Desire in MLM

What are the elements of a burning desire? Can you just say I want to be the superstar affiliate for my company then POOF! It just happens? Not in a 5 pillar company it doesn't. A burning desire has to be definite, measurable, and take effort to achieve. How many times have you been told to make a list of friends and family? And have any of your friends ever looked at you the same way since? Now you just don't mention the words 'opportunity', 'work from home', 'groundfloor', or 'home-based business' in their presence. Was it your fault? Did you think that the suggestions you received from your upline were comparable to what you would receive getting training in any of your past jobs in the 'real world'? Are you ready for the truth? Can you handle it? They lied to you, or at the very least they told you what the were told to tell you when they were given the 'deal'.

Network marketing is about building relationships with people not about buying leads, promotional materials, paying for the tools (like replicated websites) to build their business for them. The question that you should ask yourself, "Can the average person work to achieve above average results?" Is this even possible in your company? How can you know for sure? There are a few ways to tell. One, read the policies and procedures and decide by asking your upline about them (hint: if it's changed often, more than 12 pages long, or you need a lawyer to understand it-there might be a problem). Two, is there a proven, duplicable system that is provided for free to help you every step of the way? Three, what kind of compensation plan do you have and does it drive the right behavior in the field? And most importantly if you don't understand it can anyone in your upline team explain it to you?

I came into network marketing with a few assumptions. The biggest and most costly assumption was that my upline superstar, space commander guru was actually doing it themself. What am I talking about, you might ask? Are they building a network marketing organization by training their organization how to be successful? I mean, charging you hundreds of dollars for a collection of cd's in a shiny folder and telling you to make a list of friends and family is NOT training you to succeed. It is a good formula to become alienated from family and in some cases that might actually be beneficial but that's not the point. Next, I assumed that since my company was publicly traded that this made them credible. And finally, that I would be able to follow the techniques they did offer to success instead of being offered every affiliate scam disguised as a viable tool.

Again I find myself grateful and consider myself VERY lucky that I haven't been in this wonderful industry long enough to experience all of the horror stories told by some of my team members. I mistakenly thought that MLM is about the lifestyle, then I thought it's about the money, now I understand it's about the people. In the words of my personal friend and mentor, "Build the people and the people will build the business." I know that building a house is easier to do with construction workers, so building a network marketing organization will require training network marketers to be successful. I sure am glad that recruiting friends and family didn't make sense to me and that I found a 5 pillars company that is owned by people who understand the nuts and bolts of this wonderful industry.