For those who don’t know, network marketing is the business model in which independent representatives (sometimes called distributors) are the primary method for a company to market products. Think of Pampered Chef, Amway, Avon, Discovery Toys, etc. How did you hear about those products? Probably not from a Super Bowl commercial, but instead from a friend or family who is trying to sell them.

The Business Model

The business model runs off the extremely successful theory that the best type of marketing is word of mouth, or endorsement marketing. It has been around for decades and will be around for a long time to come. The commission structure is different for every company, but usually it is a multi-tiered commission structure.

For example, if I sign up under my sponsor, Person A, for every sale I make, not only do I get paid, but my sponsor (Person A) gets paid a small portion as well. If I sign up you, my reader (Person B), every sale you make will pay me a commission, and for some companies will also pay my sponsor, Person A, a commission as well. Terms such as upline, downline, "team", roll-up, one-up, two-up, residuals, and many more are used to describe the payment structure.

Network Marketing vs. MLM

Multi-level Marketing, or MLM, is a type of company that has multiple levels of commissions. Like the example above, if you, Person B, makes a sale, I get a commission, my sponsor (Person A) gets a commission, his sponsor gets a commission, and so on. For your first sale, everyone gets a commission except, well, you, the person who made a sale. Some companies (called 2-ups) even have the policy that you won’t get paid until after your first TWO sales.

MLM has had a very checkered past and does not enjoy the best of reputations. They have been hit pretty hard by the FTC and rightfully so. It is illegal (in the US) to require someone to join a program in order to sell it. For instance, it is illegal for the a company like the Global Resorts Network (GRN) to make you buy one of their vacation packages before you can sell it. This law came about when people were joining Amway, buying thousands of dollars of stuff in order to be able to sell it, and would go bankrupt because they couldn’t sell it.

The way current MLM companies get away with this type of practice is requiring what they call "qualifying sales". If you do not buy the product or service, the MLM company segregates you from the rest of the distributors who did, and requires you to make even more sales before you start receiving your commissions. It is not uncommon to have to make 5, 6, or even 10 sales before you get paid for your first sale. Even worse, all the people who sign up as distributors will be signed up under your sponsor instead of you, potentially costing you thousands of dollars.

As you can see, this is shady at best. Because of these practices, the MLM industry has gotten a bad name. It is so bad, in fact, that my best advertising ads included the phrase "NOT MLM!"

So the term "Network marketing" was born. Sometimes it is synonomous with MLM, sometimes it means something completely different, but the concept is the same. The MLM business model is slowly dying away but is being replaced with the direct sales model, in which you get paid, from day 1, for every sale you make. In addition, your sponsor will get paid, and that’s it.

The Stigma and How They Get You to Join

Quickly (maybe it’s obvious), I found out that the best people to join your "team" are those who want to start a business and market the product themselves, not someone who wants to buy the product just for the product. This way, you can take advantage of the residual income they make for you by selling the product (no advertising cost for me). I’m sure you’ve heard the pitch: what if, you were to get 5 people to join, and they got 5 people, and they got 5 people. It’d be easy to make millions! (in truth, you may get 5 people to join, but any one of those 5 people may get a total of 3 people, only 1 of which will actually make commissions for you, and it goes on from there)

So for you relatively advanced marketers, it should be obvious that the ideal persona for these companies is a business opportunity seeker with enough cash to spend a significant amount of money on advertising. In fact, the best chance to get someone in your downline is by recruiting them from another company. MLM is extremely incestuous, with the top earners usually coming off a bad experience with another company.

Herein lies the first fundamental problem of running a network marketing/MLM business online. I’ll discuss that in a second, but first I want to get into the basics of who profits from MLM companies.

Who Profits, and How Many Fail?

It should be obvious that the people who profit the most in an MLM company are those who are at the top. Who is higher than the original founders of the company? There are a few sporadic cases of extreme success sprinkled throughout the organization, but by and far the most successful people are the ones who "got in at the ground floor".

The reason behind this is one that not many people see right-off-the-bat. I’ll put it in another light.

