My Lesson on Persistence - Ch 9 - Think and Grow Rich

  Written by Randy Enman on Jan 8, 2009 12:54 am

Read More: Law of Attraction  |  Personal Development

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For almost 18 years I have been in and out of a wide variety of network marketing and direct sales organizations, never achieving any great success.

Back in the early 1990s I had built a modest organization of about 50 people in a network marketing organization (thought I was doing pretty good), only to have the state of Utah swoop down, put the founder in prison and shut down the whole company.

I thought I was in a legitimate company. I had no idea what went wrong.  Honestly, I don’t think the founder knew either, until it was too late.

That was my first experience.  Since then I’ve been in MLM and direct sales trying to sell everything from health products, financial products, emergency food storage, kitchen and hunting knives, Amway type opportunities, to real estate investing education.

I’ve been through the expense, time, and hassle of obtaining licensing in both real estate and insurance, never making a dime off of either license, and I really started to wonder, “What’s wrong with me?”

Over, and over, and over again I tried and I failed.  Each time I would think this time I’m going to do it.  I can sell this product because I really believe in it.  This is something everybody needs.  If this young twenty-something kid can sell this and make $10,000 a month in this, surely I can do it too.  I’m no rocket scientist, but I’m not an idiot either, I just have to do the same thing my mentor is doing and I’ll get the same results, right?  Wrong.  It never turned out quite the way I imagined and neither did my bank account.

I would lose money over and over again.  I would lose $50, $75, $150 and so on through at least 20 different companies, and my biggest mistake of all, $22,000 dollars.  Honestly I’ve lost count of how many different times I fell for the sell, joined a MLM or direct sales company and then lost all I invested, with little to no successful sales.  What went wrong?  I had no earthly idea.

I had been “in recovery” from my network marketing delusions since about 2005 I guess, when in September of 2007 I relapsed.  That’s when I coughed up $22,000 for the opportunity to sell real estate investing education, and through purchase and application of the education, even become an investor myself.  I worked hard for 3 months solid.  I had fallen into association with a new friend in Arizona who had 3.3 million dollars worth of property in pre-foreclosure and I was trying to get help from anyone in the company who would listen to my story and his problem, but nobody could help my new friend.  I might have put forth the most effort of any individual in my region of the state, and still I only got one really, really good…. “Maybe!”

My warm market was running out and I wasn’t getting any more lead results from the thousands of flyers I’d put on car windows, ads in the local classifieds, and I was getting burned out from talking to people using the 3 foot rule.

I was just about at my ropes end after spending $22,000 and seeing no hope of return in the way of earnings from selling the product I invested so much cash, time, and heart into. 

In one last desperate hope, I turned to the internet for lead generation ideas.  Maybe the quality of leads I was getting in my local rural area just wasn’t that good.  With the internet I could reach out all over the nation.

I really thought I was on to something when I discovered an internet lead generation “Guru”.  After all, he gave me 7 video trainings FOR FREE. Wow!  So I pulled another $400 or $500 off my credit card and paid for an attraction marketing course, a MLM traffic generation course, a copywriting course, the monthly newsletter, bla, bla, bla.

When I received the products I was disappointed that it wasn’t a little bit more step-by-step.  I discovered that it was just a bunch of CDs, books and binders.  I would have to read and listen to everything before I could even make sense of what he was saying would “turn my financial dreams into reality”.

Honestly, I never finished reading one book or listening to one CD program.  It was too boring.  Then my brother in law told me about a marvelous new discovery, a step-by-step MLM lead system!
OK, this looks a lot easier.  Step by step instructions with videos, everything seemed to make sense.  So I agreed to try it out and I thought, “Well, if it works $47 a month isn’t that much.” So I dug in, then there was another program and another that they recommended, till I was spending more, and more, and more on monthly, or one time fees.  It was to the point that I started keeping a spreadsheet on all of the different websites I had accounts with, all my usernames, and all my passwords. 

I had invested so much in time and effort by this time that the thought of backing out and losing all that effort was almost as bad as the thought of giving up.

When I first got started with the first guys stuff, I got signed up on Better Networker right away on his recommendation, and I liked what I saw there too.  Lots of articles about success in marketing, lots of people who appeared to be doing what I wanted to accomplish.

One day I was reading through some of the articles that talked about people that are willing to mentor others without an agenda.  They would never talk to you about joining their company, they wouldn’t ask you to join any affiliate programs so that they could make a profit off of you, they wouldn’t ask you for any money for any reason.  They would just teach you what it takes to be successful in network marketing and they would teach you how to get people to ASK YOU if they can come into business with you.  That was very, very attractive to me!

I messaged one of the authors of these articles and told her a bit about my circumstances and asked if she would be willing to train me the way she talked about in her article.  She readily agreed and sent me the link to a book called Success in 10 Steps written by Michael Dlouhy.  I instantly fell in love with it because I found out that my failures in marketing were not my fault, the odds were stacked heavily against me in the first place and IT WAS NOT MY FAULT! 

I also found out that there was a system to achieving success in marketing and it wasn’t about selling at all, THE SECRET TO SUCCESS IS RELATIONSHIPS.  Building life long relationships with the right people can help all people in the relationship find the successes they are looking for in their lives. 
I was reminded that Napoleon Hill in his classic book, Think and Grow Rich, tells us that we should have a “Mastermind Alliance” working all together to achieve the wealth each is looking for.  I had found a community of people who are actually doing exactly what Napoleon Hill recommends.  It was the first time in my life I had found such a group that invited me into their circle. 

I discovered that they would teach me for free.  I even learned that there were those who had been in this group, learned everything that helped them out, and finally had the audacity to leave the group and start taking advantage of the unwitting beginner by selling the information that Mentoring For Free gives away at no cost.  I was so offended at this thought, and I had actually already paid money for what this guy had learned here for free!

Now when I’m on twitter and other social networks I tell people, “Get this!  What the other GURUS will TAKE YOUR MONEY for, I WILL GIVE TO YOU FOR NO CHARGE.”

I love Mentoring For Free and my new friends.  We are like family who support each other in the common goal of wealth building and success in business and life, and if I so choose, I get to talk with and be taught by my new friend and mentor Michael Dlouhy every single week.

I believe that persistence in the face of all my failures and frustrations have led me to my new friends, my long lost family, in the Mentoring For Free organization and has attracted me to them as well.

I love my mentoring for free family and I am very, very wealthy!

Your Forever Friend,

Randy Enman

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