MLM Goals: How to Set Goals in Your MLM Business |

Today, I’d like to teach you how to set goals in your MLM Business.

Goal setting changed my life for the better. I learned goal setting during my time in Amway. What they taught me about setting goals has shaped many aspects of my life. My goal today is to share with you what I learned, so you can apply it in your own MLM Business (and personal life).

What is a Goal?

There are dreams and goals. Just about everyone has dreams, but very few people have specific goals.

Here’s an example. When you ask a team member what their goals are, you’ll probably here something like this.

To be financially free
To fire my boss
To earn a full-time income

These folks do not understand goal setting, or they would have a different response. On the other hand, when you ask an “educated” distributor who understands goal setting what their goals are, they might respond with something like this:

I will earn $100,000 in the next 12-months with my business, so I can bring my wife home from her job.
I will personally sponsor 100 people in the next 12 months.
I will prospect 10 people per day, every day, for the next 90-days.

A dream is something you want; something in your mind. It’s something you hope for, but it’s not something that is written down with a developed a plan to attain.

A goal is something specific. It’s written down on paper and it’s given a deadline of WHEN you want to accomplish it. It also includes a PLAN of WHAT you will do to achieve it.

Goals are specific, articulated, and focused. Dreams are in your head. Big difference.

What is Goal Setting?

Goal setting is when you sit down with a pen and paper and write down what you want to achieve in life. You are as specific as possible. Once you write down your goals, you determine when you want to achieve each goal by. Here is a simple example to put things in perspective.

Dream: I want to lose weight and look good naked.

Goal: I will lose 20 pounds in the next 90-days by consuming no more than 1,500 calories daily and exercising three times per week.

Can you notice the difference between these two statements? One is very generic and the other is very specific. In my own opinion, the person with the goal has a much higher likelihood of succeeding than the person with the dream.

Why Should You Do It?

Setting goals is very powerful. Seeing your goals on paper and having a deadline next to each goal gives you clarity and purpose. You can visualize your dreams coming true. I also believe it helps get your subconscious mind working in your favor.

I put my goals on a sheet of paper and carry it with me everywhere I go. I look at it often. This reminds me of my goals and helps keep me focused. If my goals change, and they sometimes do, I update my goal sheet as needed.

The Backwards Planning Concept

I’m a former Army Major. I spent a lot of time in the Army PLANNING missions. My job was to strategize. I would take my commander’s goal and then determine different courses of action and strategies to achieve it. One of the things I was taught to do is backwards planning.

I have used the backwards planning concept in many different areas of my life and it works like magic. It’s become one of my biggest strengths and is also one of the reasons I have succeeded as an entrepreneur.

Backwards planning means you determine what you ultimately want to achieve and then you dissect that goal and break it down into incremental smaller goals and steps. These are steps you must do in sequential or chronological order if you want to reach your final goal.

For example, if your goal is to make $5k per month with your network marketing business by this December, this is what you should do.

First off, figure out how many people you will need to sponsor, how big your team will need to be, how much volume your team will need to have, and what rank you will need to be in the company (in the month of December) to earn $5k per month. For most people, doing this is an eye opening experience.

Once you’ve done that, divide these numbers by the number of months left between now and when you want to achieve your goal, and figure out what numbers you will need to achieve each month between now and then to get there.

After you do that, come up with an ACTION PLAN outlining what you need to do to hit those monthly goals. If you don’t know those numbers, sit down with your successful upline and have them help you map it out.

Once you know your monthly action plan, the next step is to create your daily mode of operations. This is nothing more than a short list of what you will do each day to move your business forward. It should have somewhere between three to five steps.

To me, this is a simple way to achieve success in network marketing. Big goals are attainable when you break them down into bite-sized chunks and you create a realistic plan to succeed.

At the end of the day, your goal is not a goal until you set a date of when you will achieve it and you create a simple plan of action. Remember failing to plan is planning to fail. All successful businesses have goals and strategies.

Example MLM Business Goals

Here are some example MLM Business Goals:

I will sponsor 2 people this month.
I will hit the rank of Ruby this month.
I will add 200 people to my team this month.
I will sell $500 in products this month.
I will earn $1,000 in commissions this month.
I will prospect 200 people this month.

Personally, I only like one of these goals. Which one do you think is the best, most realistic goal?

