Small Business Growing

Archive for December, 2010

Success and Failure in Network Marketing: Finding the Right Fit (2)

We are working our way through a series of success principles to help you succeed in a network marketing opportunity.

If you are looking at options among the established network marketing products and services, but have not yet settled into one company, this series is for you.

Knowledge works wonders when it is applied.  We can learn from the successes and setback of others.  Isn’t it great when you can avoid problems and create opportunity by knowing something in advance?

Here is my assertion in a nutshell:  think carefully about the “fit” between who and what you are and the product/service you will sell.

Make your best judgment to choose something that jells with the essential core of who and what you are as a person and a professional.

You can probably see where I am going with this.  Get involved with something that has resonance with your past experience, skill set, preferences, and overall personality.  For example, if you have no interest in nutrition and find the whole subject boring, working with a nutritional products company might not be your smartest choice.  On the other hand, maybe a “consumable” is perfect for you.

There are hundreds of opportunities out there covering a wide spectrum of products and services, so you have a lot to choose from.

Now I know that if you are powerfully motivated to start and succeed in your own business, you can learn to like a product/service, especially if you like and respect the company.  I get that.

But do remember that you start with a BIG advantage if you move into something that you can really get excited about….something that you believe in.  When you like and trust what you are representing and selling, you can learn to do so with ease and comfort.  You see it as something that brings genuine value.  When you deeply believe in the company and its product you have vastly simplified your life in network marketing.

There are people in network marketing, just as there are in other endeavours, who are out of sync with their product because, for a variety of reasons, they are not emotionally attached to the product/service.

If you are still looking and have not settled into one company give some serious thought to how well it fits with you as a person and as a professional.

You can get a quick reading on this just by listening to your own intuition, and what your “gut” tells you, but here are a few questions that may help:

• Does the organization’s core values match my own?

• Does the product/service itself speak to anything I feel passionate about?

• Does my past experience and skill set have any synergy with the product/service?

• Does the culture of the organization – as best I can assess it through the people I have met – seem to be harmonious with my values and goals?

I say again..you can be successful by learning to appreciate a product or service that is based on quality and value.  But you want to at least make sure that you find a few primary features of the organization and its product/service that you find compatible with your essence.  If you don’t find something to like now, there is a good chance you won’t find something to love later.

If you would like a quick email (or conversation) on the network marketing opportunity I have settled on, after a very lengthy research process, I’d be glad to share that.  I did put the above advice in practice and it is paying off in a big way.  I’d be happy to share our experience, devoid of any sales pitch!  Contact me if you would like to have this information.

Why People Succeed or Fail in Network Marketing (1)

If you are seriously considering starting a network marketing business, this is a good time to get a reality-based perspective about what sustainable success involves.

In this series I want to talk candidly about this topic.  I will offer a few simple ideas and strategies that I hope will add to your thinking as you check out the possibilities of starting a home-based business using a network marketing model.

Some of the points I will make are obvious if you have been doing any research or have had direct experience with a network marketing type product or service.

On the other hand, if you look at the statistics on who does well in a network marketing business, and what it requires, the “obvious” is often overlooked in a blaze of initial enthusiasm.

I want to offer a set of considerations that may help you to avoid  an often repeated pattern.  The pattern is simple:  people jump into a network marketing opportunity without thinking through the requirements and commitments needed to achieve success.

These points are not intended to dissuade or add any sense of pessimism.  Quite to the contrary, they are based on the belief that having a reality-based perspective will significantly add to the likelihood that you will not be surprised and will be better able to proceed on a successful track.

Let’s start with the most fundamental consideration:  time frame.

If you go into this with a realistic perspective on the time span needed to get a network marketing business going, you won’t be unpleasantly surprised.  There are individuals who manage to do well very rapidly.  It does happen, but it is not the norm.

You are in a reality-based perspective if you think in terms of a three to five year commitment to build a solid foundation.  Of course, nothing is 100%.  Lots of factors make each situation unique.  Factors like the size of your personal network of contacts, time available to engage in business development activities, level of personal motivation, marketing and business development experience, willingness to learn and overall “coach-ability” and lots of other variables contribute to the variations people experience.

But stay reality-based, and you will be far better positioned to manage the emotional dynamics of business building.  Most small business ventures don’t end with stunning business success.  There are lots of reasons why.  But the odds that you will be successful can be dramatically increased if you get aligned with the things that lead to success for those that do well. One of those things is being able to think and plan over a longer time span.

If you find yourself achieving what you define as success more quickly than you expected, wonderful!  But if you don’t go in with reality in your time sense, you may get emotionally hammered and discouraged when things just don’t come together as planned.  All of us can do great things if we are willing to learn.  And one thing to learn from the beginning in a network marketing business is that it does take time.

It also takes other things, and we’ll discuss those one by one in this series as we explore the dynamics of success in starting and succeeding in a network marketing business.

And if you are looking to start your own home-based business, send us an email and we will share a short summary of a network based business that we operate, and have found to be excellence in every way.