I Am NOT One Of The 99 Percent

Image © Sebastian Kaulitski

I'm not one of the 1% either.

I'm also not surprised that a number of commentators are getting more than a little fed up with those who claim they speak for the rest of us, whilst wasting everybody's time on vague statements that seem to demand that "somebody does something, so long as it isn't us."

When I've been unemployed, I've found work. I've struggled to pay bills, worked more than one job at a time when necessary and focused on improving myself and my employment prospects until I either hit that promotion ceiling or got made redundant again.

Despite being qualifed to degree level in three separate disciplines, I've still worked as a cleaner, a carer, a postman and a checkout assistant. I take responsibility for my life and I'm no different from others. I know of people who have slept rough until they've scraped the money together to get a room; who've done 3 jobs a day to pay off mortgages early. They haven't demanded support or refused to pay taxes - they got on with living.

Camping in tents isn't going to change things. Banding together with enough like-minded people will, but there's more influence in cyber-campaigning groups such as Avaaz than you'll find on any of the Occupy sites.

I'd rather put time and effort into something like Branson's Screw Business As Usual, than join a protest where the majority of fellow campers appear to have no idea what it's like to live in the real world.

We live in a rapidly changing world. We need to adapt to survive. If we want to change corporate behaviour, it's better to effect that change in a way where everybody benefits. If the current variety of capitalism doesn't work, replacing it with compassionate capitalism is still better than a system where nobody is able to excel.

Picture Your Success - Then Act On It!

If you could pick an animal to represent your self-image, what would it be?

Would it be a lion? A magpie? An elephant? A slug?

That animal says a lot about your image of yourself - there's a thousand words of self-talk wrapped up in that picture.

Now, if you'd been asked the same question as a child, what would your answer have been?

Would you have picked the same animal?

No, thought not.

Now, if you picked an animal to represent the best you could possibly be, the self you would choose if you knew you could not fail, what would it be?

An eagle? A dragon? A phoenix? A chameleon?

What would it take for you to move your self image from its current animal to the one representing your best possible self?

Try this exercise:

Find a picture of the animal representing your current self-image, and another representing your best possible self. Put them somewhere where you'll see them every day - on your bedroom door, the mirror, your fridge, your computer's background photo.

Every time you look at those photos, re-affirm your decision to move from where you are now to what you want to become. After a while, you'll find yourself seeking out the self-development you need to move on. Create your own mantra about the person you want to be. Recite it 3 times every day, so that it locks into your subconcious. Ask yourself every night "Have I done my best today? What can I do tomorrow to improve?"

Make sure your answers are positive; don't beat yourself up about things you haven't done, or haven't succeeded at. Success comes from taking one small step after another.
For myself, I've come to realise that the animal that best personifed my behaviour (honed by life's struggles, including divorce and 3 years of domestic violence) was this:

Bunny2 © Shanna Cramer

What I actually want my self-image to be (and believed myself to be as a child) is this:

Amur Tiger © Tom Curtis

... and of course, what I'm in the process of becoming at the moment is this:

Ten Tips to Survive MLM Partnership Problems

Many who get involved in network marketing start up on their own, with their partner/spouse/significant other on the outside looking in. There's a number of reasons for this, the most common being the partner's resistance to the concept or experience of either self-employment or network marketing.

So how do you cope when your formerly-resistant other half decides that it's a good idea to formalise the odd bit of help they give you by signing up as either a joint distributor or as your downline (depending on your corporate model)?

How do you cope when they insist on doing things their way, due to their superior managerial skills, their brilliant sales pitches or their wonderful networking talent?

How do you cope when their idea of support is to order you about, sidestep your suggestions and ignore all the hard work you've done/are doing to build your business so far?

How do you persuade them to work with you towards a brighter future, yet stop them translating your concerns into "Get the heck out of my life, you control-freak"?

Not easy, is it?

