You know how surviving your first year in network marketing is easier said than done? You need to know what to focus on to ensure that you are not only going to survive your first year in network marketing, but also become profitable in your first year in network marketing.

Most people do not even know how to survive their first month in network marketing, and consequently whether they do or don’t survive their first 30 days, rides on the wings of lady luck.

There’s a saying in network marketing that if you can survive your first 72 hours, you are more likely than not going to survive your first 30 days. Those first 3 days are critical and we have covered that in a previous post.

Most experienced network marketers know that there are only a few reasons why the majority of people who join network marketing for the financial opportunity, do not survive in the industry, let alone their first year in network marketing.

Now if you are new, wouldn’t you want to know what those few things are? Of course you would, that’s why you are reading this post! Good on you. You are taking responsibility for yourself. That’s the first step to independence in network marketing. Becoming independent in your first year in network marketing is the key. But the process can and will be tough, and you need to safeguard your survival. This is what this article is all about. Empowering you to safeguard your survival and ultimate success in MLM. You need to know this and you need to teach this.

As a matter of fact, once you have read this article, be sure to hit the share button and share it with your friends on Facebook, your Facebook groups, Twitter and where ever you have presence on social media. The internet is a big blessing. It allows us to compress time in network marketing (something we will talk about at another time). Use it.

So, let’s get back to the couple of things you need to focus on to survive your first year in network marketing.

First year in network marketing – fight for survival

Everyone who has survived their first year in network marketing, has done so because they have consciously or unconsciously worked on just two things:

1. Their belief system or faith levels.

2. Their associations.

Do not under estimate the power of these two things. They will make you or they will break you. Not to think so, is naive. Roll the dice.

Negative is normal

Before we go into more detail on these two topics, just take note right now of the fact that negative is normal. Now negative is not successful, but it is normal. We should all learn to deal with negative. Some people refuse to acknowledge negative. Ostrich-like they choose to bury their heads in the sand and chant: “it doesn’t exist…it doesn’t exist…” Ignoring the negative is not going to remove it. Some people say, “well, I’m just focusing on the positive stuff.” Well, that’s called a recipe for disaster. If you do not fight negative, it will conquer you. So first of all, know that negative is normal. It is part of life. You will encounter negative in your first year in network marketing. Not to think so, is naive. If you expect negative, and you are ready to fight negative and deal with it when it pops, you won’t allow negative to derail you. But if you ignore negative, it will nudge you off track without you even noticing. Before you know it, your first year in network marketing ends in disaster! I’m asking you to take up your guard and be prepared for negative. Let’s continue.

Belief

Faith that will carry you in your first year in network marketing

To survive your first year in network marketing, you need to build your faith (your level of belief) in:

Belief in yourself

Self-doubt is one of the biggest killers of new network marketers in their first year in network marketing. As a matter of fact, it usually strikes in the first 72 hours and will keep coming back time after time. It is driven by fear.

* Have I done the right thing?

* Will it work for me?

* What will my wife say?

* What will my friends think of me?

* Will I really be able to do it?

Now, to make things worst for you, your loved ones (who means well) will question your decision to join network marketing. And because they care for you, they will go out of their way to convince you that you have made the biggest mistake of your life.

Belief in self is something that we constantly have to work on. It either increases or it decreases. It does not stand still. Now remember “negative”? Negative needs no encouragement. Positive needs hard work and focus, but negative just happens. Negative is like weeds – they need no invitation; they just spring up in your garden. Unless you attack those weeds, they will soon overun your beautiful garden. So, learn to pull out weeds. Self-doubt is negative. It will pop into your mind like weeds pop up in a garden, and unless you kill those negative thoughts the moment they pop up, they will take you down. So now you know, your own limiting beliefs and self doubt will pop up from time to time. Have a plan ready to knock them back.

One of the biggest motivators in network marketing is the stories of other people who has done it. If you arm yourself with a good selection of stories, of people just like you, who have made a success of network marketing, you will be able to fight of the thoughts of self-doubt. “If he can do it, so can I! If she can do it, I’ll tear it apart.” Hearing other people’s success stories one more time, is a good way to boost your faith in yourself. Another way is to have patience with yourself and have realistic expectations. Celebrate your small little victories and just keep going. Nobody has every failed in life, unless they have accepted defeat. So long as you refuse to accept defeat, you remain in the race and you give yourself a chance to succeed.

