Belief: Why It’s So Vital, How to Build It, Who’s Responsible |
73 |
BUILDING BELIEF IN THE COMPANY
People long for a greater sense of community today—especially since 9/11. Capitalize on this by encouraging your team to attend your company’s events—they’ll have a powerful effect. At just one location, you’ll get to meet many of the key company executives and support staffers, plus you’ll get to meet, talk with, and learn from the key field leaders from all over the country (or world).
Another smart move is to visit your company’s main offices and manufacturing facility. Even if this requires a trip of thousands of miles, it’s a key step in strengthening your belief in the company. You may be with your company for decades, so the more you know about it sooner, the better representative you’ll be for all its offerings, and the more confidence and belief you’ll have in the company, its products, the support it offers and the viability of your long-term relationship.
Call ahead and let the company know you’re coming. They’ll be happy to receive you and set up a tour. Meet the key people there that you interact with already—the customer service and shipping people, the phone receptionist, those who handle applications and order processing, and as many key executives as you can spend even a few minutes chatting with. If you show up with cookies and/or flowers, they’ll appreciate that! Very few distributors actually do this, so chances are your company will warmly welcome your visit.
The most successful distributors have been to a ton of events, have visited company headquarters, and have engaged in lots of personal development to build their belief in all these areas. So it’s really important to make continuing investments in yourself—to feed great inspirations to your mind from the experience of your company’s events and conference calls so you develop stronger beliefs and better skills. And you’ll learn from other industry leaders who’ve already made the mistakes you should avoid—they’ll teach the necessary course corrections to get onto a success track faster.
BUILDING BELIEF IN THE INDUSTRY
Study this network marketing industry. Read the books by its major leaders. Attend the generic, industry-wide training events (“masterminds”) that are put on in the United States several times a year by various successful teams of leaders and noted industry and personal development trainers. You can also subscribe to the industry support journal, Networking Times—just go to www.NetworkingTimes.com and check it out. Your belief in this industry will certainly grow stronger, of course, as you create more personal success with your own networking business distributorship.
74 THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO NETWORK MARKETING
BUILDING BELIEF IN YOURSELF
No investment is more important than the one you make in yourself! So make that investment by engaging in lots of personal development through the wealth of resources available today.
Mental Nourishment
Most people are challenged in this area because of the “lack programming” they’ve been exposed to since childhood. This is a big topic that’s not discussed in much depth here, but virtually all of us need to overcome our own lack programming through constant, strategic reprogramming. This starts with being aware that the challenge is there, then being watchful and taking positive steps to burst through and beyond that strong lack programming that holds many people back in the herd.
Read from good, uplifting, empowering books recommended by leaders in our industry at least 15 minutes a day. Feed your mind with that nourishment and benefit from the experiences others have already had (and mistakes they’ve made). Figure out how to extrapolate their tips and lessons to what you need to do. Get inspired to take new and different actions, to build stronger beliefs, and to get better results.
Listen to tape and CD training albums by many of the people in this book and other industry leaders. Find them through Networking Times, Nightingale Conant, and other resources your upline can recommend. Most people have more “ear” time than “eye” time—they can listen to trainings while they’re driving, walking, exercising, washing dishes, or doing chores. Turn your car into a college for higher learning. There’s so much excellent training material available these days.
So many people need to hear from you, and get listened to by you so that rapport is created. Strong rapport opens up two-way communication, and others will listen to you differently when that happens. Your prospects might not fully understand the huge value of “the cookie” you have right away, but with repeated exposure, some of them will get it and want what you’ve got! Follow-up can yield huge rewards down the road.
Do all the stuff just discussed and start generating some growing checks from your network marketing business. It may take a little time, but you’ll come to know that you can succeed with this industry as your belief in it grows.
WHO’S RESPONSIBLE FOR
BUILDING ALL THIS BELIEF?
You are, of course. You must build it and continue to reinforce it—or else its natural fragility may drag you down, discourage you, and distract you from
Belief: Why It’s So Vital, How to Build It, Who’s Responsible |
75 |
your path to success. If your upline leaders are smart, they’ll be helping you build these beliefs, but if they don’t, just realize that maybe they’re not as serious about succeeding in this business as you are!
And if your company’s owners and executives are really smart and experienced, they’ll know that they, too, need to do all they possibly can to help you, and all your field colleagues, build these four key belief areas as well. Obviously, this means running the company really well, finding/creating, manufacturing, and quickly shipping/providing exceptional products or services that the public can develop a strong and lasting desire for.
This isn’t easy. That’s why the truly great companies last for many years and decades, and many others wither and disappear as they ultimately fail in key areas and disappoint themselves, their distributors, customers, and vendors. If they’re a good company and they have a track record of strong performance, you’re smart to give them the benefit of doubt when mistakes occur and things happen to occasionally disappoint you or your field colleagues. No company is perfect; mistakes will occur. If you courteously bring those mistakes and concerns you have to the attention of your company’s customer service staff, things should get worked out. If they don’t, you can seek upline help and/or help from a company manager or exec. If the company’s management is smart, they’ll be responsive to legitimate field concerns and get things fixed ASAP. Sometimes, you’ll have to call on the strength of your own belief systems and vision to reassure those in your downline who get unnecessarily anxious about company mistakes.
