I recently acquired a copy of Mike Dillard and Mark Weiser’s Black Belt Recruiting Course and have learned a lot of things that are drastically improving my business… so many that I couldn’t share them all here if I wanted to. I do however, want to share one simple idea that Mark Weiser pointed out about having the right mindset in network marketing.

I often read and hear about the debate on whether it is a person’s mindset or their skills and techniques that make the biggest difference in their success in network marketing.

On one hand you have the airy fairy motivators that say all you have to do to attain a result is think about it enough and it will materialize. On the other hand, you have the drill sergeants that give you checklist and scripts of not only what to do and say, but how to say it.

Which of the two works better?

I’m not really sure I can answer that… but why settle for one or the other when you can have both?

Mark gave the example of the athletes at the Olympics, but you can find similar examples pretty much anywhere you look.

Let’s use golf as an example.

You’ll find that there are lots of different types of swings, but that it’s not necessarily the technically sound swing that generates the low score on the course. There are probably a lot of people that can swing the club just like Tiger Woods, but few, if any, can even come close to beating him.

Why on earth is that? Shouldn’t two similar swings produce similar results? In network marketing terms, if you do what millionaires do, shouldn’t you be a millionaire?

Well, as Mark put it, it is not just about technique. It’s about technique applied with the proper mindset. Tiger has a great swing, but he also has the confident mindset to maximize its application. Millionaire network marketers have great skills, but even more importantly, they have above average mindsets.

So that’s the straight answer. But that may not be helpful for a lot of you that are reading this.

How exactly does one go about developing the skills, and even more importantly, the proper mindset?

In one word… practice.

Do something, evaluate how it worked, and then do it again.

I’m sure Tiger’s swing didn’t just happen. I’m sure it was a long process of honing and improving it until he got it just the way he wanted it. Then he committed it to muscle memory by practicing it over and over and over again.

Constantly be learning about the industry and the skill sets that you are trying to develop. As you learn new things, implement them and repeat them over and over, and they will become easy. Just focus on one thing at a time though… otherwise you may get overwhelmed or discouraged and quit practicing.

Which brings us to our next subject… developing mindset.

Just by continually researching and studying successful people and the techniques they used to achieve it will be a great starting place to developing the proper mindset. The more you learn, the fewer people there will be that know more than you. That alone will give you confidence and improve your self concept.

Another way is to make sure to always be feeding your mind good information. If you are constantly dwelling on what isn’t working, you are going to have a freaking hard time creating a positive mindset. You might want to get a copy of The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino, and read it through to the end… all ten scrolls, each one for thirty days.

But developing the proper mindset is only 33% mental. The other 67% is physical and spiritual. It’s really a function of how you feel about yourself, and you can’t feel 100% unless you are well balanced. So make sure you are spiritually and physically where you want to be as well.

Isn’t it amazing how almost everything in this industry comes back to personal development and mindset? Makes you think that all that hullabaloo about thoughts being things might actually be true.

I can’t remember exactly where I heard this first, but I know it was Timothy Gallway that said it.

“When we plant a rose seed in the Earth, we notice it is small, but we do not criticize it as ‘rootless and stemless’. We treat it as a seed, giving it the water and nourishment required of a seed.

When it first shoots up out of the Earth, we don’t condemn it as immature and underdeveloped; we do not criticize the buds for not being open when they appear. We stand in wonder at the process taking place, and give the plant the care it needs at each stage of its development.

The rose is a rose from the time it is a seed to the time it dies. Within it, at all times, it contains its whole potential. It seems to be constantly in the process of change. Yet at each state, at each moment, it is perfectly all right as it is.

A flower is not better when it blooms than when it is merely a bud; at each stage it is the same thing… a flower in the process of expressing its potential.”

Wherever you are at developmentally, don’t compare yourself to other “roses” that have already bloomed. They were probably planted before you were.

Just stand back and appreciate where you have come from and where you are headed. Keep looking for and gathering nutrients that you need to continue growing and before you know it, you will be the attractive rose that draws people to it effortlessly.

