John Milton Fogg: You are a Mastermind!

The concept of Mastermind Groups was first discussed by Napoleon Hill in his famous book, “Think And Grow Rich.” In his research of the most successful people of his time, Hill found that a key difference that made people successful was being involved in Mastermind Groups. Masterminding involves bringing people together with different experiences and ideas to collaborate, brainstorm, and provide support to help the participants achieve their goals. Multiple studies have since shown that collaborating energies tend to work better together and that mastermind group are very beneficial. I couldn’t grasp the concept early on. In fact, when I first started in this industry, I thought it was full of clicks. The distributor force reminded me of high school. All the seniors (or leaders) would sit together, hang out. They were the popular guys. The geeks or nerds would hang out together, and the metal heads would do the same. I would try to fit in where I could, and I remember feeling like I wanted to be a part of whatever click I thought was the best at the time. I thought network marketing was the same. You join a distributor’s team, you look for where you fit in. You see the clicks, you hear about the leadership events, the mastermind groups. I wanted in.

But I didn’t realize the full value in the group dynamic until I started my own. It was explained to me this way…. Your network marketing business is like a mountain. You are at the top of the hill. You have a gigantic boulder in front of you, and you have several smaller rocks next to it. Standing next to you are all the other distributors in your click, team, city, or wherever. You can choose to get everyone together to push the bolder down the mountain, or everyone can pick up smaller rocks and throw them down by themselves. The rocks and boulder represent new business, energy and momentum. Knowing the boulder would produce the most momentum, you talk to the others and offer that if they all help you push the boulder, then you would share the momentum with them. Some join you, some don’t. Those that don’t look at you throwing their rocks off the hill, content to enjoy their own momentum and keep it for them selves. You and your friends push hard, and at first the boulder doesn’t budge. But soon, it gives way and as you continue to push it over the ledge, you see it pulling away and rolling over and smashing those other rocks as it speeds by. The mastermind group wins the most momentum.

I have a mastermind group in my business, most leaders have them. There are also mastermind groups in the industry and John Milton Fogg, a legend in network marketing offers an excellent series called The Mastermind Sessions. You can find it at www.themastermindsessions.com . Each week he interviews industry leaders like Jim Rohn, Bob Proctor, Mike Potillo, Randy Gage, Art Jonak, and Tim Sales. The knowledge that everyone shares is priceless. So imagine my honor when John Milton Fogg called me to participate in the session. At first I was a bit intimidated. But John was the most caring, professional, witty and comforting. He and I quickly became friends over a few quality conversations. What shocked me the most about John, is that he is human. Sounds funny I know, but when you are toe to toe with a legend, you expect them not to be human. John was and once again, I was reminded that people are this industry’s product. I was humbled by the experience and am grateful to have found a friend in John. To listen or read more, visit www.thefoggreport.com. “Donna V has very good stuff. She’s clean, clear, in your face but with a mother’s soft hand.-John Milton Fogg”

Which hand are you holding out?

It is an age old question in network marketing, one I know I get asked about the most…. do you lead with the business or the product. Here is my experience…I started by leading with the product because it was most comfortable for me to do. I prospected so many people only showing them the product because I knew in my heart my product would help them. I would learn everything I needed to know about my product line, I could have become some expert in nutritionals. I packed up with a bunch of copies of clinical studies, testimonials, whatever I could find and hit the phones. I prospected a lot of people. Sure, I had a good number of enrollments, and many would reorder, and that was a blessing. But rarely, repeat, rarely would someone go and prospect or bring new people into the business, so I ended up being the only one recruiting, the only one enrolling. It was frustrating. I would scratch my head and wonder why no one else could do what I was doing? The truth was, because they didn’t join to build a business, they joined to get their product cheaper. Whammo! Truth sucks sometimes. I had been prospecting and growing my business on a house of cards that was solely depending on my prospecting.

