Product Or Business

Which came first in MLM the product or the business, a bit like the chicken and the egg (actually it was the egg) but that is another story. Did a particular company decide on a product to market or did they work on a business building idea and then look for the product afterwards.

In a lot of cases it seems that the product was the most important aspect and the opportunity side came second. How many of us have seen companies start up with the great ‘pre-launch’ that seem to go on forever. The payplan would change over and over again until everybody including the ‘founders’ were confused.

Negativity

This could be why MLM has become unpopular in some circles, it can be that the product is just a hyped up version of what can be bought cheaply on the high street and becomes impossible to sell by the ‘distributors’ or it can be that the business side is unrealistic and unless you are in at the beginning will never see any real income arising from it.

Positivity

That of course is the negative side of MLM, now to look at the positive. If you are part of a business dealing with direct selling you have to recruit members. This if carried out correctly will give you a strong team of people who will be able to give each other support and help whenever necessary.

A simple yet rewarding ‘pay plan’ will encourage people to not only join but will motivate them to work on their business not only for themselves but for their team.

Chicken or Egg

So to go back to the beginning of the post, I have come to believe that the most important part of a MLM venture is to view it as a business builder, first and foremost. The product has to be good and suitable for a reasonable sized niche but instead of running around trying to sell your product think about building a team of people who want to help others to make residual income and also become MLM business builders.

What makes a great leader? Whether in business or in public life if a person is followed it is because they are identified with why they do what they do not what they do.

Take Martin Luther King Jr, his followers travelled miles to listen to him, not because of what he was trying to do, but WHY. This is where people go wrong in running a business, they may begin with why they are doing it, but have they got the right reasons and can they maintain those reasons.

So firstly if you have decided to go into a business whether it is online or a bricks and mortar venture, have you really thought out what the purpose of this business is. Are you purely trying to make money for yourself or your family or are you trying to help and inspire people with a specific need. If it is just money then think again, if you have a purpose and a goal the money will follow. Without the purpose you may find that as you earn the money the goal will become fuzzy and your interest will wain in the business.

This can so often be the case with online business, you join a company or even start your own, you are full of good intentions at the beginning, but after the first efforts you slow down, begin doubting yourself and wonder why you ever started. You may not be able to entice clients or build a downline due to the fact that you are not inspiring them, just trying to manipulate them. This is because you have not identified your WHY properly. If you had, you would have a reason to continue, you would know deep inside you that this is where you are going.

So where do you start to learn what your why is? A good book to read is “Start With Why” by Simon Sinek. This book identifies what has inspired great companies and great leaders to succeed. I personally have read this book and it has not only helped me to identify my ‘why’ but also to see what motivates others that I am connected to.

Once you have found your why or are at least willing to try to learn how to, then you should team up with other likeminded people who not only know why they are doing what they are doing, but how. This will enable you to further your knowledge and become inspired by them, which in turn will motivate you to work at building your business.

When you have found your innermost why, then you have a reason to get out of bed in the morning, work on your business whatever problems arise and mostly get joy out of inspiring people to join what you do because they know why you do it. So do not forget, before you go any further, find your ‘why’, then build your business.

Are you in a rut with your online business? Are you working hard but seeming to get no-where. Well the answer is in your mindset, if you do not have the right attitude and still have not banished those negative thoughts from your head, then you will not move forward.

It is too easy to stay where you are in life, maybe you are scared of shifting to a higher level. If you stay where you are, you feel safe, but another side of you wants to go on further, do better and become a leader. Leaders are not born, they are made, true some people find it easier than others to overcome their fears but determination will win through.

Personal development is important, search out mentors and leaders and learn how they discipline themselves in whatever they do. In your own life look at what you already are disciplined in and decide what other parts of your day can be changed to help you in your business and keep you motivated. Make quiet times for yourself, have no other distractions, turn off the TV and your mobile phone. Do not answer or even look at emails until you have completed your most important task of the day.

Be organised in your work, make lists every evening of what you have to do the following day and keep to them. Start every day with positivity, make walls around your mind to guard off any negative thoughts that will cause you to stray from what you are doing and only allow constructive ideas and attitudes to come through. If you want to become a 3% leader in your business then you must act like one.

