People who are new to Network Marketing have many questions, but foremost among them is “is this really something I can do?”  They want to know if they can succeed in Network Marketing.

Others who have been in Network Marketing for awhile may ask the same question.  “Can I succeed in Network Marketing?”  The sad truth is that 95% of Network Marketers out there don’t succeed.  They quit.

By answering some very important questions, you can determine if you can, indeed, succeed in Network Marketing.

#1  Am I willing to take responsibility for my life?  If you want to succeed in Network Marketing, you must be willing to take responsibility for your life.  You realize that you care more than anyone about your life, and you are determined to life your life the way you want.  Rather than waiting for someone or something to come along to make you successful, you understand that you are responsible fore creating your own success.

#2  Am I willing to make sacrifices to get to where I want to be?  Everything good in life comes at a sacrifice.  Olympic athletes sacrifice leisure time in order to practice enough to be in top physical and mental condition to compete.  It’s no different in Network Marketing.  Are you willing to re-prioritize to make time for your business?  Are you willing to dedicate time you used to waste with TV and other non-essentials?  Do you have hobbies you are willing to put aside in order to dedicate time to achieving your goals?

#3  Do I have a mentor?  The dictionary defines “mentor” as a wise and trusted counselor or teacher.  Doesn’t it make sense that somebody who fits that description would be incredibly helpful for you to follow as you become successful?  It’s important to find a mentor–someone who has already achieved what you want to do and who can teach you to get to where you want to be.

#4  Do I have a system is duplicable?  In Network Marketing, you succeed when you leverage your efforts with the efforts of those on your team.  If you truly want to be successful, you must have a system that is duplicable.  A system you can teach your organization to use so that they can be successful as well.  If you don’t have a system that your teammates can duplicate, you will never truly achieve the residual income that is available to successful Network Marketers.

In network marketing, as with any business, you’re bound to make mistakes.  Every seasoned network marketer can tell you a few things they wish they would have learned earlier or done differently in their business.  Here are a few mistakes you can simply avoid and save yourself the pain of learning them at the “school of hard knocks.”

#1.  Choosing the Wrong Company.  This is a big mistake that many network marketing newbies make.  They are lured in by the first sales pitch they hear and end up with the wrong company. 

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that there is one company out there that is right fore everyone.  But there are good companies and bad companies, just like any industry.  Make sure you do your homework and choose one that is a good fit for you.

#2.  Not Taking Action.  Too many network marketers spend all their time getting ready to be ready.  Buying supplies.  Making sure they know the comp plan backward and forward.  Learning all the details about each of the products.  Listening to calls.  The list could go on and on!

Doing these things is important, but none of them will make you money.  Focus the majority of your time and energy on doing things that will make you money.  Make sure you take consistent, daily action building your business.  Not just getting ready to build it.

#3.  Treating Your Business Like a Hobby.  A hobby is something you do for fun when you have time.  It’s not a major focus in your life.  If that’s how you treat your business, you can’t expect to get very far.  You can’t expect other people to take you and your business seriously if you don’t take it seriously yourself.

#4.  Having Unrealistic Expectations.  Many people who get into network marketing think that they are going to be overnight millionaires.  When they aren’t making the same commission checks as the top earners in the company within their first month, they quit.

Network marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, and it’s not easy money.  It takes time and effort.  When you have realistic expectations and realize that you will have to put in the sweat equity to reap the benefits, you’ll be more likely to stick with it and be successful.

#5.  Always Looking For The Next Big Thing.  I like to call this becoming a “network marketing junkie.”  These are the people who are constantly jumping from one company to the next because they’re sure this is the one where they will make it big.  They look for others–their company, sponsor, etc.–to make them successful rather than doing what they need to do to become successful.

I’m not saying that you’re a network marketing junkie if you move from a bad company to a good one.  But it’s important to find a good company and stick with it.  If you’re always looking for the next big thing, you’ll waste a lot of time and have nothing to show for it.

#6.  Not Working on Improving Yourself.  Network marketing is an industry where you can increase your paycheck by investing in your own personal development.  If you’re not willing to work on improving yourself, you’re not going to be successful.

Personal development doesn’t have to be expensive.  Seminars and trainings are great, but many network marketers starting out can’t afford to fly across the country to all the fantastic self-improvement seminars.  Instead, buy a few classic books and dedicate time each day to self-improvement.  Then make sure you apply  what you learn!

