Momentum is a beautiful word, especially when it pertains to network marketing. Ask any network marketing superstar about momentum and they will smile back at you!
Creating momentum in your team should be your ultimate goal. It won’t happen overnight and it won’t be easy, but once it gets going it will be hard to stop!
When you are just getting started in your network marketing business, you’re pretty much just getting paid off your own efforts. For your first few months you are sponsoring people, but no one is doing anything. Some people quit and most do nothing.
You keep sponsoring a couple new people a month. You keep pressing forward. By the time you hit month six or seven, maybe you’ve sponsored 15 to 20 people personally and nothing is happening. Your team isn’t growing much and your wages are less than minimum wage. If you’re like most people, this is when you give up and quit.
What you might not realize is that if you keep pressing forward your team will eventually gain some momentum.
Think of it as driving a car in the roaming hills when you run out of gas. There is a gas station one mile away, but it is on the other side of the hill.
You start out by pushing your car up a hill. This is where you exert most of your effort. It’s hard work and tiring. Once you get to the top of the hill, you hit a flat spot and it’s much easier to push your car. It’s still hard work, but not as bad. And once your car hits the crest on the top of the hill, it reaches the down slope. It will start to roll on its own, continuing to pick up speed as it goes down hill toward the gas station.
This is how momentum works in network marketing. The first few months (or years) are hard. You fell like you’re pushing a 2,000 pound car uphill all by yourself. You’re working hard and not seeing huge results. Eventually, if you keep doing it, you will find a few serious distributors who help you push the car. And then you will find a few more, and a few more, and a few more.
Before you know it, you will have a small group of people each doing a little bit each month. Within a few more months, your group will continue to grow and you will have even more people helping out. Within a year or two, you could have hundreds (even thousands) of people all doing a little bit, which results in a lot.
Momentum in network marketing is a beautiful thing. Remember, the key to success in network marketing is to have a lot of people doing a little bit. Most top earners have thousands of people using the products, referring a couple customers and sponsoring one or two new distributors each month. As the group grows, so does their volume and bonus check.
Most of your group will do very little. Maybe 10% of your group will do the duplication thing. Everyone else will be a product user or refer others once in a while. So if you have a group of 100 people, you might have 10 distributors who are trying to duplicate your efforts.
It doesn’t sound like much at first, but let me show you the power of compounding.
- A team of 100 people might add 10 new distributors in one month
- A team of 500 people might add 50 new distributors each month
- A team of 1000 people might add 100 new distributors each month
- A team of 10,000 distributors might add 1,000 new distributors each month
- A team of 50,000 distributors might add 5,000 new distributors each month
These examples assume that just one in ten people duplicates. If you can get more people to do that, your momentum will grow even faster.
The bottom line is that momentum takes time. Most distributors never give themselves a fair chance to let duplication work for them. They give up way too soon.
If you just keep adding one to four new people a month to your team personally, you will eventually start to see some momentum. I can’t tell you how long it will take or when it will happen, but it will happen! You just have to hang in there and be consistent and persistent.
What are your thoughts about momentum in network marketing? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.
Chuck Holmes
20+ Year Network Marketing Professional
Top Earner & Top Recruiter
Email: mrchuckholmes@gmail.com
P.S. Learn how to grow a successful network marketing business. Secret tips, training, and practical ideas. Free training delivered by email.
Throughout this post and the comments, we have been talking momentum per each member of the team. I also want to mention that the team all together can be a driving force for momentum. This responsibility comes back to the team leader (sponsor). Creating momentum driving ideas can be a huge factor. This could be simple talks or contests. It could be team get togethers like a meal or game night. There are many ways to drive momentum, and the team leader can help that along.
It all comes down to time and giving the business a chance. Momentum to me means putting all the system you learned from your sponsor into action and knowing that it will be hard at first, but as long as you keep performing, the downhill momentum will come. It is like the old children’s story about the little train–“I think I can, I think I can-I know I can, I know I can.”
Momentum is a great thing, and it is what makes your MLM a successful business. Great post Chuck!
Momentum is beautiful, but it takes time to build up!
Momentum really is a great thing Greg. It is the driving force behind the business and I don’t think it is something that comes all at once. It is about the gradual implementation of the tactics and tools you learned from your sponsor as you said. Momentum is also increased as you bring qualified and talented people into the business and as you begin to see growth and development. These things all help to push you forward and move you to the next level.
You are absolutely right that you have to stick with it in order to see any results from duplication. It does work, but it is a gradual process that requires patience and persistence. And once you do start to see results from it the waiting process will seem like a very small price to pay. That is why it is important to really try to bring people into the business that are motivated so that they can go on to sponsor others and help the business grow. Otherwise, you’ll remain dormant and the process is unlikely to happen.
Most people want instant gratification. That’s why they don’t stick with any one thing very long!