It is hard for all of us to make that progression, some will rise quicker than others but there is no reason whey we cannot do it. Sometimes it only happens when we are forced to fight for what we want, if we have no choice but to push ourselves to survive then we often will put more effort in. That can so often be the case in your online business, if you are in the situation of having no income then you will put all your efforts into making it work. But if you are running it part time it can then just become an expensive hobby.

Whenever you go through a period of inactivity, then just think of what you will lose if you do not press on. Treat your business as though it is all you have and do not give up, so many people stop working just before they were about to achieve success, you never know what is around the corner.

So let this be in your mind when you are working to build your online business, be motivated, diligent and single minded about what you are trying to do. Banish those negative thoughts and attitudes and be willing to pass on what is working for you to others and you will find success comes to you.

The same can be said for ex police, it is all about discipline, working as a team, quietly following orders but also being ready to think for themselves in a crisis. I have always been surprised how many great online business leaders are ex military but when it comes down to it, they have what a lot of us lack, self discipline, the ability to see a project through to the end and the ability to not allow themselves to deviate from their goal.

So for us to achieve success with our online businesses, we must look at how these leaders work. What motivates them and how they put into practice what they preach. Many of us could not submit to the discipline of the armed forces but maybe we should study how they work and learn from them. A simple example would be that of our working environment. Whether we are working on our own in a quiet atmosphere or having to build a business with the disruption of family around us, we should be able to turn off any distractions either physically or mentally and just concentrate on what we are doing.

In the perfect world we would be able to work in our own time and home office, but for many of us who have to work around other people and commitments this is not only difficult but can become a good excuse. We often say that we are too busy, have no peace and quiet and cannot be a success because of these factors. But look at military people, they have to concentrate in all conditions and carry out their job whether they are on their own or in company.

What I have learnt from these military business leaders is that they plan everything diligently, allocate their time precisely and when they start a project, they do not give up or stray from it until it is finished. They cannot start a campaign and give up half way because it is boring or something else more interesting distracts them.

Initially I would not have thought of ex military or police officers as online entrepreneurs, but they are proving that they are and instead of envying their commitment and diligence we should be actively following in their footsteps and building our own campaigns and systems to keep us on the straight and narrow towards our goal of being successful and great online business leaders.

It is a known fact that anybody in the horse related industry will never become rich from being equestrian workers, i.e. Riding Instructors, Trainers, Grooms or Trek Leaders. They mainly take up this work because they love horses and riding. Unfortunately, this means that they are willing to work for low pay or for those who are self employed, such as Instructors, dependent on weather and ground conditions. This leads to the necessity of trying to earn additional income whenever possible.

Another situation that results from working in the equestrian field, is injury or long term back problems. This is extremely common, especially for those who deal with young horses or whom have been doing manual labour since they were eager teenagers who worked at the local stables for nothing. This rather disabling condition is what led me to look outside my current occupation as I realised that it would not be too long before I was unable to carry out the necessary physical side of my business.

Although I had set up a good list of clientele for both teaching and looking after horses, it had not allowed me to put by enough money for my future. I wanted to be in a position to carry on dealing with horses as a hobby so I knew that whatever career I chose to embark on in the future would have to pay more than my present one! I already knew of a few people in and outside the equestrian field who had found additional income on the internet, so I decided to look for myself.

After some time dabbling online I realised that to actually make a living from it you would have to take it seriously and learn from the beginning about online marketing. I found a group of people who were able to not only train me, but head me in the right direction to earning not only additional income but a real possibility of a full time work from home business.

Equestrian workers are people that love working outside and with animals and the countryside, but by having an additional source of income and turning it into a full time business in the future will enable them to carry on their passion as a hobby rather than a job.

Retiring should be a time of relaxation, a time to spend your days
doing all the things you never had chance to do before. A time of
dignified and graceful living.

It can be working in your garden, making it look like you never could
before, planting new plants and spending time on the lawn.