Now more than ever, people are looking for home-based business opportunities.  Prior to joining a Network Marketing company, I looked at many different home-based business options.  For me, the advantages of Network Marketing over other home-based businesses was clear.  Here are some things that really made Network Marketing stand out as the best option.

Start-Up Costs:  In a Network Marketing business, start-up costs are generally quite low.  If you start a franchise with a well-known company, you are looking at spending hundreds of thousands of dollars.  On the other hand, if you join a reputable Network Marketing company, you are looking at start-up costs measured in just hundreds of dollars.

While other home-based business options may have low start-up costs, you generally have to keep pouring money into supplies and overhead.  Things you don’t have to worry about with a Network Marketing business.

Sales:  When you join a Network Marketing company, you’re set up to start making sales from day one.  With most companies, you don’t have to worry about taking payments; you enter your customer’s credit card information in the computer (or better yet, they enter it themselves), and you’re done.  Not only that, with most Network Marketing companies, the packaging and delivery of the product is done for you!  That way you can spend your time making sales and signing up new distributors.

If you’re in business completely on your own, you have the hassle of getting the mechanisms set up to be able to take credit cards, package products, ship or deliver products, and in many cases, even make the products themselves!  That leaves less time for you to be making sales, which means less money in your pocket.

Time:  With a Network Marketing business, as your organization and your business grows, your time freedom increases as well.  Because you are able to leverage your own efforts with those on your team, you are able to move more product through your organization as your business expands.  That means that even though you are putting in the same amount of time (or possibly even less time) as you did when you started, you actually earn more money.

On the other hand, if you are involved in a traditional home-based business, your time freedom shrinks as your business grows.  As you build a bigger customer base and increase your sales, you also have to increase the amount of time you put into your business.  If you have a cake decorating business, for instance, you may be excited to have a new customer, but each new customer means that you will have to bake and decorate more cakes.  Which means you have less time for the things you really want to do in life.

Legal.  There are laws that govern businesses, and it’s important to make sure your home-based business follows those laws.  In Network Marketing, as long as you choose a reputable company and follow the policies and procedures of your company, you generally don’t need to worry much about the law.

Other home-based business opportunities don’t usually offer the same benefit.  You have to do the research, file the paperwork, and do all the other things necessary to make sure you’re complying with the law. 

Network Marketing is famous for over-promising and under-delivering.  Some people have called it “hope-on-a-rope.”  One thing’s for sure:  there is a lot of hype in Network Marketing.  Unfortunately, all the hype out there creates false hope and expectations, which contribute to the negative image many people have of Network Marketing.

If you are new to Network Marketing (or even if you’ve been in the industry for awhile), you may be tempted to contribute to all the hype out there.  After all, if other people are doing it, it must work, right?  It may work sometimes, but something that will work far more effectively is adding value. 

People who attract customers and business partners with hype generally don’t attract people who stay very long.  On the other hand, Network Marketers who attract people by providing valuable information, no strings attached, are likely to attract higher quality prospects and customers.  Higher quality prospects and customers will inevitably lead to a more successful business.

Here are a few tips to help you make sure you’re adding value to the Network Marketing industry rather than polluting it with hype.

Put Yourself in Your Prospect’s Shoes.  If you were the prospect, what would you think about the presentation you are giving, the ad you are placing, or the forum post or article you are writing?  Would it sound like a sales pitch to you?  If so, go back to the drawing board.  Find a way to present your information without giving a sales pitch.  You’ll be surprised at the results you get when people don’t feel like your only motive is to get them to buy something from you!

Have Integrity.  If you value your integrity, you will be adding value instead of hype.  You will conduct business in an ethical and honest way.  Always remember that no sale or new business partner is worth ruining your reputation.  People appreciate honesty, and when you show you are a person of integrity, people will want to do business with you.

Teach Others.  Many people enter the Network Marketing arena with no background in business or marketing.  When they see what other people are doing, they naturally join in.  They don’t know any other way.  When you teach others a better way–that they will be more successful in Network Marketing when they add value rather than hype, they will follow suit.

It is often said that network marketing is the perfect business. It seems logical that many people in the business say this, since a statement like that could draw new people into the business. “This really is the perfect business!” could be just what your prospect needs to get the courage to make the decision and join your network marketing company. But is that all it is? Just a great statement to be used in an attempt to close people, or is there actually any truth to it? Of course not everybody shares this positive image of the industry. Many people think quite the opposite of network marketing. Busloads of people would laugh when someone would refer to it as ‘the perfect business’ because they don’t even consider it a business in the first place. They might still have the picture of a bunch of housewives gathering around the kitchen table to sell each other plastic cups and lingerie as a hobby. Obviously not everybody evaluates a business by the same criteria but with global revenues exceeding 100 billion dollars it just doesn’t fit the description of a hobby anymore. It’s serious business.

