What I think works as a better guidance system is to make sure that your own network marketing business are built on a strong stable foundation of Triangle. This insight hit me while driving earlier.

So, as it is, I am now restructuring my thinking regarding my Network Marketing business endeavor as follows:

Mission: My Mission, as I wrote it down, reads, “To sell as many memberships to as many people as possible.”

Out of this missions sprung a separate, yet equally powerful mission, “To hold the running company record for organizational recruiting AND sales.”

This secondary mission, in a sense, is important because it supports the primary mission to sell as many memberships as possible, through the power of leveraging my efforts through others by recruiting them into my organization.

Team: This refers to my recruiting methods. I am always looking at new or novel ways to recruit team members, in a fashion that is duplicatible.

Leadership: This refers to my ability to get people motivated and focused to follow the simple daily activities that are essential to create enough forward momentum. I will be holding a weekly training for my team. Also, to help set a beneficial example for my team, I will be reading at least 10 pages or 1 chapter from a personal development book each day, which ever is more. Also, I will listen to 15 minutes or 1 track of a personal development audio program, whichever is longer.

Cash Flow Management: Of all money I make in the form of commissions or payouts, I plan to reinvest a certain amount back into the business. As an example, say I made $1,000. I’ll take a certain amount and purchase marketing materials and supplies. I’ll also use some of the money to reward people in my team for jobs well done.

Communications: This refers to the external and internal communications. This is where most network marketers beieve is the only part they need to focus, in order to succeed. For my communications component, I am making 2 company/product exposures per day. In our business, an “exposure” is simply the act of getting a 3rd party marketing tool into a prospective business partner’s slime. We use things like magazines, DVD’s, CD’s, etc., to simply tell people about our products/services. The materials do the talking for us, and never get tired.

Systems: This is the real meat of a network marketing business plan. Systems, as outlined before, are where the rubber meats the road, so to speak. When you develop systems for each part of your business plan and execute them properly, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of the process.

Systems I plan to work with here are:

• Recruiting/Sponsoring
• Sales Presentation

These things, when executed like clockwork, done over and over, compounded over time, will ensure success.

Legal: Not really much to say here, other than I intend to use the services of an attorney to either incorporate my business or even LLC it. I will do this for assett protection as my main focus.

Product: All you can really do here is to actually KNOW your product/service in and out. Learn the product presentation. I am right now working on developing a presentation that I can comfortably deliver in 15 minutes, as well as one that can be done as an Elevator Pitch.

I hope this makes sense to you. If not, Email Me or Comment and ask for clarification!

Take care of yourself and others!

As promised in my last post, this article will focus mostly on a relatively important aspect of building an organization in a legitimate Network Marketing Business, which is the product(s) or service(s) that a company offers to the public.

In evaluating a Network Marketing company, or for that matter ANY company that you are considering joining, investigate the products and services. When (synonym for investigating) the products and services, make sure the company HAS products and services. If you are looking at a company, and can’t easily discern what of value the company offers,you may be well advised to run. There have been a LOT of companies that, instead of offering a product or service of value, seem to be merely “laundering money amongst friends.”

Any good Network Marketing company should have an abundance of training materials to help you learn the product’s features and benefits. To go along with this, the person who sponsors you into the business will work with you and train you in how to do an effective product presentation to outline these features and benefits.

Some of you are saying, “Why would I need to learn about the features, I was already given the presentation when I signed up!” Well, the simple reason why we need more training is honestly that most of us won’t even REMEMBER all the features and benefits from that initial presentation. That’s why some of the companies have a regular meeting. Training is offered, but just as importantly, a product presentation is given to bring prospective customers to. This makes use of a memory enhancing technique called Spaced Repetition, which basically says that the more we are exposed to a concept or idea, the more likely we will be to remember it effectively. This is good because new people in the company can begin to show the product and profit-building opportunity to prospective customers without being Masters of the Trade. That is the beauty of a well-thought-out Network Marketing plan. We’ll get into this more in the future article “The Power of Building Systems”.

When you are looking to get into a Network Marketing plan, make sure and doubly sure that there will be adequate support as you build your business. If you are talking to a potential sponsor in a particular company, let them know that you expect to be well-trained in the most effective ways to approach prospects about the product and the business opportunity. If you gut tells you that something is not right about what this person is saying, you may want to consider either finding a better sponsor within the company. If that doesn’t work, perhaps find another company. The bottom line is, a product presentation can be memorized and rememorized, but you will not effectively remember it until you actually start DOING some presentations. A really good sponsor will go along with you on your first few presentations, and just watch you.

Have you ever seen a good movie, eaten at a good restaurant, or read about a killer sale at the store? Odds are, you told someone about it. That is basically what we do in Network Marketing. We share a product or service that we find of value. That leads to another important aspect of the business: Passion. When you are passionate about something, it can lead you to do amazing things.

I will write more about Passion in a future article called “Passion: The Fuel that Leads to Greatness”.

Take care of yourself and others!

There is a general amount of confusion in the public as to whether or not Network Marketing is the same as a Pyramid. The widely accepted definition of a Pyramid is an organization where all the people at the TOP of the pyramid make all of the money while the ones at the BOTTOM of the Pyramid do all the work. I submit that many of the world’s companies that user a corporate structure are Pyramids in structure.

So, to find a better definition of a Pyramid, we’ll ask the Folks at GreekShares. According to our friends there, a Pyramid is defined as follows:
In pyramids, commissions are based on the number of distributors recruited.
Most of the product sales are made to these distributors – not to consumers in
general. (1)

The notable difference between a Network Marketing/Multilevel Marketing company and a Pyramid is the fact that legitimate NM/MLM companies will not pay you a commission for recruiting someone. The only commissions that are paid are based on actual sales made. If you are looking at joining a company that claims to be a NM/MLM company, and promises to pay you exorbitant sums of money for recruiting someone, think very hard about joining that particular company. Check out all you can about the company. At the end of this article, I will put a few links you can use to research companies.

One resource for checking up on a company and products is the Better Business Bureau (BBB). The BBB tracks reports of customer complaints and how long it takes the company to resolve the complaints. This will not, however, tell you specifically about the company itself, only how the company handles complaints from customers. It may also just be a result of the complaining customer being in a bad mood that day.

In all honesty, Network Marketing isn’t for everyone. There are some people who will see just one negative article or report about a company, and shut down all future thought of joining that company. This is like some people who absolutely will not see a movie because a friend or relative told them “this movie SUCKS!”. What sucks for one person might be gold for another. Research all you can, then trust your own judgment.

Part of the promise of building an organization in a legitimate NM/MLM company is that you CAN recruit people into your sales team, depending on a particular company’s compensation plan. I will get very in depth into recruiting and compensation plans in future articles for this series.

In the next article, entitled “Network Marketing: Selling your Products and Services”, I’ll get into the nuts and bolts of the most important thing you can do for yourself if you are building a network marketing organization: Learning Your Presentation.

Take Care of Yourself and Others!

Business Research Resources:
New York Stock Exchange
American Stock Exchange
Hoover’s
Better Business Bureau

Reading References
(1) Pyramids and Multilevel Marketing Plans