In today’s post, I want to share my top 22 qualities of successful network marketers. At the time of updating this post, I have 17-years experience in the network marketing industry. I’ve been fortunate to achieve success myself AND rub elbows with many top earners. I also failed for many years and learned what did not work.
I’ve always been a big fan of studying successful people. When you study the top earners in every industry you will quickly find many similarities. Sure, many of them have different backgrounds, races, upbringings and personalities. And while there are many differences between these successful people, there are also many things in common.
Top 22 Qualities of Successful Network Marketers
The list below will highlight the 22 most important qualities of successful network marketers, as I see it. They are listed in no particular order. Enjoy.
# 22: High Standards
Successful people in every industry have high standards for themselves and the people they work with. They demand greatness. They do more than they are paid to do. They never aim for the minimum. They take pride in being the best at what they do. They strive to be a top one percenter in their profession.
People, who set high standards, feel very good about themselves and other people. They operate from a philosophy of abundance, they recognize that there is enough for everyone and all can win, if they choose to. These people naturally attract other people with high standards, they tend to keep off negative people and refrain from getting close to them. Their high standards, keep them away from negativity.
Source: HR Blog
# 21: Coachable
One of the most important qualities of a successful network marketer is being coachable. Successful network marketers pick a successful mentor and they humble themselves enough to follow that person’s advice. They do not go and reinvent the wheel or try to do everything their own way, right out the gate. They keep an open mind and act like a sponge when counseling with their mentor.
Network marketing is a business of duplication and works best when kept simple. You may get an inclination to complicate it by trying to do your own thing. But that will not work out well for you. Always follow your upline’s system and be smart enough to seek advice from someone successful in your upline and do what they teach you.
Source: LeadMLMSoftware
# 20: Integrity
Your integrity is everything. It’s the most important thing you have. Successful MLM Reps lead with a high level of integrity. They are trustworthy and do what they say and say what they do. You can count on them when you need them.
Significantly, integrity is vital for trust to develop. Trust is simply not possible without integrity. Building trust is essential for growing a strong business network. Lack of trust prevents successful business networking.
Source: BusinessBalls
# 19: Good Communicators
Successful MLM Reps are good communicators. They can communicate effectively one-on-one or in a group setting. They are good at getting people to open up. They’re also very good at sharing their vision and talking about the big picture. Plus, they feel comfortable with public speaking.
Communication is at the heart of human interaction, and it can make or break a business. Being able to communicate effectively with customers can lead to increased sales, repeat business and referrals. On the other hand, not being able to can quickly lead to decreased sales, frustrated customers and negative word of mouth.
Source: Entrepreneur
# 18: Servant Leadership
The most successful MLM Reps are servant leaders. Their primary focus is serving and helping others. They do whatever they can to help their team succeed. They focus on others rather than themselves. That is the key to greatness in our industry, and in life: service.
By helping the people you personally sponsor to sponsor others, you duplicate yourself. As this process continues, you create compound growth that can lead to hundreds or even thousands of people coming into your business. You leverage your time by helping others be successful and earn an income from all their efforts.
Source: Entrepreneur
# 17: Problem Solvers
In our industry, we get paid to solve problems. The more problems, and the bigger the problems, you can solve, the more money you will make. There will always be problems and issues. Instead of looking at each problem as a setback, look at it as an opportunity to grow and learn.
Don’t ever let anyone convince you that there is a task too big for you, a mountain too high for you, or a goal that you cannot achieve. You have everything it takes to solve any problem that is thrown in your path!
# 16: Constant Improvement
Study any successful network marketer and you will quickly discover that they are striving to get better every single day. Their goal is to be a little bit better today than they were yesterday. They know that small, daily, incremental improvements add up to “mega-improvements” over a period of months and years.
Your professional growth depends on your personal growth. The more you are dedicated towards improving yourself the more you are likely to scale the success heights.
Source: Medium
# 15: Good People Skills
Successful network marketers have outstanding people skills. They love people. They love to build friendships with new people and to make new friends. They are good listeners and good conversationalists. People like them and they like people. After all, network marketing is a people business.
Network Marketing is a peoples business, hence why network is in its name! Growing a team will require you to meet new people and be a master networker. If you find yourself meeting new people and not afraid to break the ice, Network Marketing is for you!
Source: Network Marketing Nation
# 14: Courage
Successful distributors have fears just like everyone else, but they do not let their fears control them. They let their actions control their thoughts rather than letting their thoughts control their actions. They get up and do what they fear anyway, because they have a big vision and dream.
