In the network marketing industry, most people crave tactics. Tell me where to go, what to do and what to say and I'll do it. But here's the truth. If you get the mental right, then the tactical will be easy. But, if you try to shortcut the process by getting the tactical right without working on the mental, all of your results will be temporary.
There are three main elements to every direct selling or networking opportunity. The first is the product or service. And, here's a question... Do you have the same product or service that everyone else in your company has? It's the same, right? If that's true then if one person or group is having huge success selling the product and you're not, we'd have to agree it's not the product, right? In other words, the product is a constant.
The second element is the financial opportunity. Same question. Do you have the same financial opportunity as other people in your company? Do they have two different financial opportunities for men and women? Do they have two different ones for young people vs. old people? Two different ones for people with different skin color? For people with different educational backgrounds? For people of different ages? In many traditional corporations, you can't really say the playing field is level, but in this industry, in direct sales or network marketing, it's all about production.
That said, if you have the same compensation plan as everyone else in your company and some people are enjoying tremendous success and you're not, you'd have to agree that the compensation plan isn't the reason. The compensation plan is another constant.
So, that leaves us with the third and final element and, quite simply, that's YOU. You are the only variable. So that means you have to work harder on you than you do on the product or financial opportunity. You have to work harder on you than you do on the people in your organization. Harder on you than on anything else.
In the end, you only get to earn what you ARE.
If you want to make more, youre going to have to become more and that means taking responsibility for developing yourself.
For many people, taking responsibility is a foreign concept. When things aren't going the way theyd like them to go, their natural tendency is to blame.
Facing personal shortcomings is against most peoples nature. Particularly in America, we've been conditioned to believe that someone owes us something. If you insist on holding onto that mindset, you'll never be more than a bit player in the game. The sooner you get over it and learn to take responsibility, the quicker you'll get the success you deserve.
I had 18 ridiculous dead-end jobs before I was 22 years old. Now, what do you think was a common denominator in every one of those 18 jobs? It was me.
One way to look at it was that I had a virus in my mental software. Several of them actually. You probably guessed one of the biggest. I was a professional blamer. Nothing was ever my fault. It was the company. It was the product. It was the training. It was my upline who never did anything for me. It was my stupid downline who never sold anything. It was the economy. It was my upbringing. It was my age. It was any number of things.
One of the things I eventually learned was that, as soon as you go down the blame road, you take yourself out of power and give your life over to things you cannot control.
In my blame mentality, I could only succeed if the company, product, training, upline, downline, economy, upbringing and age were in perfect harmony with my goals. If they werent, I literally couldn't succeed.
Once I turned that around and began to take responsibility not just for what happened to me, but for how I responded to what happened to me, then I was finally able to take control of my life and begin to turn things around. It wasn't easy. Bad habits like that are very hard to break.
In my opinion, you can look at the areas of your life that are having trouble and they're usually the areas where you blame the most.
The second virus I had in my mental software was I would rather get away with things than earn them. The problem with that philosophy is you have to hope to get lucky for the rest of your life.
Our industry feeds on this get lucky philosophy. I can't tell you how many people join, cross their fingers and hope to hit it big. Very few join with the hope of actually earning what they can in this industry. But, in the end, that's the only real way of getting there. One of the greatest benefits of being involved in this industry is that it won't limit how valuable you can become and, because of that value, how much money you can make. Different from other industries, you wont see a cap placed on your income. Companies will always come up with ways for you to make more if you bring more value.
Once I decided I would rather earn something than get away with something, everything began to change for me. If you adopt that mindset, things can quickly begin to change for you as well.
The third virus in my mental software was, I wanted to get results first and then I'd work harder. I'm not sure when this virus started, but it was with me through my first 18 jobs for sure. Pay me more and I'll work harder. Give me a promotion and I'll get a better attitude.
To give you an example one of my early jobs was working as a dock boy at a boat rental business. At that job, there were some people making more money than me so one day I asked the boss "What do I need to do to make more money here?" (Thats a good question for anyone, by the way). He said, "Well, that's simple. You just do this and this and this."
The next day I showed up early and went to work on the things he suggested. All day I was a ball of fire. No one could believe all the things I was doing. I worked hard because I knew the payoff was coming soon. At the end of the day, I went to the boss and said "Well, I did what you asked. Can I get my raise now?" He laughed and said, "Eric, it was a good day. No question about it. Everyone was very impressed. But it was just one day. Were going to have to see if you can maintain that kind of effort and then we'll see."
I've got to tell you that I didn't take that very well. In fact, I thought he was trying to get me to do things without paying for them. I thought he was trying to take advantage of me.
I took that same philosophy into other jobs doing the absolute minimum with a bad attitude. "It's not my job" was a big part of my vocabulary. And my early career results speak for themselves. How else could you possibly have 18 different jobs before you turned 22 years old?
In the marketplace, to get ahead, you have to do more than you get paid for and, this is important, you have to do it for quite a while before you even begin to expect results. In order to move ahead, you have to get past the feeling that someone is taking advantage of your hard work and move on to the mentality that those extra things you do are an investment in your own development. Think of it as an investment in yourself. Even if no one notices, you'll still be increasing your value in the marketplace. If you do more, you'll become more. If you become more, you can earn more.
Success in this industry is hard work, but its worth it. You're going to have to do more than you get paid for, especially in the early years, in order to achieve big levels of success. This is not an industry that will pay you in exact relation to the hours you put in. If you want that, go find a job in a corporation somewhere.
At the beginning, you're going to have to put in more time for not much money. But, as your career develops, you can get to the point where you can put in less time and make much more money.
Entrepreneurs are used to this mindset but it's different than your traditional corporate job where they pay you market value for market skills. This is more of an entrepreneurial environment where things like risk and reward come into play.
So, how does all of this translate into direct sales or networking success?
It's simple really. All of us have some form of virus in our mental software. It may be the "Blame Virus" the "Get Lucky Virus" or the "Pay me first virus" like I had. Or, it could be some that I didn't have like the "Avoid Risk at all costs Virus" or the "I'm too cool virus". There are a lot of them out there.
What liberated me from a lifetime of future frustration was to identify some of the big things that were holding me back and then to go to work on changing my thinking about them. It sounds easy to say, from now on Im going to take responsibility, Im going to earn everything I get and Im going to work long and hard before I even start to look for results. The reality is, it wasnt easy. I had many setbacks along the way, but the important thing is, I did it and so can you.
I'm talking about adopting a winners mindset. You're in charge of your life. No one else is responsible for your success or failure. That's completely up to you. And, as the person in charge, you need to evaluate the things that have held you back up until today and then go to work to change them.
This probably isn't what you want to hear, especially with the stupid claims made by so many online liars saying in so many ways that you can "make money without working". If you don't face the fact, right up front, that you're going to have to work hard for what you get in this industry, then that virus in your mental software will eventually destroy every tactic you attempt.
So, here's a few suggestions:
1. Be brutally honest with yourself.
2. Determine what is holding you back.
3. Write it down.
4. Keep it in front of you at all times.
5. Ask your friends and family to help you if they see you slipping back into negative habits.
Remember, you're in charge of your business and you're in charge of your life. In the end, its all about you.
Your friend and mentor
Article kindly provided by Eric Worre