MLM Expert Advice

I’ve said this before, your market is NOT everyone.  Although even top MLM superstars will say when asked who their market is “Everyone” it most definitely is not.  And even if it were you can not market the same way to everyone and expect anyone to respond.  You need to find your niche.  For example I know of one couple where the wife had been a nurse and while she loved nursing and the people it brought her in touch with she hated the hours and the pay.  She and her husband joined an MLM and decided their niche market would be other nurses who felt the same.  Note that it wasn’t all nurses just those who:

• loved their work
• loved the people they treated and worked with
• hated the hours
• hated the pay

This was their niche market.  Wikipedia provides us with the followng definition for a niche market:

“A niche market is the subset of the market on which a specific product is focusing on; Therefore the market niche defines the specific product features aimed at satisfying specific market needs, as well as the price range, production quality and the demographics that is intending to impact.“

I would suggest taking it one step further.  Your niche market should be a market you love as in my example with the nurses.  Now some may disagree suggesting that if you love something it may be too narrow a market or that if you love it too much you may not be able to make sound business decisions regarding it.  Obviously you need a profitable market but you also need balance.  You want a profitable market that you have interest in.

I’m going to stay away from markets related to products as MLM products span the gamut from house hold products to health care to legal care and beyond.  Instead lets look at finding a niche market for your business. What do the following groups have in common:

• Nurses
• Doctors
• Business Executives
• Small Business Owners
• Big Business Owners
• Computer Programmers
• Restaurant Owners
• New Mothers

All of them are possible markets for your MLM business opportunity but you wouldn’t consider presenting your opportunity to each group in the same way.  For a new mother you might suggest that your MLM business opportunity provides a way to make extra money from home to provide for the needs of her child whereas for business owner you might tell them that your MLM business opportunity provides a business with no inventory needs and no staff to manage.  Each market has its own needs based on the career or circumstances.

Again you wouldn’t target all new mothers or all new business owners just those in your specific niche. For example are you wanting to market to single mothers or those with a spouse or significant other.  Do you want them to be in a specific age group or income level?  Each of these “sub” markets or segments of the new mothers market has different needs that your MLM business opportunity satisfies.

You need to do the research to find which specific segment of the market has the greatest need.  In other words you want to know that your market has what you have to offer but also how much or how badly the want it.  Additionally you need to know how profitable the niche market you are targeting is and what your competition is for that segment of the market.  By doing the research you are putting together an effective MLM business plan.

So how do you find your niche market?  Check back in a few days for some steps on how to identify YOUR niche market.

In our modern world when we think of “downtime” its usually has a negative meaning.  In fact Wikipedia defines downtime as “The term downtime is used to refer to periods when a system is unavailable. Downtime or outage duration refers to a period of time that a system fails to provide or perform its primary function.”

Another word with similar negative connotations is disconnect.  In business if you have a disconnect it  means you have a breakdown in communication or a systemic problem.

Downtime and disconnect while bad in the business sense are both necessary for you to be successful in your business.  Huh?

“What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.”
– Captain, Road Prison 36
from the movie “Cool Hand Luke”

All kidding aside, words mean different things in different contexts.  Both downtime and disconnecting are necessary for you to maintain your health so that you can run your business.  In terms of you, not your business, downtime means time away disconnected from your business and other stresses.

We need the quiet time for contemplation.  Before you think this is some “new age” nonsense and start telling me why you have to be working every minute consider that the need for rest and time away from work was known when the Bible was written.

“Only someone who is foolish does not know when to go home and wears himself out with work.” — Ecclesiastes 10:15

If you want to be more productive at work you need to have balance and that means including downtime in your schedule and perhaps laying down rules for what can and can’t be done during downtime.  Now it may seem like scheduling and rules is overkill but take it from someone who is prone to working 24/7 if I didn’t have a schedule I wouldn’t take any downtime until I crashed from exhaustion.  Of course while having a wife that won’t let me work myself to death without paying some attention to her certainly helps, I still have rules for what I can do during the time I disconnect from my business.