Be courageous. Look at what is holding you back. Examine your fears, face them, and challenge yourself to push the envelope, one fear at a time.
Source: StreetDirectory
# 13: Good Self Image
To succeed in network marketing, you must have a good self-image. You have to honestly believe that you are worthy and deserve success. I’ve never struggled in this area and have often wondered why so many people do. If you think badly of yourself, you will not attract others into your business. Read books, get counseling and do what you need to do to improve your self-image. It is very important. Remember that people join people, not businesses. You want to be someone worth joining.
If you feel good about the way you look and perform, if you have an inner confidence resulting from the fact that you exercise self-discipline, if you have confidence in the way you handle difficult situations, if you know that within you is a reservoir of determination that will get you through any challenge, and you know that you are a person of integrity, then a great attitude is a natural extension of this view of yourself.
# 12: Focused
To make it to the top in network marketing you need to have a laser-like focus. Achieving success in the industry, with your company, must be a top priority for you, right behind your family, faith and day job. You cannot get distracted by the shiny object syndrome. You cannot focus on multiple streams of income. You must focus on your goal and let nothing keep you from reaching it.
A large part of network marketing success depends upon how good are you at self-control. Self-control is what allows you to keep your head down, follow your calendar and recruit rather than watching ESPN. You won’t learn how to be successful in network marketing by watching sports all day!
Source: The Live Networker
# 11: Enthusiastic
Successful network marketers have a positive mental attitude. They are enthusiastic about what they do and where they are headed. They do not let little things get them down or keep them down. They wear a smile on their face and are a joy for others to be around. They realize that enthusiasm is contagious, especially in the negative world we live in.
People will not join you if they’re not having fun. And they won’t have fun if you don’t have a great attitude. Never let your temper or your frustrations get in the way and ruin everything you’ve worked so hard for.
Always have a great attitude and people will gravitate towards you naturally.
Source: The Live Networker
# 10: Specialized Knowledge
To make it to the big money in network marketing, you need specialized knowledge. Specialized knowledge will make you rich. This is knowledge such as recruiting, prospecting, building a team, motivating others, selling your products, etc. Successful network marketers are always looking for ways to improve their specialized knowledge. They attend workshops, read books, learn through trial and error, have a mentor and coach, and do everything they can to learn more. They set aside time and money every month to hone their skills and improve their specialized knowledge.
One of the most important things to instill in your brain is that income follows value. If you want your income to grow, your value must grow first. Seldom in life does one’s income grow higher than one’s value.
Source: MLMthewholetruth.com
# 9: Confidence
Successful network marketers are confident. They believe in themselves, their company, their product line, AND the industry. They have no problem looking others in the eyes when they talk with them. They have a good self-image and know they will succeed, no matter what. They might not have this confidence when they first get started, but they do develop it over a period of time.
With confidence, you’re communicating something different. With confidence you’re communicating that you are committed to doing this, with or without them. That’s a different message entirely and is received differently.
Source: Wealthanize
# 8: Self-Discipline
To succeed in network marketing, you need self-discipline. I was fortunate to learn self-discipline in the military and in wrestling. Discipline is simply following through with your original decision and do something every day to move you closer to your goal, even after your initial enthusiasm has faded. It is setting a goal, creating a plan and then MAKING YOURSELF do the work and follow the plan. It means staying focused and staying persistent. You will quickly discover that most people do not have enough discipline to succeed in network marketing or anything else. Most people quit everything they start.
In network marketing, you need to have self-discipline too. You have scheduled times for prospecting, presenting, following up and training. Self- discipline says that even on those days when you do not “feel” like doing one of these tasks, you do it anyway.
Source: RocketRecruiting
# 7: Perseverance
This is the process of sticking with something UNTIL you succeed. It is the process of never giving up, even when you want to. It means you stand back up, whenever you get knocked down. Few people have the mental toughness to persevere in network marketing because of the rejection and challenges. Study any top earner and you will quickly discover that they stuck with it, even when the going got tough.
Sometimes the sale will not be smooth, and people may let you down. A successful network marketer takes the good with the bad and persists until success is achieved. This persistence is necessary in any business, because nothing is ever completely easy.
Source: StreetDirectory
# 6: Hard Work
Successful network marketers realize that you have to work really, really hard to make it to the top of this industry. You will have to put in long hours, do lots of the nitty-gritty work, face rejection and keep going. You have to roll up your sleeves and do what the 99% of the distributors aren’t willing to do, so you can have what the 1% do have.
