When I first started in network marketing I assumed that much like other professions I had worked in that there would be training and a learning curve. Well, as some have found out the hard way that there are many so called ‘gurus’ that cast in the light of integrity would smoke and shrink away hissing like a vampire. Most people who have worked for a traditional company, even fully qualified for the position, expect that their employer has an interest in making sure that any information or training you might be lacking is provided. Not the case here in this crazy business of network marketing.

I’ve heard it termed that it is like trying to herd cats, that is, trying to get distributors to work together and share what is working today. I mean, one of the most respected authors in the industry isn’t even a network marketer! Nice. How’s that for a selling point for building your down-line? Especially, if you take the advice of the majority of companies that chant the mantra “make a list of your friends and family.” My friends and family don’t have an interest in network marketing and if they did they would have no trouble finding an ‘opportunity’ by sifting through their spam folder. So where does integrity come into play in all of this?

Integrity has its first and most important task in looking at the track record of the company owners and the up-line leaders in the organization. I’ll give you an example, I have worked in the construction field for many years and know many contractors and company owners in my home city. There are those that have a reputation for not paying their employees on time-or sometimes not at all. And why is that? Too much overhead? Haven’t been faced with strong enough consequences? For instance, some owners of network marketing companies are serial offenders when it comes to starting a company, riding the profit wave, and then changing the compensation plan after the company is built by guess who? You. And do they do it just once? Not a chance, start, rinse, repeat-as it were.

So if the top ‘experts’ in the field are not even ‘in the field’ and the ‘gurus’ are out to sell their own down-line useless programs to supposedly replicate their success on ‘auto-pilot’ how can one know who has integrity? I myself resorted to prayer, and as funny as that sounds it is the truth! I asked for a mentor and a company with integrity-I mean if you’re going to pray you might as well go all out, right? I was almost frightened by how quickly God answered that prayer, and have found the company that is right for me. I have met two of the three owners as well as the master distributor and every other leader in the company, which is really nice to know that they aren’t afraid to mingle with anyone and everyone in the company. I also know that I am with the right company because for 5 out of the last 6 years they have been in business the have added money back into the compensation plan-I haven’t met any other network marketer that can say that!

So, for integrity the first thing that I would watch for is the selling of tools used to build your down-line. Next, I would suggest making it a point to do your due diligence by finding the names of the owners of the company and researching their former business associations-can’t stress this one enough. And finally, meet them face to face and find out what their philosophies of business are and how they run the operations of the company. If you are just starting out in the industry and need the nuts and bolts of building your team, download the free e-book Success in 10 Steps

Several things have to be in place to avoid such news, first and foremost is company management experience with integrity.  Man is this so important for the success of the average network marketer.  Why?  Because, believe it or not, not all of the superstar ‘top income earners’ built their way into their position.  Kinda hard to believe but it’s true.  I have been offered the ‘opportunity’ to bring my organization over to another company.  But this ‘opportunity’ as they put it would eat like cancer upon my moral fiber and destroy all my efforts of building a solid future.

Let’s just assume that all network marketing companies have killer products because they probably wouldn’t remain in business if they didn’t.  So the sale of products would be where the company’s main source of income resides, right?  Only if those products are value priced.  Otherwise the main source of money would come from signing up new distributors.  The proof is in the financial filing of bankruptcy of companies without integrity and run by greed and ego.  I hope you’ll join me in a little prayer for all the families affected by this news, my hope is that they may find the right community and company to call home.

So if you get a little time to watch the movie, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” I highly recommend it.  It’s a well-rounded, fun musical about the foibles of the long gone days of the corporate world of big business.  It did give me the inspirational push to break through some attitudes that have been keeping me at a bit of a stand still in my network marketing business.

I recently was blessed with a suggestion to watch an interview with Frank Kern, John Reese, and Anthony Robbins.  And the interview took me back to a time in my life where I had to make the decision to live or die.  And this interview talked about following through and why some people do manage to be successful yet most don’t.  In my particular case it was when I sobered up from drug addiction and alcoholism.

But the best thing that I gleened from the interview is that I have been led by either positive or negative emotions into following my dreams of being a motivational speaker.  The negative emotions led me to a career that served me well for many reasons for many years and that is new and remodel construction.  I recently had to let go of this field to pursue my dreams-not easy to acknowledge all of the reasons why I took up the career in the first place.

But the interview, my decision about following my dreams, and taking the necessary steps to achieve them led me to an underlying feeling I had associated with my choice of becoming a professional network marketer.  I remember the first time I publicly acknowledged being sexually molested as a child, and all the feelings associated with it.  I recently found that I had those same feelings around telling friends, colleagues, and former business associates about making the change from construction to network marketing.  I have found that this was my break through point in alot of ways and am grateful to have a team, a mastermind group, a loving woman, and God to take me into a new and exciting world.

