Experience is a great teacher – but it can also be a painful and expensive teacher.
Because a lot of the time – experience comes from failures, and they’re not always exactly fun to go through.
A better short-cut; learning from other people’s mistakes. Because it’s a lot faster and a lot less painful.
So here are 7 of the Biggest Mistakes I see people make in Building their Network Marketing Business.
- Telling People ‘You Can’t Say the Wrong Thing to the Right Person’. Because you sure can. And that’s exactly how people can lose friends in Network Marketing. Telling people this is only setting them up for failure. It actively encourages them to just go out and say anything to anyone – then wonder why no one is returning their messages. This is a business of Marketing to our Network. We have to teach people fundamental marketing skills – so that they can build a great business, without losing their friends / family. Check these videos if you need help with creating your story or offer.
- Not Everyone is your Customer. Once again, we can set people up for failure by telling them ‘Everyone will want this’. If you have an incredible tablet for weight loss – that’s amazing. But only people who are ready to make the change and get healthy will want it. If they’re not ready for change, they won’t. If you have an incredible skin care product – only people who prioritise their skin highly enough will buy it. Some people just don’t prioritise the same things we do.
- You Can’t Rely on Your Warm Market Alone. We have to stop teaching people ‘you just have to find 5’, because it’s not true. Eventually we will run out of people to talk to. Our warm network is a great place to start – but it’s not going to be enough if we want to get to the top. Going out and meeting new people, having a brand around what you do and understanding your avatar – all incredibly important skills that we need to develop as we grow. Otherwise our business will eventually stall out, and even go backwards. For help with your Social Media Brand, these two videos here and here can help.
- Manipulating Your Compensation Plan. If you want long term residual income and financial freedom – then you need to be building a business based on long term sustainable activities. If you are looking for loop-holes that provide short term gains – at the expense of long term stability, then you are treating this like a get rich quick scheme. We spend a lot of energy telling people Network Marketing is not a get rich quick scheme – but then too often, people are looking for ways to manipulate their compensation plan for short term boosts in money, rank or ego. These aren’t sustainable – you’re just building a house of cards. Long term success requires a long term mindset. Don’t get caught up in the short term if it’s going to cost you your freedom later.
- Never tell people ‘this is easy’. This is a very simple business model. There’s only a handful of things we need to be good at (networking, marketing, inviting and supporting). Compared to my old career as a health professional – it’s incredibly simple. In my old life – the amount of information I had to know about the human body just to be able to talk to a patient was incredible. In this – there is nothing like that. But to tell people it’s ‘easy’ is false. Because easy suggests you do nothing. Easy suggest that you sit around and money will just come to you. Worse – people sell ‘easy’ then wonder why the people they’ve attracted aren’t willing to do anything. We can’t sell hype. And we don’t need to. The truth is enough. Let’s be honest about what we have – a beautiful and simple business model that allows anyone to come in without a degree or specific education level and without a large amount of money or time – and they can get to work and start changing their life. But don’t ever sell it’s easy. It’s not perfect, nothing ever is (except for my wife of course) – but Network Marketing sure is better than anything else that’s out there.
- Thinking that Everyone Will Want to Do This as a Business. The statistics prove it. Over and over. Whether in our industry or in general society – many people just don’t yearn for the unknown and ups and downs of a business. There are many great things about having a business – but there’s also many challenges. The roller coaster that we can go on day to day isn’t for everyone. So we always have to respect that. Remember even that our companies are run by employees who know our company better than us – but they do their role, so we can do ours. We need to adjust our language to different people and their different goals. Some will want to just buy products, others will want to dabble, others will want to blow the thing up – just don’t try and have a one size fits all approach. It will kill your business.
- Making More Money doesn’t mean Financial Freedom. And this is one of the biggest ones for me. We love to talk about financial freedom, residual income and creating a legacy. If we truly want to sell Financial Freedom – we have to show people how to take care of their money. How to respect it. How to invest it. How to put it to work. Instead we often do the opposite. Again, we deny being in a get rich quick scheme, but then we’re running out and buying flashy things the second we have a good week. Nobody ever found wealth through spending all of their money. Wealth and freedom have nothing to do with how much money you’re making – but how much money your money is making. It’s a very different conversation. And one we need to have more of. Networking Marketing isn’t the destination – it’s the vehicle that allows us to get to the destination faster.
One of the greatest ‘short-cuts’ to success I’ve always used, is to do the opposite of what most people are doing. Most people struggle to create Financial Freedom in Network Marketing. But most people are making those mistakes above. And if you do the same things – you’ll probably get the same results. Doing the opposite is a great way to get a different results.
To your success
Andrew Logan
Andrew Logan is a Network Marketing Author, Coach and Mentor.
You can access more free training on his YouTube channel here and his Podcast here.
For your Free 7 Step Guide to Financial Freedom Through Network Marketing, click here.
Your roadmap to building a Network Marketing business – even if you’ve never done this before.