There's probably a need for a "Male network marketers are from Mars...." book. Until I write it (!), all I can do is offer the following tips from my experience:

1. Ignore the tone of voice, if you are the sort of person who reacts to aural cues. It's highly unlikely your newly-enthused partner realises how they are coming across.
2. Identify one point of conflict that you want to address. Don't ever consider sorting out more than one issue at a time.
3. Smile! (It's very difficult to sound angry and bitter with a genuine smile on your face; if you can't conjure up a genuine smile first time, think of something good that the two of you have experienced and then smile).
4. Acknowledge their passion for the business and let them know how much you appreciate their support.
5. Explain that you have been working on building the business for x months/years prior to teaming up and that you are accustomed to doing things in a certain way.
6. Thank them for the flurry of new ideas that they've put forward and accept that there are other ways of working within the business.
7. Explain that you would like to work together as a team of equals on one small area of the business, so that you can both get used to the other's working style.
8. Negotiate which area of the business you will work together on first.
9. Set specific, measureable, achievable, result-oriented and targetted (SMART) goals, such as "We will work together to contact 20 prospects, using the same checklist, script and tracking sheet, with the aim of signing up 1 person each by 1st March 2011. We will review our progress together 48 hours from now and we will continue to review on a weekly basis."
10. Reward yourselves for working together.

How do you manage these occasional conflicts?

Einstein's Insanity Definition vs Duplication

A much touted Einstein quote is:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.

In Network Marketing/MLM, we get told to make sure that our systems and processes are duplicatable. Millions of internet pages, thousands of magazine articles, hundreds of thousands of books - all telling us to allow our downlines to duplicate our behaviour.

We need a sanity check here, not to mention a reality check.

Duplicating your upline's behaviour only works if that behaviour breed success. Otherwise, you're just duplicating failure and that's insane.

Expecting your downline to duplicate your behaviour and systems only works if you yourself stick to the following mantra:

Focused, persistent and consistent action generates success

Focused - because splitting your attention between a portfolio of businesses rarely works and is never duplicatable. Without targetted goals and a plan to achieve them, you will fail.

Persistent - because nothing worthwhile is ever achieved if you only work at it sporadically. You don't become a champion swimmer by occasionally dipping your toe in the jacuzzi.

Consistent - because you only build trust in others if your behaviour or systems are known and understood. Being unusual, unpredicatable or just plain unreliable is no use in business. It's not that much use in creative matters either, despite the claims of many.

Action - because having the greatest attitude, plans and mindset in the universe is no use at all if you do nothing to advance towards your goals.

Nike got it right with their "Just Do It" campaign. When all is said and done, you only succeed by just doing the work, regardless of weather, personal issues and negative comments from well-meaning friends.

Never Let Action Become Inertia

I'm as guilty of this as the next person - it's the Holiday Season, so I deserve a holiday. I take a few days off, so what happens to my business?

That really depends on whether you're an Apprentice, a Journeyman or a Master.

Apprentice - "It's only a few days, I'll start up again after the break." The danger here is that the break stretches into a few weeks, a few months, and before you know it, the Apprentice has left the business completely.

Journeyman - "It's only a few days, I'll contact my customers in the week beforehand, let them know I'll get back to them in a couple of weeks." Much better, the Journeyman has communicated the action plan to the customers, and now has a psychological imperative for when he needs to get back to work.

Master - "It's only a few days. My customers know exactly which day I'll be seeing them next, and my automated lead generation tools are prompting me with a steady trickle of interested prospects. I'll talk to those as their details arrive in my inbox".

None of these phases is completely set in stone; Masters can act like Journeymen sometimes, but so can Apprentices. The key factor, as always, is consistent action aimed at SMART goals.

If you're a team leader with a number of apprentices in your team, how do you deal with them? Do you let them forget their focus, or do you manage them until they've learnt how to manage themselves?

Reasons for Business Failure - Part 1: Planning

So, why do businesses fail? Why are a third of businesses gone in the first two years, and why do half not survive the first five years? What goes wrong between the initial enthusiasm and the final desperation? How can we stop that happening to us? How is this relevant to network marketing in general, and Kleeneze in particular?

Let's take the main reasons first:

Poor Planning

I don't know about you, but if I hear "Failure to Plan is Planning to Fail" one more time, I'll hit something. Anybody attending a network marketing training session will be told that, as though it's a failsafe mantra. Anybody who works at a relatively experienced level in any business or industrial sector will have heard a version of it.

Yes, some people fail to plan, but most people who are serious about building a business do plan. They are told to provide business plans to banks, or to plan their workload, so they sit down, try to work out what they want to happen over a given time frame and write it all down.

