Give Me Your Tired. Your Poor. Your Huddled Masses. Yes, Even Your Network Marketing Failures.

The Statue of Liberty was given to all of us in the United States from the people of France in 1886.  Located on Liberty Island in New York Harbor,  it has a plaque on its pedestal base proclaiming: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”

As network marketers we may as well add: “Give us your network marketing failures as well”.

I would happily add a person who has failed at network marketing on to my team.  Those of us who have been in the business and out of the business then back in the business know from personal experience that sometimes no matter how hard we try it is not the right fit.

Juice products are not my thing.  Worse than that, I failed miserably at it.  Yet there are some people including a friend of mine who thrives in a multilevel marketing juice company.  I thrive in an environment of network marketing essential services…services that people need almost as much as oxygen.  (It might be true that some people can sell ice to Eskimos but with my non-salesman personality I probably couldn’t even sell them heaters.  See why I need to network market an essential service.)  You might enjoy doing home cosmetic parties and might be considered a failure at what I do.  Maybe you thrive on distributing vitamins…don’t even ask how many cases of these I have in the basement. Want to buy some?

There are plenty of stories out there of people, like myself and maybe even like yourself, who have tried other network marketing products or services before hitting on the right one.  I listened to a webinar the other night where the presenter had failed at twelve mlm’s before finding his place (and becoming the top earner) in his present company.  Imagine if his sponsor had decided this guy is a networking burnout.  That would have been a lot of cha-ching that his sponsor would not have gotten.

And where is it written that a networker who has been around the block more than once cannot adapt to the new world of prospecting over the internet?  Trust me on this one, most of the individual wealth of this country is concentrated in the hands of 50 plussers (those over the age of 50).  This means they can afford the cost of entry into your business opportunity.  (One hot shot 20 something jerked me around for a few weeks a year or so ago.  He just would not admit that he did not have any money to spend to get into my opportunity much less any additional funds to buy any marketing tools.)    

How do you handle a seasoned network marketing failure?  Same thing you do with a young go-getter.  Drag out of them a “why” for doing the business in the first place and hopefully at one of your first meetings or chats.  And then impress on them that in order for them to succeed they have to duplicate what your team is doing.  Duplication, not innovation.

If they do achieve a little success out of the gate, you have gotten yourself a gem of a team member.