Getting Started 2 - Making The Dream Reality

"Success is simply a matter of luck.
 Ask any failure !" - Earl Wilson

 As I wrote in Part 1 , climbing Everest, swimming the Channel, putting a man on the Moon all took the same four things. 

                                  VISION – COMMITMENT – PREPARATION - ACTION 

VISION 

Each of the teams involved in the projects mentioned above had clearly defined goals. They knew precisely what they wanted to achieve – and why. But more than this, they had the vision to set goals that had not been reached before. They were not content to settle for a quick ramble up Snowdon, a leisurely dip in the local river, or a quick orbit of the Earth. They were prepared to step outside their comfort zones, and push that bar higher than ever before. Are you ? 

COMMITMENT 

Having defined their goals, our teams did not just give a luke warm commitment to give it a try, or to do their best. Their commitment was to do whatever it took to reach their goal. You can work your Wikaniko business full-time or part-time, but you can’t work it spare time ! Are you prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals ? 

PREPARATION 

Climbing Everest takes more than donning an anorak, and hiking boots and striding out. Swimming the Channel takes more than pulling on a costume and jumping in. Walking on the Moon took more than just hopping aboard a capsule on the end of a rocket. Planning and preparation were essential. Contrary to what some will tell you, success in network marketing, is not as simple as making a contact list, learning a script, and picking up the phone.
There are four elements to your new business which we will examine more closely later. 

                    MARKETING - RETAILING – SPONSORING – COACHING

You only get one chance to make a first impression. Before you pick up that phone take a little time to prepare. Learn about the industry, the company, the products, and the marketing plan.
Ask questions. Use the products yourself. Talk to people who are already successful in the business, find out how they did it, and enlist their support. 

Who would you listen to ? Someone who comes across nervous, apprehensive, and insincere, or someone who is confident, enthusiastic, and sincere? 

ACTION 

So, you know where you are going, and why. You are committed to do whatever it takes to get there. And you have made your plans, done your research, and made your preparations. Now you are ready for the fourth and final stage – action. 

Anyone who has tried to push a car will know that it takes more effort to get it moving, than to keep it moving. And once it is moving it takes more effort to stop it ! 

Some will recommend that you start your new business with 90 days massive action.
I would suggest that you start your business with 90 days massive TR-action. If you were pushing that car whilst the handbrake was on, you wouldn’t get far would you ? If you were pushing the car whilst you were stood on a sheet of ice, who would move, you or the car ?
Massive TR-action depends not just on taking action, but taking efficient, effective action. It depends on not just doing things right, but on doing the right things well.

Finally, remember that you are not alone. Pushing that car on your own is hard. When a few people offer a helping hand it gets moving very quickly. That’s leverage !! Your upline should always be there for support – but if for any reason they are not, give us a call, or drop us an E Mail. 

If you are prepared to invest your time and effort in building your business, then so are we !!
We’ll provide you with the information and ideas, tools and techniques you’ll need to be both competent and confident as you build your business. We’ll happily answer any questions you have, remember the only daft question is the one that never got asked ! And if we don’t have the answer, then we’ll make it our business to find out for you.

In the next post – Getting Started 3 – The Wheel Of Success , we’ll look at those four elements necessary to build a balanced sustainable business

MARKETING - RETAILING – SPONSORING –COACHING

Getting Started 1 - The Tortoise & The Hare

This post is written for people in the FM Group Wold business opportunity – but I believe that the principles apply to any Network Marketing venture.

There are two kinds of people in this world. The tortoises and the hares. 

Those who read the manual, and those who don’t.

Those who plan their journeys, and those who leave everything to chance.

Those who strip off the old paint, and carefully prepare the surface for painting, and those who simply slap another coat of paint on top of the old.

The hares tend to get off to a faster start, but in the long run it is usually the tortoises who get the best results. If you started a new job, say as checkout operator at a local supermarket, on minimum wage, you wouldn’t expect to be put straight on the tills, would you ? You would expect to receive some initial training.

If you invested thousands of £'s in buying a franchise opportunity, you would not just expect to receive initial training and ongoing support, you would almost certainly DEMAND it !!

We’d like to ask you two questions.

What do you WANT to get out of your FM Group World business ?

Before you answer that question, we’ll ask you the second.

Do you know what you COULD get out of the business ?

Whilst your initial investment in your FM Group World business was probably less than £50 , the potential is as great as many franchise opportunities costing thousands of £'s. This is a serious business opportunity, but it will only work for you if you take it seriously.

Living as we do in the modern nanny state of political correctness, the compensation culture, ‘elf and safety’ and regulations, not to mention prolific speed cameras, and micro-chipped wheelie bins, it will come as no surprise to you that any information on an opportunity like this must carry a statutory warning.

“It is illegal for a promoter or a participant in a trading scheme to persuade anyone to make a payment by promising benefits from getting others to join a scheme.
Do not be misled by claims that high earnings are easily achieved.”