Fortunately a lot has been written on the subject over the years, by people outside and inside network marketing. Robert Kiyosaki is a good example of a successful entrepreneur and best selling author, who has not made his fortune in network marketing. He isn’t even in the business. But he is a strong advocate of the industry because of its power and potential. He also explains why, in his opinion, this industry offers the best chance of success for an individual that wants to start a business these days. He claims that network marketing companies have a system in place, much like a franchising formula, that have proven to produce results if you stick to the system.

So if we have established that network marketing is indeed a business, the question still remains: “How perfect is it?” To answer this question let’s look at this from the perspective of someone that wants to go out and start a business.

If you were to start a traditional type business the first thing you need would probably be money. In many cases a lot of it, so you would need to talk to a bank. Of course this bank is not just going to throw money at you until you convince them that your business has a good chance of success and that you are a good candidate. You may even have paid a professional to put together a solid business plan. So before you make your first dime, you are spending valuable time and money to even be considered to get the money you need from the bank.

Now let’s say you qualify and you get the money from the bank. Then you go out and start your business. You rent the space for your store or office and in doing so you have to put down a deposit for the first month or two and you probably have to sign a contract for a minimum duration of your lease. This will account for at least a couple of thousand dollars. Then you have to get the furniture and equipment to make your business actually look like one. Depending on your type of business that can range from hundreds to many thousands of dollars that you must spend just to get your business up and running.

Of course it doesn’t end there. You’ll have to take care and pay for: insurance, advertising, accounting, legal fees, taxes and a bunch of other things that you may not have anticipated, but will prove to be necessary nonetheless. In most of these cases it will take someone else’s knowledge and that someone wants to get paid for their service.

Now you may realize that with all of these things to take care of you’re required to work your business full time. And this is not full time like 40-60 hours on a job. Most entrepreneurs work 60-80 hours or more per week. Still, you can’t be in the store all day and do it all by yourself. So you decide to hire someone to help out. Here comes the nightmare of all companies: employees. They’ll work hard when you’re there and slouch when you’re not. When they show up late or call in sick, you have to open the store. And they’ll never work as hard as you do, because it’s not their business, it’s only their job. Nevertheless you must pay them before you can even pay yourself.

And then we haven’t even discussed all the outside factors like: competition, government regulations, technology, city circulation plans, customers that refuse to pay and too many more to mention. A change in any single one of them could put you out of business in no time. The sad truth is that over 90% of all new businesses go out of business within the first five years of their existence. Yet how much money do you put on the line to have a chance in a business like this?

Now let’s compare this with the business of network marketing and see what the differences are. If you start your own network marketing business the initial investment is very low; probably less than $500. You don’t need an office or a store to rent because you work out of your home. There is no need for extra insurance, legal fees or expensive marketing advice, because all of these things are taken care of by any good network marketing company. Most companies also offer valuable training at minimal cost that will vastly increase your chances of success.

You can start your business part time and you can work when and where you choose. Perhaps the most important advantage of the network marketing business model it the leverage is offers. You can leverage yourself by sponsoring others into your business and helping them build a business for themselves. Yet these people on your team are not your employees, they each have their own business. Therefore they’ll be more motivated to work because they are not working for you, they are working for themselves. This way you can build a network of thousands of independent distributors scattered all across the globe through different levels in your organization that you can benefit from. It’s like having thousands of stores all over the world without having to pay rent on any of them.
Does this make network marketing perfect? No, of course not. Nothing is perfect but anyone who seriously evaluates network marketing can’t help but come to the conclusion that it offers some remarkable advantages over traditional business.

There are many different home-based-business opportunities available, and it’s important to weigh your options before choosing one.  A great home-based-business option for many people is Network Marketing.  But what exactly is Network Marketing?  And is it right for you?

What is Network Marketing?  It’s important to understand exactly what Network Marketing is.  Often known as Multi-Level-Marketing or direct sales, network marketing is a business model that allows a company to market its products directly to consumers through independent distributors.  Each distributor earns commissions based on the volume of products sold through their organization.

