How do you leverage your time?

In the previous blog, we talked about residual income. An even more powerful component of network marketing is leveraging your time.

We talked about enrolling your first person into your business, then your second, fourth, tenth, and so on. You can enroll people until you're blue in the face, and your business will creep along. But if you start to leverage your time, your business will explode!

Take the time to train the people that you enroll to do what you've done. Take them under your wing and show them, step by step, how to talk to people, how to have fun at it, how to work in their back offices, how to meet people for lunch or tea and casually, naturally, bring up the subject of your new business, whatever it is that has made it so easy for you to enroll people. Guide them along until they pick up the idea and start going with it.

I went backpacking once with a good friend who was an expert fly fisherman. We sought out a river where the park service allowed only catch and release, which meant that every time someone caught a fish, they would release it back into the river, alive and healthy, if a little shell shocked.

This also meant that there were scads of fish there, and since my friend was so good at fishing, he was catching another fish every minute or so.

Now, when a fish first comes off the hook, it's dazed and shocked. When you lower it back into the river, it lays there, motionless, listing onto its side. So while my friend had the fishing experience of his life, I opened a fish recovery pool.

I gently cupped a fish in my palm and slowly swished it backward and forward through the water, allowing the water to flow through its gills so the fish could still breathe. I would have 6 or 8 fish gathered around my feet, in their 8 inches of river water, gently swishing two fish at a time, then going to the next two, rotating through the group until they recovered their wits and could carefully swim away.

My friend would add a new fish, two would wake up and swim away, new fish, recovered fish, a cycle of success.

Now, we could have just let the fish fend for themselves. Back in the water, there you go! But by caring for them and helping them function until they could take over for themselves ensured their success. Our fish were successful fish!

Your new team members are like the stunned fish. You can leave them to flounder for themselves, but some of them might not succeed. By nurturing them and helping them function until they can take over for themselves, you ensure their success.

Now, what does all of that have to do with leveraging your time? Every person on your team who succeeds turns into another you. Instead of you enrolling every single person, you have a good friend out there enrolling people, too. You get credit for everything your team accomplishes, so their success is your success. Pretty soon you have two, four, ten yous, out there being successful and having FUN, swimming along naturally, happily.

Train your team members well, and they'll be able to take their own teams under their wings, and teach the third generation how to succeed at enrolling people and teaching THEM how to succeed. Now you have hundreds of yous, swimming along, naturally, happily.

That's leveraging your time. That's true success.

There are other ways to leverage your time in network marketing. Which ones come to mind? Which ones would you like to know more about?

I can't wait to hear from you!

I hope you're having an amazing day.

What is residual income, anyway?

Residual income is something you work for once, and then get paid again and again and again. When an author writes a book, or an actor makes a movie, she does the work once, and then gets paid royalties every time the book is purchased or someone goes to see the movie.

Now, each author or actor can stop there, with just one book, just one movie, or she can go ahead and write a second book, act in a second movie, and then she receives royalties for the second piece of work on top of the royalties that she's still receiving for the first piece of work.

I would love to be an author, or an actor. I would love to spend my days weaving words into luscious images that would enrich others lives. I would love to portray a conflict and resolution that would bring light to millions of hearts. But only a handful of people possess the reservoir of creativity that bring them success in writing or acting.

But anyone can go into network marketing. You can be young, old, in a mid-life crisis. You can be black, Asian, Anglo-Saxon, Indian, anything. You can have multiple PhDs, a grammar school education, or anywhere in between. You don't need a slick resume, you don't need a rich aunt or even a sugar daddy.

The only things you need are a yearning to help other people succeed, a product that you LOVE, and a willingness to learn the ropes.

And network marketing is all about residual income. You sign up your first person, and you earn a commission that month, the next month, the next month, the next month, again and again, for signing up that one person.

Now, you can stop there, or you can sign up a second person and earn a commission every month for that person, in addition to the commission that you're already earning on the first person. Then there's the third, fourth, tenth person. Soon you're able to pay your bills, go on long vacations, watch your son's soccer game, watch your daughter pick out her prom dress. And while you're doing all of those things, the commissions appear in your checking account, again and again and again.

What kind of a monthly income would make a difference in your life? If you had more money, what would it help you accomplish?

If you start now, you'll get there all that much sooner. What in the world are you waiting for?

Transformation or change?

The concept of transformation is different from change. Change is uncertain. Transformation is evolution.

When something transforms you, you have become something new. The experience was profound, unforgettable, rare. You couldn't go back to being the way you were before the experience, even if you wanted to.

Take something commonplace, like baking chocolate chip cookies. You get out the butter and the flour, sugar, vanilla extract, baking soda, walnuts, a little bit of salt and a LOT of chocolate chips; tons of them. You mix together the butter and the sugar, add all the other stuff, and beat it into a creamy dough, add the nuts and chips, and voila! You're ready to bake.

You spoon the cookie dough onto a baking sheet and pop them in a hot oven for only 15 minutes, until they've transformed from cold sticky dough into hot, crumbly morsels of heaven. They have transformed. And I defy you to change them back into flour, sugar, and butter.