This got me to thinking about how this plays out in leadership development and continuing to educate oneself in your industry.  For example, I went to a workshop by Tom ‘Big Al’ Schreiter in Houston, TX. July 7th, 2009 to further educate myself.  Needless to say it was a life changing experience.  But it occurred to me today that being on a personal path of leadership drives a certain kind of behavior as well.  I believe that Jeff Olsen said it best in his book, ‘The Slight Edge,” when he said that successful people do what others are not willing to do.  Could it really be this simple?  Is it really as simple as going to a workshop instead of watching TV on a given evening?  Is it as simple as following through on a decision to stop at just one more convenient store to ask if it would be okay to speak with a manager or the owner to see if they might be interested in what you could offer?

This leads me to my next question, what does it take to be a leader?  I mean really, is it something you are born with or is it the natural behavior, by-product if you will, of a person’s desire to achieve success?  If the truth be told I didn’t wake up one morning and say, “I want to be a leader!”  But I have been drawn to people who seem to fill a room with their presence sort of like a moth to a flame.  And being able to admit certain traits of my dominant personality type I found that I tend to ask a lot of questions-did I say a lot of questions?  Just knowing about my personality type through education has answered many questions and has taken my interactions with everyone I meet to a new level.  For example, I was speaking with Art Jonak and Don Standard about leadership and I shared with them about an experience I had with a family member.  And it dawned on me that things that I might feel are necessary to say in a difficult situation might not ever feel comfortable to someone else with a different personality type.

All of this leads me back to one very simple concept which is the dominating filter by which I view the world and that is gratitude.  I adopted a practice a few years ago that upon waking in the morning I would wriggle my fingers and toes, then my arms and legs, and then walk a few steps to drink clean water.  The ‘limb check’ that I have come to call it was inspired by a dear friend who has Multiple Sclerosis.  And every single morning I am almost in tears of gratitude, for many things but especially, for my health and for the great fortune of being one of a small percentage of humans on this planet that have the luxury of clean water on demand.  It doesn’t take very long to take notice of all the things that one could be grateful for if any effort is afforded at all.  I still have some friends that have a hard time understanding how a person can be grateful every single day, but the challenges I have overcome in my life leave me little choice. And I say that sincerely and in all honesty.  And I guess it all fell in line when I finally accepted the fact that I didn’t have an average experience growing up and I will not settle for average success in my life. Besides, I am committed to creating a life that most people can only dream of having.

It turns out the so called ‘leads’ are just people who might have signed up for an mlm, internet marketing, or information product launch that may or may not have ever existed.  But the people who signed up giving their information in the hopes of following their dreams of working from home now get passed around the internet being sold and re-sold.  The horrifying part of all of this is the questionable companies who allow their affiliates to make money selling these leads to their downline.

That is where Mentoring for Free came to my rescue by educating me to become a professional network marketer.  I learned how to study the details of a company’s policies and procedures, compensation plans, and of greatest value learned about the different personality types.  The cost for all of this priceless information?  Free.  All I had to bring the table was the ambition and the willingness to succeed.  Well, that’s not completely true I had to find out if I am coach-able and if I can focus by clearing the chatter and negative programming from my mind by the mental cleanse.

So if you are currently in a company and you’re being told to buy leads get out as fast as you can.  Because much like approaching friends and family with your mlm opportunity it just doesn’t work.  Like they say in the boxing ring, “that’s leading with the chin.”  And every time you do that you are bound to get hit in the face.  Mentoring for Free is designend to train you to target your market by finding people who already believe in this amazing industry called Network Marketing.  I would like to say it one more time so stand back BUYING LEADS IS A SCAM! Take it from some who found out the hard way, I am so grateful for being in association with the amazing leaders who shared their experiences with buying leads on the above call.

Most of today I spent with friends I haven’t seen since moving to a nearby city to fulfill, it turns out, somebody else’s idea of being successful by getting an education.  Now I’ve been educated in many different ways in the course of my life and ‘higher education’ has been more enlightening than most-but for different reasons than one might expect.  Thinking in terms of relationships, my education finally came full circle in a way that has given me purpose, focus, and direction.  A direction I didn’t find in any of my textbooks.

So many times we have the opportunity to change someone’s day, week, or entire life by striking up a conversation at a restaurant, grocery store, or even at the gas pump.  For example, I pulled over to get gas in my motorcycle after spending some time with friends.  I noticed a sign on the car next to me that said, “computer repair.”  So I asked the guy if he had a card because I don’t work on computers running Windows or MacIntosh for personal reasons.  Well, except for my mother of course.  He gave me his card and we started talking.

It turns out that he used to be employed at a company called Dell and had been laid off and now worked on computers, did odd carpentry, and light electrical work-basically whatever comes his way.  Which is just the person I’ve been needing to handle jobs that I can’t take.  I also got to tell him a little bit about my company and about our online trainings at Mentoring for Free.  The conversation lasted as long as it took to fill up my gas tank, which isn’t very long.  But it was long enough to exchange ideas and make a connection, as well as find out a little bit about someone who might become a business partner in the future.