The trouble starts with what happens next.

Some create plans that look good on paper but which are wildly optimistic and are based on everything in life, including the global economy, being absolutely perfect. 

Failure to plan for adverse situations is planning to fail.

Some assume that, once the plan has been created, that's it. By some mystical universal force, everybody and everything will telepathically understand what's required and align with the plan, without further input from the creator. 

Failing to work according to your plan is planning to fail.

Some write the plan, allow for real life to intervene and work the plan but they don't amend the plan to allow them to grow their business. They are stuck in a mindset that tells them that as long as they do the minimum level required, they'll be fine.

Failure to review your plan and reset targets upwards is planning to fail.

I've planned to fail in the past based on those three criteria and it's painful. It's also OK. Planning to fail is a learning exercise that all new entrepreneurs will go through in one form or another and it should not be used as either an excuse for failure or a reason for others not to try the same path.

So you're overoptimistic at times? You haven't accepted how much work is involved in building your own business? You think you're heading for the stars when really you're coasting in neutral? 

Get over it, get a new plan written and commit to it. Work it; review it at weekly, 4 weekly and 13 weekly (90 days, remember) intervals; change it and improve it as necessary. Then get back to working the plan. Repeat until it's a part of you.

Because where your future's concerned, it's not an attitude, it's a way of life.

The Get Rich Quick Mentality Sucks!

It came as no surprise to me to find that if you type the word Kleeneze into Google, the second suggested option in their drop-down list is Kleeneze scam.

Why?

Because, as my first business lecturer told us, a satisfied customer will tell a couple of people, a dissatisfied customer will tell a dozen. Upgrade that to the Internet version and it's closer to a satisfied customer will tell their social network, a dissastified customer will tell their social network and then go on to conduct flame wars on every forum and review site that dares to mention the product.

The amount of hatred and bile directed at Kleeneze, Avon etc. is truly disheartening; you'd think people were nicer than their internet personae indicate.

But note:

This bile isn't spewing from dissatisfied Kleeneze customers. The pyroclastic flow ready to engulf the wary new distributor erupts from ex-distributors, many of whom appear to have distinctly distorted views of how to run their own business. There are complaints about fees needing to be paid to use various services, shipping costs needing to be paid if orders are under a certain amount, admin charges being applied in some cases. All of which, it has to be said, are covered in the manuals you get in your starter pack as well as online on the distributor site. Do these people not read any small print?

Part of the reason for the "bitter ex-distributor syndrome" has to be due to poorly-trained apprentice distributors not winnowing out applicants who are either tyre-kickers, lazy or who really just want an employer prepared to pay them better than minimum wage for no real effort. Those applicants would not make it in their own business; heck, they couldn't cope with fixed-price leaflet delivery work either.

In my previous network marketing company, my sponsor was a lovely lady who should never have been recruited into the industry. She would spend a fortune to avoid going out and talking to others about her own business opportunity, and then complained when she wasn't getting value for money for the few leads that came her way. All she really wanted was a work-from-home job from a "real" employer, who paid her PAYE.

Kleeneze is a business first and foremost. A Kleeneze distributorship is also a business, first and foremost. Sure, it's an opportunity. But opportunities are not treasure troves waiting for the taking. First you mine the gold ore, then you refine it, then you wear it or sell it on. Treasure troves only exist in fairy tales.

Let's face reality. According to US statistics, 30% of small businesses fail in the first 2 years; by the 5th year only 50% have survived. According to UK reports at least 33% of startups fail within 2 years; one BBC report had it closer to 80% since the credit crunch hit.

The most common reasons for business failure include poor planning, lack of customers, poor market research, rising fixed costs (overheads, employee costs, fuel, etc.) and failure to obtain sufficient financing to grow the business.

The initial startup costs for a business should not be underestimated either. As well as whatever is required in the way of business setup costs (IT, tools, vehicles, office/workshop rental), a new startup owner needs to consider how they are going to cover their own basic costs (food, clothing, bills, personal expenditure etc.) until the business makes a profit. When I attended a business startup course, the advice was to pare down my personal outgoings to a bare minimum, and then calculate the costs for 3 years to see how much I needed in reserve before I started my own full-time enterprise. As a single parent with a mortgage and no other financial support, I needed a minimum of £60,000! Couples need to ensure that they can survive on one income for 3 years before both work in the business full-time.

