10 Stupid Mistakes Made By Newbie Network Marketers Part II of ll

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#6. Going Against Your Gut

Your intuition is not less important than any of your other cognitive faculties. Never discount it when faced with decisions even if the person(s) advising you have more knowledge and/or experience than you. You be amazed at how many huge deals and corporations “yea” or “nay” deals based on the gut feeling of the decision maker.

You may think (or others may want you to think) the world of business is about facts and logic but, that couldn’t be farther from reality. If you base all your business deals on hard logic and ignore your intuition, most likely you’ll be in for a lot of undo pain.

You’ll try to decipher why so and so didn’t join you in business but they started with some other risky (to you) startup or a potential customer chose a more expensive option than yours until you realize…

We humans aren’t very logical to begin with. We simply don’t have enough data to make truly logical decisions because business deals depend on human beings, and we don’t have a logical system for accurately predicting human behavior. Not being able to predict how other humans will behave is a pretty big gap in our logic. Intuition has to fill that gap.If something does or doesn’t feel right to you on the most primal and basic levels I suggest that’s enough to make a decision. You’ve got to trust yourself on that.

#7. Being too Formal

Yup, I know, this is “business” how could you be too formal right? It’s because business, especially network marketing and other home based industries, are based on relationships. The whole business works to the degree of the quality of the relationship behind them.

I have team member that would walk with me through fire based on the relationship we developed from the on set. Treat your business relationships like a friendship (or developing friendship) and you will have the same which is what sky rockets your business.

Formality puts up walls, and walls don’t foster good business relationships. No one is loyal to a wall… except the one in China.

Formality is also boring and hard work to maintain. People want to have fun and enjoy who they work with. If someone addresses me like a computer, I’ll respond like wise— by hitting delete. But if someone demonstrates they have a real personality and a good sense of humor, a connection is far more likely. (explains why I don’t use friend blaster pro, although it’s a great product).

#8. Sacrificing Your Unique Personality Quirks

When I first started in network marketing I did things that were totally against my personality…like edifying an expert when I knew damn well how to explain the business. I did it for the sake of being coachable which for me meant dumbing myself down so I don’t show-up my illustrious upline.

It also meant calling people Mr. and M(r)s. regardless of how old they were again going back to #7. Now that I am a online network marketer, my unique personality and oddities are what sets me apart from everyone else and it is an asset and ally. My personal experiences give my content a unique flavor. If I were to take myself too seriously and write more formally, everything I create would be very dull and would likely lose much of its audience.

It is perfectly ok, in fact, a requirement, to be your own weird self and unleash your unique spirit into your business…think more like Jim Carey and less like …anyone more formal.

You’ll enjoy working with the people you attract when you are just being yourself far more because they like you for who you are, not who you’d like them to think you are.

If anyone can’t handle the real you, that’s their problem, not yours. Send the ones who only want to work with robots and clones as leads to your “haters”…they deserve each other!

#9. Failing to focus on value creation

I bet you though the main reason you got into business was to make money, huh? It’s easy to fall into that trap when that’s all you may hear or think about before you got into business.

The definition of business is: The exchange or sale of goods or services for profit. What’s missing from that definition is no one pays you if you provide no value for them “exchanging” their money with YOU. They’ll just buy the same goods and services from someone else.

This is NOT something typically taught by network marketing corporate training books, tapes, meetings etc. Those are mostly about cute ways of handling objections and not so cute “MLM pick-up lines” like, “I know you’re busy but, do you keep your business options open?”

The real purpose of your business is to create value. While it’s possible to make money in the short run without creating much value (hence the fast start bonuses promoted by most network marketing companies), in the long run it’s unsustainable (hence the high dropout rate after 90 days).

Even criminal organizations have to create value for someone. When you know your business is just sucking value away from others without providing anything in return, it will erode your self-esteem, and the business won’t be much fun to run.Why does your business exist?

It exists to provide some sort of value, both for you and your potential prospects. The better you understand what value you’re trying to provide, the better you’ll be able to focus.

For example, the basic value of my telecom business is to provide great deals for quality service and cool technology. The basic value my website www.GetPaidToProspectOnline.com provides is a training and business resource for newbie online network marketers. The basic value of my adult model recruiting business is safe guaranteed work for great guaranteed pay.

Too often networkers aren’t clear on what value they’re looking to provide. They just throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks. That’s an awful business model. The world doesn’t need more sales pitches or more stuff. But,it always needs and wants genuine value creation, and that’s where you should direct your efforts.

#10. Failing to Optimize

As important value creation is to a sustainable business, it’s equally naive to assume you can simply focus on creating value, and the rest will take care of itself. You may end up building a business that provides good value but loses money.

As a business owner, you need to find a way to deliver your value in a cost effective manner. Most likely your first (or first few) attempts will be less than optimal. You’ll waste too much time, money, and resources trying to produce and deliver your value. That’s OK though. Many businesses start out that way…just don’t let yours stay there.

Once you have a particular business process in place, pull it apart and re-optimize it from time to time. Look for ways to make it more efficient.

• Can you get it done in less time?
• Can you spend less to do it?
• Can you do it less frequently?
• Can you outsource it?
• Can you dump the process altogether?

That last one was a biggie for me. I held on to processes that hurt my business for almost a decade in the name of being “duplicable”. Things like one on one meetings, weekly business opportunity meeting, conference calls and large international meetings sucked up my time and money like a vacuum!

I took that long before I gave myself permission to take charge of my own business and started acting like a real business owner instead of just a representative that looked to my upline or company to do things for me.

Don’t fall into the trap of using archaic methods for doing routine tasks that could be automated, including lead generation, team training, customer education, order processing, communications, and marketing.

If you find yourself doing the same repetitive tasks month after month, make sure you put some effort into optimizing them. Not optimizing is like throwing time and money down the drain. It’s often much easier to save time and money than it is to create them.

An Internet business has abundant opportunities for optimization because it’s so easy to try new things and measure the results. Right after launching my first site, I experimented quite a bit with the optin boxes and copy.

I got to see what worked through split testing and retesting. I keep doing what works. Adding video to my homepage was another optimization. Some people read the copy, some people watch the video, and some do both.

I’m also testing Google Adsense and banner ad placement on my site now.

Even though value creation is the primary aim of the business, this is still a for-profit business and needs to generate income in order to be sustainable. If I don’t eat, I don’t write. More money means more resources for ongoing value creation. So value creation and optimization go hand-in-hand.

It takes significant effort to build a successful business, but it’s also a tremendous growth experience. I know many people who have quit their jobs to run their own network marketing and home based businesses.

Everything didn’t always work out as well as they’d hoped, but I don’t know any that regretted taking the plunge. There’s simply no substitute for holding the reins of your own destiny.

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Malika Duke

www.recessionproofincome.com