If you enjoyed this post, do me a solid and share it with with your facebook or twitter friends using the share buttons at the top of the post! (Or just leave me a comment... :) )

To Your Smashing Success,

P.S. If you're sick and tired of investing HUNDREDS of hours online with little to nothing show for it, it's time to take control and change your game plan. Discover my EXACT formula to generating free leads and signing up more reps on autopilot!

Go here NOW! ==> Give Me The Formula!

So, quite a few summers ago I had a friend that enlisted me in his summer sales team. I had been pitched the idea of door-to-door summer sales by various friends and acquaintances before, but each time I managed to escape unscathed…

This time was different though.

The guy that convinced me to give it the old college try was a close friend and former team mate from my high school wrestling days – Cody “Big Mac” Fehlberg.

Cody is flat out a fun person to be around. He makes me laugh so often and so hard that he may as well slash my sides open with a dagger… Which is one of the reasons I made the decision to spend the summer with him in Colorado selling DVD’s of animated Bible and Book of Mormon stories.

And that, my friends, is where I made mistake numero uno. There were pest control, satellite dish, and security companies that offered much better compensation to their door-to-door salesmen, but I refused to work for them because I couldn’t get behind their products or services… they just didn’t get me going.

These scriptural cartoons, on the other hand, I had grown up with and had a real appreciation for. They helped me develop an interest in the stories found in the scriptures. As a result, I now enjoy studying the scriptures even more because I can tie what I read back to a story I remember from growing up as a child.

It’s kinda like reading a bedtime story that your parents always used to tell you – brings back good memories.

But back to my story…

We really had a VERY fun summer. Besides pounding the pavement every day, we went to Six Flags Elitch Gardens, a Denver Bronco’s game, and a Colorado Rockies game. Only problem was, I came home with a seriously emaciated bank account.

I think I grossed a little over $10k that summer.

However, in addition to our recreational activities, we were living in a nice apartment, eating out every other day, and driving up to seventy or eighty miles a day, so by the time I made it home in August, I didn’t have much left over. (Oh, AND I made the mistake of “over bonusing” one customer, which ended up coming out of my paycheck… STUPID!)

On the other hand, some of my friends that had gone out and sold security systems or satellite dishes came home with over $60k in their pockets.

So what was my big mistake?

When I made the decision to sell cartoon scripture stories instead of security systems or satellite dishes, I was concerned more with what I thought about the product than I was with what other people were interested in. I didn’t even stop to think that the market for Living Scriptures products was limited to a very small niche – Latter Day Saint families or, as they are more commonly known, Mormons – whereas my friends could sell security systems and satellite dishes to Mormons, Baptists, Catholics, Jews, Moslems, and even Athiests. (In my case, I was also limiting my market to only the “Mormons” in the southern Denver/Colorado Springs area.)

Now, the last thing I want to do is get into a religious debate here… I only share these details because they illustrate a VERY important marketing principle that pertains particularly well to network marketers.

When investigating a new company, most MLM’ers are hell-bent on a finding a product that significantly benefits them personally before they can really believe in it enough to get started.

And there’s the problem.

Even a noteworthy product is not going to benefit everybody, and even if it does, the benefits may not be outwardly visible. For that reason alone it is not a good idea to make business decisions based solely on how a product benefits you individually.

Instead of selling a product like animated scripture stories that only Mormons would buy, sell something like security systems and satellite dishes… things that many more people would have a need for.

Don’t let your lack of immediate passion for a product prevent you from seeing the big picture. You can and will develop that passion. I’m confident that you could even become passionate about a product like paper clips if they paid for your kids college tuition.

So here’s the key…

When looking for a company or product, base you decision off of what the market wants… not what you want or think you need. Make sure that the majority of people are hungry enough to buy it and then study and become passionate about that product.

If you enjoyed this post, do me a solid and share it with with your facebook or twitter friends using the share buttons at the top of the post! (Or just leave me a comment... :) )

To Your Smashing Success,

P.S. If you're sick and tired of investing HUNDREDS of hours online with little to nothing show for it, it's time to take control and change your game plan. Discover my EXACT formula to generating free leads and signing up more reps on autopilot!

Go here NOW! ==> Give Me The Formula!

WOW!