Take a look at the available opportunities out there. Be sceptical, do your due diligence and do your own calculations regarding projected income and expenditure. Then make a decision. But don't whinge if you don't make that million in the first few years.

Consistency = Success

Well, I've proven something to myself - and I can't stop smiling because of it...

A bit of background - I spent several years working with another network marketing/direct selling company and although I moved a couple of steps up the payment plan, I never really achieved what I wanted. Part of that was due to my own inconsistency (life got in the way A LOT, including divorce, kids changing schools, teenage angst, parental ill-health, you name it). Not once did I achieve a bonus from the company for any of my efforts.

After 3 months with Kleeneze, including more upheaval, a holiday and a really bad bout of bronchial infection - all of which wiped out 4 weeks and 2 potential bonuses - I have received my first bonus payment and achieved my first retail goal 8 weeks ahead of schedule!

That's big.

I have a story I can tell others now.

In my first committed 4 week period since I started the business, where committed is defined as sticking to my revised target of 400 catalogues out every week, my retail income from Kleeneze, including my bonus is:

 
I am truly delighted about this!
 
Week 1 of Period 12 has just finished and I've already achieved 50% of the sales that got me the bonus payment in Period 11. Talk about an incentive to hit my next target ahead of schedule.
 
I now know that I can achieve regular Kleeneze bonuses and that I can teach others to do likewise. Time to build up that team.
 
Here's to a fun and prosperous month.

Sometimes, Life Gets in the Way....

Three weeks into my 90 day plan, I spent a week's holiday in the Peak District. It was a great holiday, full of wonderful memories.

Within a day of my return to work, I'd caught the office lurgy - a nasty bronchial cold that left me as lethargic as an unfed three-toed sloth and as weak as a month-old kitten.

So, Kleeneze work ground to a halt, effectively. Not good.

Then, just as my health improved, I was hit with an emotional kidney punch that left me psychologically wounded.

I've spent the past week licking my wounds, grieving and taking a long look at how I perceive myself, how others perceive me and, most important of all, just why I'm doing network marketing.

I've been justifying the initial effort by focussing on the benefits for my children. Realistically, my children are of an age to manage their own lives to an increasing degree, which means that my original justification is no longer enough. After all, if my reason for working with Kleeneze was "to buy a new washing machine", what would be my new reason once I'd got the latest Indesit?

I am doing this to benefit myself and I needed to learn that self-focus does not equal selfish.

I've wasted 4 weeks due to holiday, illness and family crises. That won't happen again. This is a business and I need to treat it as such.

I have my focus, I have my goals and I have a renewed belief that I can achieve those goals.

Now I need to create the new 90 day plan, get back in the routine and get things done.

Day 0 - Preparing the Ground

Having committed myself to actually sticking to a 90 day plan, I decided to organise myself a bit more.

First step - put up the new lockable postbox, so that my mail is in one place. That'll cut down the frantic hunting around the house for the latest repository created by my offspring. I've found 3 week old "pay now or else" bills behind the TV before now...

Second step - tidy the office. Easier said than done, as it's seen as a dumping ground for things that my eldest son doesn't want. Filed a lot of paperwork by the simple expedient of shoving it into a cupboard and closing the door. I'm obviously not that organised yet.

Third step - rough out the 90 day plan.

Of course, the simplest solution would be to map out identical blocks of time on every week day. However, this is the real world and as a single parent with a full-time job, not to mention full-time parenting, identical blocks of time is not an option.

So, I have set targets for both retail and recruitment lead generation. I will be keeping a record of planned activity, actual activity and results and I'll update it here on a weekly basis for the next 13 weeks.

Weekly Targets:

200 catalogues out, 3 times a week.
500 recruitment invites, door to door. 200 of those are going out with the catalogues.
10 clubs/organisations contacted with the suggestion of fund-raising parties based on the Christmas catalogue.

I'm bursting with energy and really looking forward to my first day of action. Here's to eventual success.

90 Day Plan Preparation

A 90 day plan has to be one of the simplest concepts in running your business. It's also one of the hardest to get right.

