How many times has someone tried to recruit you into his/her Network Marketing business and promise you that:
- You’ll be financially independent in NO TIME…
- You don’t need to SELL! We’re not in the business of selling (my favorite!) ?!?
- You don’t need to talk to anyone…
- You can make money in your sleep…
- Anyone can do this…
Or, how many times have you seen classified ads about Network Marketing opportunities that looks like this:
Loading ...So, which one is the “appropriate” response? I’m sorry to tell you that neither response is wrong. Who loses in this case? It might be a shocker to you – but it’s actually the business owner who’s peddling these kind of claims to their prospects. You might say, NO…how can this be?!? My business is the greatest thing on earth…if prospects can’t see it, well… it’s their loss! After all, they’ll miss out on this awesome business!
Why do I think it’s you, the business owner, who loses in this case? For several reasons:
- If 9 out of 10 of your prospects’ response is “Yeah right…this must be the biggest scam of the year”
You lose, because this means you lose 9 prospects, right?!? 
And with thousands of business opportunity ads out there, if 1 out of 10 prospects responds to that type of classified ad, you should consider yourself lucky.
- If the opposite happens, if 9 out of 10 of your prospects’ response is “Awesome…I want to be in that business…I’ll call now!”
You will also lose (eventually). Why is that, you might ask?
Think about what kind of prospects you may get. Those that don’t want to put any work at all to the business! Those who think that they will get rich overnight just by enrolling! In other words, you’ll get prospects who are either lazy or not being realistic at all about building their own business. Which one would you rather have…? Exactly…:)
You will lose eventually, because these folks will not be any assets to your business as they will hardly bring anything to the table. Sadly, often times, these people will end up being liabilities to your business. Since they join under false or unrealistic pretense, more than likely, they would expect to not do any work at all (no selling, no talking to anyone, no cold calling etc.) and still be able make money in their sleep. O yeah…they would expect to be the next Warren Buffet soon too If they end up not making any money, what would they do next? Admit that they’re being unrealistic to expect to not do any work OR blame and badmouth YOU and YOUR business for their failures? How do you think Network Marketers and the Network Marketing industry get its bad name? Read more here: 7 Great Lies of Network Marketing for more details.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a naysayer…not at all! Is it possible to prospect and make money in your sleep? Yes. But this can only happen after you have put some work into your business. How? By having a sound and systematic marketing and prospecting system on the Internet that will do the marketing and prospecting for you and your business 24/7 .
Imagine this…
Let’s say you have worked hard on your business website or your online content using one of the free social marketing sites (i.e. Squidoo, Hubpages etc). You put a lot of valuable information about your business or your product/service/offer in your website. Your prospects then find your website, through Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines. After perusing through your website, they are intrigued by who you are and what you have to offer. They find that the information that you’ve provided in your website is valuable for them. They keep coming back to your website for more information.
What do you think the next thing your prospects will do?
- Buy your product, service or offer? If they do, for sure, you will make some money. But what if they don’t? What if they just…
- Keep coming back for more information? If they click on the advertisers links in your website or buy something from the links on your website, you will also make some money. See below for some illustrations.
But what if they don’t click on anything??? By the way, if you want to read this squidoo article, you can read it here.
If your prospects don’t click on any advertisers links on your website, if you provide enough value for your prospects through your content, chances are they will share your content with their friends voluntarily, making your content viral. Their friends will visit your website, enjoy your content as well and they will do the all the above (buy your product/service/offer, click on the links or share your content). And this cycle continues…with or without you putting more work into your website!
Watch the video below for how your prospects can find you and your website online.
Do you want to learn how to market and prospect online so that you can truly make money in your sleep? Give the Renegade Professional a try.
Now, if you’re looking for a Network Marketing business to get into please do read on. Not ALL Network Marketers market their business like what I portrayed in the beginning of this article.
In most cases, the reason why those marketers who prospect you to join their Network Marketing businesses say all the things that I mentioned in the beginning of this article and make some far fetched claims about their businesses is because they are not aware that Network Marketing IS a business. And just like any other businesses, it needs all the essential business elements that have to work synchronously with each other for the business to succeed. Two of the important elements that I can think of are marketing and sales.
Marketing is needed to get your prospects to become familiar with your business and build rapport with them so that your prospects will eventually FEEL like they NEED to buy your products/services/offer.
Sales is needed to make the actual sale and follow up with your prospects if they don’t buy right away.
So, if you think that you are not in the business of selling stuff, but in the business of “SHARING”, how would you know that you need the marketing and sales skills to build and run a successful business?
So, is Network Marketing really easy? Can you actually make chok-full of money without putting any effort?
Here’s my straight answer: NO. Without putting any effort into whatever businesses you’re in, Network Marketing or not, that financial freedom that you have always dreamed of, will eternally remain a dream that will never become reality (unless you win a lottery!). No Pain, No Gain. Even Robert Kiyosaki and Oprah Winfrey had to experience some pains in their early lives before becoming successful entrepreneurs!
So, what kinds of efforts will you need to become successful in your Network Marketing? There are many things you will need to do. Allow me to list a few of them here.