If your company has a field advisory board, your colleagues there can usually help accelerate the correction of glitches that can adversely affect the field’s belief in the company. Every leader on that advisory board wants the field’s belief to be as strong as possible in all four key areas.
RECOGNITION PROGRAMS
A strong company’s recognition program can go a long way to help distributors build stronger belief in themselves, in the company, and in the network marketing industry. If your company doesn’t have a program like this, you should consider starting your own for your team and help it expand com- pany-wide by working with other field leaders who can influence your company positively.
Most people never get recognized for much, if anything. So network marketing’s ability to foster recognition of personal achievements has enormous value—it builds self-esteem, confidence, and belief in one’s self. And as those wonderful benefits occur, the strengthened field makes the company even stronger.
76 THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO NETWORK MARKETING
VISION AND SELF-MOTIVATION
No discussion of belief would be complete without exploring the huge role that vision and self-motivation have in building stronger beliefs and facilitating increasing accomplishments. How do you believe in something that hasn’t yet happened for you? Visualization creates that breakthrough.
YOUR ATTITUDE REALLY
DOES DETERMINE YOUR ALTITUDE
Your attitude is composed of all these elements of belief. It becomes your outlook on things—what’s possible and what still needs work. With strong belief, virtually anything is possible; certainly success in network marketing is, with enough work engaging in smart actions. Without belief, however, one’s hopes for success in this business (or any endeavor) are effectively doomed. We all have a choice—to build our beliefs or not. What you truly believe is what you become. Where you believe you’ll get to is the limit of how high you’ll go. If you get there, and you then want more, you’ll simply need to expand your vision and create new, empowering beliefs that can propel you even higher! Change your beliefs, and you’ll change who you are, what level of contribution you’ll make, and what level of rewards, satisfaction, and influence you’ll ultimately enjoy.
Art Burleigh’s background is in corporate law and marketing. He worked his way up from the mail room at Universal Studios into the law department in the 1970s while attending law school at night. Art then got involved in marketing, but he was always looking for a way to obtain some equity in what he was doing and maybe also develop residual income. Network marketing hooked him in 1988. Twelve companies later, he feels he was blessed to find the company he’s now been with for more than nine years. He worked part-time for over four years before going full-time. Since late 2000, Art has been chairman of the Executive Field Advisory Council for that company. His team of more than 150,000 distributors now spans the North American continent. Together, they’ve moved more than $93 million in products for this company, and they’ve taken home over $54 million in team commissions.
Art and his wife, Marlyn, have been married for 25 years and live in the Los Angeles area. Their son, Seth is finishing up his undergrad studies at Berkeley. Because Art and Marlyn believe that travel isn’t a luxury—it’s homework
Belief: Why It’s So Vital, How to Build It, Who’s Responsible |
77 |
for a meaningful life—they’ve benefited from the strong residual “mailbox money” their network marketing business has consistently generated by taking numerous family trips over the years and their commission checks always poured into their mailbox every week while they were gone.
Art and Marlyn now work their network marketing business full-time from their home, and they enjoy helping others discover a way to create an extra stream of strong, recurring income so they can enjoy more options and get where they really want to go in life—much sooner, and in style!
Art’s web site at www.ArtBurleigh.com offers valuable support tools, insights, and training resources for those seeking to accelerate their quest to enhance their lifestyles through the mastery of network marketing.
Chapter
10
The Stages to Achieving Freedom Well Earned
Dan Conlon
Network marketing is the great equalizer. People of diverse backgrounds find new opportunity in network marketing every day. I know a woman who owned a residential cleaning business who now makes millions from her network marketing business. I know a
CEO of a $300 million company who replaced his seven-figure income and found new opportunity and freedom through his networking business. I have seen people from all backgrounds—teachers, lawyers, medical doctors, realtors, hotel bellmen, blue-collar workers, and men and women from all levels of the corporate world—find freedom through network marketing. All have a personal story about their success that is both instructive and inspiring. Each of them faced unique personal challenges and obstacles while building their businesses. Overcoming these personal challenges is the price you pay for your freedom. Each of them now enjoys a great lifestyle and uncommon success, filled with personal satisfaction and freedom. Each of them earned their freedom and lifestyle through hard work, commitment, focus, and persistence.
It doesn’t matter what you have or haven’t accomplished in the past, how long your resume is, what education credentials you have or don’t have; it is about knowledge and action. Freedom is about choice and a decision to act. Your commitment to take action and learn from your results and consistently pursue your goals will determine your level of success. I believe everyone can commit to an action plan and achieve a new level of personal success. The freedom achieved through network marketing is unparalleled.
During my 20-year experience in network marketing, I have had to do battle with my own fears and insecurities, modify my own bad habits and attitudes, and struggle with my lack of any real business training. My success has been as much about mastering myself and developing the proper discipline and attitudes as it has been about developing the fundamentals of building a network marketing business. I find that as I meet these challenges for myself, I am better equipped to help others.
78