What is Network Marketing?

Network marketing is first and foremost an incredible and really powerful distribution model. It is used by an increasing number of large and well known corporations to expand their businesses.

Think of a company promoting mobile phone handsets. In a regular business, the company would need to advertise to raise the awareness of the product. At this point, expenditure is high, income is nil.

They would need premises and employees with all the overheads and stresses that go with retail outlets. At this point expenditure has exploded and income is still nil.

How many handsets would need to be sold in this model, just to break even? Quite a few I’m sure.

Consider the same product in a network marketing distribution model.

I appreciate that there would be research & development costs, production and warehousing costs, but these would have existed in the retail model too so we can discount them for the purposes of comparison.

In network marketing, the distributors will be actively searching out leads and new prospects. They may do this in a multitude of ways both online and offline but the cost to the company is nil and the income at this point is nil also.

Once the distributors or network marketing professionals as I prefer to call them convert their leads into customers and there is a firm order, only then does the product get shipped out and the beauty is that the income is almost immediate. It’s a great way for a company to leverage the efforts of many and they aren’t faced with massive expenditure long before any income is generated.

This is important because most companies go out of business because of cash flow problems and operational expenses rather than not making a profit one particular year.

At distributor level, the first part of success in network marketing is your mindset, what you believe is achievable in your core being will determine largely what level of success you enjoy, and that goes for any walk of life, not just MLM. Also, what you really believe you are worth and deserve has a massive impact on your level of success too.

If you don’t believe in the company, the product, the industry or yourself, you are not going to convey your message about your opportunity or product with real conviction. Remember, the vast majority of communication is non verbal and people will pick up on the level of belief you have in the opportunity and in yourself.

The next vital part in any network marketing success are the step by step focused processes you put into place to attract prospects, to expose your opportunity to them, to follow up and to get their decision as to whether it is a good fit for them. All the actions you do to produce the results you get are paramount to your success. No action equals no results.

The final part of the triangle is leadership. The dynamics and communication between you and the people you recruit into your team and those between you and the other leaders in your company will have a direct result on the actions your team takes and remember, this business is about leveraging the efforts of others. No leverage equals poor results.

All of this is gelled together by the energy you bring to the opportunity. Your energy level will determine to a large degree, your level of success. The energy you have towards your mindset will determine your core beliefs about the industry and what you can achieve in it.

The energy you bring to developing your leadership skills will have a big impact on whether people will see you as someone they want to follow to success.

The energy you exert of the process of doing the business will have a huge impact on the number of people exposed to your network marketing business.

I would therefore encourage anybody about to embark on a network marketing career or those already involved but not enjoying the success that they need to ask themselves this.

What kind of mindset do you currently have about your opportunity, the industry and about yourself?

Do you think, ‘I am going to the top and nothing & nobody is going to stop me?’ or do you think ‘I am going to give this network marketing a try and see if it works?’

Your mindset is like the catalyst to success, it’s the acorn that sprouts the mighty oak so you must work on it and nurture it.

Ask yourself this. Are your processes structured step by step?

If they are great, it is then just about following your processes with boundless energy, if they aren’t, get with your upline or other business leader and get your business processes nailed.

Are you a strong and focused leader?

Your recruits will not do any more than you do, in fact they probably won’t do as much as you so you have to lead, inspire and develop the mindset, processes & energy in your team.

Are you energised?

Are you setting aside time for your personal development?

Do you read for 15-30 minutes a day? Readers are leaders, and if you read a chapter in a personal development book each day, how many books will you have read in a month or a year? Imagine where your mindset, motivation or leadership will be in that time if you commit to this small discipline and practice it daily.

Do you listen to success messages and training material?

Put a structured programme of personal development into your life and you will move mountains to achieve your dreams and goals.

Network marketing works, the real question should be do you work?

Work on your mindset and work on your processes and leadership skills too, and put them into action with energy and enthusiasm and with a commitment to stick at it whatever it takes and you will succeed.