What if I, right here and now, revealed that I was making about $100,000 a month in the croquet niche? Then I went on to say that the way I made this money was by selling croquet balls, and I told you who my manufacturer was, what my keywords were in Adwords that I was advertising on, where I placed my banner ads, etc. all for the low price of $39.99. Then I went on to say that you, too can get into the croquet niche, sell the same balls, and make the same amount of money? What would you do? Would you go out and start your own croquet site using all my information? Maybe some of you wouldn’t, but most of you would.

What just happened? I became rich selling croquet balls. Then, I got rich again, selling information on how to sell croquet balls. What else did I just do? I made it a million times harder to sell those croquet balls because my competition just went from 0 or very low to extremely high. The same thing happens over the lifetime of a MLM or network marketing company. As the number of distributors increase, so does competition.

Besides, what USP are they going to have? They haven’t been successful yet, so they can’t talk about that. If you couple this with the fact that most people who start a network marketing business do not have much experience in marketing and have very little time and money to devote to success, you get a failure rate of 98%.

Seriously, a failure rate of 98%

What I personally started to see is that as soon as the company started getting very popular, the top distributors in the company started accepting the fact that they would break even, or even lose money their first sale.

In my company, this was a $2,000 product that we were breaking even on!!

How can you possibly expect a new distributor to get started if they 1) have to pay for a $2,000 product, 2) don’t make money on any of their follow-on sales and instead make money from their residual check.

If you’re a numbers person, here are the graphs from the Direct Sales Association, the guys who want to legalize pyramid schemes:

Keep in mind, these are THEIR number, and they are estimates. (they’re still not good)…

US Sales (Worldwide is worse):

US Sales FORCE…

 From this data, this is what I have determined. Amount of sales, per person, per year (in dollars):

Now here’s the sick part. Amount of yearly sales, per person, after adjusted for inflation:

WOW! Not a very good trend, huh? Would you invest in a company with trends like this? Not only that, but the average person only sells about $2117 a year in the US and $1866 a year worldwide! That’s about $176 a month. And here’s the kicker: commission is usually around 10-20%, so that’s what, $17 a month? What kind of business is that? Do you think that offsets the fact that they had to buy hundreds of dollars of equipment to get started? Absolutely not. The numbers do not lie, folks.

They’re all Liars

So what drives so many people to network marketing? The money. There seriously is a lot of money to be made if you are successful, and the people who make the millions shine very brightly and attract a lot of distributors.

How do the new distributors attract other distributors when they don’t have a great success story? When a prospect calls and says "how much money have you made so far", how do they say, "Well, actually, I haven’t made any money, but I’m sure I will soon."

It’s simple… they lie.

I did it. Everyone under me did it. Everyone above me did it. I didn’t tell them over the phone that I was successful, but I did on my landing page. I joined a marketing company called Carbon Copy Pro. The landing page says "A Realistic $250k First Year Income". It tells the story of Jay Kubassek and how successful he was with this exact same marketing system.

I bet 80-90% of the people who opted into my system thought I was Jay Kubassek. They had no idea who I was until they bought from Jay me.

The Present and Future State of Network Marketing, Particularly Online

Network Marketing and MLM are here to stay. If you don’t think so, just google the term "business opportunity" and see what ads pop up. Advertising, however, is to the point where it is too expensive to compete unless you can make a significant amount of money on each sale. The companies where you make $5 or $12 a sale will not be able to advertise on any sort of bid-based medium (which most ad platforms are now)

The success rate will stay the same – around 2% – because most who join do not have the deep pockets or heavy time commitment required to participate in Web 2.0, pay-per-click, or banner advertising. That’s the statistics I saw in my business and that’s what I believe it will be.

Even though there are successes in this industry, I DO NOT recommend getting started in it. If its purely for the money, there are plenty of other ways to make just as much money online with a much higher success rate and in a much more honorable way.

I personally am quitting the company I’m in because I cannot market something that claims to be able to transform anyone into millionaires overnight and doesn’t deliver. After 9 months, I felt sleezier than ever before when I started to find out that the honeymoon may be over for my company. I would much rather focus on my guilt-free businesses.

My father is a relatively successful entrepreneur and my mother is a piano teacher. Even though they accomplished a lot,  unfortunately, they’re not very good at saving money. After 40 years of working, they have about $10k saved to their name, and a retirement plan (not including social security) that will pay them out about $700 a month after they retire in 3 years. Not if I have anything to do about it.