You must make sure that this statutory information is included on any information you send out. It must not be at the beginning, or the end, and must be given equal prominence to the rest of the information. If you don’t put this in, you are operating illegally, and jeopardising the future of the whole network. You will notice that this information appears at the foot of EVERY page of this blog.

Let’s look at the second part of the warning again.
Do not be misled by claims that high earnings are easily achieved.
Would you be misled by claims that Everest could be easily climbed ? Or claims that the English Channel could be easily swum ? Or that a man could easily walk on the moon ? Yet all these things have been achieved.

Does anyone really believe that high earnings can easily be achieved in Network Marketing ?
Building a solid, sustainable Network Marketing business is not easy, but it needn’t be a struggle either. There is an old saying that the only place that wealth comes before work is in the dictionary.
Climbing Everest, swimming the Channel, putting a man on the Moon all took the same four things.

                                VISION – COMMITMENT – PREPARATION - ACTION 

 A VISION WITHOUT ACTION IS JUST A DREAM

ACTION WITHOUT VISION IS JUST PASSING THE TIME

A VISION WITH ACTION CAN CHANGE THE WORLD

We'll take a closer look in - Getting Started 2 - Making The Dream Reality

"You are never given a wish without also being given the ability to make it come true.

 You may have to work for it however." - Richard Bach

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Attrition Marketing vs Attraction Marketing

Leverage and duplication are the founding principles on which network marketing is based. Attrition and Apathy can effectively neutralize the power of Leverage and Duplication, and destroy any organization from the inside out. Effective leverage is entirely dependent on effective duplication.

I would say that the greatest challenge facing all Network Marketing companies is the failure of new distributors to fully engage in the business. It is not so much that they fail, many don’t even get started ! I know that it is a constant mystery to veterans of the industry why people would invest money in a starter kit, and then do absolutely nothing !!

Even the late, great Jim Rohn when asked the question would answer "That's just the way it is"

I believe that the biggest reason that people drop out, or fail to get started in a network marketing business, is that whilst their sponsor did a superb job of selling them the opportunity, the people themselves did not BUY IN to the opportunity.

Some years ago an American university carried out a survey which concluded that success in business can be attributed to 15% Aptitude and 85% Attitude. And unfortunately whilst aptitude is something we can readily duplicate, attitude isn’t !!

ATTITUDE NOT APTITUDE DETERMINES ALTITUDE !!

Based on that survey developing and sharing a simple, easy to duplicate system contributes only 15% to the success of a business.

For years much of our industry has relied on “Attrition Marketing” – put simply “throw enough mud at the wall, and some will stick !! Whilst this principle might well work, it fails to take into account two things.

First, you finish up waist deep in the mud that didn’t stick ! Just as a disgruntled customer is a bad advertisement for our products, so a disgruntled ex-distributor is a bad advertisement for our opportunity.

Second, it costs time and money to recruit and train a distributor. Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on retention ? How many conventional businesses out there cheerfully accept that 20% of the people do 80% of the work, or that 80% of the people they recruit never actually turn up for work.

One of the best pieces of advice that I was given when I first became involved in Networking nearly twenty years ago was :-

PROFESSIONALS SORT – AMATEURS CONVINCE

We are in the sorting business – not the convincing business.

That’s why I’m simply not interested in persuading people to join our team. Why ? Because if I spend time doing that, I know that I’m going to spend lots more valuable time trying to get them to actually do some work !!

I want to spend my time helping those who really want to build their businesses.

Network Marketing is a serious business, and I believe that it should be treated a such. I spent forty years in conventional businesses and whenever I interviewed for a position in my team I always looked for attitude first, not aptitude. I looked for people who wanted to do the job, and who were prepared put the effort in to learn the skills they needed.

The best definition of the purpose of a business, which applies to every industry I have ever worked in , is

“To attract, serve and retain customers”

Everyone working in a business has customers. There are two kinds of customer.

The External Customer

The external customer buys our product or service, and it is our job to attract, serve and retain that customer. Customer satisfaction is not enough We all expect as a minimum to receive a satisfactory product or service. Customer loyalty should be our aim.

The Internal Customer

As a business builder we have internal customers too, - our team - people who expect from us support, encouragement and training. Again satisfaction is not enough. Loyalty is what we are after.

Lets look at that purpose again …

“To attract,  serve and retain customers”

To attract, serve and retain customers who will place regular repeat orders. Not just satisfied customers who will enthusiastically recommend the product to others – but loyal customers will recommend YOU as the person to buy the product from. !

Remember that you are not the only person in the world selling your products. Who is your competition ? It is the person who goes the extra five miles whilst you are patting yourself on the back for going the extra mile !

To attract, serve and retain distributors in your team, who, with your help and encouragement, will go on to build teams of their own.

