It’s hard not to be disheartened if you’re not seeing the results you want from your network marketing business. But it’s crucial that you persist – nothing worth having comes easily or overnight.

Instead of giving up, be honest with yourself about reasons why you’re not having the success you want. 

Here are five of the most common reasons people haven’t achieved the results they want:

1. Unrealistic expectations – if you have set yourself the goal of reaching the top of your network marketing company in two months, whilst you have just two hours a week to build your business, you may have to accept that your goal is just not realistic. While having big dreams is a great motivator, setting unrealistic goals can cause disappointment. Speak to your upline and ask for their advice – they should be able to tell you how long on average it takes people to achieve the goals you have set for yourself. Also, while network marketing businesses can be built part-time, I believe there is a minimum time commitment necessary to see results. If you are only spending an hour or two each week on your business, your progress may be so slow that it never builds momentum. Can you get up an hour earlier (or go to bed an hour later) each day? That would give you an additional seven hours a week to spend on your business. 

2. Not working hard enough / consistently – this is the reason people often don’t want to hear, but the fact is that some people are not successful because they are lazy. Do you work on your business consistently each day? Did you yesterday? The day before? How often do you avoid working on your business because you don’t feel like it or because there’s a good programme you’d like to watch on TV instead? You must treat your network marketing business as a business, not a hobby. You should plan what you will do tomorrow before going to bed tonight, so that you know exactly what needs doing as soon as you start work. You have to be tough on distractions – especially since most network marketers work from home. Have a designated work space and close the door while you are working. Turn off the TV, unplug the phone (unless you’re making calls), tell friends and family you’re working. You have to respect your time and your business workload as much as you respect the hours you spend in a job and the workload your employer expects you to do.

3. Lack of confidence / belief – if you lack belief in your business opportunity or your product range, your ability to attract anyone to join your team or use your products will be inadequate. Picture one of the most successful associates in your company, preferably someone you have met, heard on a phone call or seen on a video. It’s obvious that that person has every belief in the company, every belief in the products, and every belief in themselves, right? Do you think they only developed that belief after they achieved their huge success, or did they achieve their huge success because they had that belief? It is absolutely crucial that you believe in your company, your products and yourself. How do you develop this belief? 
   
   
   
    
   
   
   
   1. Belief in your company comes from reading success stories about other associates and mixing with other successful associates 
      
       
   
   
   2. Belief in your products comes from your personal use of them initially, and is then added to as you receive great feedback from product users 
      
       
   
   
   3. Belief in yourself comes from personal development and taking action. Do the actions you need to each day and you will get better at them, giving you better results and further increasing your belief in yourself
   
   
   
   

4. Lack of prospects – often a network marketer’s lack of success is the result of them not consistently generating new prospects to talk to. What have you done today to generate new prospects for your business? What did you do yesterday? The day before? Your daily actions should be a mix of speaking to existing prospects, generating new prospects, and checking in with business builders and product users in your team. Neglect any of these areas and your business will suffer. Generating new prospects is too large an area to cover in this post, but look out for future articles. Also, sign up for my free 7 day eCourse on this subject at http://www.KatieAndSteveWilliams.com/eCourse.php

5. No follow-up system – this is a huge weak area for many network marketers. The fact is, most people will not join your business or order your products the very first time you speak to them. But that doesn’t mean they never will. They might have some questions that need answering, they might have to check with their spouse, they might have to wait until payday. And yet many network marketers will forget about these prospects or, at best, offer some haphazard follow-up system of contacting the person when (or if) they happen to remember them. You must develop a consistent follow-up system that you use with every prospect. This begins with a central place where you store all of your prospects’ personal details and a log of the contact you have with them. I can’t tell you the best way to store this information or the best follow-up system to use as it will depend on your strengths (do you prefer to work with computers, or would papers in a physical filing cabinet work better for you?) and your individual business. It’s something you have to work out for yourself. Sure, it will take some time (don’t do this instead of the important action items you need to work on each day – take some additional time away from the TV or over the weekend) but it will be well worth it. If you don’t already have a follow-up system in place, part of your prospect generating work is being wasted because you’re allowing prospects to slip away from you before they have told you they are not interested. If you’re paying for any advertising (newspapers, online ads, even paying your child to post leaflets around town), you are literally throwing money away until you have this system in place. 

To your success!

Katie Williams

http://www.MakeMoneyThisYear.com