The Best MLM Goals

The best MLM Goals are goals you can control. You see, you can’t control what others do. I wish you could, but you can’t. Out of the example MLM Business Goals I listed above, the only realistic goal on that list is the last one.

I will prospect 200 people this month.

The other goals are dictated by what other people say and do, which you have zero control over.

If you are determined to set goals, the ONLY types of goals you should choose is something you can control. Otherwise, you will end up frustrated and disappointed.

A Common Mistake

When it comes to MLM Goal Setting, network marketers make a lot of mistakes. The biggest mistake is setting one-year, two-year, five year, and ten-year goals. The best types of goals are daily, weekly, and monthly goals.

If you do have a big goal in mind, something for the long range, the best thing you can do is break it down and determine what you must do each day, week, and month to hit that goal. And then focus on THOSE goals. By doing that, assuming you stay persistent and consistent, you will reach your long-term goals.

How to Set Goals in Your MLM Business

I believe it’s vital to set written goals for your MLM Business, if you want to succeed in a big way. You should have long-term, monthly, and daily MLM Goals. Think of your long-term goals as your final destination, whereas your daily and monthly MLM Goals are what you will do consistently to reach your long-term goals. Also, if you start with your long-term goals first, you can then plan backwards and determine what you need to do each step of the way.

Setting Your Long-Term MLM Goals

It’s vital to take the time and figure out WHY you are doing the business. Identify your why. This is what moves you and inspires you.

You want a why that will make you cry. Without a big why you will never overcome the struggles and setbacks you will experience while building your network marketing business.

When you set your long-term goals, be specific. Figure out what type of income you want to make, and then calculate what rank you need to achieve, how much volume you need, and what sized team you need to achieve to reach your goal.

For example, let’s suppose your goal is to get to $10,000 per month in your business. You decide you will double down and focus for the next 36-months to get to that level. Using this as an example, here are some example long-term MLM Goals.

My big goal is to be debt free and quit my job within 36-months from today so I can do the business full-time and be in control of my time and life.

To do that, I must:

Earn $10,000 per month by (36-months from today’s date)
Personally enroll 144 people
Reach the rank of Diamond
Have a team of at least 7,500 people
Generate 125,000 in monthly team volume
Pay off $15,000 in credit card debt

In this example, you have clearly identified what you need to do to reach the $10,000 monthly income goal. If you are brand new to the business, talk with your coach or sponsor to figure out what sized team you would need, what rank you would need, and how much volume you would need to achieve your MLM Goals.

Setting Your Monthly MLM Goals

Once you know your “long-term” goals you can set your monthly goals for your network marketing business. What I like to do is take my big goals and then divide it my the amount of time I have to reach the goal. That lets me know how much I need to do each month to reach my big goal in the respective amount of time.

Using the big goals I set above, and knowing I have 36-months to make it happen, I know that each month, I need to:

Talk to 150 people
Give 20 presentations
Personally enroll 4 people
Add 200 people to the team
Rank advance to the next rank
Pay off $500 in credit card debt

By having crystal clear monthly goals, you can develop a daily action plan that will get you to where you want to be.

Setting Your Daily MLM Goals

The last step is to set your daily MLM Goals. Once you know your monthly goals, this is pretty easy to do. You just take each of your monthly goals and divide them by the number of days in the calendar month.

Using the example monthly goals above, this would be an example daily goal.

Prospect 6 people daily (Mon-Fri)
Give 1 presentation daily (Mon-Fri)
Add 6-7 people to the team (daily)
Put aside $15 to $20 to pay off credit card debt (daily)

Obviously, you can’t control if you rank advance or how many people join your team. This is one reason I like to set goals on things YOU can control. You can control how many people you prospect and how many presentations you give. However, you can’t control who gets it, who gets to work, or who stays!

When you set goals around things out of your control it often leads to frustration and disappointment. As you complete this exercise yourself, I HIGHLY encourage you set goals based on YOUR efforts. That is the best way to do it. If that’s the case, I would eliminate number three and just set the following goals.

Prospect 6 people daily (Mon-Fri)
Give 1 presentation daily (Mon-Fri)
Put aside $15 to $20 to pay off credit card debt (daily)

Are Your MLM Goals Realistic?

Whatever MLM Goals you choose for your business, there are two important considerations.

Your MLM Goals must be realistic based upon two things: (1) your skill-set, and (2) your commitment level. It makes no sense to set a huge goal if you don’t have the basic skills or the commitment to see it through.