Attraction Marketing is a whole, new way of building a business, and I’ll be looking at it in more detail in a future post.

Next week I’ll be looking at the three elements essential to building a balanced, sustainable business.

Mitakuye Oyasin
Mike P

Rediscovering the basic principles of Network Marketing

I spent much of my working career in accountancy, retiring as Finance Director of a cutting edge IT company in 2004, before spending five years as an independent consultant here in North Wales.

During that time the industry saw many changes.

The tools that I used changed dramatically – but the basic principles didn’t. Having started my career using bulky handwritten ledgers, I moved on through the manual Kalamazoo system, to buying time on huge mainframe computers through a bureau, to “in-house” mainframe computer, to a network of PC’s, and finally to working from home here in North Wales using my laptop to connect over a VPN to the network back at the office in Liverpool.

The tools changed over the years – but those basic principles didn’t.

During nearly forty years in that industry I worked for many different companies. A mail order catalogue company, a vending machine supplier, an arms dealer, an international haulier, a double glazing company, a CCTV specialist company, a doorstep loan company, a wholesale cash and carry, a music store , a gents outfitters chain, and a number of companies in the I.T. industry.

Different companies. Different products or services. But those basic accountancy principles, and the principles of building a solid sustainable business didn’t change.

Back in 1992 I was introduced to the concept of Network Marketing when a “friend of a friend” showed me the Amway opportunity. Whilst I loved the concept, other things happening in my life meant that the time wasn’t right for me.

Two years later I met Jan, and we’ve been together ever since.

Back in the eighties Jan had built a number of very successful Network Marketing businesses, with companies like Herbalife, Jean Pierre Sands, Echoes L’Arome, French Connection and introduced the idea of combining Network Marketing with Party Plan, writing the training manual for JPS, which later became an industry standard. This experience proved invaluable when we began our first joint venture with another fragrance company Christian Monet in 1995.


Of course the industry has changed out of all recognition since then. Or has it ?

Twenty five years ago it was a people business. It still is. Personal Relationships are still the glue which binds people and teams together. The old maxim “People Buy People” first still holds good.

Twenty five years ago it was a communication business. It still is. What do we really get paid for ? Communicating. We share information with integrity and enthusiastically recommend our companies products and opportunity.

The basic principles of networking haven’t changed – but the tools most certainly have ….

Advances in I.T. have not only revolutionised how we build and run our businesses, but social media has changed the way we connect and communicate with our friends and family.

Back in the eighties Jan built her business using the telephone and snail mail. It was expensive !! There were no package deals with BT, and information packs had to be laboriously printed and mailed.

Today we can communicate and share information across the globe in seconds.

Do you remember the “three foot rule” ? If anyone got within three feet you were told to engage them in conversation, and pitch them with your business. Some were so enthusiastic that they quickly found people avoiding them like the plague :-) .

Now here’s the bad news – just as it is possible to communicate much more effectively these days , it’s also possible to irritate people much more efficiently !!

During 2013 I’m going to be combining those basic principles of networking with modern 21st Century tools like E Mail, Social Media, and the Internet. The vehicle I’ve chosen is our existing FM Cosmetics business, and this blog will be a log of our journey.

Of course these core principles will apply to any business, not just ours, so I’d love to link up with anyone making a similar journey to share ideas and experiences …

Next week I’ll be looking at “Attraction vs Attrition” …

Mitakuye Oyasin
Mike P

New Year, New Start with FM Cosmetics

Hard to believe, but it's now almost six years since Jan and I first heard about the FM opportunity quite by chance. People join an opportunity like FM for many reasons, and certainly for us our "why" has changed down the years.

Jan's health has meant that we have not been able to put in as much effort as we might have done over the past few years, however thanks to the sterling efforts of our team, our FM business has continued to grow steadily.

I've been her full time carer now for almost four years, and have spent a lot of my spare time in the last couple of years studying the concepts of Attraction Marketing and Expert Marketing. I've been looking for a vehicle to put these ideas into practice, and have been unable to find a better opportunity out there than our existing FM business.

So, in 2013 I'm going to be learning, and implementing all the cutting edge techniques, which can transform a "work from home" business into a "work at home" business - something that is essential for people in our circumstances. And what better way than to build on the solid foundation that we have with our FM business.

This blog is intended as a journal of our progress, and as well as sharing updates on the FM business, I'll be sharing the tips and techniques that I've learned, which would suit any business, and , just as important, the results that we have achieved  .... what worked, and what didn't !!

Meanwhile, my thanks to Linda, Ann, their teams, and to the other distributors for their hard work, support and understanding over the past couple of years. Without them we simply wouldn't have a business. Thanks to their efforts we achieved PEARL ORCHID in December.

Congratulations too, to our upline and sponsor Roy Strong, on achieving Diamond Orchid in December .

Mitakuye Oyasin

Mike Pendragon