Change is reversible. You can change to oil or tires on your car, but you could then conceivably change them back to the old oil, the bald tires. You can change your clothes, take off the old tee shirt and jeans, put on an evening gown and heels, and change from a stay-at-home mom into a hot date for your enchanted man. But, at the end of the evening, you can also change back into the stay-at-home mom by kicking off those ankle-breaking heels and stop holding in your stomach once you've pulled on your sweats and relaxed. It's all reversible.

Strive for transformation if you want your life to grow toward your dreams. Seek out experiences, such as classes, books, meetups, that touch your heart and help you discover who you are meant to be.

Transform yourself. Discover the profound, unforgettable, rare, inner you. Transform.

FaceBook empowers YOU!

There are things that you can do to get a head start on your new network marketing business, even BEFORE you actually sign up and pay your entry fee and monthly overhead.

One thing that you can do is increase your internet visibility through facebook. Here's my suggestion:

Start a new facebook account. All you need is an email address that's different from the one you're using for facebook now. Start out fresh, and find some facebook groups that share your interests. Maybe stay at home moms, work at home moms, knitters, gardeners, whatever kind of things that describe you.

Then start inviting the people who also belong to those groups to be your friend. You can only invite 30 or 40 people a day, without getting a warning from facebook, so it takes a while to have a BIG group of friends.

Some people will send you a message asking if they know you, and you can just answer back saying that you're trying to connect with people that are interested in the same things you are. Something like that. Some will decline, but most will accept.

The reason you want this to be a separate facebook account from your friends and family account is that this one is going to get HUGE. You don't want your friends' posts to get lost in all of the other ones that you'll start to receive from this new group.

If you start this now, it will cost you nothing, and you'll be WAY ahead of the game once you take the plunge and sign up.

We'll go over your NEXT step in a later post.

Ready? Set? GO!!!

Find a business partner

The one thing that can ensure success in your new venture is a business partner. Your business partner might be your spouse, or your best friend, an old school body, or the person sitting one cubicle away. What makes the person a business partner is the shared enthusiasm for your shared business.

The first thing you should do when you decide on your new venture, is to start inviting your friends out to lunch or for a cup of tea. Catch up on what they've been doing, and listen carefully to what they need in their lives. During that conversation, you're going to be able to talk about what you've been up to lately.

That's when you get to reveal your enthusiasm. Burble about what makes it so special for you. Then pay attention to their response. If they yawn and look at their watch, they're not your business partner. If they sit very still and hang on your every word, that's your business partner.

It might take a while to find your business partner, but it can be a very fun process. I mean, having lunch with friends is not a terrible way to conduct a business. If you're careful not to put all of your hopes in one basket, and sway over that line of making the person feel trapped by your need for their interest, you'll have fun and so will they.

Once you've found your business partner, you'll have someone to brainstorm with, someone to go to conventions with, someone to share in business responsibilities, someone to bolster you when you have low energy, someone to call and talk for hours about your ideas and theirs.

Your business becomes a lot friendlier, once you've found that magical person who will stand by your side and never leave. NOW you can accomplish ANY thing.

The company you keep

One of the most important decisions you can make about your life is who you spend time with. Surround yourself with positive people. Their enthusiasm and supportive feedback will bolster you and help you become the best person that you possibly can.

A friend is someone who came and never left your side.

Positive people will help you stay in a positive frame of mind. You can accomplish whatever you believe that you can accomplish, so having people right there with you who will help you stay positive, will have enormous influence over the degree of your success.

When you aim high, your positive friends and colleagues add speed and power to your arrow, ensuring your success in reaching your goal.

If you can't find a positive friend in the moment, then pick up a positive book. The thoughts and insights embedded in an uplifting book can bolster you in exactly the same way as a good friend. You will be surrounding yourself in positive thoughts; all it takes is opening a book. "Chicken Soup for the Network Marketers Soul" is a fabulous collection of short stories, recounted by people just like you and me. Each story helps your soul soar.

If you can maintain a positive attitude, everything else will follow. Everything.

Never give up

Whenever we're in business for ourselves, we face challenges. The buck stops with us. We either get it done, or delegate to someone who will do it, if we're lucky enough to have such a someone. Our limitations loom in our face, and we either climb over them, or they sit there and hover, like relatives clucking over our inadequacies, again and again and again.

It's a double-edged sword. We can create whatever we envision. We can develop the lifestyle of our dreams, supported by the business of our dreams. But we're the ones who have to create it, and that takes time, imagination, enthusiasm, and above all, perseverance.

There are only winners and. . . . . learners. Just because you haven't yet won, doesn't mean you've lost. It only means that you haven't figured it out yet. You're still learning. Others can give you tips and observations, but just like learning to walk, ride a bike, canoeing down rapids, or spiking a volleyball, you have to actually practice doing it yourself, until you get that aha moment. Then you build on the aha until it becomes richer and stronger and deeper.

The only time you lose, is if you give up. So never give up. Never give up. Never give up. Pick yourself up and keep learning, keep trying. Never give up. Never give up.