How would I earn money as a Network Marketer?  As a Network Marketer, you generally make money from a combination of three things.  First, you can earn money by building a customer base that buys products directly from the company through a preferred customer or buyer’s club.  Second, you build an organization of other network marketers who use and market your company’s products and earn comissions from the products sold by others in your organization.  Third, you can earn money by buying products from your parent company and selling them at retail.

What are the advantages of Network Marketing?  There are many advantages to having a Network Marketing business.  Here are just a few.

Who endorses Network Marketing?  Although it sometimes gets a bad rap, many prominent money-making gurus think Network Marketing is a great idea.  Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, and David Bach have all recommended Network Marketing as a great way for the average person to make money.

What skills do I need to be successful in Network Marketing?  Many things go into being successful in Network Marketing, but here are a few that are extremely important.

There’s no way to get around it; network marketing is the same as any other business model. You’re going to need to put time “in the trenches” and work to achieve success.

It doesn’t mean that it has to be hard though.

There have been tremendous improvements, innovative marketing systems created, streaming audio and video presentations and more. It is definitely an exciting time to be involved in the industry. But still, 97% of network marketers fail. So how do you fix a broken business opportunity model where 97% of people fail, end up quitting and never reaching their dreams of financial independence.

You stop following others, and lead. The status quo is now history. Grab network marketing by the horns and shake things up. You remove all of the obstacles that cause 97% of people to fail. Represent the little guy, front and center.

So what rules do you break in network marketing industry? All of them.

Rule #1. No selling of overpriced products. You no longer have to sell overpriced products to make a ton of money. People getting involved with a network marketing company end up having to purchase overpriced products. They end up getting hurt and quitting the program.

Rule #2. No front loading. Front loading is where an MLM or network marketing company will charge you a very large sign-up fee or sell you a lot of products that you don’t need right at the start. This allows the company to pay out big bonuses right way. People get hurt and end up quitting the program.

Rule #3. No hard qualifications. You no longer have to recruit ten, twenty, or even thirty people to qualify for all of the pay. The little guy is not a superstar and will only recruit around two or three. Set up qualifications below industry standards to eliminate all of the competition in network marketing.

Rule #4.Create a unique pay plan. You create a pay plan that is so unique and so different, that you have to get a copyright on it so no other company in the network marketing industry can copy you. The little guy can recruit two or three and achieve success and financial independence in the network marketing industry.

When you break all of the rules in network marketing, you end up having no competition. You remove all of the obstacles from success. You don’t need any network marketing secrets.

There is a network marketing company that has actually broken all the rules. Instead of making money off people, you can now make money with people. What better way to become financial independent in the network marketing industry?

There’s no way to get around it; network marketing is the same as any other business model. You’re going to need to put time “in the trenches” and work to achieve success.

It doesn’t mean that it has to be hard though.

There have been tremendous improvements, innovative marketing systems created, streaming audio and video presentations and more. It is definitely an exciting time to be involved in the industry. But still, 97% of network marketers fail. So how do you fix a broken business opportunity model where 97% of people fail, end up quitting and never reaching their dreams of financial independence.

You stop following others, and lead. The status quo is now history. Grab network marketing by the horns and shake things up. You remove all of the obstacles that cause 97% of people to fail. Represent the little guy, front and center.

So what rules do you break in network marketing industry? All of them.

Rule #1. No selling of overpriced products. You no longer have to sell overpriced products to make a ton of money. People getting involved with a network marketing company end up having to purchase overpriced products. They end up getting hurt and quitting the program.

Rule #2. No front loading. Front loading is where an MLM or network marketing company will charge you a very large sign-up fee or sell you a lot of products that you don’t need right at the start. This allows the company to pay out big bonuses right way. People get hurt and end up quitting the program.

Rule #3. No hard qualifications. You no longer have to recruit ten, twenty, or even thirty people to qualify for all of the pay. The little guy is not a superstar and will only recruit around two or three. Set up qualifications below industry standards to eliminate all of the competition in network marketing.

Rule #4.Create a unique pay plan. You create a pay plan that is so unique and so different, that you have to get a copyright on it so no other company in the network marketing industry can copy you. The little guy can recruit two or three and achieve success and financial independence in the network marketing industry.

When you break all of the rules in network marketing, you end up having no competition. You remove all of the obstacles from success. You don’t need any network marketing secrets.

There is a network marketing company that has actually broken all the rules. Instead of making money off people, you can now make money with people. What better way to become financial independent in the network marketing industry?