Most people know that the best way to build your belief in self, is to become confident in what you do, think and say. The stronger your belief, the more confident you will be. The influence of personal development cannot be overstated. I strongly recommend that you learn from the likes of business philosopher Jim Rohn. Invest in his personal development training material. The cost of these audios and videos is a small price to pay for your personal development. It’s great value for money. More than that; it’s great value for your time. I highly recommend Jim Rohn’s series titled, Challenge to Succeed. It will be the best $49 bucks you will ever spend.

Belief in your company’s products

This is a no-brainer. If you do not believe in your company’s products, you have a snowball’s chance in hell to survive your first year in network marketing.

The best way, the only way, to build your belief in the products is to use the products every single day of your life. If you don’t, you are a hypocrite. How can you expect your customers to use the products every single day, if you are not prepared to do so yourself?

Another good way, is to collect an arsenal of product result stories. The success stories of other people who got amazing results using your company’s products.

Your story and other people’s stories. That is what will cary you through when doubt pops into your mind, or when you are met wiht a negative person in the market place. As a matter of fact, product testimonials are your most powerful weapon in network marketing. Use it or perish.

Belief in your company’s marketing plan

If you do not have faith in your company’s compensation plan, you will not be able to use it. The only way to believe in your company’s marketing plan, is to make money with it.

Most new network marketers fall into the trap of direct sales. Most reputable network marketing companies offer compensation as a result of direct sales of the products or service and compensation for building a network, which is nothing other than a distribution network. Direct sales puts cash in your pocket right now. In the first 72 hours, this is important, because it gets you to believe that this thing is real. However, getting stuck in direct sales without building your network is a HUGE pitfall. Unless you love selling things, you will not survive your first year in network marketing if you only focus on direct sales.

Most people who join network marketing for the financial opportunity, do so because of the money they can earn through leverage. Leverage so by the way, is the only thing that stands between the rich and the poor. The rich make use of leverage; the poor do not.

Network marketing offers an amazing leverage opportunity. But to tap into the richness of your company’s marketing plan through the power of leverage, you need to sponsor/recruit new members into your network and teach them how to become profitable and survive their first year in network marketing and beyond.

The only thing that will prevent you from tapping into this area is fear. The only way to overcome this fear is to start sponsoring new members into your team. Now, you do not get paid for sponsoring new members. So unless your new members are taught how to succeed in network marketing, you are not going to have any leverage. They are like little babies in the beginning. You have to take care of them; guide them through the first 3 days (72 hours), the first 30 days and their first year in network marketing. Bottom line: you will only earn money (via leverage) if they make money. It is therefore in your best interest to help them survive and become profitable your MLM company. Nothing builds faith in your company’s compensation plan, than receiving your own cheque from the company. No team equals no cheque. Build your team or perish.

Belief in your company’s mission

If you do not share your company’s vision, you will always find yourself on the outside and will not be able to tap into the energy (life force) of the company. The life force of any company is it’s people. All major network marketing companies have corporate events. That is where the people of the company come together to celebrate, learn and get recognition. The energy present at these big corporate events are electrifying.

If you feel low; go to a company event. It will recharge your batteries like nothing else.

If you need encouragement, go to a meeting.

If you need motivation from new fresh stories of other people succeeding and doing it; go to a company meeting.

The collective energy will fire you up. Everyone knows that there is usually only one mistake network marketers make when they attend corporate events: they do not take enough of their own team to the event with them!

If you want to survive your first year in network marketing:

Belief in your map

Apart from fear, this is the single most cause of people quitting in their first year in network marketing. If you have no clear plan on how you are going to conduct your network marketing business with the time you have available to do it, you will:

Have you seen people just wandering about in life? They have no clear direction. They have no mission. They are en route to nowhere specific.

If you do not know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?

You need to map out your future in your network marketing company.

When you do so, you have to be realistic. All we ask for is measurable progress in reasonable time. Most people over estimate what they can achieve in their first year in network marketing, and they completely underestimate what they can achieve in ten.

If you are lucky enough to have a sponsor or an upline or be part of a team who have developed a Treasure Map for all the members of their team to follow, great! If not, develop your own. Either way, you have to be able to see yourself following this plan; you have to believe that the plan is real and that the check points are reasonable. Most of all, you have to believe in the underlying mission of the plan. If the underlying mission is just to make money, you will be a struggle to hold onto your plan when the going gets tough in your business. Here’s a promise as a leader: the going will get tough for you. Expect it. Be prepared for it. The weeds will spring up in your garden. Be ready to kill it with your faith in your plan.

