Nothing to Lose, Everything to Gain

by Ryan Blair

  In the new economy, and for the next decade, people will choose network marketing for its main benefit: the potential financial independence that comes with being a professional entrepreneur. Another reason people are choosing network marketing at a record pace is certainly one of the most attractive qualities about the industry—its flexibility.

  Unlike traditional business, you have the option of committing as much or as little time and energy to your network marketing business as you like.

  Accordingly, there are three levels of network marketer—beginner, intermediate, and professional.

  A beginner is interested in a part-time business where she commits a few hours a week, follows a simple selling system that is prescribed for her by the company she represents, and makes extra income while living a better lifestyle and having fun with the community aspects of network marketing. In some companies your products are free, which saves money, and you get to enjoy all the tax benefits of being an entrepreneur. That means you can write off meetings, your home office, your cell phone bill, educational components like books, classes, travel, and everything else that goes into career development. Low expenses, no overhead, no employees, time freedom, and residual income are all benefits of the industry, but in my opinion they are still overshadowed by the greatest benefit of being a network marketer—the education.

  Running a multilevel marketing home-based business is the equivalent of hands-on business school training, with a focus on networking and marketing. In the process you learn personal growth, financial literacy, time management, and all the basics that could also be applied directly to any business you may own or work for in the future.

  We’ve already discussed defining your assets and the low start-up costs for a home-based business, which sometimes can be as low as a few hundred dollars. It’s true, with network marketing you don’t need a storefront, or investors, or a business plan, or a large capital outlay, but there are other things you’ll need, minor investments for your business as a network marketer.

  You could start with investing in a smart phone and a good phone plan, as you’ll be doing most of your business by phone. You’ll need access to a computer to read your reports and manage your business along the way, and if you don’t already have a vehicle, it would be a good idea to have a car so you can get around from one client to the next (that’s why a lot of network marketing companies, including ViSalus, have car incentive programs). Another recommendation would be to set up Facebook and Twitter accounts, so you can start connecting with all the people you’ll be sharing your new venture with.

  One of the concepts you might want to use is the Nothing to Lose Facebook (apps.facebook.com/nothingtolose), where you can set up your organization, choose a board of advisers, and market your new venture to your friends. It’s helpful for network marketers to develop a team of the strongest and most skilled people—a team to lead the team.

  This leads me to one of the main objections I hear most often—that people are afraid of network marketing because it means they will have to start selling to their friends. If I may be blunt, that’s also an “old economy” mind-set. As an entrepreneur, I have always sold my products and services to my friends.

  Here’s another complaint: “I don’t have any friends.” Well, that means we have to start from scratch with you, but that’s okay. Because these days we can make friends and expand our networking circles through social media, and your friends may be willing to help you. They may even need the product you’re offering. It’s natural to share something you love; we do it every time we recommend good books (I hope you’ll recommend this one) or a movie to our friends.

  Let’s be honest, if you want to change your financial situation, you’re going to have to sell something to someone. Most important, you’re going to have to sell yourself to people. Make sure they know that they need YOU and your product and service. On a side note, if a company is worth its salt, it will have a selling system in place that doesn’t force you to sell to your friends, but instead provides opportunity to share the products you love with them. Sharing can be done through samples, tastings, or even free trials.

  In addition to the minimum requirements I’ve just outlined, I suggest that people put their assets (see chapter 10) to work. For instance, use their home for parties and networking events as well as office space. A good example would be when I let one of the ViSalus distributors use my home for an Oscar party, where he also used the space and opportunity to share our products with his friends. The way I see it, my house is an asset that I might as well put to work, and there’s always an excuse for a party!

  Most important, you’ll need the ability to follow a simple system. As you progress from one level to the next, you will graduate from following simple systems to implementing them for others to follow. And if you can’t learn to follow one, you certainly can’t learn to implement one.

  And of course, you’ll need the right mind-set. Even as a beginner, you are now a business owner. Don’t let the low start-up cost fool you into giving up too easily, or not taking the business so seriously as you should. Treat it as if you’ve invested everything you have into it, and are willing to do whatever it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.

  The distinction between a beginning network marketer and an intermediate one includes extra time commitment, the use of a business plan, and, of course, the amount of money you’ll be generating per month.

  Let’s start with the time commitment, which varies depending on the income desired and the relevant experience each person has. Generally, a beginner is making a part-time income, for instance, a thousand dollars a month, which requires a minimum of an hour or two a day. Full time is forty-plus hours a week, and millionaires tend to work eightyto a hundred-hour weeks on their way there. After they’ve arrived, so to speak, they can reduce the hours and enjoy the fruits of their labor. On a personal note, I still work eighty-plus hours because I enjoy what I do.

