat their MLM business like
the business it is and If they were to develop and work a plan consistently
and persistently, then they will win in their business. I know, these are old
fashion, out dated ideas. High tech, to many, means we no longer have to
put any effort into anything we do. Well, call me a MLM Dinosaur
if you wish, but if you want to build a full-time income from your MLM
business, it seems to me that you should try working full-time at it. Think as if
you had just paid a million dollars to buy your MLM
business. What would
you do to make it successful? Go do that, and I'll guarantee,
you'll win big!