Here’s the key: You have to be able to see your future.

Everything in life is created twice: first the mental creation, seeing it before it exists and second the physical creation. Nothing exists today, that was not first envisioned by someone.

What do you envision for yourself in your first year in network marketing? Is that reasonable? Do you see yourself being profitable after your first year in network marketing?

What do you envision for yourself after 3 years in network marketing? Do you see yourself earn a full time income via your company’s leverage opportunity? In other words, do you see yourself earning a full time passive income from network marketing?

What about your 5 year plan and your 7 year plan? Where do you see yourself in that time?

Now, map it out. Map out your measurable progress over this period of time. Here’s a tip: begin with the end in mind and work backwards. That way you know exactly what you need to do now, to achieve and have what you want to have in 1, 3, 5 and 7 years from now.

Study your company’s compensation plan and work out your own map, your own treasure map so to speak, on how you are going to get there.

Here’s a final question for you on this topic: If you had a treasure map in your hands, and you believed it to be true, would you need someone to motivate you to use it?

Of course not! You will be the best self-starter in the world. You will be up early and stay up late. You will do whatever it takes for however long it takes to get to X. There might be mountains in your way. You will say, no problem. I’ll dig a tunnel. There might be oceans in the way. You will say, no problem. I’ll build a ship. No matter what obstacles might be on your journey whilst you follow your treasure map, you will find a way around it, through it or die trying.

Now, the operative words in my question to you, “If you had a treasure map in your hands, and you believed it to be true, would you need someone to motivate you to use it?“, are: believed it to be true.

Your belief is what will make all the difference in the world – to you.

Association

There’s an age old saying that you are the average of the sum total of the five people you spend the most time with.

Most people who test this for themselves for the first time, is amazed to discover how accurate this is. Take the five people you spend the most time with. Add all their incomes together and divide it by 5. The answer should more or less be what you are earning right now. If not, just give it some more time.

The power of association cannot be under estimated.

Hang out with a bunch of people that drink coffee all day long, and you will soon be drinking coffee all day long too.

Frequently hang out with people who smoke, and you will soon find yourself addicted to a harmful habit.

If you flock together, you will be birds of a feather.

If you want to survive your first year in network marketing, you have to ask yourself the following questions right now:

If it is not okay, you have to learn the following strategies:

Disassociate

Limited association

Deliberate association.

Disassociate yourself from toxic people. If they are dragging you down, they will drown you. Now sometimes you can’t completely disassociate yourself from such people. They might be your family. In that case, learn to limit your association with them to the bare minimum. Do not linger in their presence. Be polite and excuse yourself. Then seek out the people that are where you want to be; the people that have already achieved what you want to achieve, and try to hang out with them as much as possible.

Now, deliberate association with powerful people is not easy, because you might be one of the people they want to limit their association with. You see, they know if they hang out with more and more people just like you, you will drag them down to your level. You will bring down their averages and they won’t like that.

The challenge for you is to find a way to earn their time. Say to them, if I do this, this and this, would you have lunch with me?

Now in network marketing, we have the unique opportunity at our corporate events to get around some of these people who are otherwise out of reach. If you need to qualify in order to attend an event; qualify! It will bring you into close proximity of people who will be able to pull you up if you spend enough time in their presence. So, if you have to qualify over and over to spend some time with such people, will it be worth your while? Of course! Your income can only go up if you hang around with people who earn more than you do. It’s that simple.

Be careful who you spend time with, lest you want to become like them.

So, to survive your first year in network marketing and become profitable, you need to associate with the leaders in the network marketing company you are involved with. Seek them out and ask them what you need to do to earn their time.

So my friends, on your mlm journey, survival of your first year in network marketing depends on how well you build your faith levels and how well you choose your associations.

Teach your new recruits how to survive their first year in network marketing by pointing them in the right direction: teach them how to build their faith and how to manage their associations.

Now, please do me a favor and use the share buttons provided on this page to share this article on “How to survive your first year in network marketing” with your friends. This might just be the information that they will thank you for in years to come.

Your comments in the comment section below will also be appreciated.

Much love.

Your friend in MLM

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