Welcome to day 4 of my MLM Boot Camp. During the past few training sessions we’ve discussed the good, the bad, and the ugly of MLM, the common reasons people fail in network marketing, and the secrets to success in this industry. We are now ready to move forward to the next lesson: developing a game-plan for your network marketing business.
Failing to plan is planning to fail.
Remember that important lesson. I learned that valuable lesson during my time as an Army officer. Over the past 19+ years in this industry, I’ve discovered that most network marketers do not have any type of game-plan for their business, let alone a written plan. They don’t have a business plan, marketing plan, or daily mode of operations.
As a result, they just wing it and hope for the best. When they do decide to work their business, they don’t know what to do. That’s why so many people fail in our industry.
Could you imagine someone starting a traditional business without having a business plan or marketing plan? I hope not. Chances are that business wouldn’t survive long. Well, MLM is no different. If you want to succeed, you need a written game-plan.
Developing Your MLM Game Plan
Fortunately for you, creating your MLM Game Plan isn’t all that difficult to do. There are only a few things you really need to think about BEFORE you start building your business. I’ll cover each category in detail below.
Your Why
You’ve probably heard it before, but you need a why that makes you cry. Without a big enough why, the how doesn’t matter.
Most people want to know HOW to build a big network marketing business. That’s easy to teach. However, if you don’t know why you are doing the business in the first place, you will not have the motivation or self-discipline to do the HOW. Make sense?
Spend some time and write down your 20 reasons why you are doing the business. Create a vision board and share it with your spouse or partner.
Be specific about how much money you want to make each month and each year, and more importantly, what you would do with that money.
Here are a few example WHY statements, just to give you an idea:
My why is to get my wife home from her corporate career so she can spend more time with our kids, rather than have them in daycare. I need to earn at least $4,000 per month with my business in the next 12-months to make that happen.
And…
My why is to earn $500,000 per year with my MLM Business, within 4-years from now, so I can have enough money to start my own animal rescue, run it, and still have money left over to live comfortably.
And…
My why is to replace my full-time job income within the next 24-months so I can travel the world for five years and visit every single country. I’ll need to earn at least $8,000 per month with my business to do that.
Once again, these are just a few example WHY statements. Do not skip this step. Put some serious thought into your WHY and make sure you share it with your sponsor and spouse.
Your Goals
The next part of your game-plan is your goals. Goals are vital. They must be specific and written down. Think of your goals as your roadmap to success.
I recommend you set the following goals:
- Five Year Goals
- One Year Goals
- 6-Month Goals
- 90-Day Goals
- This Month’s Goals
Your goals are your blueprint to success. It’s important to start with your long-term goals first and then plan backwards. Ideally, you should have goals for every aspect of your life, but for the purpose of this lesson, we will focus on your network marketing business. Here are some example goals, just to give you an idea.
Five Year Goals
- Earn $240,000 per year with my business
- Reach the rank of Diamond Director
- Have a team of 50,000 reps and customers
- Personally sponsor 300 people
One Year Goals
- Earn $30,000 per year with my business
- Reach the rank of Pearl Director
- Have a team of 2,000 reps and customers
- Personally sponsor 60 people
6-Month Goals
- Earn $12,000 with my business
- Reach the rank of Platinum
- Have a team of 750 reps and customers
- Personally sponsor 30 people
90-Day Goals
- Earn $5,000 with my business
- Reach the rank of Gold
- Have a team of 300 reps and customers
- Personally sponsor 15 people
This Month’s Goals
- Earn $1,000 with my business
- Reach the rank of Bronze
- Have a team with 60 reps and customers
- Personally sponsor 5 people
Once again, these are just examples to get you thinking. Notice how I took the big goals and simply broke them down into bite-sized chunks.
Your Daily Mode of Operations
The next step of your game-plan is your daily mode of operations. This is where the rubber meets the road. It is crucial that you know EXACTLY what you need to do each day to move your business forward, so you can work smart and be productive.
Here’s an example daily mode of operations, just to get you thinking.
- Work my business 90-minutes per day
- Text 10 leads per day
- Contact 5 prospects per day on Facebook
- Prospect 2 people face to face while out and about living life
- Mail 5 postcards daily
- Hand out 10 drop cards daily
- Follow up with prospects from the previous day
- Post one short YouTube video or do a Facebook live daily
- Talk with two team members
- Ask one person to order a product daily
- 10 minutes of personal development daily
Keep in mind your goals and your marketing plan will dictate your daily mode of operations.
Your Marketing Plan
The last part of your MLM Game-Plan is your marketing plan. This includes the following things:
- Your target market
- Your marketing strategy
- Your marketing budget
I’ll cover each one in more detail just to give you some ideas.
Your Target Market
Every business has a target market. Network marketing is no different. If everyone is a prospect, no one is a prospect. It is important that you identify your “ideal prospect” for your products or services and your “ideal prospect” for your business opportunity.
