A Network Marketing Business – Is It Right for You?
You’ve decided you want to try a work from home business to earn some additional income. You have firm goals in mind that you’d like to reach. One of them is that you want to earn a steady income every single month, but you’re not sure what kind of business to get involved in, much less how to even begin.
You’ve considered eBay, info product promotions where you write and sell eBooks – even freelancing as a ghostwriter or graphic artist to make some extra change. But have you thought about joining a network marketing business?
If you’re under the impression that network marketing consists of the old style door-to-door selling (except in this case it’s virtual selling), then you’re wrong. You can set your business up in a way that attracts people to you, not forces you to bug your friends and family until they stop answering the phone when caller ID tells them it’s you.
A network marketer is someone who meets the needs of others and earns an income for his or her efforts. There are enough product and service offers in the world that if you stretched them all out, they’d circle the globe hundreds of time over.
People will always have needs. They will always seek a way to resolve pressing problems. That’s where a network marketing business reaches out and helps provide the final piece of the puzzle for desperate situations.
For example, a couple you know are looking for ways to cut there monthly outgoings and are looking if there is a better deal for their utilities and mobile phones.
You might be involved in a multi level marketing company that offers exellent value utility products. By providing them with the knowledge they seek, you’ve done a service and provided for your monetary needs as well. The customer not only gets a great deal on their home or business utilities, but they can make save even more by referring others to the same deal. They may even be interested in the income earning possibilities, too!
Where many people go wrong when considering starting a network marketing business is that they look at network marketing the wrong way. They look at it as a means to an end and are constantly scrambling to find people to buy what they have to offer.
That’s putting the cart before the horse or having the car frame but no engine. You start with people and what they need first. Once you find a niche with needs, you find a product or service to fill it.
How do you know what people need? You study the market and get inside the head of your target audience. Keyword tools online can help you see how people are searching for solutions.
Taking the First Step – Choosing a Business
The first step when you’re trying to decide if a network marketing business is right for you is to check out all of the options available. There are many types of networking business opportunities for you to choose from, including these niche markets:
· Health
· Travel
· Cleaning
· Utilities & mobile phones
· Success and Money Management
· …and more!
There are products and there are information offers. You have to weigh whether or not you want a company that offers products in tangible or intangible form – such as service oriented. There is no right or wrong choice here. It’s what you believe will work the best for you.
Check out the kind of compensation you stand to reap. How much time will you have to invest before you’ll see any monetary gain? If the company you’re considering says it will take about six months to see profit, do you have six months’ worth of effort to pour into the business?
Look into the company’s background. Ask yourself whether or not your goals, values and characteristics will match up with the company. What do they stand for? Who do they associate with in the business world? What are the company’s reviews like?
Remember the saying, “You can’t please everyone?” It’s true – you can’t. Don’t rule out a company if you see a ‘few’ complaints posted here and there about them. Instead, check out the volume of business they’re doing.
For a company with £150,000 worth of sales a month, to have a few complaints is normal. But if you see the company is doing £10,000 a month and has a list of complaints that read like a phone book, you need to take a step back and reconsider representing that network marketing company.
Find out how long the company has been doing business. The anonymity of the Internet allows less than reputable MLM companies to crop up like annoying weeds in a garden. If you feel like you’ve found a solid business endeavor, make sure you know beforehand if there will be someone to train you.
Will they take your questions when you need them answered? Will they give you a trial period to use their product?
The business that you choose shouldn’t be an obscure one. In order for network marketing to achieve the success that is possible in the business, a company should have a long outreach that’s farther than just in their own backyard. The ability to reach thousands of customers should be available through the company’s products or services.
Please note that if you don’t believe in the success or product of the company, if you’re not on fire about what you’re offering, no one else will be either. You’ll have to be the driving force.
If you don’t think the company or what they’re offering sounds like something you could feel comfortable promoting, then choose a business you can get behind and be excited about being a part of.
The Second Step – Choosing Your Goals
What made you think you might be interested in network marketing? Was it the thought that it would be an ideal way to earn money? The thrill of owning your own business? Being your own boss and setting your own hours?
Is one of your goals to not have to live payday to payday? Do you want to have the means in the bank to be able to give to worthy causes? Your goals act as stepping-stones to get you where you want to end up.
The purpose for a goal is to keep you focused on what you want. Keep your eyes on it and you won’t let anything stop you. You might have to go around or over obstacles, but that’s just the way life is – it throws everyone a curveball now and then. When that happens, what do you do?
When you have goals, you don’t look at the obstacles. You look at the goal until you get there. The people who take their eyes off their goal and look at the obstacles are the same people who will tell you why something can’t be done.
