In any group the person on top consciously or unconsciously sets the tone. If leaders are hesitant, fearful, or overly concerned with what people think of them or their reputations this inevitably filters down through the entire team. However, the same can also be said for the reversal of this idea. If your team sees you working hard, taking risks and holding yourself to a higher standard, then this spirit will flow through your team and embolden them to do the same. What you must keep in mind is that it is much more effective for people to learn by example rather than by instruction.

At the heart of it all, being leader means getting people to push forward and break new ground, even if they oppose it. It’s human nature to get into a routine with a job that just keeps your head above water in between pay checks and stay there, without ever challenging ourselves or pushing our comfort zones and before we know it 15-20 years have flown by and you are at the same job that you really don’t like in a comfort zone that wasn’t really that comforting to begin with. As a leader, you absolutely cannot allow yourself to get into this frame of mind, because once this happens then all is lost.

To keep momentum a leader must unite their group around one single cause and the attainable goal of reaching the ‘promised land’. This is where having a CRYSTAL CLEAR picture of your vision is critical. Attempting to lead a team with no vision is like driving while blind folded and the end result is the same. When creating and refining your vision you must be able to see ALL the details and literally FEEL yourself in that situation. Next you must attach POWERFUL EMOTIONS to this vision because when the 1000+ distractions and obstacles come your way (and they definitely WILL) you will be very clear on WHY you are doing what you are doing and you can overcome ALL of them. Now this is easier said than done, we live in a society where there are literally thousands of distractions around us at any given time all competing for our attention and now more than ever it is easy to veer of course and have our goals and ambitions dashed.

Now as you begin to act with more boldness and break new ground in your business, you’re going to realize that the people who share your tenacity and drive and enthusiasm will start to gather around you; these are the people you want to spend the majority of your time with, the RED APPLES. Once you have identified the red apples in your organization you must raise the standard that you hold yourself too EVEN higher so that your team will do the same. In essence what will happen is you will create a group of highly motivated, highly focused individuals all driven by the same cause. THIS is what you call a DYNASTY, a succession of LEADERS all from the same clan, or in our case network.

Now of course not everyone that enters your organization will be a red apple, there will be some green apples that are enthusiastic but lack the willpower, and there will be some brown apples that think this industry is some sort of magic club where when they join everything will done for them and once they see it is not they will do EVERYTHING in their power to keep your business from moving forward. The way to deal with these individuals is to simply IGNORE them. As a leader your job is to embody your team with an entrepreneurial spirit that allows them to take ACTION, this simply cannot be done when members of that team are infecting the others with poisonous mental states.

When boiled down to its very essence, being a leader will always mean you are playing a role, that role is to be at the head of the herd fearlessly leading your team forward so that the DO-ERS and ACTION TAKERS can all emulate your success and push forward towards your vision and end goals.

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Today we live in an environment where consumers and prospects are bombarded with options in all aspects of life, and the same goes for our industry. There are hundreds of network marketing opportunities that have hundreds if not thousands of distributors all competing for the same prize, financial freedom. With so many individuals all striving for the same goals, it’s only natural that some are going to drift off course, for one reason or another; what separates the winners from the losers in this game however is that the winners all have an unwavering commitment to one single proposition: YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. If people believe in you they will believe in what you promote and what you create. There is even a name for this type of business model; it’s called You Inc. It’s a business model that has been adhered to in the ‘real business world’ for years, but it is steadily making ground in our industry. The majority of network marketing companies choose to ignore these trends and shifts in the marketplace because they are rigidly fastened in their old ways of doing things and would rather not upset the status quo, because they would rather be safe than sorry; what they fail to realize is they are in fact doing more harm than good with this sort of thinking because it comes across in their methods of educating new distributors and in turn the new distributor adopts these beliefs, bad habits and all, and builds his or her business on a shaky foundation. People who cling to their delusions find it difficult if not impossible to learn anything worth learning, so out of the gate they are already headed in the wrong direction.

In any venture, in both business and life, your ultimate goal MUST be total ownership. Nothing is guaranteed in life, you could one day wake up and find that your network marketing company has been closed down and you are left with NOTHING. You don’t own the products your MLM Company sells, you don’t own your downline either, although initially you might believe that you are in business for yourself but you are still dependent on the company. The best way to safeguard yourself from an event like this is to create your own product, like a course or program that demonstrates value in the prospects eyes; they will see you as someone whom they can benefit from an association with. The idea of creating your own product and branching to complete individuality can seem daunting to most newbie’s, which is completely natural once you shift from one group (employee) to another (entrepreneur). It’s imperative that you don’t let yourself grow anxious over whether you will sink or swim if you are left on your own, instead you must be more anxious over what could happen if you are completely dependent on others. When you create your own product, you become more motivated, more inspired, more creative, and more ambitious.