Just got back from Vegas and the No Excuses Summit put on by my friends Ray and Ferny of SEONetworker.com and what a weekend it was!

If you missed it I am sorry for you… because it will be impossible for me or anybody else to share all the incredible information and training that the speakers shared with us – but don’t worry! I will do my best to pass on some of the things that I found most useful because helping each other succeed is what it’s all about, right?

I wouldn’t want to keep you in the dark even if you had the opportunity to be there and passed it up… (Although if you did and decided not to attend you probably ought to get a slap on the wrist or something… SHAME ON YOU!)

Ultimately, the training and content that was shared was incredible, but even if I could do a mind dump for you, you still would have missed out on the chance to network with all the biggest names in the industry! You really can’t put a price tag on that… So next time (if there even is a next time) NO EXCUSES!

For now I will just share some of the things that Mike Dillard shared… he very well may have been one of my favorite parts of the whole event.

He didn’t have a presentation prepared because in his words, we were all at different skill levels and he had no idea what to say, so he just came prepared to answer our questions. For over an hour, he was in the hot-seat as some of the attendee’s fired their questions at him (along with a lot of gratitude). It was really amazing to hear his responses – completely unrehearsed and 100% genuine.

That is unequivocally one of the reasons that Mike has done so well in the network marketing industry, because he is good at helping people solve their problems. He doesn’t pitch a business or chase after people to follow him. He just finds out what people want and does everything he can to help them get it. The law of attraction at its finest.

That’s really all that it comes down to in this industry. It doesn’t matter what business you are in. You will not be successful just because you have the best comp plan or the most amazing product. Your success will really only depend on the skill sets that you have developed and how you use them to benefit other people.

If you are feeling a little bit like Napoleon Dynamite because you don’t have any good skills (bow skills, nunchuck skills, etc…) then take a little closer look at yourself. You probably do have some pretty amazing skills that you may have overlooked – just like Napoleon’s mad dancing skills, or his incredible artistic ablilities…

If you still don’t think that you have any good “skills” (and even if you do have some) then get off your butt and start working on some. If you spend a little time every day on educating and improving yourself, it won’t be long before you know more than most other people because, let’s face it, the average person won’t get off their butt and turn off the automatic intelligence reducer (i.e. television).

Even if you feel like you will look ridiculous (like Napoleon undoubtedly does in this video), give whatever you do 100%. If you do anything half hearted, people will notice. Believe it or not, people actually like it when you put yourself out there at the risk of looking silly. Otherwise you blend in with the rest of the noise out there in the marketplace. Differentiate yourself by being as authentic as possible. Tell people like it is. They will like it.

Mike’s recommendation if you are a beginner would be to start with copy writing – the art of salesmanship on paper. This will go a long way to help you communicate effectively with your audience, something that you absolutely must learn to do to succeed in this industry.

Where ever you start, just remember that slow and steady wins the race. If people are laughing at you because you are taking the time to do it right, who gives a crap. There really is no shortcut to anyplace worth going, and you will find that out if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. If you’re consistent, you’ll soon be amazed at how far you’ve come.

If you enjoyed this post, do me a solid and share it with with your facebook or twitter friends using the share buttons at the top of the post! (Or just leave me a comment... :) )

To Your Smashing Success,

P.S. If you're sick and tired of investing HUNDREDS of hours online with little to nothing show for it, it's time to take control and change your game plan. Discover my EXACT formula to generating free leads and signing up more reps on autopilot!

Go here NOW! ==> Give Me The Formula!

I’m baaaaa-aaaaaack…

Sorry that I have been neglecting my blog for the last few weeks… I am NOT dead. Just checked my pulse and I am good to go. I have just been focusing on some other aspects of my life and I tell you what – it’s NICE to be able to take some time and focus on something other than your career for a little while if you need to. I’m sure I wouldn’t have been able to get done what I have accomplished in the last month or so if I had a 9-5 job – I consider myself very blessed to have that kind of freedom.

Another one of the blessings I have is the different mentors and friends that play such a big part in my life. I love the people I work and interact with. Just the other day some of us were around a conference room table over lunch discussing some of the big changes that are coming down the pipeline for our group, and something one of my newfound mentors said redefined just a little bit the way I think about the network marketing industry and the companies in it.