The truth is, I’ll end up paying for their retirement. I don’t mind. They took care of me for 18 years, so now it’s my turn. I have enough money set aside that they can live off the interest for the rest of their lives.

That’s not enough, though. I want to give them a huge "happy retirement" present. What better present than to buy them a waterfront house on an Adirondack Lake? Unfortunately, I don’t have the $550k to buy the property and the $300k to buy the house. Yet. However, they’re retiring in 3 years. Here’s how I’ll make $850k in 3 years and how you can, too.

First off, you need to set a goal. Obviously mine is set; $850k in 3 years. Now we need to break it down into smaller goals.

Well, an online business usually sells for 12-14 months net profit and if it has potential all the way up to 24 months. This means that with 3 years, I would have to make ($850k/4=) $215k a year in online profits. ($215k x 3 years + 1 more year for selling the business). Can I make $215k a year online? Seems like a lot, doesn’t it?

Take that $215k a year and divide it into months. $18k a month, roughly. Do you think you can make $18k a month? That also seems like a lot, doesn’t it?

How much is one visitor worth in your business? $1? $2? $0.10? Let’s say one visitor to your site is worth about $0.50, a conservative estimate. That means in order to make $850k in 3 years, I’ll need to get 36,000 visitors a month to my site. Does this sound more achievable? It still sounds like a lot, doesn’t it?

How about if I started about 7 websites and marketed every single one of them the correct way? 36,000/7 = 5,200 visitors month. Hmmm… doesn’t seem so bad now. What if I started 10 websites? Do you think you can start 10 websites in 3 years and market them to the point where they get 3,600 visitors a month?

That’s only 120 visitors a day!  Between all of the traffic methods you know already, do you think you can get 120 visitors a day?

This blog already gets twice that amount and it’s only 4 months old! Do you think you can create a blog like this 10 times in the next 3 years (every 3 months)? Doesn’t seem so hard now, doesn’t it?

So what did we just do? We just found out a way to pay for an $850,000 waterfront lakehouse with cash just by being successful entrepreneurs. We broke down our goals into smaller pieces that actually became achievable.

The next step, of course, is to take the next step and put this plan into action. One….step… at… a… time…

I know some of you may have objections and think this is not achievable. What are they?

Stephan Miller just wrote a great post about keeping track of your ideas and making them real. He uses a Moleskine and used to use a notebook. It’s funny how great minds think alike because I use a voice recorder that is built into my mobile phone/PDA and used to use a sticky pad I carried around in my pocket (yes, a sticky pad – stop laughing). I used to take the sticky pad that I wrote the idea on and stick it on my desk where I couldn’t work until I paid attention to it. Now, I have a voice recorder that I sit down and listen to every Friday afternoon when I plan out my next week.

I never, ever, get my best ideas sitting in front of the computer. Like Stephan, when I come across boring times (aka nuclear power school or the 25 years of formal schooling I’ve gone through), my mind wanders. That is when genius strikes, and I am prepared to remember it! I attribute this one habit as one of the ones that has lead me to great success online.

It doesn’t stop there, though. I then go to bubbl.us and brainstorm. I set aside a half hour or so and come up with different types of products, promotions, giveaways, potential partners, related industries, etc… all the things necessary for beginning a successful internet business.

Stephan says this habit was responsible for his first $1,000 month. It is responsible for my first $1, $1,000, and $10,000 month, because once you find something that works, you grow it BIG! (then I sell it)

Do you have any habits that foster this encourage mental greatness? Or do you come up with great ideas then let someone else figure them out?

The San Francisco was travelling through the Western Pacific in order to transit from one point to another, sort of like you would travel an interstate to get from one city to another. They were travelling at extremely fast speeds. The area they were travelling through was very mountainous, as is most of the Pacific Ocean, but they were never operating outside of the operating capabilities of the submarine. So how could the have avoided a mountain that is literally invisible?

They certainly weren’t the first submarine to go through the area, and they definitely will not be the last. Why didn’t the other submarines hit the invisible mountain? Because the other submarines followed a path that had already proven safe by submarines before it.

