Goal Setting - Working the System

The best way to grow your business is by setting written goals, then objectively determining exactly what you need to do to achieve those goals. This gives you the internal motivation and the plan of action that you need to succeed.

For example, suppose your goal is to sponsor 15 people this month. You know from experience that you need to talk to at least 10 people to get just one distributor. So, it's easy to figure out that you need to talk to at least 150 people this month in order to sponsor 15 distributors. (I know this is tedious, but please bear with me.) Next, you decide how much time you have to put into your business. Say, for example, you are able to work on your business 4 days a week, for 4 hours each day. That means that you will be working your business for approximately 17 days this month. So, taking the 150 people that you will need to talk to, you determine that you will need to talk to 9 people on each of those 17 days. Now you are developing a plan of action that will work. In order to talk to 9 people in a 4 hour period, you will need to talk to 2.25 people per hour. Now that's not so hard, is it?

The key is a clear plan of action and consistency. Less than 3 people per hour is easy. But you must keep it up in order to succeed. Keep on plugging until you reach your 9 people that day, and keep on doing the same thing every day until you talk to 150 people for the month. You will get those 15 distributors, just like you planned.

Most people set goals at the beginning of the month. Then they just set off flying by the seat of their pants, going in little bursts of activity. They feel like they are having a good month until they get near the end and realize that they are not anywhere near achieving their goal. The problem is, they have a goal but no specific plan to achieve it. They are working hard, but their work lacks direction. Some people can succeed this way, it's true. But wait. Network marketing requires that your efforts be duplicatible. YOU may be able to achieve success without planning or consistency, just by your sheer charisma. But the likelihood is that most of the people you sponsor won't be so gifted. Yet they will look to you for guidance. They will emulate you. They will work the business the way they see you working it.

It is crucial that you work the business in a systematic manner. It certainly won't hurt you. It will insure the success of the people you sponsor, and that, by the way, is what will make you successful.

Highly effective, duplicatible systems grow almost magically out of network marketing companies. It is an evolutionary process. A distributor finds something that works, and starts having some success. The people in his downline duplicate and refine that success and grow very large. People in other lines see what's happening, and they adopt the same system. Then someone comes along, puts a new twist on it, and becomes even more successful. And that new twist then gets duplicated throughout the system. The system keeps evolving toward a higher and more successful state.

To a new distributor, the system sometimes appears to be trivial and simplistic. For this reason, many fail to take advantage of it. They don't understand that the system in place represents the combined experience of hundreds or thousands of distributors who have tread the path before them. Often times, new distributors don't realize that most of the mistakes have already been made by others, and that by properly utilizing the system they themselves can avoid these mistakes.

In traditional businesses, marketing plans are often dictated from ivory towers by politics, personal egos and other inappropriate forces. As a result, these marketing plans often fail. But in network marketing, the marketing system evolves from the successful, collective experience of thousands of hard-working, motivated people. This system rises up from the marketplace itself, and carries with it the awesome power of the free market.

Set goals. Write them down. Develop a plan of action. Use your company's system. Learn to appreciate the depth of thinking and experience that has gone into it. Teach everyone you sponsor to do the same thing. You'll be hitching your wagon to a star.