During my downtime I allow myself to do the following:

• read personal email — I mean email that has nothing to do with business, email from friends and family members
• surf the internet — but only for non-work related items, finding funny videos on youtube, listening to music, reading a book
• playing games — computer and otherwise
• going for a walk or bike ride
• watching a movie
• spending time with family

Are there exceptions? Sure.  But they are exceptions and not the rule.

I know there are still some of you work-a-holics out there who are screaming “say it isn’t so” but the truth is downtime is not a waste of time.

So try it. Disconnect from your work. Make sure that downtime is scheduled in your planner, whatever form it may take. Shut off your business phone.  It may seem like an unnatural act at first but you will get used to it and your productivity will increase.

I’ve discussed why and how to set up your schedule and the need to breakdown tasks and prioritize but how do we manage all these time management pieces?

Do not buy anything until you understand how you manage things.  Don’t buy a tool for time management because you saw someone else using it, even if that person is your mentor because you need to find the time management tool that works best for you.

Consider first if you work better with paper  — calendar or book planner — or prefer a “high-tech” approach — a PDA or computer.  If you’re like me and have a computer and cell phone with you at all times then you may prefer the latter.  It doesn’t really matter which you prefer just find the right format for you so that you can get your work done the way you like to work.

If you prefer the pen and paper approach like my wife does then the pocket-planner is a great tool.  You can have the planner with you just about anywhere and whenever a new task comes to mind you can add it.  Of course this can also be a bad thing if you tend to be a work-a-holic as its always with you and that means your MLM business is always with you and you do need some down-time each day.

The best of these pocket-planners come from:

• Franklin-Covey – has a complete line of day planners set up to allow you to break down tasks and prioritize them and also offer courses on how to effectively manage your time.
• At a Glance – providing a number of different formats whether you want a monthly, weekly or daily planner.
• Day-timer – another source of different formats for day planning and they have an eLearning site so that you can learn time management skills online for free

But in this economy there may be some of you who want something cheaper that you can use and I found a tool for you that costs nothing other than paper and ink/toner to print a page from your computer and its recyclable too – PocketMod.  Regardless which you use its not the system thats important its just important that it works well for you.

If on the other hand you’re like me and prefer the electronic approach the online there are all sorts of tools some that will email your tasks to you, send you reminders, and can even help you brainstorm ideas.  If you prefer the electronic approach then using an online tool that you can reach from any computer (or cell phone) means that tool is always at your beck and call.

Some  examples of these are:

• Time Jar
• Rescue Time
• Backpack
• Google Calendar

The additional benefit of these online tools is that you can share your calendar/schedule with others so if you have people in your organization who need your time they can see when you are available.  These tools can also allow you to track your time usage.

And if you would prefer an offline approach but still electronic you can look into the following:

• Franklin-Covey
• Effexis Achieve Planner
• My Life Organized
• Microsoft Outlook

Most of these offer a free trial which I would highly recommend before spending any money on a tool that might not be right for you.

Again its not the tool or system that is important, what is important is that you manage your time effectively.

“Live and work but do not forget to play, to have fun in life and really enjoy it.” — Eileen Caddy

I had other priorities myself the last few days and as a result you may have noticed there hasn’t been a post for a few days.  While you may have a schedule laid out that says when you will work on your business and when you will spend time with family and when you will work on the house you still need to prioritize your tasks or activities.

For me I have many activities that are necessary for my MLM business but family necessities took priority for the last few days as I took care of my wife.  Nevertheless, because I had assigned each of my tasks for my MLM business a priority all the activities that absolutely had to be done were and other tasks like writing an article here for you to read was not as its priority was low.  This is not to say that it wasn’t important but out of all my activities related to my MLM business it was one of the ones that was of lower importance.

You need to look at all the activities you perform each day in your scheduled business time and prioritize them.  You may have some activities that are for a specific goal to be met in which case you need to break them down into smaller tasks that can be done each day until the overall project is completed.  Even these smaller tasks should be priortitized.  Prioritization of each task should consider several factors:

• when is the activity that this task is a part of due?
• is it necessary for this task to be completed by a specific date?
• is it necessary for this task to be completed so another task can be performed, i.e. is there a dependency on other tasks?
• how long will this task take to be completed?
• does this task have a direct effect on your MLM Business’ bottom line?
• how much does this task directly effect your MLM business?