You see, a while ago Mike Dillard shared his opinion about the ideal number of products that a company should have to maximize the effectiveness of its distributors. His argument was that assuming a legitimate, marketable product, having fewer products to market has a positive effect on the independent distributors recruiting results. He even cited a book called,”YES! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways To Be Persuasive” where author Robert Cialdini shared a number of unique studies that validated his claims. Here is an excerpt from his book:

Behavioral scientist Sheena Iyengar and several colleagues analyzed company-sponsored retirement programs for nearly 800,000 workers, looking at how the participation rates varied as a function of how many fund choices the organization offered.

Sure enough, the researchers found that the more choices that were offered, the less likely the employees were to enroll in the program at all.

For every 10 additional funds the company offered, the participation rate dropped 2%.

By comparison, they found that when only two funds were offered, the rate of participation was roughly 75%. But when fifty-nine funds were offered, the participation dropped below 60%.

In a second study, they set up a display at an upscale super market in which passersby could sample a variety of jams that were all made by a single manufacturer.

Either 6, or 24 flavors were offered at any given time.

The results demonstrated a clear and astonishing difference between the two conditions: Only 3% of those who approached the extensive-choice display actually purchased any jam. Contrast that with the 30% who bought jam when they approached the limited choice display.

Now the way that Dillard interpreted this data with respect to the network marketing industry, was that the companies with only one or two products generally had more success at recruiting new distributors, for various reasons.

First of all, having only one product creates perfect focus throughout the company because every single distributor is dealing with the exact same product. All the conference calls, tools, websites, presentations, and trainings are about one single product. Everyone in the entire company is on the same page.

Second, he argues that having too many options to choose from creates fragmentation throughout the company, which can create confusion and doubt for new distributors.

Now, at the time I was involved with a single product company, so you can imagine how excited I was when one of the industry legends sided with me on the great debate between the mlm skin care dinosaurs and the streamlined magical potion companies. He was telling me just what I wanted to hear. Imagine how much more that made me value him and his opinion. (For the record, I still admire him and his opinion, even though mine now differs from his.)

Thanks to a little conversation with my new nameless-by-request mentor I realized that the stance Dillard had taken was in fact 100% correct, but that it was also a little bit of an oversimplification of a much bigger picture, a little bit like finding “x” in the picture to the right.

You see, I’d had conversations with various people on the corporate side of network marketing companies about how the juice deals (a.k.a. one hit wonders) grow explosively for a few years and then start to systematically die, but since I was a part of one didn’t really take their comments seriously. I just blew them off and told myself they didn’t really know what they were talking about.

When I finally decided to open my eyes all the way, I realized that my friends were right… while single product companies are generally easier to recruit for, they are also generally not around as long as companies that offer more products.

But why is that?

Well, first of all you need to realize that there is no such thing as a miracle product. There are a lot of solid, scientifically proven products out there, but the elusive white unicorn doesn’t exist. (So if you’re still looking for it, save yourself some time and energy.) Second, one product can’t address every need of every customer. That is what having multiple products is for, and a better way to gain long term customers. Individual customers’ needs may change over time, and having different products that they have grown to trust can keep them “in the family”. It’s also more justifiable for customers to buy a little bit of a lot of different products than it is for them to buy a lot of only one.

The beautiful thing about having such a variety of companies and product offerings is that just like customers, distributors have different needs. Some want something long term while others are in search of something a little bit quicker or easier. Whatever your needs and desires, hopefully this information has helped you understand the real differences of single and multi-product network marketing companies.

Whichever way you go, know that you can and will succeed by staying focused and working hard!

If you enjoyed this post, do me a solid and share it with with your facebook or twitter friends using the share buttons at the top of the post! (Or just leave me a comment... :) )

To Your Smashing Success,

P.S. If you're sick and tired of investing HUNDREDS of hours online with little to nothing show for it, it's time to take control and change your game plan. Discover my EXACT formula to generating free leads and signing up more reps on autopilot!

Go here NOW! ==> Give Me The Formula!