It could be visiting places you have never seen or wish to re-visit.

Spending time with friends and grandchildren, even babysitting for
your family.

But, these days retirement is not always like that. Your pension
doesn’t cover your outgoings. You may have to consider selling your
home just to pay ongoing bills. Keeping warm and well fed can start
being a problem.

For those who are able to carry on working there are various options.
Either their employers will let them stay on full or part time.
Or they can find new part time jobs, hopefully in an area of work
that they feel comfortable in. Or maybe they can start looking at
online opportunities.

If you are in the above category then there is a vast array of online
work to be found. But this is where you have to be careful. There
are many opportunities that promise riches, but few that deliver, and
if they do then only a handful of people will collect.

The answer is to research properly what you are interested in doing
and not to just jump on the first opportunity that you find. Maybe
join some online marketing forums to see what other people are working at. Ask questions and see where you can use your already acquired skills.

Look into the business and see what is needed to make it work. Online
business is no different from offline. You cannot succeed unless you
know what you are doing, have enough capital to at least get the
business off the ground and have the required skills to run it.

This is where training comes in and the time to take that on. So for
the retired person the opportunity is there to give the time to learn
what is needed to make an online business work.

So look for an opportunity that offers you all the training you will
need and the advice that will help you make the most of your new business so that you can truly retire gracefully.

Fear is the biggest hurdle to overcome when you start online marketing and how to conquer it is what has to be addressed before you even begin to make headway in your business.

So what are some of the causes of your trepidation.

1. The fact that you initially do not know where to start building your business.

2. Fear that you will have to talk to people at some point even though you are marketing online.

3. The terrifying thought that you will make no sales and go broke in the process.

4. Fear that you will actually become successful and with that more problems will arise.

Well we can take these in order.

1. You do not know where to start marketing and who to. This is probably the major downfall of most newbie online business owners, if you do not learn how to market online you will most definitely fail. The most important factor is to get mentoring and educational resources from experienced online marketers. Whether you buy books or join a mentoring program the learning process must be undertaken. At the same time, be aware that there is a condition where people just learn and never put into practice what they are being taught, so start using the information that you receive and get out there and market.

2. Talking to people is a necessary evil at some time if you are building a business, but practice makes perfect. It has been known for some successful online entrepreneurs to take a short term job in telemarketing, just to get the experience to talking to people. So again just go out there and do it, you will feel uncomfortable at first but in time it will get easier.

3. Now the fear of losing all your hard earned savings trying to make sales is not an unreasonable one, so it is so important that you have a budget to begin with, decide whether you can afford pay per click advertising or whether you should go with organic marketing which is more costly in time but will not break the bank. Again free marketing has to be learnt otherwise without the knowledge of keywords, search engine optimisation (SEO) and where to advertise, you will be basically wasting your time.

4. This last point, the fear of becoming successful, is not always recognised by marketers but it is a real one. We can be worried that not only will our lifestyles change, but we will lose our friends along the way. A way of coping with this is to have sensible goals and take each one on one step at a time. As your confidence grows you will find that the fear of succeeding and perhaps losing what you now feel comfortable with, begins to diminish.

As you will see from the above there is no magic secret to conquering your fear of online marketing, it is a case of hard work, learning and practising over and over again until you find out what works. Then you will be in a position to help others to overcome their worries and be in a position to call yourself a mentor.

Although I have never really been into self help books, I decided some time ago that my mindset needed definite improvement. So I started reading some inspirational books starting with Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. But I have to say that probably the most influential have been the Peaceful Warrior series by Dan Millman.

Even though these are basically novels, excepting that they were originally inspired by a true meeting by Dan with the character Socrates, they have such an easy to understand vein of truth running through them.

It is the story of a young athlete Dan whose chance meeting with an old man, whom he calls Socrates, leads him on a voyage of discovery. Truth is mixed with fiction as he finds new mentors in distant lands always learning more on his spiritual quest.

I found in these books many ideas that are written about by other authors, but in the Peaceful Warrior series I discovered insights that were written in such a way that they stayed in the mind even when the book was put down.