You see, the San Francisco had chosen to cut a corner when travelling. They were a little bit behind schedule, and they decided to deviate from the proven path that previous submarines had followed when transiting through the area. The area was perfectly safe, and all submarines are allowed to create their own path if they would like to, provided it is safe. If the San Francisco had used the same path that was tried and proven, they would never have run into that mountain, and that crew would be perfectly fine.

How could you use this in your business? Simple: use paths that are tried and proven. Get started in niches that you know for sure are profitable because people are already making money in them. Don’t try some kind of crazy traffic "secrets" that you think may work. Use the same tried and true methods that everyone else uses.

Don’t stray far from the path. You’ll eventually hit that underwater mountain.

Before I get started, I want to make this very clear. This is one way, the quickest way, to launch a business. It is not the most profitable way, but if you follow these steps, you will come out with a targeted list, a few hundred dollars, and the knowledge on how to expand your business and profits. Without further ado, here is the sequence.

1. Sign up for a Clickbank.com and buy an account at Aweber.com.

   Before you start to tune me out and assume that I’m going to teach you the latest and greatest affiliate marketing technique, I’l just say this: the first product you sell will be someone else’s. The second, third, and hopefully fourth product you sell will be yours. If I told you to originally sell your own product, you’d have to spend days or even weeks researching and producing it. That’s not what we want.

   I use Aweber, and that’s what I recommend. Without getting into a debate as to which autoresponder is best, sign up for one. That’s the important one. You NEED one and won’t build a profitable business without it.

   I used Clickbank as an example. You can also use CJ.com, Paydotcom.com, Neverblueads.com, Shareasale.com, etc. Any affiliate network will do. I actually recommend you sign up for all of them to compare offers and products, and eventually you will sign up for most if not all of them, but for now just one will do. I’ll use Clickbank throughout the rest of this example.
    

2. Pick a niche and find 3 products in that niche.

   Any niche will do, really. I recommend a niche you’re at least interested in. We’re building a business that will grow and be around for awhile, so if you are not at least interested in the niche, it’ll get to be very hard to work the day-to-day aspects of it. There are a few niches that will always make more money than others: anything having to do with making money (stocks, FOREX, make money online, etc.), weight loss, fitness, nutrition, and markets similar to those. I caution you not to get into these markets if they don’t interest you… yet. They are good to get into later when you’re a little more experienced, but not right now. Plus, they’re pretty competitive markets and require a good amount of work and internet marketing prowess to make it work.

   Pick 3 relatively similiar products on Clickbank. Go to CBTrends to see a historical chart of the product’s gravity and other statistics to determine its growth. Find one that has gaining popularity, gravity, and earned per sale, meaning the product is popular and people aren’t returning it. These 3 products should have been around for a while.

   Ideally you will buy these products, however, right now, we’re looking to start quick. You can read the products while you’re making sales and adjust accordingly.
    

3. Use pages.google.com, Page Breeze, or www.weebly.com to build a mini-site.

   Most hosting companies offer free site builders as well, so you can use them to create your site, but those three will also do. You MUST host your own site. Do not use something like wordpress.com or blogger.com to host the site you are building. You need to create your own domain and your own brand. End of story. Without your own domain, you will not be able to build up your own brand and products, etc. Just trust me: you need your own domain.

   To build your site, take about 30 minutes to an hour and do research on the three products you found. Type up honest, unbiased reviews and recommend the product you think is most valuable. It doesn’t have to have personal experiences in the review. It can be subjective like a business article would be. Be sure you recommend one over the other and do not include negative things about the other products. For instance say something like "the blue book has 5 ways to make money online and a better bonus, whereas the red book only has 3 and no bonus, that’s why I recommend the blue book. The red book does work very well, however, the blue book is more thorough". Notice: no negativity, just emphasize the positives.

   Some may call this unetical: you’re endorsing products you haven’t tried. That’s up to you to figure out. I actually only endorse products I use and find useful. If you have a little more time, you want to evaluate the product fully. Your endorsement will reflect it.

   When you write the endorsement, make sure you stress the benefits to the reader, not the features. Example of benefits: only spend 15 minutes a day while the FOREX software makes you millions. Example of feature: FOREX software connects to the broker to automatically make trades. See the difference? Make sure you stress these BIG TIME. That’s what will sell your product.
    

4. Write 4 Follow-up emails, with the 4th one including your affiliate link to your product through a link cloaking tool.