  We covered building a business plan in chapter 13, and this is where it becomes relevant. In the beginning stages of network marketing, you won’t need a business plan because your team leader or company will provide it for you. In the intermediate stages you will need to start creating a business plan, and at the professional level you will need a more specific business plan.

  One of the main differences between owning a traditional business and being a network marketer is that you own your business, but as in a franchise arrangement, you can leverage the parent company’s resources, infrastructure, and products. You’re not just doing it alone. Most entrepreneurs are owned by their businesses, not the other way around.

  As an intermediate, you’ll begin adding personal touches to your business. For instance, setting up a name for your team is just as important as naming a restaurant or storefront in traditional business.

  Although you won’t be hiring employees, the equivalent of “staffing the office” in network marketing is recruiting. You can’t hire or fire people or provide benefits, but you can certainly elect whom you want to work with, whom you recruit, and whom you choose to help grow.

  Another big difference is that unlike in a traditional business, you have thousands of entrepreneurs, a volunteer army of people whom you work for, not who are working for you. Did you get that? I’ll repeat it—you work for them; they don’t work for you.

  Sounds like a lot of pressure, doesn’t it? It’s actually one of the best features about being in network marketing because we’re all working together, in alignment as entrepreneurs.

  It’s a working business ecosystem, where like-minded people can learn from one another. In traditional business, the interactions between two business owners are often limited by one being a buyer and one a seller; they can’t really work together. But as a traditional business owner in network marketing, you can provide value to the network you are a part of. For instance, Maggie Richardson is a ViSalus distributor who also has a therapeutic massage practice, and she uses her network to s
pread the word about her services as she builds both businesses.

  As I mentioned previously, compensation drives behavior. When network marketing is at its finest, you are compensated for teaching people how to be successful entrepreneurs. It’s a compensation system in which teachers make a small percentage of their students’ productivity for life. If only our American education system worked the same way. Imagine teachers being rewarded for the productivity of their students!

  IT’S ALL ABOUT RECRUITING

  In network marketing, you’re not doing it alone. That’s why recruiting is one of the most important aspects of your business. Similar to the way UCLA coach John Wooden described the hand-selection process he used when building and cultivating a well-run basketball team, you want to focus on chemistry and finding entrepreneurs within your team who can augment your weaknesses. For instance, if you’re not the most detail-oriented person, you’ll need to find detail-oriented people for your team. Or if you’re great with detail, but more introverted than extroverted, then you’ll need someone who’s comfortable getting up in front of the room to make presentations. Also, if you don’t have the time to commit to your business, there may be others working with you who do.

  Which brings me to how much time it takes to become a professional network marketer. I previously referenced Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers quote that it takes 10,000 hours to become pro at your chosen industry. And it remains true for network marketing as well as for traditional business. All too often I see network marketing entrepreneurs give up before they log their ten thousand hours.

  At the professional level, you’ll be traveling the globe, creating marketing campaigns and incentives for your sales team, and making millions. You might have a storefront, offices, and staff, or a really big house that acts as the equivalent of an office or storefront, and essentially be running a big, complex business that spans multiple markets, cultures, and countries.

  That’s what excited me about this industry. At the pro level, your content is your greatest asset. You can create books and tools, and I’ve even seen some go so far as to have their own closed-circuit TV shows. You can innovate and create, and build systems and tools to support your team. A professionally run network marketing company is a traditional business, without all the “employee” headaches.

  In fact, a lot of people who join network marketing own, or have at one time owned, a traditional business or franchise. I’ve recruited a number of traditional business owners who see an opportunity to put their assets to work right away in network marketing. They have social capital, relevant education and experience, and they’ve essentially been creating a perfect business plan their entire careers. These are the ones who advance to the professional level the fastest because they have underutilized assets and relevant experience they can put to work.

  But on the opposite side of the equation, there are plenty of people who’ve never done anything like this, and it’s the scariest thing they’ve ever heard of. Network marketing also works for them, but it usually takes them several years to get to the pro level, and in most cases, the amount of time is determined by how long it takes them to log their ten thousand hours.

  As a professional, your goal is to monetize your resources. When you’re a millionaire, a lot of people are going to ask you: How do I get what you have? One of the differences is that often in traditional business you can’t duplicate and teach someone’s road to success. He may have started at the bottom of a company, started from scratch as a delivery boy, or have worked in an industry or economy that has evolved and no longer applies in today’s economy. But the path to success in network marketing can be duplicated. You have a built-in vehicle, a curriculum that creates success using work ethic and education.