What so many of us fail to realize is that we are all born with all the resources we will ever need to achieve ANYTHING we want in life. We as humans only need, our bodies, the time we have to live, our thoughts which are unique to us, and our autonomy, but over the years we slowly give all of that up. We spend years working for others, or we get needlessly caught up in people’s games and battles wasting valuable time and energy that we can never get back, we start to respect our ideas less and less and begin listening to ‘experts’ conforming to conventional opinions and before long we have squandered everything that makes us a creative person. These are all common behaviors in humans, but as entrepreneurs we have to be especially aware of this fact and we MUST wage a tenacious battle on these behaviors.  There are no two ways about this, to achieve any of your goals you must first realize that it all starts with YOU. Another difference between the winners and losers in this game is the winners KNOW that when you invest in yourself the return is limitless; there is nothing else to say, if you want to call yourself an entrepreneur you MUST adopt this belief and act accordingly to grow your business. Whether you have goals of building a dynasty or you only want to slightly supplement your income, the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, and that first step MUST be Magnetic Sponsoring.

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Success and failure are two sides of the same coin…it takes as much effort to fail as it does to succeed, where that effort GOES is up to you..

Those of us that have chosen to take the road less traveled and chosen the path of the network marketer all seem to share the same story, at first. Prior to entering the industry we were living our lives beneath our true potential working jobs that were dissatisfying and we all felt that there was something greater for us out there. Then we are introduced to the network marketing industry, and if you are like me, you quickly become gripped by the success stories and people conquering their fears and limitations, so you become involved in the industry. Once you have joined a business, however, the cloud of success stories evaporates and your face gets pressed against the realities of the sidewalk you realize that this is not what you signed on for. There are exceptions, if you have owned a business before you have a fair grip on the toil and effort involved in building a business but to quote Mike Dillard “this is an industry of business ownership largely pursued by people who never been business owners.” So at this point there is one of two choices a person can make, the lesser of us start to whine and complain that it’s too hard and ultimately their frustration leads them to quit and become just another drop in a sea of network marketing skeptics. Those of us with more resolve, realize that network marketing is the vehicle to the lifestyle that is going to free us from our current lackluster situations, so we search to learn the necessary SKILLS to achieve this success. In our quest to further our knowledge base about this industry we will inevitably come across the revered Magnetic Sponsoring course. This course has been described as the successful networkers bible and rightfully so; within the pages of the course Mike Dillard dispels the myths about the industry, addresses the concerns and obstacles of network marketers and how to overcome them. I’ll give you a few:

1. The first of these is becoming an Alpha Networker. If you are not familiar with the term, it refers to the individuals on your team or within your company that have thousands of people in their downline and in the book he describes the steps you need to take to become that person. He also describes the opposite of this which is the beta networker. These are the individuals that live in a fear and scarcity mindset and as a result their businesses suffer and eventually fail. He describes the character traits of these individuals so you know what to avoid.

2. The second of these is implementing billion dollar direct marketing strategies into your home business. The most deadly sin that most network marketing companies are guilty of is they do not teach an effect STRATEGY to their distributors. The majority of network marketing companies promote strategies that worked for them in the past but the marketplace has evolved and rendered their strategies useless. What Mike did here is he took the principles that real-world businesses like MacDonalds use and showed you not only how to implement them in your business but why they are effective.

3. The third of these is he introduces the funded proposal concept to newbies. What the funded proposal allows you to do is provide value to your prospects by giving them a free report, or video boot camp that positions you as an alpha networker and someone whom they can GAIN value with by associating with you, once they see you as a leader and trust you, then you can market yourself and your business opportunity the RIGHT way. If you are a struggling network marketer looking to expand your knowledge of the industry, increase your value to your prospects, and make money while you are doing so then you absolutely MUST get your copy of Magnetic Sponsoring right now.

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If you haven’t already done so, you should be an active member of the better networker community and connect with successful entrepreneurs in the same industry. Once there you will invariably come across one of Richard Bravo‘s articles packed with value for newbies to follow and get their business’ up and running like a real pro.

This is an amazing industry with boundless possibilities.
You’ll soon see that there is so much incredible information out there , but you’ll also find a ton of fantastical garbage online.

My best advice … treat your new business AS A BUSINESS.
and that means starting with a strong foundation.

The biggest mistake I’ve seen over the 10 years I’ve been around internet marketing and mlm is how people enter the industry with a perspective that this is some sort of magical little club or something. I honestly believe it has a lot to do with the recruiting methods used by the majority of network marketers and it really is a shame, but none the less it’s your responsibility to use your head and look out for your business.

The best thing you could do and the most valuable foundational principle you could ever learn then pass on to your new business partners when you find them, is how to setup and operate your business properly.

My goal here is to give you some cornerstone elements that every legitimate enterprise should have.
Here’s a basic checklist of the first things you should do:

1. Open a separate business checking account.
This will surprise you how such a simple step will change your mindset of how you view your business. This is serious now – you have a business bank account. Somewhat trivial, but powerful. Not to downplay the step however, this is vital for accurate business accounting practices. Keep business banking separate from your personal banking.

2. Create a legal entity such as an LLC* (optional)
*I’m not an attorney so seek your own legal council on the matter.

Again, this will step it up a notch on how seriously you view your business, as well as legitimize your new enterprise where it counts.

You can very quickly get some great input from Legal Zoom, which I use myself. For me personally I prefer LLCs; but like I said do your own due diligence on the matter.

