There is a lot of bad talk about MLM floating around these days. People speak of going into a business with the hopes of making a lucrative income out of their own homes, only to end up with a business that went nowhere fast. They’re quick to blame the system itself and claim that it doesn’t work, that it doesn’t deliver on its promises. The successful people, according to them, had something that they didn’t, and it just wasn’t going to happen.
But has MLM really earned this reputation? Is it truly a futile system sold to the multitudes by the success of the few? No, that’s actually an quite illogical frame of thought. There can be no argument against the fact that a lot of people who attempt to start their own MLM business ultimately fail, but there doesn’t need to be. That statistic doesn’t point to the failure of the system at all – it reveals the fact that most people who start a home business don’t really know how to build it into a successful income stream.
Why don’t we dig a little deeper, and apply some logic to the situation to see what is really going on? To do so, I’m first going to ask a question: If I took at random forty people who worked at average, normal day jobs and put them in charge of any kind of business that was their responsibility to run, do you think that business would immediately flourish? Of course not. The problem is they have what I like to call the “Follow the instructions” mindset, and most people have it. It has its own strengths – it creates very effective problem solvers, people who are able to, once given a direction or set end goal, find the most efficient way to achieve those ends. What it takes to start a business from the ground up, however, is an Entreprenuerial mindset, which is something completely different. In normal circumstance, people without an Entreprenuerial mindset don’t tend to actually start their own businesses – it requires far too much risk and capital to do so. What we see is the people who don’t immediately have what it takes are in a sense “weeded out,” whereas MLM is open to anyone at the cost of literally almost no capital whatsoever. We therefore see, in MLM, an increased amount of people trying to run a business who would not ordinarily have thought themselves capable.
What exactly do you believe happens to your average person when they start up their very own business? Are they suddenly imbued with the perfect mindset and the unfailing wisdom to create a whirlwind success? No! MLM takes a very different mindset than what your average person has. They have to be able to find direction where there is none, they have to be able to notice all of their achievements, big or small. A “follow the instructions” mindset endows someone very much with the ability to take a painting, or a picture, and add to it. – Make it prettier by embellishing it here and there. An entrepreneurial mindset endows one with the ability to paint the piece from blank canvas up. There are numerous people more than eagerly willing to work at their own business, completely eager to do anything it takes to make it grow. The problem they face is that there is no one to really tell them what to do, no set of instructions to follow. Inevitably, hard working people eventually quit, unwilling to stick to it and unable to see that they will have to forge their own path.
So we’ve taken note of two different mindsets and what each one excels in. But what if you’ve always worked a 9 to 5, and you are just itching to create a home business for yourself? You’ve never done this before, does that mean you’re not cut out to do it? Not at all. If you take note, I have been using the words “mindset” and “paradigm” for a reason. There is not a person born into this world knowing how to build a million dollar business. They have to learn just like everyone else; they have to condition their minds to a certain way of looking at things. Anyone can do it. It takes a willingness to change your perspective, to look at things differently. It’s something that you have to condition your mind to do. Changing the way we view things is not easy. It goes against the natural way we are. We humans are naturally adverse to change, and we very much enjoy keeping the simple familiarity in the way we currently see things. It takes a lot of perseverance and persistence to change your mindset, but sticking with it not only will make you a far more effective business person, but it will also broaden your entire scope of the world.
But how do we condition ourselves to have this “entrepreneurial” mindset? Persistence. Persistence is an amazing thing, and some people are fortunate enough that it comes naturally to them, while others struggle desperately with it. Faith and belief are the simplest and most effective ways to build persistence. Let me show you what I mean. Imagine thousands of overturned cups covering a massive football field. You are told that underneath one, just one of those cups is $2,000 cash. You are told that it is your job to one by one, overturn each cup, and when you find the money underneath one of them, you get to keep it. Let’s just say the money is across the field from you, and you’ve got a good ways to go before you get it. When you overturn a cup and find it empty, how do you feel? Do you consider that a terrible failure? No, of course not! You consider this progress. Every single cup that you turn over is another cup closer to the money. When you’ve gone through 500 cups, you certainly wouldn’t sit and cry over 500 cups that you’ve found empty, you’re excited! You’re excited because you are 500 cups closer than when you started! This is because you have complete and total faith that the cup with the money is out there. You believe, you know. This is a key concept in entrepreneurialism. I call it progression. It is a mindset of recognizing progress and accomplishments based upon your faith. When I first started in my business, I had hundreds of dead, cold leads to call in an attempt to market to them. Like clockwork, 99% of those leads turned me down flat. I easily went 100 or so calls without a sale. I had been talking to my grandmother about this, and she said, “Well that’s quite disappointing, isn’t it?” and my immediate response was, “Of course not. I know that person is out there, and this only means I am that much closer to getting hold of them.” When you first start a business, don’t expect immediate success. Things will happen in due course, and you’re going to have to be able to realistically tell the difference between failure and progress. – More often than not, they appear quite similar.
We have already made it clear that the main key to Progression is faith. As long as you know the prize is sitting there underneath one of those cups, you’ll turn them over for as long as it takes. But what if you didn’t know there was any money there? What if you weren’t 100% sure? Each empty cup you found would be seen quite differently then, wouldn’t it? They would be disappointing, and worrisome. So how is it that you attain this kind of unfailing faith? The answer is quite simple, and in our context, it is education. A person who is well educated and informed about what to look for in a good network marketing company and opportunity, they are going to have confidence in their abilities and decisions and the results they produce. Educate yourself on what to look for in a company. Not only will your attitude and outlook be much brighter, but your business will grow much faster if you can find a good opportunity and company to start your business in. Make it of the utmost importance to do your homework before joining any company. Talk to customers of the products they produce, go out of your way and talk to different distributors of each company you are interested in. Use rational thought and logic to make the most educated choice when it comes to joining a network marketing company, and you’ll find a place that you have complete trust in.
One of the biggest things you need to make certain you avoid is what I call the “Vacuum of Normalcy.” Most people just call this the inability to think outside the box. This Vacuum of Normalcy is extraordinarily simple to get caught up in, and stems from limiting yourself to only one train of thought. Whenever something drastically new or ground-breaking emerges, I couldn’t even count how many people thumb their nose up at it, never considering just how incredible it might prove to be. The internet is a perfect example. When the internet really shot out into the homes of average citizens, most people working their 9 to 5s didn’t pay much heed to it. – The internet, they thought, was for computer geeks. They stayed “safe” in their vacuum, clinging to the familiar concepts of the work they’d always counted on. A select few didn’t, though. They looked into their options and quickly took advantage of the amazing thing the internet brought their way. Take Ebay, for example. The thought of online auctions is nothing new nowadays, but someone initially took that idea and ran with it. – And I think we all know exactly how Ebay is doing now. I refer to the Vacuum of Normalcy as a vacuum because of two reasons: 1, it sucks people in and is very hard to break out of. People feel safe with familiarity, and that’s a very hard habit to shake. And 2, it’s a place of stagnant nature where new and innovative ideas are stifled and snuffed out.
MLM is a truly wonderful thing, and it’s open to everyone who is willing and able to benefit from it. The problem is that people tend to overlook the part where you have to be able. Make no mistake – MLM is no free ride. It takes work, peristance, and dedication, and you have to be willing to change the way you look at things. But if you can, what awaits you is complete success. At least, I don’t know what else you call making a ton of money from your own home.
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Cole Carson is a successful network and internet marketer specializing in home business coaching, motivational literature, and natural health.
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