They’re the ones who tried, the route got too hard, and they stopped. Now they try to stop others by warning them that this path is too hard when in reality, they just didn’t have what it takes to succeed.
When the obstacles get so big that you wonder why you ever got started in the first place, a goal will act as a reminder. “I’m doing this for my family’s financial security.” Or, “I’m doing this to get out of the nine to five working like a dog rat race.”
Write down your goal. Call it by any name you want – mission statement, life purpose, or whatever. Look at your goal every single day as you cross items off of your network marketing task list.
The Third Step – Develop the Right Mindset
Have you ever heard the Executives of a successful company say, “Oh, this is just a little hobby of mine that I do when I find the time here and there?” No, you haven’t heard that because those guys know that business isn’t something that you dabble in.
These men and women didn’t wake up one morning, decide they were going to be successful and by nightfall they had achieved those goals. They realized it would take time and energy to get to the top and they were up for the challenge.
Successful business owners all have one thing in common. They start at the bottom and climb their way to the top. The difference between them and the ones who didn’t make it? They never stopped climbing. They may have had to rest, but they kept pushing forward and they weren’t satisfied until they got there.
A network marketing business is right for you if you have what it takes to keep climbing. If you’re smart enough to realize there aren’t ‘blink and arrive’ success stories. You can’t go into a network marketing business (or any business for that matter) with the idea that you’ll stick with it for a couple of weeks and if you don’t see an amazing income, you’ll move on.
Remember: If you haven’t reached your goal, it’s too soon too quit. Every single business that succeeded had someone behind the scenes with a, “I won’t stop until I get it done” attitude.
Every business that failed had someone that walked away.
The Fourth Step – Remember Who’s Buttering Your Bread
With all of the marketing businesses already in place and people bragging about their success, you might wonder how you can be different – how you can carve out room for your monetary gain.
You could have two marketing businesses, both offering identical products for identical prices, and one will see far more success than the other one. Why?
A networking business means you have to introdice customers to the business you represent and build a downline to help others prosper while growing your own financial success. The people you bring onto your downline will be the ones who help make your income soar, so you want to train them to meet and even exceed your own level of success.
Some networks fail because they’ve lost sight of the original purpose of a networking marketing business. Meeting the needs of people. Think about some offline stores that you know. Some now lack a sense of ‘we’re here for the customers’ but rather adopt the motto ‘here comes a wallet’ – and you can tell by the level of customer service that you get.
Be there for your customers – many of whom will join your downline and look to you for the training and motivation they need to succeed. If you don’t handle the first level of networks correctly, then your success will stagnate.
The Fifth Step – ACT
Once you’ve decided that you’d like to get involved with a network marketing business, find your golden opportunity. In order to move forward, you have to ACT.
A – Action
Don’t just decide that this business opportunity sounds great and then procrastinate about it. Another year or two (or three) pass by and you’re still right where you were when you first learned about network marketing.
The first step requires taking action on your part. Click the link. Pick up the phone. Send off for more information. Do what you have to do to take that first step.
C – Create
Once you’ve gathered your information and you’re ready to move, create the world you need in order for it to happen. Do you need a website? Create it. Do you need a prospect list? Create it. Whatever you have to create, erase the excuses and do it.
T – Tell
Tell your target audience that you’ve heard their cry for help and you have the answer – that you’ve seen their need and you can take care of it. Learn how to best spread your message virally among the masses.
Wishing for something to come along and change your life won’t make a difference. You have to ACT.
The Final Step – Learn the Ropes and Show Others How
Knowledge is a tool in the hands of those who use it to build financial success, but it’s a tool that requires a hands on approach. Left lying around, it will never build anything of value. Gain the knowledge you need and reach for the success you desire. The possibilities with network marketing are abundant – will you be one of the ones to reach for what you want?
You can be a University graduate, but if you’ve never run a network marketing business, then you need to gain a marketing education. Would you want to go into surgery with a surgeon who has to consult ‘a beginner’s guide to surgery’ before he puts you under? Of course not. You wouldn’t trust someone who didn’t know what he was doing.
With that in mind, you can’t expect others to trust your networking business if you don’t know what you’re doing. Do what you need to do to learn the ins and outs of this business.
If you need to study books, then buy them and read them. If you need to take a class, take one. If you need coaching by a networking marketing business mentor, then invest in that. You’re investing in your future, and that’s never money wasted.
When you know network marketing and understand how it works, then you’re able to teach others how to do it. By taking the first step and learning, graduating to teaching others how to do it, you’re increasing the reach of your network. This provides you with the ability to make even more money and you’re helping others find their path to financial freedom, too.