Stick with your MLM (For those with no upline support)
Let’s look at this another way.
Many of you have commented on my post about “sticking with your MLM” and said, “What if I have no upline support?”
That’s a tough one.
On one hand if you have a successful upline you have a leg up. Your upline knows what to do. Your upline may have systems in place. Your upline may have training in place that you can plug your new people into.
Having an active and successful upline can make your job easier.
HOWEVER the buck stops with you. You don’t usually hear about the top money earner’s upline. Very rarely do you find a top money earner whose upline helped them much. The buck stops with them. They are the ones who are successful. They are not successful because they joined a strong upline. Know what I mean?
I personally feel that it helps to have a successful upline if you’re new. However if you’ve been in the business for awhile it’s more about YOU than it is your about your upline.
- Ben Fitts
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Ben, I absolutely agree with you. This is where many new marketers fail. Of course everyone is promised help when the go to join a new organization, but it doesn’t always turn out that way.
The successful people find their own training information and do their own industry studies. I am always listening to the 7 figure earners even if they are in other opportunities, furthermore I am always looking for new avenues and tools to generate leads. I know the most difficult thing is finding people to talk to.
One tool I have successfully been using over the last month to grow my main opportunity is voice broadcasting. People can learn more at http://fullvoicemail.com
Ben, Nice little post, short and to the point. To many people coming into this business rely to heavily on their upline. They either want them to do the work and recruit the prospects for them, or explain A to Z how to operate the business. When you join a company it is your business and it is your responsibility to do the homework and learn the ins and outs to make it successful. Good support from upline and/or the company is always a plus and something you should find out in doing your due diligence, but you can’t rely on upline to make your business a success.
Ben/All,
Good points around, however I think one of the biggest problems in this industry is that too many “leaders” are setting the wrong expectations.
For example, a leader that I worked with (still work with, because he’s a great guy) had a disagreement about what type of training, materials and information to provide new distributors.
My take was that we needed to set the proper expectations up front about them starting their own business. So one of the suggestions I had was providing them with a “simple” budget. The idea was to get them in a mind-frame that they need to budget their business. A road-map to start them off and give them some guidelines to work in. From there, how “they” choose to expand or modify the budget is on them, but the expectation is set.
Now you can argue whether this is too much hand holding, that’s based on opinion. But what didn’t sit well with me was that the this leader was more concerned that they would “scare” them away if they started talking budgets. My only response back was, well then my litmus worked. If someone is going to be scared away because they have to budget their dollars/cents (especially when starting), then what else are they going to be scared by?
My opinion – set the expectation up front. It’s your litmus. Does owning a business just sound “cool” or do they really want to be their own boss?
The biggest problem, as I see it, with uplines is that they are often expected to hand down exact way that everything must be done. This produces clones, stifles initiative and raises the expectation of what is going to be done for everyone in the downlines.
MLM is about having our own business. Yes everyone needs training about the products and the way to run a distributorship but we are all individuals and therefore can expect our businesses to differ one from another.
We have escaped from the 9 – 5 rat race. Now we want to run our own lives not have them dictated by companies, uplines or any others.
If people cannot work without continuous support of an upline then they should go look for a job.
Oh boy. That sounds rather harsh. I am supportive of my downline. I help them to aim for their own goals, in a way that suits them. It’s just that I get so fed up with the whingers who are looking get rich in a month with no effort.
Jean Taylor
I am still new at MLM so yes, I lean on my upline heavily. Everyday is a learning experience & even the top money earners were green at one time.
Great post. I agree with you 100%
I’ve been in 3 MLM’s (not sure if thats a lot or not). I’ve never gotten much help from my upline. Spillover was very little, and it basically came down to me and only me.
However I dug in and was able to get 15 people to join in my one MLM but nobody did anything even after I give them my exact methods of marketing.
You just can’t seem to help people who just flat out don’t want to do any work.