   This is the most important part of this, and the easiest to screw up. Do NOT try to sell the reader on the first email. Span the emails with 2-3 days in between messages, unless you call it a "mini-course" or something of that nature and they expect emails every day.

   You can find the content all over the internet for the four emails that you write. Make it very good and useful content, or you will not convince your reader to buy anything. In addition, make sure your subject line is something you would open. Remember: curiosity = opened email.
   
    

5. Make your Autoresponder

   Put those 4 emails in your autoresponder. Then create a popover script that entices the person to sign up for your course or information. Place that code on your site and sign up for your own autoresponder to make sure it works.
    

6. Send traffic

   This is the fun part. The best 2 quick ways I can recommend you send traffic your way is through article marketing and forum marketing.

   a)  Article marketing: simple enough – write 5 articles and publish them to ezinearticles.com.

   b)  Forum marketing: find a forum related to your niche and create a signature that links back to your page. Start answering and asking questions in the forum. DO NOT SELL TO THE PEOPLE ON THE FORUM. Provide value. That’s the most important aspect.
    

That’s it! Your goal is to start collecting email address and "building a list". Check. And make a few bucks in the process. Check.

Where to go from here: That’s where it gets fun. Create your own product, create a blog for more traffic generation, increase your article marketing, open your site to more marketing methods, cross-sell other related niche’s products to your list, JV and partner with other merchants, and the list goes on and one.

But you’ve started building your list, and that makes it so you will be able to create a relationship with your list (invaluable), and gives you leverage with other marketers so you can JV and create more partnerships.

So there you go. 3 hours, by my estimation, mostly taken up by article creation. About $35 for signing up for Aweber, and paying for hosting. Seriously, if you can’t find $35 to start your own business, you shouldn’t be looking to start your own business.

I personally haven’t been subscribed to either of their blogs before the competition, but now I’m subscribed to both. Not because of the prizes, but because they’re both awesome bloggers who know what they’re talking about.

Some things to note:

1. John Cow’s subscriber stats were at 1,800 as of 2 days ago. Now they’re at 2400 and skyrocketing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he douples it to 3,600 or more because of this contest. Nothing beats a good contest for blog promotion. (hint hint…)
    
2. Watch how they will both promote affiliate products during their "tutorial". This is one strategy that Brian and Tony Clark teach in their Teaching Sells course, but instead they use paid memberships. It’s a stellar business model and one I use in my #1 most profitable business.
    
3. I’m not entirely sure what model they’re going to use to build up their sites, but if they’re shooting for the highest price to sell their site, they should build the biggest readership they possibly can, even if it means taking a loss all the way up to the sale.
    

Either way, it’s a good contest. You should watch and learn.

What is the most valuable asset to your business?

In other words, let’s say someone wanted to buy your site/business tomorrow. What would make it worth more than the next guy’s?

Ask yourself that question. What is your answer? Usually I get answers like "My list", "My readers" (which is the same thing as a list), "Pageviews", "Traffic", "My Brand", or something else along those lines.

I would agree that your most valuable asset is branding, readership, loyalty, or a list, which are basically synonomous with each other. One begets the other. Are we in agreement so far? Hang with me, I have a point here.

So let’s say Joe Visitor happens on your website from Google or some other random link. After they’re done reading what you put in front of them, what are their options ? They can hit the back button, click on a link, make a purchase, or sign up on a form. That’s basically it.

We’re all in agreement that you don’t want them to hit the back button (or close their browser) and the only way to stop that is to entertain and engage the visitor. Check. So that leaves clicking on a link, making a purchase, or signing up on a form. Which of these makes your business more valuable? Both making a purchase, and as we discussed above, signing up on a form. So why then, would you place advertising on your blog where you only get maybe 50% of what the click is worth?

Every once in awhile you stumble upon someone who "gets it" with respect to building a business and advertising. Chad’s post talks about how Adsense will pay you maybe 25% of what you’re actually worth as a blog, and while you may not think so, you can charge quite a bit for advertising. I wholeheartedly agree, and Chad’s someone I think you should listen to – he’s a marketing manager for b5Media.

In fact, I go as far as even saying that you should not place advertising on your site until you have a solid, loyal readership. Why would you send someone off to another site, never to hear back from them again, when you can just as easily turn them into a loyal reader? Is that $0.23 cent click really worth it? Is that how little you value your readers?