I am not new to the concepts of network marketing as I have done it all my life.  It’s so thrilling for me to know that I will have the time freedom to continue writing, speaking, and possibly raise a family while building a fortune.  My reasons for being alive are to open the conversations I’m supposed to, for the reasons God intended, and I believe for the purpose of passing along all of the love and support I’ve received to get to this exact point in my life.  And I am excited about being able to say when asked, “What do you do for a living?” that I help people find their dreams.  And I am so grateful for the education I have received and continue to receive from My Loving Family-Mentoring For Free.

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.

I can’t bring myself to ignore this for the accumulation of money. And the truth is that I wouldn’t want to be without the satisfaction that I provided the world with the necessary contributions to acquire it. What does it mean to me at the end of the day? I’m right with God and myself. I used to spend a good deal of time caught up in the fear of criticism of others-not a good way to live life or do business. But over the years this has been replaced with a definite purpose, goals, and the understanding of the wonderful industry I will be a part of for the rest of my days. What is this going to require of me? First, it will require training in network marketing. And guess where that starts? You guessed it, with me.

To be successful I have to know a little bit about people, and if I don’t know about myself I will flounder from one affiliate scam to the next. Self-improvement leads eventually to self-confidence, or at least it better! Is that all there is to it, definitely not. Having a plan might be helpful in checking to see if you are indeed making progress. Some of this is beginning to sound like work. Hence the saying you don’t get ‘something for nothing’ I think our government is in the process of finding this out too! Yes, I had to go there too, but you know it’s progress and today that’s where I’m at.

So how does all of this affect my motivation? Definitely in a positive way. I know why I’m in this industry, why I want to be successful, and why it is I’m still alive and healthy-the most surprising of all. It’s because of the people who took the time to help me. Call it a debt of gratitude, but this is what moves me beyond the objections of family, friends, and former colleagues. This is what will push me beyond my current capabilities to realize legitimate royalty income, to say nothing of the residual income. I have never been averse to hard work, but I can say in all honesty that working on myself has been the most difficult and rewarding.

So while $652,287.47 a minute did catch my attention and seems inviting enough, at the end of the day if it doesn’t push me beyond my current capabilities it could never be worth it. Why? Because leaders don’t inspire without motivating others to become more than what they are now. And also is there the possibility for duplication? Can I mentor the people in my organization to take action to develop the leader relationship with themselves so that they can mentor the next generation of entrepreneurs? Cause network marketing is NOT a sales business, if it was then I’d be able to make $652,287.47 a minute and be able to sleep at night. The truth is it’s a people building business that takes commitment and yes, some hard work.

My definite date is September 17, 2014, God willing on that date several things will happen. One, is that I will turn 45 years old. Two, I will have achieved my financial goal. Having the definite date makes it real as well as helps my mastermind group hold me accountable for my progress to get to that point. If not, I could easily get distracted by the latest and greatest income opportunity offering a turnkey, ‘just enter your name and e-mail’, ‘we’ll do all of the work’, ‘the industry has never seen before’-dare I say it? SCAM. So I’ve got a checklist which consists of action, self-improvement, upline accountability, proven system, and conference calls. I have a personal mentor that is not bending me over, er um-I mean charging me for their experience of what works in network marketing-how cool is that?

I don’t buy leads, I don’t sign up for affiliate programs, no cold market calls, and no friend and family recruiting. So what is my job in my mastermind group? Participate. Yep that’s all they’ll give me right now. But little do they know, I’m in business with them, and I’ll be moving on to the things that I excel at-just as soon as I figure out what they are-just kidding. Obviously I’m good at not knowing everything, especially about products. My company has amazing products! Haven’t tried all of them but what I have tried are top notch quality. I can let you in on a little industry secret-ALL MLM’s have good products-yessir it’s true as I’m blue. Blue as in my dominate personality color-not blue like I just maxed out my credit card on the latest get rich quick pyramid scheme. All of this stuff, the training, mentoring, definite date, all of it has come in trade for my most valuable asset-my time. Otherwise free, er um I mean priceless!

I am confident I am becoming the person who success can deny no longer, and without the use of superstition, affiliate scams, or magic MLM superstar potions. So how to go from wannabe to mentor, to leader, to successful in network marketing? Being coachable, having goals, a definite date for those goals, and a definite plan. Simple, but not easy-a price has to be paid. And that price is action. What’s even more difficult for me is asking for help. A wise man once told me, “you can’t use the problem to fix the problem.” So if I’m going to make any significant progress it will be by continuing to learn from others. And who better than successful others? It has been very helpful to follow directions, and build quality relationships sharing ideas to help each other. That is where My Loving Family comes in. That’s not what they call themselves, but it’s the family I have chosen to align myself with and grow with into the person that truly is a servant leader in all areas of life. My upline models this, My Loving Family models this, my new friends model this, and I model this from this day forward in all my affairs.