Network Marketing is a profession. Please don’t think otherwise.
According to one online dictionary, a profession is “a paid occupation, especially one that involves prolonged training and a formal qualification.”
Some example professions include academics, dentists, engineers, psychologists, scientists, nurses, teaches and surgeons.
I consider network marketing a profession because it involves (1) prolonged training and (2) a formal qualification.
Most people will need to go through an extensive training process, lasting a few years. This is done while in the trenches building your business, and from support and help from your sponsor and upline.
The qualification process is done through your own achievements, by building a successful team of customers and distributors.
What’s great about the network marketing profession is that you don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to go to school. You don’t have to invest YEARS of your life BEFORE you can even get started in the profession.
In fact, with MLM you get paid while you learn. And you can even do it part-time, while you keep your day job.
Talk about a win-win proposition.
And of all the possible professions you could enter, I believe it has some of the greatest potential.
It offers low start-up costs, little risk, and residual income.
You can follow a two to five year plan and build financial freedom.
Plus, you can work from home in your pajamas and build a business anywhere in the world.
You don’t have employees. You won’t have a boss. You won’t have a commute. And your income is 100% controlled by you. There’s no office politics, cut backs, layoffs or bureaucracy.
Now, I know our industry has some critics. And that’s perfectly fine with me. Most industries have critics.
Our industry gets a bad reputation because of two reasons. One, our industry is misunderstood. It isn’t taught in schools and most people know nothing about it, other than what they hear from their BROKE Uncle Lou who supposedly lost his shirt in one of those things.
The other reason we get a bad reputation is that we have a few bad people who do some shady things, AND we have lots of amateurs who just don’t know what the heck they are doing!
Where most people mess up in our profession is that they don’t treat it like a profession. If anything, they have a lottery mentality and expect instant results. They aren’t willing to go through a few years of ups and downs while they develop their skill-set and mind-set.
Most folks aren’t willing to pay their dues.
In any other profession, you wouldn’t expect to have the money flowing in within your first 90 days, would you?
Yet, people expect network marketing to be like that.
Here’s what else I have found. The people who treat network marketing like a profession do very well with it. The people who get involved and decide to succeed no matter what, are the ones who make it.
The people who get rejected, laughed at, ridiculed, and made fun of, but STICK WITH IT, always rise to the top.
The people who try it for 30 days, or worry about what their spouse, or Uncle Ted, thinks, never make it very long.
So, I encourage you to become a Network Marketing Professional. Make a commitment to get involved with MLM, to be a student of the business, and act AS IF you had ONE MILLION DOLLARS invested in it.
Do that and you will succeed. Dabble with it, or try it out, and you won’t do much!
What do you think about network marketing being a profession? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts. 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.
Direct marketing is a profession! And often it requires more time and effort than working a j-o-b. (Thank goodness that the potential rewards are far greater, since they are truly merit based.) I think that you really hit the nail on the head when you wrote that many people enter the MLM business with a lottery mentality: they want to enter with a minimal investment, continue with minimal work, and then get disgusted when they do not get the huge, quick payout they wanted, and then leave unhappily.
There’s no quick money in any business! You have to work hard.
Network marketing is absolutely a profession! I believe that you somewhat hit on one of the major problems, and one of the top reasons some people don’t think it is a profession. Some of the representatives joined with a lottery mentality and they teach there down-line that same mentality. It can be a ferocious circle, but with blogs like yours, hopefully people will realize it is a business like any other.
It’s a good profession if you put in the work and treat it like one!
This is truly a mindset shift for people. Looking at your business as a profession and your career means that you would do what is necessary to make the most money. You would invest in training by going to school and getting a degree or certification for your job in order to make more money. So it makes sense that someone would do that in order to be more successful in their business as well. That could also help to eliminate having so many who don’t know what they are doing because if you have more folks taking the time to truly train their down line the profession might be able to gain more respect.
People go to four or more years of college, spend a lot of money to do so, and are not guaranteed a job when they graduate. But, they never question that. I’m not sure why people won’t invest in their MLM Education and make a lasting commitment with their business.