1) Work on Your Personality
You will need to have an inspiring personality. Without an inspiring personality people will be less likely to want to join your business. It is true that personality development and Network Marketing work hand in hand.
Does this mean that if you’re a shy person, you won’t stand a chance doing Network Marketing? Not at all! In my opinion, you can be shy and inspiring at the same time. What inspires you to do the work necessary to be successful in your Network Marketing business? Your desire for financial freedom, your loved ones or to retire early? Share your inspirations passionately with your own personality to your prospects!
Try to develop a leader personality. Learn what your prospects want and give it to them.
2) Learn About Your Business and Your Products/Services
You have to be completely educated about your Network Marketing business and products/services . Without that, you will not be able to answer the questions that your prospects may have. You can’t always refer your prospects to talk to your upline, can you?!? Lacking of your business knowledge is a sure way to lose your credibility in front of your prospects.
If you truly don’t know about some aspects of your business, it’s better for you to tell your prospects that you don’t know, but you will find out for him/her rather than giving them the wrong answers.
Keep yourself up to date with the latest and greatest news in your industry. Be ready to share them with your prospects.
3) Learn About Your Competition
This is a rule of any business, not just the Network Marketing business. You have to learn about your competition. You have to see what they are up to. What do they do to market their products or services? What kind of products do they have and what are their benefits? How can your products serve your prospects better? How can YOU serve your prospects better? What target market they’re after? Whay kind of sales do they generate annually?
4) Evolve…Evolve…Evolve…
In other words, DON’T STOP LEARNING. Look. Mistakes and failures are bound to happen in your journey towards a successful Network Marketing business. What’s more important is what you learn from your mistakes so that you don’t repeat the same mistakes in the future.
For me, this one is the most important aspects of building and running a succesful Network Marketing business.
The Network Marketing world has changed rapidly. Just in the last 15 years, Network Marketing has graduated itself from cold calling to Internet Marketing to Web 2.0. And this is only one aspect of the evolution. Now, you have to learn how to evolve to be able to respond rapidly to all the changes surrounding you.
You can evolve by continuosly learning the business, sales and marketing skills necessary to build and run a successful business. I can give you some examples of things that you should constantly be asking yourself for the longevity and success of your business:
- How can I market my product or service better and more effectively. This especially goes to those of you who get tired of doing the one on one traditional direct marketing in your Network Marketing business. Can Renegade Professional help me do just that?
- How can I motivate my donwlines to keep going and not get deterred easily if they don’t make any money the next day they join?
- How can I build trust with my prospects so that my prospects know that if they join my business, this is the kind of value that they can expect from me?
- How can I use the tax law to my business advantage?
5) Reach Out
You have to do a lot of work to turn your prospects into members of your Network Marketing business. This is essential. You have to reach out to people. You have to reach out to your prospects and target market numerous times before they feel they can trust you. You have to promote and advertise your business. Therefore, you have to reach out to other business owners (offline and online) webmasters, bloggers etc. Remember this saying by Rockefeller: “I would rather earn 1% off a 100 people’s efforts than 100% of my own efforts?” A lot of times, this is said by Network Marketers in reference to having people joining their business already. But can you say the same thing when you promote and advertise your business? You sure can…How? The Renegade Professional will show you how.
Lastly, treat your business like a business. By joining a Network Marketing business, you become a business owner. There are NO business owners that don’t put any efforts at all if they want to be successful. If you have additional tips, I’m interested to hear from you.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Great article Muti. I agree 100% that you have consider Network Marketing like any other business. And I don’t know any business building itself without any effort or work on your side…
Perig´s last blog ..Napoleon Hill Definiteness of Purpose
Yeah, “no pain, no gain.” Although this kind of business has to be easy going, starting it for sure won’t be that easy. The mistake people have done all this time is to assume that once they’ve enrolled to that kind of offer, its alright for them to do nothing at all. And frankly, everything you’ve said in this article is correct. Specially the later part when you’re already teaching on how to handle it. I have some downs for this one though. I find that this article has sort of been too much. With regards to the title, I think some part of the article should have been on another topic. Because the title is “Is Network Marketing Really that EASY?” and I find the article to be too long for it. Which is a good thing but I just find some parts of it to be better if placed on a new topic. But all in all, this is really helpful, informative, and most of all, straight to the point of what everyone of us has to know about it. Looking forward for more.
Hi Perig,
I’ve seen a lot of Network Marketers treat their business like a hobby without much focus on developing the right skills to market their business to sell their products and grow their business. With the “Anyone Can Do This” teaching that the traditional Network Marketing has been touting forever, it makes it almost impossible to believe that there are actually some crucial skill sets that any Network Marketers who care to succeed have to have.
That’s why I wrote this post and decided to write this blog
I’ve always seen those ads in the newspaper and really found them deceiving, but this article has cleared things up for me. As long as you have an interesting website, blog or whatever, you’re gonna have people visiting it and you’ll make some money, but keeping it updated and attractive is the key for it lasting and being profitable.