From this prioritization you can then see what tasks may be good ones to be outsourced when money allows.  For example if you have a low priority task for shredding papers or stuffing envelopes with a newsletter you have written, these are tasks you may be able to outsource.  Remember you can outsource tasks to your children or your spouse, if they are amenable, but as this is a business you still need to pay them for the work done.

Now this means you have to include in your schedule time to create your list of tasks to be performed in the time you have scheduled for your MLM business.  Some people do this once a week on a Sunday night, others at the end of each day so they can be ready for the next day.  When you do it is up to you… just do it.  Once you have your task list, you need to break it down by day.  You may find at the end of each day you have some low priority or even some medium priority tasks left over.  You need to re-prioritize those tasks along with the tasks you have for the next day.  Priorities will change, especially if you are prone to procrastination!

Now this may seem like a lot of effort but it will be well worth it allowing you to have a balance between your MLM business, your job (if you have one), your family, and your relaxation time.  Also it will permit you to accomplish more in the time you have by helping you concentrate on those tasks that give you the greatest beneft.

To ease the effort I’ll let you know about some great time management tools in a future article.

Read more >> Options >>

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.”
– William Penn

While you may know that you have to take time to do various tasks that are necessary for your MLM business to be successful, you also need to schedule your time so that those tasks can be performed.  Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll find the time.

“You will never find time for anything. If you want time you must make it.”
– Charles Roberts Buxton

If you’re just getting started in your MLM Business then you know that you were already using all 24 hours in your day and now you will have to give up time you were spending on something else to make the time for your business.

If you’re just getting started in your MLM you may have a job and you need to make sure that your job and your business don’t interfere with each other.  You need to take time to relax, play or do nothing in order to maintain your health.  Additionally you need to make time for your relationships, your family and your children which for many of you is the reason you got started with your MLM business.  And then there are the household tasks that still need doing like grocery shopping, mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, gardening, etc.  If you don’t make time for each of these including the household tasks, they will become a distraction for you that will lead to procrastination.

Ok, so where to begin making a schedule.

1. Write down everything that needs to be done on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.
2. Now divide these activities into like common themes — family, daily, weekly, monthly, work, business, fun, etc.  You may find that some fall into multiple categories and thats ok.
3. Estimate how long it takes to do each task and if some tasks must be done at a specific time or day then note that down too.  For example, the garbage pickup is on Monday so I know that Sunday evening the trash needs to be put out.
4. If you tend to procrastinate put all your activities down on a daily schedule so that you can’t skip doing a task or getting it done in the time allotted.  For those that need more flexibility put things down on a weekly or monthly schedule.

Ok so now you’re done right? Wrong!

At best what you have is a tentative schedule.  Now you need to see if it works.  Its most likely you’ve underestimated how long it takes to do each task or that you’ve left something out.  Don’t do what I did and forget to plan date night out with your wife into your schedule.

As you go through the next few weeks, write down each task that was forgotten and time yourself on each task so that you have a better estimate of how long each takes to do.  You may find that you overestimated some and underestimated others.  In addition timing the tasks let you see where time is being wasted and may lead you to come up with ways to optimize your schedule.  For example, the weekly trip to get groceries might align itself well with your homeowner’s association meeting because both are held close by thus allowing you to combine two trips into one.  Lastly this will show you how much or how little “spare” time you truly have and allow you to say No to some other tasks that others may want you to do.

Combining all this information allows you to put together a more realistic schedule and allows you to work your MLM business and spend time with the family without sacrificing either.

“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Time = life;
therefore, waste your time and waste of your life,
or master your time and master your life.”
– Alan Lakein

In order to manage your time effectively you need to know what tasks you actually do and figure out which things are not productive — the Time Suckers.  If you don’t know what are the time suckers they can do more than steal your time, they can affect both your health and that of your business.

I’ve mentioned one time sucker before, procrastination, but here’s a twist on that old demon.  Procrastination isn’t all bad.  How can that be?  Consider this, if you’re facing a task in your MLM business that you tend to procrastinate about doing its an indicator that this is a task that you should consider outsourcing, delegating, or automating. Now if you’re procrastinating on a task that directly generates money then you do have an issue — perhaps your chrematophobic.  Regardless of why you, and your business, suffer from your procrastination, time management will banish it.