At first sight, there's no problem. You decide you want to run your own business. You start investigating options. You choose your preferred route to success. You attend some pre-business start up training, followed by some business training. And that's when the trouble starts.

As part of that business training, you get told that there are several key factors to your future success:

1. You need to be passionate. That's OK, I wouldn't be investing time and money in seed money and training if I wasn't passionate, you say.
2. You need to be organised. Not a problem, you assure yourself. It won't take long to tidy up a corner of the dining room/bedroom/attic. I've got my stapler, I've got my binders, I have a phone - how difficult can this be?
3. You need to have a plan. I've got a plan, you say, smiling to yourself. I'm going to do this business brilliantly, I'm going to make loads of money and I'm going to be a great success.

At that point, you've just joined Walter Mitty in WonderfulMe Land and killed off any chance of succeeding.

Let's face it, if achieving financial freedom was that easy, there would be no poverty in this world.

Success = commitment + focus + persistent action

You need all three parts to build a solid foundation. Focus gets you zeroed in on your target. Commitment binds you to a course of action that will enable you to achieve your goals. But without the persistent action, there will be no long-term achievement.

So, you need that plan, it needs to be simple, and you need to stick with it.

All too often, we come away from training meetings with our ears ringing with MLM mantra. The one I personally feel does the most damage is this classic:

Massive Action = Massive Results

Poorly applied (because nobody's thought to tell the poor noob how to do so), that mantra is responsible for more failed businesses than I care to think.

Let's break it down, shall we? Action = Results. We all know that. But who defines "Massive"? You? Your upline? Your family?

So the new distributor/representative/sacrificial lamb listens to the various speakers at the training meeting and decides they need to:

1. Buy into the business at the highest level possible, regardless of personal cost.
2. Buy huge amounts of lead generation material OR spend a fortune on leads.
3. Scattergun leaflets around the neighbourhood, spam their friends and family and fill up the garage with unsold products.

This leap into action usually means that on day 1, they do whatever they've been advised to do - say, deliver 500 leaflets, phone 10 relatives/friends, place 5 adverts in various papers.

By day 7, they're down to putting out 200 leaflets per night, there's no relatives left who'll answer the phone and the 5 adverts were obviously a waste of time because nobody called.

By day 14, they're not putting out leaflets any more, their friends are avoiding them at social events and they are scared they'll never shift that stock.

By day 28, it's meeting time again and they get encouraged to stick at it for another 4 weeks.

I know of people who've spent more than £15,000 trying to build their business like this. They all gave up, or the money gave out. Either way, it means the dream died.

So why on earth am I giving this whole Network Marketing concept another go? I must be mad, right?  

Wrong.

Just because there's a wrong way of following instructions, doesn't mean that those instructions don't have meaning and value. Just because some uplines seem more concerned with their own profits than helping you build a solid foundation for your business, does not mean all sponsors are corrupt, money-grabbing villains.

Each of us bears responsibility for our own actions. That includes the responsibility for performing a sanity check on what you've just planned for your business, buoyed as you are by the adrenalin rush of attending a really good business training. Your upline is not responsible for your business. You are.

Network Marketing is a People Business. As such, you are an ambassador for both your retail business and your team building. If you waste huge amounts of money on poorly targeted lead generation, don't follow up, don't build rapport with your customers by regularly calling/delivering catalogues/providing product - then that is what your team will copy, regardless of how many passionate members of their upline try to coach them differently.

To succeed in this sort of business, we all need to listen, learn, apply. We need to set SMART goals, not dreams. We need to plan and then stick to that plan. And we need to have an underlying mission statement for our business growth.

My business growth mantra is:

To build a Kleeneze team that is completely self-financing from retail sales.

In other words, after my initial investment of £171 for 200 catalogues, my distributor kit and a large Kleeneze-badged catapuller, all business growth will be funded by my retail profits.

Any lead-generation activity will be financed on that basis. I will start off with low-cost or no-cost promotions and move forward from there. I'll let you all know how it goes.

What does "It's not an attitude mean"?

It's simple. Really.

The dictionary definition of "attitude" goes something like this (with thanks to dictionary.com):

at·ti·tude - noun

1. manner, disposition, feeling, position, etc., with regard to a person or thing; tendency or orientation, esp. of the mind: a negative attitude; group attitudes.