One of the most relevant points Dan Millman makes is that we have a choice in life and that we must take responsibility for our choices. In so many situations we are too ready to blame others for what has happened to us, but in most cases, certainly as an adult, we had a choice to be in that particular place at that particular time.

One of his quotes I love is ‘The past and future are nice places to visit, but we don’t want to live there’. So many of us dwell in the past and will not let it go or all we can think about is what we will do in the future and in doing so forget about the present. If sometimes we can just stop and take in what is going on around us now we would be a lot happier and content. As he has quoted ‘The more we bring our attention to this moment, the more we become in touch with reality, because it’s the only moment of reality. The rest is either memory or imagination’.

I admire Dan Millman in his quest to become a peaceful warrior and feel that if we could achieve that for ourselves it would lead to a much more balanced life. In his book Wisdom of the Peaceful Warrior, he takes key passages from his original and answers the many questions that have arisen from them. We can all learn from his insight into life and even death which if studied should lead to the inspired mind and inner peace that we all strive for.

What have they all got in common? Well the first two are obvious, those of us that remember the young Rolling Stones, Dylan and a time when we thought we were going to change the world are obviously of the baby boomer generation. The online marketing part is a somewhat newer baby boomer image.

Why is it that we always remember our childhood as a slower paced, sunnier time. Maybe because we didn’t have the financial worries that we have now, few of us really understood about money, we just knew that if we worked hard at school, we would be able to get a good job for life and earn enough to save for our pension and old age.

Baby boomers worked and played hard, we wanted material things, nice houses and cars and this became more important than working at our relationships. How many marriages and family units are still together? Many have been torn apart through working away from home, husbands and wives wanting different things in life and relationships disolving through lack of effort.

Suddenly, everything is changing, we have realised that those hard fought for careers and years of hard work have suddenly become sour. We miss those quality relationships of our youth when the music and ideals bound us together. Before it is too late, we want to spend more time with our children and grandchildren, watch them grow and be part of their lives.

Underneath we miss the community spirit we had in the good old days. The music festivals, the discos and the university or college life seems so long ago and this is what is bringing baby boomers onto the internet and into networking. Whether it is purely for pleasure or delving into the world of business online we have started forming communities again.

Those of us who work online, look for likeminded people who have the same interests to network with. This is something that was so often lacking in our careers offline, particularly for those in high powered corporate positions. But the most important aspect of online business is that it can be run from home and this gives us the chance to spend that quality time with our families that over the years has been missing.

Baby boomers whom have taken the plunge into the world of the internet and online marketing have come a long way since the times when our lives revolved around the Rolling Stones. But we still have the will to change our situations for the better and learn new ways to carve a future for ourselves and those around us.

If they have not realised it yet, the baby boomer’s future is not looking good and if they don’t act now their lives will crumble. If this is you, then look at your life and see where it is going. I looked at mine and realised that as productive as it was, it was not leading to prosperity but to basic ruin. This might sound dramatic, but it is the truth.

So many people of the baby boomer age are too complacent, they still are relying on their pensions to be there for them. We grew up in an age when the two world wars were over, life was easier, produce was available and accessible. We could buy things our parents never could and we did, over and over again until materialism abounded and we forgot what was important. Family life became a thing of the past and splintered and we lived for ourselves.

Now we are paying for it, some of us are in debt, unemployed or frightened of losing our jobs. Those approaching retirement who have realised their future is not looking so rosy are wondering how they are going to manage. So what is the answer? Firstly, boomers must think for themselves, stop being sheep and thinking that someone out there will get them out of trouble. They must act now, not later, to carve out a future for themselves and their loved ones. Personally, I decided to become part of the modern world and started working online. This can be a tremendous culture shock to many, but it is the only way forward if you want to survive financially in the future.

I personally know many baby boomers who have done the same and are extremely successful both in online business and in their lives. They are thankful that they took the big leap and started to learn how the internet world works. They realised that their savings were not going to be enough to last and so invested their time and effort into a new way of thinking and working. The baby boomer generation is the largest section of the world population and if they do not act now for their future there is going to be a very large number of very poor people.