The MLM Leader program

 

To become a leader, get the CEO mindset

I reckon one reason people fail at network marketing is that they don’t think and behave like CEOs.

Why is it important to think like a CEO? Because that’s exactly what you are – or what you will become.

All network marketing models are the same. You grow your business and your income by selling products and bringing others into your team. Sounds simple. It isn’t.

Too many of the 60 million network marketers go in with the wrong attitude. They get into the business because they lost their job or can’t stand where they work or they are lured by the promise of huge incomes. In the first two cases, their mindset is “I might as well give network marketing a go”. In the third instance, they imagine that all they have to do is join and the money will fall into their laps.

It’s easy to get the “might as well give it a go” attitude. It costs very little (and sometimes nothing) to join most network marketing companies. So you really have very little to lose from dipping your toe in the water. Besides, most companies encourage you to build your business by targeting your “soft market”, friends, family, workmates – people who are supposedly less likely to say no to your approach. How hard can that be? Well, lots of really successful network marketers will tell you that it can be bloody hard. First, you’re often embarrassed to talk to people you know. Second, people in your warm market DO say no.

Okay, I’ll come back to this issue in a moment.

But first, I want to concentrate on the other attitudinal problem. Too many people want the big bikkies, but aren’t too keen on doing the hard yards. They give up when the first fat cheque doesn’t arrive that first month.

Imagine you go to work for a large company on a huge salary. They give you the best corner office in a new building. There is a big desk and a big leather chair. On your first day in your new job you walk into the new building, ride up to your corner office, sink into your big comfortable chair, put your feet up on your desk and do absolutely nothing all day. How long do you reckon you’d last?

 

 

Do you have what it takes to be CEO of your business?

In an online article I read recently, the author (thejcrevelator2 or TJCR2 as I’ll call him/her) made an interesting point that CEOs generally only have to manage around 12 people – and these 12 people then manage others, who also manage others who manage others and so on down the organisation.

As an MLM executive, if you have 12 people working in your immediate downline (and they have built their own teams), your annual salary could easily be half a million dollars a year. However only 0.5% of network marketers ever reach that level. Why? Because they don’t think like CEOs.

 

 

To be CEO, think and act like a CEO

A successful CEO does not have an “I’ll give it a go” mentality. A successful CEO has a vision for his or her organisation and a battle plan for realising that vision. A successful CEO has discipline. He or she is a self-motivator, working long hours, often making many short-term sacrifices for a long-term benefit.

Network marketing novices who see it as a get-rich-quick business get-disillusioned-quick. Occasionally a networker gets to the top in a year. But he or she works really, really hard to get there. Most, however, achieved their success over several years, and often after suffering the humiliation and depression of being rejected by their so-called warm markets. They experience the same setbacks suffered by the people who give up long before they make the fortune they expected.

People fail in network marketing because they fail to really see the opportunity they’ve been offered. They have joined a successful company selling great products. They didn’t have to do an interview. They simply signed up. It probably cost them nothing. And then they’re made CEOs of their own business within the organisation. Their home is their office. Their task now is to build and manage their team of executives. Get this right and they will get to a point where they’re earning $500,000 plus a year.

Now, here’s something I found interesting in the number 12. That was the number of Jesus’s disciples. Why is this significant and what’s its relevance here?

 

 

You need passionate disciples

You are CEO of your own MLM business. You are now in the position of recruiting the people to fill your executive roles. If your business is to be successful, each of them needs to share your passion, to be a disciple – for the products you sell, but more importantly for you and your business – for your team.

So who do you bring onto your team? Your aunt because she is a stay-at-home mum? Your neighbour because she knows lots of people in the right age group for the products you sell?

No CEO EVER appoints executives based on familiarity or personality alone. To build a successful business, you need people with a burning desire to succeed, with a preparedness to work hard, with an understanding that they won’t get rich quick. You need passionate believers, missionaries, disciples … call them what you like.

If you mention your opportunity to everyone you know, some of them might say, “You know what? I’ll give it a go. Nothing to lose.”

 

You do not want ‘nothing to lose’ people on your team!

They do not have the attitude you need. They will fail. When they do, you will be a step further away from your half million dollar CEO salary. And you now have to find and groom a new executive.

 

You want to avoid this like the plague. How?

Here are my suggestions building your network marketing business:

• Take your job seriously. You are CEO of your network marketing business. To be CEO, think CEO.
• Recruit discriminately, not randomly. Think of the qualities your executives need and then look for people with those qualities – people who want to be CEOs.
• Build a company (your team) that people with these qualities would want to join. They will come.
• If you find you have an executive who isn’t pulling his or her weight, let them go.
• Concentrate solely on your 12 disciples. Nurture them, support them, help them every way you can because your success is dependent on theirs.
• Set goals. Write them down. Then implement an action plan for achieving those goals.