Yes, you should talk to everyone, but if you want to work smart you will focus your retailing and recruiting efforts on certain demographics of people.
Take some time and identify your ideal customer and your ideal distributor. What do they have in common? Where can you find people in these demographics?
Identifying your target market can save you a TON of time and allow you to get much better results in your business.
To give you an example, my target market for my business is other network marketers, military veterans, and entrepreneurs. And my target market for my products are people who already buy natural and organic products and people who eat clean.
Your Marketing Strategy
Simply put, how will you find leads for your business? How will you reach out to people in your target market? Are you going to:
- Mail postcards
- Run magazine ads
- Prospect strangers
- Buy leads
- Post on social media
- Cold call
- Set up at events
- Create YouTube videos
- Leverage your warm market
- Or something else
I recommend you use a combination of 2-3 lead generation strategies at a time. Start with your warm market first, but after you contact them you will need to identify other ways of finding people within your target market.
I personally use blogging, podcasting, video marketing, and paid advertising, but I have many friends who mail postcards, leverage Facebook, call leads, and a variety of other strategies. Pick what works best for you and focus on that.
Your Marketing Budget
If you are venturing into paid advertising to meet new prospects, you will need to establish some type of marketing budget. Since most network marketers don’t have much money, this might not work for many of you reading this article.
But, if you do have money for paid advertising, it’s vital that you pick a monthly advertising budget you can stick with for at least 18 to 24-months. I recommend you set aside at least $500 to $1,000 per month for paid advertising. If that sounds too expensive to you, you should focus on free lead generation strategies first.
Putting it All Together
I encourage you to go through each step on this page and develop your own game-plan for your network marketing business. This will help you launch or re-launch your business and get much better results.
Type up everything into a MS Word document and refer to it daily. When needed, update it or modify it. And most importantly, have the self-discipline to follow your game-plan UNTIL you reach your business goals.
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, these are my best tips on how to develop a game-plan for your network marketing business. What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with what I shared above? Leave a comment below to let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you.
Resources
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.
Chuck, this content is out of this world, it is almost unbelievable that you took the time to write all this down so perfectly and detailed. I am really enjoying and learning with this material. Thank you so much.
Glad to be of help, Omar. What was your biggest takeaway from today’s training?
This outline is so helpful and such a good reminder that we do need to WRITE down our goal and plans on how to achieve them and refer to them often. Be sure to mark the date you created your goal and plan. For years, I kept my goals on a 3 x 5 card in my daytimer. Now, I have them in the Notepad section of my iPhone where I can glance at them at a moments notice or if I don’t have my portfolio with me. ….I still have the 3 x 5 card.
I also liked how you suggested knowing your competition. We should all know our products and services backwards and forwards and then we should learn about our competition whether it be a competitive product or another MLM that is making headroads in your territory. I never make it a practice to criticize competitors products or companies, but I compose sentences to make the prospective customer or team member think. For an example, if you are selling say, paraben free skin care, you might ask, “Is using a product that is paraben free, important to you?” If they don’t know what parabens are, you could have an article showing them that parabens are known for being one of the causes of cancer. Unless your prospect asks, you don’t even have to mention that you know the competitors product does contain parabens ~ of course only if you know for a fact that they do. Or if you are selling a service ask a question about whether cost or more benefits are important if you know that your service offerings exceed that of your competition’s plan. This method keeps you on the high road and lifts your reputation of being a person of integrity. We may want to know “the scoop” on the competition, but how that information is relayed can leave quite an impression on us. Be careful to leave a first class impression with your prospect.
I think I’ll update my “3 x 5 card” now. Have a good day!
These are all great points, Georgia. Thanks for sharing.
That’s an awesome plan great template great advice. I’m going to be a copy cat.
Who’s with me?
what do you mean by using a funded proposal to offset advertisement cost
It means selling a low cost item ($20 to $50 range) to pay for or offset advertising costs. An example would be advertising a $30 course instead of your MLM Business. Let the profits from the course pay for the advertising cost and then back end people into the business.
I love this! We can’t reach our goals if we haven’t first set them!
Goals are the guidepost to keep you focused and on track. They must be realistic and written down on paper.
Hi Chuck,
I think every network marketer’s first goal should be to get into profitability as soon as possible! One needs to be able to make more money than they are spending or they won’t last very long in this or any other business.
Once you get into profit, then you can worry about making that $1,000,000.
I agree, but if you are doing things right, it’s still going to take MINIMUM six to 12 months to get profitable, and maybe more.
Any revenue you do generate should be reinvested back into the business.
This applies to ALL businesses, not just MLM.
This was so incredibly helpful. Thank you SO much, I haven’t found anything this detailed in regards to creating an MLM business plan and was JUST wondering, “Where the heck do I start? How do I make one of those?” I appreciate this advice more than you know. Thank you Charles keep up the great work?
Glad to be of help. Feel free to send me a copy of your business plan, once it’s done, if you would like some feedback. Thanks.