Network Marketing: Why do so many fail?

Ask anyone why they think people fail in network marketing, I bet the answers you hear will be as confusing,varied and different as each one that you asked. You will hear everything from the company didn’t do what they said they were going to do; the upline disappeared, the product didn’t work, the compensation plan didn’t pay enough, family and friends wouldn’t join, the business was too hard, too easy, it took too much time to build a business. I say rubbish! I believe the number one reason people fail in this industry is simple; the experience didn’t match their expectation. Herein lies the problem, people don’t express their expectations, and enrollers don’t help them set proper expectations. It is important that when joining a new company and team, talk openly about your goals, your time commitment and what you are willing to do to start your business. It is the responsibility of the enroller to be honest enough to tell that new distributor if they have realistic and proper expectations.

So how do you set proper expectations? It starts with setting proper goals. A search online can lead you to a gazillon articles about writing effective goals. I like to use the SMART system. This means goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timely. When I start working with new distributor, I ask them to follow this system and we go over their goals. If they tell me their goal is to make more money, it is my responsibility to tell them that is not a SMART goal. If they tell me they want to make $2000 in sixty days. That is a SMART goal.

Next, your new distributor should be clear on how much time they have to put into their business, as well as knowing how much time you have to offer them. I learned a long time ago, that no matter how much I’m salivating at the mouth to get my new distributor started, it is my responsibility to be honest enough to tell them if I am too busy to hold their hand, or what I expect from them when I give them my time. Don’t sugar coat anything here. If you are not available for twenty 3-way phone calls, don’t lie and tell them you are only to blow them off later. Also, ask them to be honest when committing their time to you and their business. Nothing stops someone from growing their business faster than embarrassment or shame when they realize they couldn’t hold to their time commitment.

Finally, talk about how they are going to start prospecting, their lead sources. What does their warm market look like, do they have a common market, a niche market, are they will to prospect them?

During this conversation, I can look at their goals, the time commitment and their lead sources, and tell them what they can properly expect. More importantly, I share with them what I expect from them. Yes, I tell someone what I expect them to do for me to work for them.

I enrolled this lady about six months ago, a determined, driven, and full of desire. She didn’t have any prior experience and was slightly cautious about building a business because of all those stories of past failures. We sat down to set the expectations.. She wrote out her goals, which were pretty decent, and her time commitment. She wanted to earn $5,000 a month after working 6 months on her business. Her time commitment was 10 hours a week. But her lead sources were weak. I had to be honest with her and let her know that for her to make that kind of money in our company should have to find more lead sources, or lower her income goals. I let her know what I can do to help her and my time commitment to her. After this conversation, she smiled and thanked me. Sincerely thanked me. She told me that she had no clue what to expect from the experience, and she was walking away with more confidence because she felt she was more clearer in what it was going to take to succeed.

Unfortunately for many in the industry, fear stops them from having this conversation with their new distributors. Some feel it puts a damper on enthusiasm of new distributors. Some feel it is a ‘negative’ conversation. Others may just not know how to set expectations because they don’t have any themselves. I believe this conversation is necessary, it empowers your new distributor, and sets them on a clear path. I think it helps to build that relationship between the enroller and new distributor. I think this is a very positive experience. It gives you a chance to really get to know your new distributor, I mean nothing is more personal that sharing what someone’s goals are! Value that! But here is the nugget gold prize…. Setting these expectations take the blame of their failure away from whatever it could have been. It puts the responsibility back on the new distributor.

Go back and ask again why people fail in this industry. All that blame on the systems, the company, the products, the team, the compensation plan, the insert-the-excuse-here, and what you really hear is their expectation was not met. They were let down, lied too, disappointed, betrayed, whatever. Could the blame been avoided? What if you set that proper and honest expectations early on? If someone fails after they know what the expectations are, they only have themselves left to blame. Setting expectations will not only set the clear path for their success, it will save you time and energy. Only those that know the expectations and choose to meet those expectations will succeed. Those that don’t, won’t.

Which hand do you show?

It is an age old question in network marketing, one I know I get asked about the most…. do you lead with the business or the product. Here is my experience…I started by leading with the product because it was most comfortable for me to do. I prospected so many people only showing them the product because I knew in my heart my product would help them. I would learn everything I needed to know about my product line, I could have become some expert in nutritionals. I packed up with a bunch of copies of clinical studies, testimonials, whatever I could find and hit the phones. I prospected a lot of people. Sure, I had a good number of enrollments, and many would reorder, and that was a blessing. But rarely, repeat, rarely would someone go and prospect or bring new people into the business, so I ended up being the only one recruiting, the only one enrolling. It was frustrating. I would scratch my head and wonder why no one else could do what I was doing? The truth was, because they didn’t join to build a business, they joined to get their product cheaper. Whammo! Truth sucks sometimes. I had been prospecting and growing my business on a house of cards that was solely depending on my prospecting.

