Both Life and Network Marketing Share Many Similarities
I always ask Network Marketing Professionals about their evolution in the business.
I am fascinated to hear stories of people who were at rock bottom and found a way to claw out of captivity and create FREEDOM for themselves and for everyone they touch.
I am intrigued when I hear stories of people wasting away at a 9-5 desk job with no end in sight, and then were introduced to an opportunity that changed their lives.
I am excited when I hear stories of ordinary people accomplishing extraordinary feats through a tool called Network Marketing.
I am always fired up when I hear about the single parent who finally had the courage to get out of their abusive relationship because they were exposed to an opportunity that created financial freedom and opened their mind to what they deserve.
And whenever I am introduced to stories like these I always find myself thinking about the “what if’s.”
What if this person who was at rock bottom never attended the opportunity meeting?
What if the person in the dead-end job never spoke with someone in Network Marketing?
What if the ordinary person was not on a warm list and never learned about what it would take to become extraordinary?
What if the person never got out of the abusive relationship?
Every Inch Matters
One of the most inspirational speeches of all time was given by Al Pacino in the movie Any Given Sunday. You can watch the full clip below (beware of foul language).
This message is extremely relevant for Network Marketers and I want to highlight one section so that this becomes your new way of thinking about your life and your business.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is Network Marketing.
Because in either game
life or Network Marketing
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or too early
you don’t quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don’t quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in every break of the game
every minute, every second.
Too many people take life for granted because they don’t recognize that every inch counts, every inch matters, and every inch has the potential to make all of the difference.
And guess what?
The same holds true for Network Marketing.
Too many people in Network Marketing take the calls, trainings, opportunity presentations, and/or the event, for granted not realizing that each of these “seemingly insignificant” occurrences will either create their freedom or their captivity.
Stay with me because I am about to completely shift your paradigm.
My Realization of the Inches
I have become obsessive about making every inch count in all areas of my life because of this story…
When I was twenty years old, I got involved with a direct sales company. My role was to go door-to-door in Manhattan and Brooklyn selling credit card processing while building an organization beneath me.
During my first 4 days in the field, I saw over 500 businesses and had zero sales. I began to doubt my abilities as a sales professional and decided if I entered into the weekend without getting my first victory, I would have to consider an alternative path.
On the Friday of my first week, which was Day 5, I had already seen over 150 businesses and the only thing I could take away from this experience was doors slammed in my face, cuss words directed at me, and gatekeepers that looked like the Queen’s Guard of the Buckingham Palace. It was wildly frustrating, as I am sure you can imagine, and to make matters worse it started to rain.
This was no ordinary drizzle, but rather a thunderstorm with buckets of rain pouring all over the streets of Brooklyn. People were running for cover and most of the local businesses were packed with individuals attempting to stay dry.
I got a text from the HQ that said, “Come back to the office,” which meant that I was officially a failed sales representative since I had a giant ZERO after week one.
As I made my way to the subway feeling like a complete failure, I saw a cupcake store and I said to myself, “That store will be either the first sale or last prospect of my career.” This one business was going to dictate my livelihood as a sales representative. I walked inside, asked for the decision maker, delivered my story without anything holding anything back, and guess what????
The business bought everything I had to offer.
This not only kept me in the game, but I eventually became the #1 person in the company, led seminars around the country, and allowed me to realize that I had the gift of selling.
What changed for me?
Why was that cupcake store any different than the 700+ businesses I met with earlier?
The answer is simple - I realized the game of inches.
Prior to walking into the cupcake store, I never treated any opportunity as if it was my last.
I always knew that there was another business that shared a wall with the one I was pitching, so if they said “NO,” it really did not matter. Since I had zero sense of urgency, I was never fully present, I never delivered a message with all of my passion, and every pitch was not life or death.
Can you relate?
Have you ever shared your business opportunity or your product and in the back of your mind you knew that there was another presentation the next hour so if they said “NO,” so be it?
Remember, every inch matters and your network marketing business epitomizes this right now.
What if you were to only deliver a mediocre business opportunity seminar and one of the attendees was the person in the abusive relationship from earlier in the post that was looking for a tool to change their life. They would never have known that Network Marketing was their saving grace.
What if you were to only make a warm list of 50 people and the ordinary person from earlier in the post did not make it on the list because you just wanted to complete this task to say you did it. They would have never had the opportunity to become extraordinary.
What if you did not make one extra call and you never spoke with the corporate executive who was dying at their desk. They would succumb to living a life of captivity without any real purpose.
You are in a position as a Network Marketing Professional where everything matters.
Every conversation,
every business presentation,
every email,
every social media post,
every training,
and everything you do matters.
When you begin to take your business this seriously, is when you take full advantage of every opportunity that comes your way.
What if everyday as a Network Marketing Professional was life or death for your business?
I think about this question daily for SYNDUIT and it is something that I have empowered my team to recognize as well.
There are times that I find myself lying with my eyes open in bed at night envisioning how much I am going to make the next day count.
There are times when I wake up before my alarm clock and jump out of bed knowing that I am going to conquer the day with force.
There are times that I work through the night in order to write marketing copy, send an action list to a leader, or brainstorm ideas to transform the Network Marketing Profession and in the back of my mind all that I can think about is “SYNDUIT will die if I don’t deliver.”
This might sound morbid or too intense for you, but what if this is how you entered each day?
What if you made the commitment to yourself to show up with 100% focus for every business opportunity presentation?
What if you promised to make one additional call after you said you were done everyday just in case you were to connect with a person in need?
What if you invested an extra hour building your warm list to guarantee that every possible person that has ever entered your world is on this list and you will start contacting them immediately?
What if you realized both life and Network Marketing is a game of inches?
Take it away Al Pacino
I am going to leave you with the final passage from the inspirational speech that I shared above and I encourage you to read this at least a few times so that you can begin to realize why every inch matters.
On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our fingernails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that’s going to make the difference
between WINNING and LOSING,
between LIVING and DYING.
I’ll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.