  A lot of what you’ll be doing as a professional network marketer is mentoring people. You have to get out and shake hands and spend time with your team members, giving them advice as they grow from level to level. And that’s what I find I’m doing the most now after five years in the industry: helping others overcome internal and external obstacles while building their businesses into full-time income to support themselves and their families.

  I know that network marketing, as a business model, means that every distributor is helping to take itself and others out of the job market. If I help someone make $20,000 a month, by all standards a great living in America, and she has a number of people on her team who are earning either a full-time or a part-time living, then I know that I’m doing my part to overcome the economic difficulties in this country.

  It’s a wonderful economic system, and the best part is that I get to work with students of entrepreneurship and teachers of entrepreneurship, and we are all rewarded based on our ability to teach and develop our students.

  CHOOSING A HOME

  I want you to apply the principles I’ve outlined in this chapter even if you’re looking to join PartyLite or Amway or Mary Kay. Which brings me to the next obstacle, and a question I’m often asked. You may be a complete beginner, or you may already be self-employed, but it doesn’t matter because the same question applies: How do you choose a good network marketing company?

  To answer this question I turned to my partner and cofounder at ViSalus, Blake Mallen, who has ten years of experience and has achieved the much-coveted professional multimillionaire entrepreneur status.

  Blake broke it down to five simple steps that can be used as a filter, or checklist, when you’re doing research on various companies. The first step is choosing a company that has a combination of solid executive management along with network marketing industry experience. Some executives know how to run a business but don’t understand the culture of network marketing. Conversely, some multilevel marketing executives don’t know how to run a business. “You are looking for a company with a good balance between the two,” Blake said. “And a lot of companies in this industry go out of business, so make sure the one you choose has been around for at least three years.”

  The second step is all about the product or service the company is offering. If you’re not passionate about the product you’ll be bringing to the market, it’s not going to last. Also, the product has to stand on its own. Make sure it’s not just moving because a paycheck is attached to it.

  The third step is taking a look at the compensation plan. It must be fair, with a way for the person who is just starting out to earn a paycheck for his efforts. Blake said that a lot of plans are designed for the “lotto winner” mentality, for those who are at the top making all the money. A plan is fair when it is fair for the new person who is putting forth the effort and getting paid.

  The fourth step is all about the team. You want to answer the question of whether the company is more interested in developing the people, training them, and investing in them than making money. If the answer is no, then that’s not a good company. Because as I mentioned before, the most valuable thing you are going to get from becoming a network marketer is the education, so your skills and knowledge can then be translated into anything you do.

  And the fifth step is really all about gut instinct: Do you like the people? What kind of culture does the company have? Are these the types of people you can trust and would enjoy being around? Network marketing is most definitely a community, and if you don’t align with the culture, you’ll be missing out on one of the biggest benefits of the industry.

  In this book we talk about having nothing to lose and, indeed, there is very little risk involved with network marketing. This holds true whether you’re a beginner, or come from owning a traditional business, or if you’re a person who may have just realized that the job market isn’t going to get you anywhere very quickly.

  I would look at joining a network marketing company as I would any business decision I’d make. Figure out how much it will cost and how long it will take before you can break even. What other benefits will you receive? What does your potential return on capital look like?

  When I started ViSalu
s, I had a very similar conversation with a former pro soccer player named Pete Bunting and his wife, Nicole. Pete was at the time coaching on the side; he’d worked in sales in the past, and his wife had an office job for a cable company. Their income was about $4,000 a month. They were a good-looking, young, vibrant couple with all the potential in the world to make it to the pro level of network marketing.

  I have mentored them over the course of the past five years. During that time they’ve made more than $1,000,000. They’ve grown as individuals, and now their potential to earn even more is by far their greatest asset. But it wasn’t an easy decision. After many long discussions, they scraped together the money to join, which at the time was about $1,000.

  I can still recall my first meeting with them at a coffee shop in Riverside, giving them the same key points I’ve just discussed in this chapter. And I’ll tell you the same thing I told them that day, “What do you really have to lose?”

  15

  LAUNCHING YOUR BUSINESS

  We often hear the urban legends about how a company was launched. For instance, e-Bay was supposedly founded by a man who wanted to offload his wife’s Pez dispenser collection. Google was founded by a couple of engineers working out of their college science lab. The original Facebook was created by a Harvard undergrad as a ploy to gain popularity. We remember these beginnings of great companies whether the stories are true or not. What we don’t hear about is the actual systematic approach the founders used to start their businesses.

  A business is not a magical thing that you either get right or you get wrong. If you have the right knowledge, the right capital, marketplace opportunity, a passion about your solution, and you follow a formulaic approach to building your business, you have a greater than 90 percent chance of success. Later, when you’re telling people about how you started your company, you can forget all these—except for the fact that you started it out of your dorm room.