If you lead with only product, then you are going to recruit lots of customers and that’s ok, but normally customers will consume for their own use and may throw you a referral every so often. Typically you have to wait for that customer to feel some benefit from the product which could take days, weeks or months. Sometimes one of those distributors will have a response to the product, they then go and build a business based on their own story. That’s fine and a great way to build a business, but you first have to sift for those that are interested in the product in the first place, then sift for those that actually have such a great response from your product, you really are leaving a huge group of people behind.

So I switched my focused and only went to prospect those interested in making money.. I got a lot of people that wanted to make money fast, but didn’t want to invest much, I got A LOT of “tire kickers”, I got a lot of people that would tell me they were going to make me rich! What I got was a lot of spurters. People that come in and spurt then fizzle because they didn’t get the “whole picture” of what this industry was about. That network marketing isn’t about a substitution for a second or third job; it is about building a business. I learned that money doesn’t solve money problems and I cannot make anyone do anything they do not want to do. I learned you cannot make someone become an entrepreneur if they don’t have the desire. Period. I also had to deal with my own issues about the industry. I was frustrated again. If leading with product was weak and leading with the business was weak what was the answer?????

Well, first, I had to learn what this industry really is, and it wasn’t until I was able to get past my misconceptions did I fall in love with it. I also had to learn that I did not want to peddle product, and that wasn’t what I signed up for. I didn’t want to be a product expert. It seemed I was stuck in between the two. I sought out suggestions from industry trainers. And I heard something that just lit the lightbulb in my head. I believe it was Randy Gage that said lead with the SOLUTION. It clicked. I listened and learned. Just because you started your own business, I can almost guarantee your distributor kit did not come with a crystal ball. You have no clue and no place trying to determine what need your prospect has UNTIL THEY TELL YOU. Your job is to show them the solution and ask them very simply, do they have a need for either the product and/or the business. That’s it! When I understood this simple concept, prospecting was a breeze. If they didn’t have a need for either, that was ok. I just went out and found more who did. This concept has become my fundamental belief on prospecting.

I believe there are more broke people in the world than sick people.

I believe if I had $200 in cash in one hand, and $200 in product in another hand, more people will reach for the cash. Think about it, if you were my prospect, what would you do? But my job is to offer both hands. It is not my place to judge what their need is. It is really none of my business. My job is to offer a solution and let them share with me what their need is. If I do this, and then teach others to do this, my business grows. It really is that simple.

Network marketing: Do you have the desire burning inside of you?

I laughed when I was first introduced to network marketing all those years ago. The vision I had about network marketing was that you invite all your friends and family members to the local church, feed them spaghetti, and lock the doors when everyone started to eat dinner. What followed would be some meeting that between the carb overload and boring yet dizzy presentation, someone would sign or do whatever was asked just to make their getaway.

I admit, the last thing I ever expected was to be a mentor and coach of the industry. I remember soon after I joined my first company that I really was clueless about what network marketing was, is, and the future of it. So I became educated, I started to reading everything I could about it. I attended seminars, listened to countless cassettes, cd and now podcasts. So what is the biggest lesson about network marketing I have learned?

Network marketing is nothing more than just sharing your passion and enthusiasm with someone else. Period. The basics of network marketing is this.... you must invite, build belief, follow-up, teach them how to do the same thing. How you do this, why and where to do this is when it becomes confusing with all the different trainers and training systems out there. But that is for another time. Do you need any special skills to succeed in network marketing? I don't believe so. I believe you just need to have that passion and enthusiasm for what you are doing. Skills are taught, desire is not. I would rather have 1 person on my team with a ton of desire and no skill, than a ton of people with skills and no desire.

Something else I learned is that because you don't need any special skills, just desire.... I learned that anyone can do this business. Stay at home moms, college kids, grandparents... that is what I genuinely love about network marketing. The same opportunity presents to all of us. What we do with it, well, that is what makes us different. Whether your goal is to earn a few hundred dollars extra a month, or a few thousand, you have the same opportunity as the million dollar earners out there.

So go for it, and don't let your fear stop you, don't let anyone stop you, don't let your lack of skill stop you. Just go for it. Remember, desire is all you need... skills will come afterwards.