If you lead with only product, then you are going to recruit lots of customers and that’s ok, but normally customers will consume for their own use and may throw you a referral every so often. Typically you have to wait for that customer to feel some benefit from the product which could take days, weeks or months. Sometimes one of those distributors will have a response to the product, they then go and build a business based on their own story. That’s fine and a great way to build a business, but you first have to sift for those that are interested in the product in the first place, then sift for those that actually have such a great response from your product, you really are leaving a huge group of people behind.

So I switched my focused and only went to prospect those interested in making money.. I got a lot of people that wanted to make money fast, but didn’t want to invest much, I got A LOT of “tire kickers”, I got a lot of people that would tell me they were going to make me rich! What I got was a lot of spurters. People that come in and spurt then fizzle because they didn’t get the “whole picture” of what this industry was about. That network marketing isn’t about a substitution for a second or third job; it is about building a business. I learned that money doesn’t solve money problems and I cannot make anyone do anything they do not want to do. I learned you cannot make someone become an entrepreneur if they don’t have the desire. Period. I also had to deal with my own issues about the industry. I was frustrated again. If leading with product was weak and leading with the business was weak what was the answer?????

Well, first, I had to learn what this industry really is, and it wasn’t until I was able to get past my misconceptions did I fall in love with it. I also had to learn that I did not want to peddle product, and that wasn’t what I signed up for. I didn’t want to be a product expert. It seemed I was stuck in between the two. I sought out suggestions from industry trainers. And I heard something that just lit the lightbulb in my head. I believe it was Randy Gage that said lead with the SOLUTION. It clicked. I listened and learned. Just because you started your own business, I can almost guarantee your distributor kit did not come with a crystal ball. You have no clue and no place trying to determine what need your prospect has UNTIL THEY TELL YOU. Your job is to show them the solution and ask them very simply, do they have a need for either the product and/or the business. That’s it! When I understood this simple concept, prospecting was a breeze. If they didn’t have a need for either, that was ok. I just went out and found more who did. This concept has become my fundamental belief on prospecting.

I believe there are more broke people in the world than sick people.

I believe if I had $200 in cash in one hand, and $200 in product in another hand, more people will reach for the cash. Think about it, if you were my prospect, what would you do? But my job is to offer both hands. It is not my place to judge what their need is. It is really none of my business. My job is to offer a solution and let them share with me what their need is. If I do this, and then teach others to do this, my business grows. It really is that simple.

Network marketing: Do you have the desire burning inside of you?

I laughed when I was first introduced to network marketing all those years ago. The vision I had about network marketing was that you invite all your friends and family members to the local church, feed them spaghetti, and lock the doors when everyone started to eat dinner. What followed would be some meeting that between the carb overload and boring yet dizzy presentation, someone would sign or do whatever was asked just to make their getaway.

I admit, the last thing I ever expected was to be a mentor and coach of the industry. I remember soon after I joined my first company that I really was clueless about what network marketing was, is, and the future of it. So I became educated, I started to reading everything I could about it. I attended seminars, listened to countless cassettes, cd and now podcasts. So what is the biggest lesson about network marketing I have learned?

Network marketing is nothing more than just sharing your passion and enthusiasm with someone else. Period. The basics of network marketing is this…. you must invite, build belief, follow-up, teach them how to do the same thing. How you do this, why and where to do this is when it becomes confusing with all the different trainers and training systems out there. But that is for another time. Do you need any special skills to succeed in network marketing? I don’t believe so. I believe you just need to have that passion and enthusiasm for what you are doing. Skills are taught, desire is not. I would rather have 1 person on my team with a ton of desire and no skill, than a ton of people with skills and no desire.

Something else I learned is that because you don’t need any special skills, just desire…. I learned that anyone can do this business. Stay at home moms, college kids, grandparents… that is what I genuinely love about network marketing. The same opportunity presents to all of us. What we do with it, well, that is what makes us different. Whether your goal is to earn a few hundred dollars extra a month, or a few thousand, you have the same opportunity as the million dollar earners out there.

So go for it, and don’t let your fear stop you, don’t let anyone stop you, don’t let your lack of skill stop you. Just go for it. Remember, desire is all you need… skills will come afterwards.