Network marketing is not a quick, easy path to a lifetime of prosperity. Nor is it a free ride to wealth that requires absolutely no effort on your part. It doesn’t work that way. In fact, it doesn’t work at all unless you do! You have to devote time and effort to it especially in the very beginning. It can pay out huge rewards. But regardless of what everyone tells you, you must work for those payoffs! Work as hard as your competition is working – then harder!
Source: MLMLegal
# 5: Vision
You need vision to succeed in business and in network marketing. You must see things before you have it. You need a five year, ten year and twenty year plan for your business and life. If you can’t see past today, you won’t make it very far in MLM. Your vision will keep you going as you face challenges, setbacks and disappointment. It’s true, without vision man will perish.
If your vision is just about getting the money, paying the bills, or surviving, you’re not going to get a lot of people excited about it. But if your vision is aligned with your philosophy where you are envisioning something that you and your prospects together can make something huge, then you will get people excited to join you.
Source: Network Marketing Pro
# 4: Personal Responsibility
Your success in life and in this industry is totally up to you. If you succeed, it’s because of you. If you fail, it’s because of you. It’s not your sponsor, your upline, your company or anyone else’s job to make you succeed. Until you accept 100% responsibility for your own success, you will not succeed. Successful network marketers always “man up” or “woman up” and hold themselves responsible for their own success. Even though our society teaches us to blame others for our failure or lack of results, successful people do not think that way.
What really matters is not what happens to you or around you; what matters is how you respond and what you learn from it. Unfortunately, most people have a difficult time acknowledging their own accountability for the messes they find themselves in.
Source: CIO
# 3: Desire
Desire is the starting point of all success. You can’t want success for someone more than they want it for themselves. Successful network marketers have a HUGE, burning desire to help people and make a lot of money. They want success in this industry just as bad as they want the air that they breathe. This burning desire fuels them to do everything they need to do to succeed.
Every business person is driven by that main force seeking to achieve success. If you want to become a successful network marketer you should be driven by the desire for it. Visualize your goals daily, see the actualization of it and start chasing it! Whatever your dreams may be, get a pen and put them on paper so when you see it every day you receive a new spark in your quest for success.
Source: Recipe4Wealth
# 2: Action Oriented
At the end of the day, you have can the perfect company, big goals, a great sponsor, great products, an amazing compensation plan, a written action plan and countless other things BUT you will never achieve success if you don’t do the work. Most people in network marketing think about the business all of the time, but they never do the work. You really need to be action oriented. You must take massive action AND do something to build your business every single day. Study all of the people who fail in this industry and 100% of them did not do the work it requires to succeed. Look at the top reps and you will see they are always in beast mode.
Where you are is a result of who you were, but where you end up depends entirely on who you choose to be from this moment forward.
~ Hal Elrod
# 1: Good Listeners
I’m putting this at # 1. Most people think you need to be a good talker to be a good network marketer. That is simply not true. Instead, you need to be a good listener. Successful MLM Reps do at least twice as much listening as they do talking. They know you can’t learn anything when you are talking, but you can learn a lot by listening.
A good networker has two ears and one mouth and should use them both proportionately. Listen to people’s needs and concerns and find opportunities to help them. You can’t help others if you don’t know what they need, and you find that out by listening. In many ways, networking is about connecting the dots, but to do that, you have to listen so that you can help people make the connections they are looking for.
Source: The Business Journals
Final Thoughts
In summary, these are my top 22 qualities of successful network marketers. Please know that there are many other qualities that successful distributors have in common. This is really just a starting point.
If you have experience in the industry, I would love to hear what you think are some of the most important qualities of successful network marketers. Just leave a comment to tell us what you think.
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.
These are all great traits that will make a person successful and not just in network marketing! I am especially pleased with how you threw listening in there as a bonus. How true! You will go further in your business, and in life, by listening first then talking.
I really like this list, I may print it out and put it up somewhere I can look at it every day!
I really am amazed you do not have some comments on this great post.
You installed some very important traits and qualities that network marketers need to be successful. I believe that it would be wise to copy this list and mark the ones we are short in, and work with them.
There are 2 qualities here that I feel should be at the top of the betterment list–Focus; if we are not focused, we will not go anywhere. Vision; without a vision, how can you make any kind of plan?
All of these traits were right on Chuck. Great post.
Focus and vision are definitely two of the most important qualities.