2. position or posture of the body appropriate to or expressive of an action, emotion, etc.: a threatening attitude; a relaxed attitude.

3. Aeronautics . the inclination of the three principal axes of an aircraft relative to the wind, to the ground, etc.

4. Ballet . a pose in which the dancer stands on one leg, the other bent behind.

So - it's basically the way you position yourself mentally or physically relative to something else.

A couple of years ago, it was seen as such a term of disrespect that I couldn't order a T-shirt online with the word "attitude" on it as it hit the site's profanity filter!

And that's the crux of the matter (how many cliches can I throw in here, I ask myself....)

Attitude does NOT equal reality. Attitude does not equal instant respect. Attitude is a pose, a pretence, a cloak. Attitude alone will not allow you to achieve your goals in life.

Action, focus and commitment will.

I have tried and failed in the past with a Network Marketing company. I've never grouched, never grumbled about lack of support from my upline, my downline or my customers. I have always been my hardest critic; always tried to learn from my mistakes (and there have been PLENTY of those).

I have never once thought that Network Marketing was flawed as a concept. I have, however, come to realise that you have to pick the right opportunity and then commit to it.

There is a saying, variously ascribed to the Buddha Sakyamuni, Wiccan teachings or Judaeo-Christian beliefs: "If the Student is ready, the Teacher will appear".

 There is more than a little truth in that.

Driven by stresses at work, I decided that I could no longer define myself by a 9-5 career path. I looked at taking my skills and creating my own business based on those skills. I defined a set of products and services that I could sell to other companies, I defined my potential regional area to sell those to. And then reality stepped in.

Without a team of similarly motivated people, I had little chance of success, unless I gave up my current job and stepped out into the unknown. That in itself didn't scare me, but not being able - as a single parent of teenagers - to pay the mortgage, did.

I needed an alternative solution. After a fair amount of research, I chose Kleeneze as the best option. I did what any potential company director would do at that point and did due diligence work. I discovered Gavin Scott and contacted him. I'm now in his downline.

Today's post proved why I was right to do so. He sent me a book, without prompting. Not just any book; Don Failla's 45 Second Presentation. Oddly enough, I had been planning on ordering it from Amazon this weekend. He didn't know that.

With that single action, I received more understanding and support from Gavin than from anybody else I've come across in my previous Network Marketing endeavours.

I can't wait to meet him to say thank you in person. Luckily, the Xmas Showcase is in September, so not too long to wait.

It's not an attitude with Gavin. It really is his way of life. That resonates with me.

It's not an Attitude...

Imagine the setting - a circle of uncomfortable people on uncomfortable chairs, a small community hall, a nondescript town. Then one stands up and utters the dreaded words:

"Good evening, my name is Anna and I'm in Network Marketing.... "

Yes, it's a MLMA meeting - Multilevel Marketers Anonymous. If they don't exist, they should. Some enterprising soul is probably setting up the first one as I type. After all, there are millions of websites out there that amount to a virtual MLMA meeting. "I lost a fortune." "They're all scams." "I didn't have the support I needed." "My upline ripped me off." "Leaflets/surveys/catalogues/online lists don't work."

And we all visit them, and empathise with their pain.

Then we go back to the daily grind and read our subscriptions to MLM newsletters, all of which promise us the opportunity to REALLY SUCCEED, so long as we cough up the cash (usually several hundred dollars) for the latest eBook, CD training, etc. Which we wouldn't use properly, even if we bought them.

What we all forget, at some time or other, is that excuses are easier than action. The longer we put something off, the scarier it gets. We forget, because we are the centre of our own world, that we are rarely more than a very minor part of somebody else's life. Nobody is out there waiting to condemn us - most of them fear our reaction to them. Nobody starts their day off by being determined to ruin somebody else's; it may happen, but it's very rarely as deliberate as we think.

For the world to change, we have to change ourselves first. We can't change others, but we can lead by example. We can follow the example of other leaders, but we have to take action to do so.

Action = Commitment + Focus

Consistent Action = Eventual Success

Try it for 90 days. I intend to.


It's not an attitude - it's a way of life.