Another time sucking demon is perfectionism.  While sometimes perfectionism is a form of procrastination where you keep trying to make something better instead of just using it as is.  Now perfectionism again like procrastination isn’t all bad.  Of course you should put your best foot forward in all aspects of your business but you have to strike a balance.  Work your hardest on those tasks you choose to do and accept that you’ve done your best instead of trying to perfect it… nothing is ever perfect.

Being a “Yes” man is another time sucker.  Yes you have an MLM business which means you are the chief cook and bottle-washer but you can’t do everything and you shouldn’t try to.  If you do you risk burn-out and your health will suffer, as will your happiness and your business. Remember its ok to say NO sometimes.  If you don’t have the time for something and it doesn’t directly affect your business income then feel free to say no.

Now these last three time suckers are related to all tasks of your business but there are some tasks that are in and of themselves time suckers.  For example:

• email
• phone calls
• reading blogs
• social networking
• planning
• learning (about new products, ideas, etc)
• house hold chores
• relationships

Now my wife would say all of these are important as she is a part of my MLM business but I would suggest that house hold chores aren’t quite as important as the rest.  So what do you do about time-sucking, yet important, activities?

1. Prioritize — assign each task a level of importance
2. Schedule — determine when you will do each activity each day, don’t let the task control your time.

If you prioritize and schedule you will turn time-suckers back into tasks to be done.

What are your time suckers?

“A man who dares to waste one hour of life has not discovered the value of life.”
– Charles Darwin

I had planned to go into all the details about how time management can help you:

• make more money
• have happier customers and business members
• be healthier
• have more time
• achieve everything you could have dreamed of and more

I was going to go into all the things that go wrong with you and your business if you don’t have good time management.

However, as John Lennon said:

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.“

At 2 AM this morning my wife was admitted to the emergency room, now I say that not to get your sympathy but rather for you to understand what transpired.  I sent out a few emails and informed the people on my calendar that were part of a  fixed training appointmentsthat due to a family emergency the call would still be at the scheduled time; however I had a special guest who is doing phenomenal in their business who was going to lead the call.  I still got on the call but just briefly to introduce my guest caller.  Unless I had taken the time to plan for this ahead of time I wouldn’t have been able to pull this off.  In my case I knew that there would always be instances that could come up where I couldn’t devote all of my attention to a call but I wanted to make sure that everyone on the call got the maximum benefit so I created a list of stand-by guests.  For today, the first one on my list was available but had they not been I had an extensive list of fallbacks.

I also quickly called two members of my team, leaders in their own right, and asked them to handle follow-up calls on my behalf with a few customers and potential clients.  I felt comfortable doing this because I knew I had grown the leaders in my group to do everything I do.  Again I still got on the call initially to introduce my team members who would be covering for me due to a family emergency; however I also sent out an email to each consumer and potential client before hand letting them know that I wouldn’t be able to take their call personally and while I had someone I trusted and valued to follow-up with them at the scheduled time I would completely understand if they would like to reschedule.  I built up my team members but at the same time acknowledged the trust and rapport that I had already built with my consumers and prospects.

End result all calls were made, everything on my calendar for today was completed, and I spent 18 hours at the hospital with my wife making sure she got the attention of all the doctors and specialists that could be brought to bear on her problem.

If I didn’t have effective time management and plans for “outsourcing” all of my activities along with training my team members to be leaders in their own right, I could not have spent the time with my wife and not lost a single bit of momentum in building my business.

Effective time management allows you to handle what life throws at you no matter how stressful it may be.

P.S. For those of you interested, my wife will be coming home tomorrow and she has recovered from her ordeal.

“It has been my observation that most people get ahead during the time that others waste time” — Henry Ford

There are only 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year… but why does it always seem like there’s not enough time to get things done.

“Don’t say you don’t have enough time.  You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Louis Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein”
– H. Jackson Brown

How did they do it?  Did they think sleep was overrated?  Of course not, we all need to sleep and we all have the same amount of time available to us… it is what we do with that time that makes the difference.

