Taken from Dream Big: 99 steps to network marketing success
by Doug and Joshua Wead
by Doug and Joshua Wead
Step 1: The importance of a dream. The first step in building a successful network marketing business is to visualize your success. To dream about it, to think it through. What would happen? How would it happen? What would I do with my success? We interviewed more than 300 networking leaders from 30 different businesses and almost all of them agreed that this was the single most important step. And yet most people won't take the time. Centuries ago Aristotle wrote about the relationship between "purpose" and "action" but the first observable and experiential studies began with Cecil Mace in 1935 and later, more extensively with Edwin Locke in the 1960's. Locke was able to actually measure the difference between goal setters and the rest of us. The results were very impressive. You’ll encounter people who will tell you that they cannot build a networking business because they don’t have any money, or they don’t have any education, they are new in the city and they have no contacts. They’ll give you a long list of reasons why they can’t build a business but none of those prevent them from dreaming. You don’t have to have money to dream. You don’t have to live in a certain town or have contacts to dream, nothing stops you from dreaming. So if people who are successful say that the first step toward success is to visualize that success, why would we argue with something so simple? Let’s find another rule to break, one that’s a little more difficult. This one is easy; it’s a no-brainer. Imagine waking up in the morning and saying to your wife, “I want you to tie my hand behind my back. I want to be able to say that I built my business with one hand tied behind my back. I did it without a dream. And I employed none of that visualization nonsense." But why? What have you achieved? Remember, it costs no money and there is no rejection with dreaming. If the first step to success is such an easy one to take, then take it. Step 24:
Have your upline teach your downline what they need to know. The shortest distance between you and your downline is through your upline. The fact is that your new recruits are not going to be very impressed with what you know about network marketing. No matter how wealthy and successful you may be, you are a novice to this industry and they know it. Better to play humble and promote your upline mentor and have him or her come in and teach the things that need to be taught.
Now that doesn’t mean that you can’t be pulling the strings behind the scenes. You can tell your upline mentor what is going on and what you think needs to be done. But be willing to be corrected. And when you mentor does say what needs to be said, don’t be surprised when you distributors are amazed, acting as if it is the first time they ever heard it. That is the nature of network building. Your kids will listen to anybody except you. Step 32:
Teach how to lead, rather than how to build. There is an old proverb that says this. “People want to learn, but they don’t want to be taught.” We have already discussed why and how to have a third party, an upline mentor for your group, someone to teach networking principles. Your own personal friends are not ready to accept you as an authority on network marketing. But when a third party isn’t available you can still teach prospects and new, personally sponsored distributors, by using an indirect approach. Instead of telling them what to do, treat them as a leader and share with them what they should teach their group. The wrong way? “You should make a list of contacts.” The right way? “You will want to teach your new prospects to make a list of contacts.” You begin by treating your prospect as if they are already a leader and that they have a phantom network out there. You are telling them what they will want to teach their people. Thus the approach is indirect. They don’t feel demeaned for you are only laying out the plan. And they may feel inspired to imagine their network growing. The most important thing is that they will see why they, too, should do these things as an example for the network yet unborn. Get all 99 steps, order:
Dream Big, 99 steps to network marketing success. |
Step 7: Team up with someone else As you will learn later on, it is important for you to be part of a systematic approach to building your networking business. And it is usually more effective if you do not immediately present the business opportunity yourself. No matter how important or credible you may be, you cannot be an authority on a business you just joined. And your friends will know that. You will want to have a network marketing mentor or partner or team member or upline leader do the work. Your job will be to get on the phone or online and set the meeting up. If the person who sponsored you won’t help you, ask them for their upline’s contact information. And keep going upline until you find someone who is willing to work with you and help build your business. Believe me, up there somewhere is a very talented leader looking for distributors who are serious about building a network and making money. They will be just as glad to find you as you will be to find them. A number of years ago I was invited to Brisbane, Australia to speak for one of the most talented and successful network marketers in the world. He had massive groups in Indonesia, Hungary, Russia, South Africa and all over the world. I had spoken for soccer stadiums full of his people in Jakarta and Surabaya and Budapest. Now, I was going back to the source of it all, the group he had launched in Australia that had taken his network to the world. What I found didn’t surprise me. His home group was just a few hundred people. At one point I asked him what his group needed to hear? What teaching would be most effective? And then he opened up to me. He seemed to have no respect in his own group. No one wanted to work. He offered himself as a mentor and a team partner to help build larger groups in Australia and there wasn’t a single person who would take him up on it. Here was a millionaire, a young genius at networking, willing to give his time and energy free of charge and there was no one in his group who seemed to want it. If you are new to network marketing I can assure you that somewhere up there is a mentor, ready to go to work to build your business. Find that person and team up. The Chinese have a proverb. If you want to go fast? Go alone. If you want to go far? Take someone with you. Plan on going far. Step 27:
Give a prospect a unique reason to get into your business. Why should a prospect join your business? To make money? But what are the odds that they will be successful? If you say that you have a great company, with great products and you can prove it that may only be intimidating. It may actually discourage a prospect who doesn’t feel the he or she will make the commitment to make your business work. Your business opportunity is an unknown for them. Why do they want to be in YOUR group, one of YOUR distributors. Why aren’t they the upline? Sure it will work for you but will it work for them? You say, “Our company has a million distributors.” But your company’s success does not guarantee the prospect’s success. They may not want to be one of a million distributors, a little ant slaving away for the master, a laborer, toiling all day to build the Pyramids for some Pharaoh. The solution is to offer each and every prospect a unique reason to get into your business. Something special that applies only to them. When I built my first network I sponsored a chiropractor. He came to our meetings for one reason. He was looking for new patients and he thought by participating in a networking business he would make friends and when they needed him they would come calling. It worked. He built his chiropractic business but his network grew in the process. He eventually quit his profession and enjoyed the freedom he got from his networking business. Perhaps the best reason for someone to join your network is your upline team. By promoting your upline mentor and the close team you have assembled to build a network you are offering your prospect something that no one else coming into the same company will have. You can tell the story of how you connected and why this unique set of circumstances brought you together and why that portends success for the prospect. It is one thing to come into a great company with a great opportunity. It is something else to stumble onto a team that is dynamic and knowledgeable and willing to help do the work. That is unique. It is an opportunity that no one should waste. |