Can Network Marketing be Fun?

When joining a network marketing company, the first contact that you have teaching you about the network marketing business is your sponsor. You learn to trust and follow your sponsor, to do what (s)he says, and to not question or attempt to "reinvent the wheel" but to simply "follow the system" that is in place to GET TO THE TOP.

When your sponsor, and your upline, are hundreds or thousands of miles away, it makes it hard to learn, train, be involved with your team, and "feel plugged in". You may feel separated and alienated because you miss weekly team trainings, monthly meetings, recognitions and the infectious spirit created by your team's single minded focus.

Although having a long distance upline and team can seem frustrating and leave you feeling alone, it can also be empowering. You have the opportunity to explore new directions. You will meet with less resistance because your sponsor isn't close by to supervise you...as it turns out, you have more of a chance for success being by yourself!

Your upline may frown upon exploration on the web, looking for new solutions to lead generation: they teach you to go to the mall, cold call, talk to friends, family, neighbors...but there is a better way to find prospects if you just know where to look.

The new internet marketing model is teaching us to use technology to our advantage. Social marketing websites allow for interaction between like-minded people (read: people who care about what you have to offer).
Use the fact that you are alone to your advantage and start A NEW SYSTEM that WILL take you to the top, in a much less painful and expensive way than your upline teaches. Meet (network with) people who are truly interested in your products or opportunity online. If you are talking to interested people rather than family members who got suckered into having a party for you, don't you think you might be a bit more successful?

The NEW system is simply taking multi-level marketing and bringing it into the 21st century. Everyone is on the web. Everyone has a computer. Use this to your advantage to find your best prospects.

Your upline isn't there to support you every moment: use it to your advantage. Test out the new model of multi-level marketing, and then share your success with your sponsor and upline...and don't let them tell you that the computer isn't personal enough. After all, you probably communicate with your upline via email more than any other way, since you are out of the local loop. You are a prime example that social marketing and using the web can be a successful way to build a business.

Please contact me for more information.

Also, check out these great resources: Ann Sieg's 7 Great Lies eBook, Ann Sieg's FREE eBook The Marketer's Manifesto and Renegade University

Sometimes in life, you just need a "pick me up". You get discouraged and need to refocus. This is nowhere more true than if you also own your own network marketing business.

In multi-level (MLM) marketing, the needed "pick me up" can come from a hotel meeting with grand recognition, an expensive convention, or a push to "re-ignite" and "re-launch" your business. However, renewed enthusiasm can be much less expensive and much more helpful.

Debbie Ford's The Best Year of Your Life is a wonderful "pick me up". This book is full of step-by-step techniques that can help you reach your goals in your life, and can easily be applied to your business goals as well.
It is one thing to read and absorb a "self help" or "self exploration" book. It is an entirely different thing to have the writing move you into action, elicit changes in your behavior, and make you feel like you CAN change your life.

Ford's book is a guide that takes you through the process of dreaming, planning, and doing, so that YOU can make this the best year of your life. She also provides the reader with downloadable worksheets, which I feel were essential for getting involved with the book to make it work for you.

Ford focuses on many ideas, but one of the topics that I feel is most influential is NCZs, or No Cookie Zones: areas of our lives that are self destructive and difficult to eliminate (very bad habits or even addictions) that are counterproductive to reaching our goals. She gives the example of snacking on a donut while trying to lose weight. In network marketing, it could be any number of things, not making a call, working on an article, making a video, following through on emails.

Writing down and admitting my NCZs was very difficult but it has made an enormous difference in many aspects of my life. I had some pretty destructive NCZ behaviors and I am now working, because of The Best year of Your Life, to eliminate them. After acknowledging my NCZs, it was difficult to engage in them without being hyper aware of their destructive nature. A book is pretty powerful if it can do that to you and change the way you think. Before reading The Best year of Your Life, I was able to rationalize these behaviors, but once I read Ford's book, I realized I needed to change to reach my goals.

Sitting back and waiting for my life to change while I kept doing the same ole thing really didn't make much sense. The same goes for your MLM business. It is remarkable how much of an impact one short, easy reading book can have on your life (if you let it). Begin the book with an open mind and a true desire to be successful. As Ford says, "Dream It, Plan It, Live It!"