Do you know how much your time is worth?  I would recommend you do the following calculation:

So if you expect to make $10,000 from your MLM business this year and you allocated 3 hours/day and didn’t work weekends and took a 3 week vacation then:

$10,000/((52-3)weeks * 5 days/week * 3 hours/day)=$13.60/hr

Input your own numbers and see what your hourly rate is.  If your hourly rate is less than what you desire then you need to be working on applying the principles of the law of attraction to increase abundance in your life and you’re probably spending too much time on unprofitable activities.  If you want to increase your hourly rate and live in abundance you need to focus on those tasks that generate income.

“If you want to make good use of your time,
you’ve got to know what’s most important
and then give it all you’ve got”
– Lee Iacocca

Time management is all about being effective at whatever task you are doing and being effective is about getting the most important things done.  In order for you to be successful with your MLM business you need to focus your time on the tasks that generate direct income and increase your hourly rate.  But what about all the tasks that don’t generate income but still need to be done like:

• bookkeeping
• scheduling
• emails
• etc.

Obviously if you are just starting your MLM business you don’t have a lot of funds lying around (at least most of us don’t) so you can’t outsource it and unless you have a large family you can’t delegate it.  You need to consider your hourly rate and decide if the time spent on the task could be done cheaper, if and when you have the income on hand to outsource it.  If yes and your budget allows then outsource, if no then you’ll have to do it yourself for now but as your hourly rate increases and your budget allows revisit the task and see if its outsourcable yet.

To grow your business you need to focus on your strengths and on those tasks that generate income directly… let others take care of the rest.

Previously I discussed how to apply the Law of Attraction to attract abundance to you but their are some additional steps you can take to keep you on track. For example, set some goals, write them down and then set your intention to meet these goals. One of the tools that can help with this is a website I happened to stumble on a few months back that allows you to send an email to your future self.   This is helpful because you can state what life is like having met your goals in the “present” tense and then using the site send that in an email to yourself at a future date by which you intend on achieving the goal.  To take it one step further you can make your email public which tells even more people of your intention.  A great way to hold yourself accountable!

Another tool to use is a dream board.  And yes, it truly is a board full of dreams, your dreams.  I would suggest going out and grabbing some magazines that contain pictures of things you like but perhaps think are beyond your reach at present.  Pictures that reflect your desires.  For example, for me I grabbed several issues of the Robb Report, the global luxury source along with some issues of Dream Homes and Spa Finder and Architectural Digest.  One of the items I placed on an early dream board was a BMW Z3 roadster.  I couldn’t find a picture of one I truly desired so I went to the BMW website, configured the color scheme and options and then printed it on a color printer to put on my dream board.  That vehicle was parked in my garage less than 6 months later.  Note I said “an early dream board” because once you achieve a dream its time to dream bigger.  Whether one of things you want is a car or a house or a boat or a plane or more time for relationships, a family, or even being able to donate to a charity you like etc, find the pictures that relate to your desires.  The best pictures are those that effect you emotionally so that when you look at them you can see, hear, taste, feel them in your mind.  Don’t worry about what it looks like to others… these are your dreams after all.  For those of you who don’t want to cut out pictures and glue them to a board you can create a collage of pictures on your computer and then set it as your wallpaper… a constant reminder of what you are working towards, your intentions.

I have mentioned the importance of documenting everything you do as you build your way to MLM success but there is something else you need to be documenting.  In the previous article I mentioned Joe Vitale’s discovery about being happy for what you have right now.  You need to write down those things you are grateful for today.  Just as your path to success is written in a success journal, those things you are grateful for belong in a gratefulness journal.  Remember the law of attraction “what you focus on, expands” so what better to have expanding than things you are grateful for right now.  By doing that more good will come as the universe aligns things for you. Keep in mind that what you write doesn’t have to be huge it could be something simple:

• I am grateful for the lack of traffic today when I went downtown.
• I am grateful for that fantastic parking spot I found this afternoon.
• I am grateful for another sunny day.
• etc.

The point being that whatever you are grateful for, if you concentrate on it, it will expand and more will come your way.

These tools have another benefit… when your MLM business may not be going as well as you want it to, they will help motivate you by showing you what you are working towards and what you have already that you are grateful for.

Build your dreams for the future and show your gratitude for today.