I’ve been asked this question many times, “Is network marketing the same as sales?” I will provide two answers – yes and no.
You see, the network marketing industry and sales industry are actually two different industries. Although there are sales involved when it comes to network marketing, it does not mean that network marketing is all about selling. Likewise, you can have overriding commissions when it comes to managing a sales team, but it is a whole new ballgame when it comes to the network marketing industry.
In network marketing, you must understand that less than 10% of the world’s population is geared for sales. What I mean by being geared for sales is that not everyone is trained like a salesman where they understand the sales psychology to ‘push for the close’. As a result, the majority of your network will consist of non-sales people.
Having sales oriented down lines is good, but in network marketing sales can only get you a short term income. You can’t sell your way to become an ‘Ambassador International Diamond’ if you know what I mean. You need to be able to duplicate your efforts and teach others how to be just like you.
When you try and duplicate a sales guy to a non-sales guy, you will find that the results will be disastrous! Because the non-sales guy is not good at talking to other people, they will look really weird when they try and hard sell their friends and family resulting in a lot of discomfort and a lot of problems!
I would rather have a team of teachers in my organization rather than a team of sales personnel. People who are in sales may spend more time selling to others rather than teaching and building a network. If I have a team of good teachers, I would teach them how to teach others to teach others! (Read this line again to understand what it means clearly.)
Duplication only works when you are able to get your down line to do the same thing that you are doing without your supervision. Otherwise, you will wind up creating a babysitting job for yourself. You will be too busy doing all the selling for your down line rather than building a network of INDEPENDENT distributors.
At the end of the day, network marketing is a business that must be worked at slowly. Building a network doesn’t happen overnight. You need a lot of perseverance and tolerance when it comes to dealing with your down line. Different people grow at a different speed so it is up to you how you help your down line in network marketing (unlike sales – if you don’t perform, you get ‘fired’).