I will say, and Chad points out, that Ad Cents has its place. And it does. Just not for new sites, and not at the top of the page. It’s called remnant advertising and you should implement it while closely tracking your profits. It may very well have a negative effect on your readership/profit.

Storytime Sunday

I am going to make this a regular occurrence. Every Sunday, I will post a lesson I’ve learned through a hopefully entertaining story. Sometimes the stories will be mine, sometimes they will be other’s. Every time they will be an allegory.

The Itch to Change

Last May, I decided I was going to run a marathon. Just like that. I woke up and said, I’m tired of being lazy. I need to run a marathon. I wanted to set a goal I wasn’t entirely sure was possible and try to achieve that goal.

So I found a marathon training schedule online and started that Monday. I was ready to go!! Monday rolled around and I started by running 3 miles. I have always been able to run 3 miles, so it wasn’t all that hard. "I have this thing in the bag", I thought.

My first long run came along on Saturday. 6 miles. That was tough, but I pushed through it. I was starting to get discouraged. Maybe this wasn’t as easy as I thought.

Just Not Driven Enough

Monday came along and I was busy that day! I didn’t have time to run the 3 miles, so I skipped it. I’ll make it up later in the week, besides, I can run 3 miles with no problem, I thought.

I ran 4 miles that Thursday, but that was it I was supposed to run 3 on Monday, 4 on Wednesday, and 3 on Friday. Saturday rolled around and I was supposed to run 7 miles. I skipped it because I was busy, and planned on doing it Sunday. Sunday came and I ran. I got about 4.5 miles into it and had to stop. I walked back to my house and quit the program. If I couldn’t run 4.5 miles, there is absolutely no way I can run 26.2.

My Own Mastermind Group, and Making the Commitment

Two weeks later, I started talking to my brother-in-law. He told me he wanted to run the same marathon that I did. He also had never run a marathon before, but really wanted to try one. I decided I would give it one more shot. This time, I signed up for the marathon and paid the non-refundable entrance fee.

I started the training program again. This time, I decided that it would be a priority in my life and put it before everything else. No more excuses. If it meant I ran at 1 AM, that’s what I would do.

Begin with the End in Mind and Baby Steps

It was tough; I’m not going to lie. When you start training in June for something in October, it is really hard to see the end goal. When you get winded and almost have to stop running after 5 miles, it is really hard to think that you’ll be able to run 26.2 miles.

I followed through, though! By the end of September, the furthest I ran was 20 miles! My brother-in-law had run 23 miles. The race was quickly approaching. Every piece of literature I had read said not to run the full marathon before the actual race. They said 20 miles was enough, and so I ran 20 miles. Hell, I could squeeze out those last 6.2 miles, no problem. I was running 6.2 miles before breakfast on Wednesdays.

Race day came. I was excited and nervous. The race started and off I went! My three goals were to a) Finish the race, b) Not die, and c) Finish in under 4 hours.

My first half was a stellar one. In order to finish in exactly 4 hours, I had to run a 9 minute and 9 second mile pace. My pace for the first half of the race was 8 minutes and 30 seconds. AWESOME! I could slow up if I had to, even down to 9:45 mile pace and still beat 4 hours. I was feeling great.

A Rocky Road, but Don’t Quit, no Matter What

Then came mile 18. I was starting to get very very tired. My pace had dropped off to a 9 minute and 15 second mile. Not horrible, and I could still make the 4 hour mark easily, but I was seriously running out of steam. Only 8 more miles to go.

Mile 20 was where I started having the real trouble. I had to start walking. My pace fell of dramatically. I was now down to a 10:15 pace. I might be able to make the 4 hour mark.

Nothing Prepared Me Better for Running a Marathon than Running a Marathon

Mile 23 was where my body just quit on me. I had to walk more than I ran. The last 3 miles were somewhat uphill, and my pace fell off to about a 11:00 pace. I didn’t understand it. How could this be? I trained just as the program had told me.

I finished at 4:09. I missed the 4 hour mark by 9 minutes. It doesn’t sound like much, but 9 minutes is a lot considering I could barely make it across the finish line.