I see this quite frequently. New reps set a goal to be a top earner, or get rich in MLM, but they want to do that by working 1-2 hours per week and hit that milestone in less than six months. Does that sound realistic to you? Nope. Me neither.

People join our industry with goals to earn $100,000 per year with their new MLM Business before they’ve even earned their first $500 yet. How can you earn six figures in network marketing if you haven’t earned 0 yet? Does that sound realistic to you? Didn’t think so!

Make sure your goals are realistic, a little bit out of your comfort zone, and then increase it by 20%. That way, you are forced to stretch and grow, and even if you come up a little bit short, you’ll still achieve what you originally intended to.

If your goals, skills, and time commitment do not align, you must lower one or raise another. For example, if your income goal is big, but your skills and time commitment are small, you can either lower your income goal, stretch out the time-frame to hit that income goal, or greatly increase your skills and and time commitment. Otherwise, you will fall short.

What Others Are Saying?

Here’s what a few other people had to say about goals and goal setting:

Many people feel as if they are drifting around in the world. They work hard, they are always busy but they don’t seem to get anywhere. One of the main reasons why they feel this way is that they haven’t spent time thinking about what they really want out of their life. Unfortunately the same is true for a network marketing business.
When you don’t know where you are going, it is really hard to get anywhere. Unconsciously many people set themselves up for failure because they have either no goals or very unclear and vague goals. “I want to lose weight” sounds like a great plan but if there is no number and timeframe in place, the people who set this kind of goal will never reach it. Do you want to lose 2 kg or 8 kg? How long will it take to achieve it? Will it take 4 weeks or 4 months?
Goals are what take us forward in life. They are the first steps on every journey. It’s very important that you realize the importance of goal setting and apply this knowledge in life and in business.
~ Peter Deth

Peter makes some great points here. If your goal is not specific and does not have a deadline, it is a dream, not a goal. Take the time and decide what you want to achieve with your business. Set milestones, dates, earnings goals, ranks you want to hit and when, team size, etc. This will give you some specific to aim for.

The first step is obvious choose a goal that will help you grow your network marketing business. Make the first goal an easy one to achieve, as this will build confidence and help attain your more difficult goals. Choose a goal that you can control. An example of this would be…I want to sponsor 3 consultants this month. We can’t control when and if people will join us. However, we can control the goal of talking to 20 prospects this month. This is where we make it a challenge to “GO for NO” and see how many people we can talk to each month. Ultimately, each no brings us that much closer to the YES we are looking for.
Second, we suggest picking a penalty that is emotional. Reward motivation is nice, but we feel having to pay a penalty for not achieving our goal is a little more motivational. Sometimes the risk of loosing is greater than the desire to gain.
Last and certainly not least, share your goals with someone that will help hold you accountable. We could easily keep our goals to ourselves, just incase we decided they were too hard. Then, no one would know that we quit and gave up on our goals.
~ Julie LaForte

I love this advice from Julie. Only set goals you can control. Ultimately, you can’t control how many people join, what rank you hit, or how much money you earn in the business. But you can control the number of prospects you approach each day about your products and business. Set goals designed around that and you can’t go wrong.

Write your goal down and keep it in areas where you will see it often: bathroom mirror, computer lock screen, on your phone, in your wallet or purse, in your car, etc.
You’ll be surprised at how powerful this is. Goals become so much more real if you write them down and look at them often.
It’s also important to track your progress along the way. There WILL be ups and downs, but tracking your actions and results is critical to having fast success in network marketing.
~ David Lee

Visualizing your goals is essential. This is where a good vision board will come in handy. Create several vision boards. Post these vision boards in different rooms in your home or where you work. Refer to it often.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, these are my best tips on how to set your MLM Business Goals. Goal setting changed my life for the better.

It’s a proven fact that people who set WRITTEN goals are more successful than people who don’t set written goals. I encourage you to make some time, go somewhere quiet, and write down everything you want to accomplish in your life and network marketing business. After you do that, follow the advice outlined in this article and prioritize your goals, give them a deadline, and then come up with an action plan you can follow to propel yourself forward.

What are your thoughts on how to set goals in your MLM Business? Is this something you currently do or is this a foreign concept to you? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.

MLM Goals: How to Set Goals in Your MLM Business