Like anything else success in network marketing or mlm (multi-level marketing), comes with a lot of hard work,patience,time, and of course, it comes with it's own learning curve. How fast one gets past the learning curve depends on education, training, and how fast one learns and avoids the mistakes often made in a network marketing business. In this article and the next one I want to focus on some common mistakes people make in network marketing and how you can avoid them and not let them hinder your success.

One of the first mistakes is listening to 'hype'. Have you ever heard someone tell you to 'join my company -you'll get spillover' or ' I'll build your downline for you' or 'you just need 2 people and you'll be rich'? Well you know and I know it just doesn't work that way. Too many times people promote 'laziness' just trying to convince people to get in their mlm company. They are desperate and are desperately trying to build a business this way. It won't work it never has and never will! It takes a lot of hard work and time to build a successful long-lasting network marketing business.

Another problem in every network marketing business is people signing up and then not doing anything. When they are new they don't know what to do! Training is a must! Most companies don't do effective training and uplines a lot of times don't do any. People have to be properly trained so they will know what to do otherwise they will do nothing or do the wrong things and end up worse off. This is why you need to have a system in place to plug them into immediately to get them trained and making money ASAP. When people know what to do they are more likely to do it. This brings us to the next mistake and that is …

You must be duplicatable! If you don't have a system in place that's simple and duplicatable then you will have a hard time succeeding. Network marketing is about duplication. This is why 95% of people in network marketing fail - they are not duplicating. The other 5% are recruiting machines and they do most of the work. They can bring in distributors by the truckloads and build a big business but not many of their people can do that. Do you really want to build this way? Wouldn't it be nice to bring in people with a proven duplicatable system and plug them into it and then they do the same thing week after week? Imagine how fast your business would grow! Now it never works that everyone is going to build a business that you sponsor into your network marketing company, but what if just 30% duplicate what you're doing? Would that not be super growth over time? Run the numbers! And besides just having distributors as customers is a good thing- they don't all have to sponsor people. The idea is having a lot of people doing a little bit.

Another mistake is talking to "friends and family" first about your opportunity. That's not a good idea unless "Aunt Sue" likes network marketing. Talk to them about your products and get them as customers. Then when you're making 4 or 5 figures a month you might then mention your business to them but never make a big deal about it. Be elusive and say just enough to elicit more questions from those who might be interested.

Another big problem is not managing your time wisely. This is a killer for your business because certain things must be done daily to consistently grow your business, and if you don't manage your time you'll end up frustrated, broke, and in a bad mood with network marketing. If you fit into this category of not managing your time efficiently, or if you just want to get more out of the time you're spending with your business then I highly recommend a program called 'simpleology' at "http://www.simpleology.com". This will help you manage your time and help you to understand what you need to do to accomplish your goals and show you the fastest way to reach those goals.

This is the first part of a 2 part series- you don't want to miss part 2! We'll look at how choosing the wrong company can have a major impact on your success and how fast you get there. Plus, we'll look at other critical mistakes so common that people make in network marketing.

© 2006 Beverly Butler - All rights reserved