The Consolation Prize: A Much Better Life

I had met 2 of my 3 goals, (the most important 2 of course). I was absolutely drained after the race. But looking back, the week or 2 after the race, I had never felt so good in my life. I was in great shape and I had more energy during the day than I ever had before. I looked great, felt great, had more patience, more energy, stamina, drive, self-pride, happiness, and fulfillment than before I started.

Even though I didn’t finish in the time I wanted, I finished. And my life was 100 times better because of it.

How could this happen? How could I be so successful when she was not? Needless to say, yesterday was a day of deep introspection, as I questioned why she failed and how she could have strayed so far from the path I had set out for her. I think I figured it out.

She quit. I know, I know, it sounds like a cop-out, but she really did. In fact, I would even go as far as saying she quit before she even started. She was only in business for 3 months before she decided to throw in the towel. She was even starting to receive some good leads after dragging her feet for a couple months before she decided to actually start. And just like that, she quit. She sent me a "dear John" email about how she wasn’t happy with her results and that was it.

Her quitting was really just a matter of time. If it didn’t happen now, it would have happened 3 or 6 months from now. She would always have some sort of excuse why she would quit. The money wasn’t good enough, it’s too hard, she can’t find the time, yada… yada… yada. She went into the business already resigned to fail.

She had the mindset that she was going to "try" a network marketing business. She gave up before she even started. She still had the job mindset and expected a paycheck even if she didn’t put much effort into it.

I’ll just come out and say it: Success is not easy. It seems easy sometimes when we see the byproduct of years of hard work. For instance, whenever you see claims that you can make like $1.6 million in a month. Are they lying? Absolutely not, but it was their 38th month and months 1-6 they only maybe made $2 grand. Through trial and error, they refined their system to allow their business to grow.

It’s so important I’ll say it again: Success is not easy. It requires traits such as fortitude, pro-activity, and perseverance. Notice nowhere did I say intelligence or business savvy. Sure they are great traits to have, but they don’t amount to a hill of beans without the first three.

When it comes down to it, there are only a few guarantees in business:

1. You will fail at some point
2. You will learn a lot about things you never knew anything about
3. You will take risks and operate outside of your comfort zone more than you want to.

I don’t want to sound too harsh, but honestly, I don’t really want to coach people who don’t dedicate every ounce of energy they have toward success. People like that may make good friends, but they certainly don’t make good clients.

What is the number one thing that stands between successful business owners and lifelong workers? What is the single difference between someone who will work when they want and how they want and someone who is dictated those things by a boss the rest of their lives?

The ability to take action.

Do you have an idea for a business to start? Been meaning to start that blog for the last 5 months? Just do it.

Here is the typical mentality for someone who wants to start a business. Does this sound familiar?:

"I know I want to start one, but I don’t have the faintest idea where to start. I don’t know what business structure to use, I don’t know the first thing about the double-entry bookkeeping system, I don’t have a product yet, I don’t have a distribution system, I don’t know anything about advertising or marketing, and on and on and on…"

Here is the typical mentality for a successful businessperson:

"I’m pretty sure I want to start a business. I know I want to start it on the internet and I know that it will have something to do with Car advice. Maybe it’ll be a membership site. Maybe I’ll sell car parts. I’m not sure. Either way, I’m going to register my domain name now and maybe set up a blog. I’ll figure it out from there. Double entry bookkeeping? I have no idea what that is. I’ll figure it out come tax time. Or maybe I’ll hire someone to do it for me. Product? Well for now, I’ll probably just sell other people’s products and maybe sell a little bit of advertising to monetize my site. Then I might find a manufacturer to white-label my own car parts. I don’t know. I’ll figure it out after I start my blog."

So you can see that the reason why most people fail is because they don’t even start. Sure, you need a good business plan, but nobody said that business plan has to be written before you start. The three businesses I have started all have business plans that were created after I started the business.

And it doesn’t stop just when you start your business. I learned Google Adwords not by reading books, but by instead by placing ads on Google. I learned the double-entry bookkeeping system when I received my first payment for my first product. I learned about business credit right before I tried to get my first business loan… light years after I started the business.

So go out there and do it. If you need help starting, feel free to shoot me an email or leave a comment on the blog. I’ll be more than happy to steer you in the right direction!