3. Draft a Business Plan
This is so critical I can’t stress it enough.
This will be the blueprint you refer to constantly as you move forward.
The key here is to identify several elements of your business to focus on. Once you have these things clearly defined you commit to stay focused. If you find yourself in a place where you become confused about what you should be doing, you simply come back to your blueprint for guidance and clarification.

It will morph as your business does, but don’t worry about that – hammer one out now.
A few crucial pieces to include and define in as much detail as possible are:

• Your Allocated Monthly/Daily Marketing Budget
  What ever you have to work with now, put it down. Don’t exaggerate, if you have $200 month, put that down. This is so vital. Be honest and work within the boundaries of that budget until you can increase it. This will ensure you don’t self sabotage your business by over spending.
• Your Target Market
  There are several aspects to this, but the basics comprise keyword and
  

I have been on a Sopranos kick for the last decade or so. I have watched and re-watched every single episode till I can almost recite the lines with the actors verbatim. In fact, I was watching a few episodes just yesterday when a few things popped out at me. There are many things we can learn about leadership from La Cosa Nostra. I mean sure, the industries and the business’ that they operate in are unsavoury, that goes without saying, but the WAY they run them is second to none. There are 5 key elements that make Tony Soprano the great leader that he is and in turn making him as successful as he is.

Decisiveness – It is vital that a leader not shy away from tough decisions. It is equally important that they don’t go back on their decisions once they have been made either. Wherever Tony is at if a call comes through and it can’t wait then he doesn’t hesitate to take it. Being decisive is a combination of information, speed and execution. A good leader looks at the situation and chooses a course of action and never goes back on the decision.

Honesty – It is not convenient for them to have lawyers present at their meetings and signing any form of document is literally signing their lives over to a potential enemy. So how does anything actually get done in their industry? As strange as it may seem there is actually a code of honour among thieves that is upheld to a rigid standard. If you double cross someone in this industry they WILL kill you, it’s part of the learning curve, and that forces people to say what they mean and mean what they say. This element should be rigidly upheld in your organization as well, we are on the good side of the law, so it shouldn’t take the threat of your life being taken from you to operate with integrity.

Respect – This is integral to building good relationships. Tony and his team show respect for each other, their suppliers, partners and clients, competitors, even cops and feds. Good leaders give and get respect.

Personal Relationships – Many of the people on Tony’s team are old friends. But whether team members and partners are old buddies, industry pals or new hires, Tony makes friends, becomes personally involved, knows about their private lives, interests, and families; he even visits their mothers in their nursing homes. Now as a network marketer wouldn’t this prove to be invaluable to your business?

Sense of Humour – Even in an industry where murder is a part of the learning curve, Tony and his team still don’t lose their sense of humour, in one instance the feds were building a murder case to convict Tony for life, but even in the midst of this him and his friends were able to crack jokes and laugh with each other. Having a sense of humour is integral to optimism and a good leader must be relentlessly optimistic regardless of how bleak things look, whether it’s going on trial for your life or you are stuck in a valley in your MLM business.

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The debate about old school mlm methods vs new school mlm methods is one that has gone on for years now. Since you are reading this page you can tell that I am an advocate for the new school methods which implement harnessing the power of the internet to grow your organization. It has always seemed strange to me that so many network marketers don’t use the power of the internet to boost their organization. To get a sense of just how big and powerful the internet can be for you watch this video…

So what does it all mean?…Simply put if you are resistant to change, you are going to get iced. 9-10 years ago the music industry was making 1.3 billion dollars in record sales, until a simple program designed in a college kids dorm room changed EVERYTHING. If you are not familiar with this story, the college kid was Shawn Fanning and the simple program was Napster. He showed the world that they no longer had to follow the traditional way of getting their music they could simply go online and get it. Now he did give away the music for free, which was illegal and I am not advocating any sort of illegal activity. But what the record company executives should have noted was that their industry was about to change, instead of embracing this change and finding a way to make it work for them, they resisted and fought it with all of their power, and what was the outcome?…Their profits wind up singing the blues to the tune of 9 figures every year for the last 9-10 years. Now the majority of the masses get their music on the internet legally or otherwise, and this whole travesty could have simply been avoided by just paying attention to the red flag at the onset and seeing that music on the net is going to be THE thing of the future.

Well…my fellow entrepreneurs…our red flag is here. It’s no secret that harnessing the power of the internet will put your business on STEROIDS, but it is easier said than done. To do this correctly and effectively one needs a strategy or a blueprint to maximize the potential that is available on the internet…and that blueprint is…MLM Traffic Formula 2.0.

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For years now this industry has been looked at from all angles except the right one. Despite the enormous income earning potential being a network marketer is not seen as a prestigious career path…until now. Watch this video and see what I mean…

Now there is a process that the people in power must go through before officially initializing a network marketing curriculum, but the fact that this industry has gained the respect of such a credible academic institution speaks volumes. In most cases Harvard is ahead of hte curve and sets the pace for other schools to follow suit, but in this instance they are playing catch-up. At the University of Illinois at Chicago it is already possible to get a degree in network marketing. Here’s an interview with a professor at the University…

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The other day I received this email and it perfectly articulated the most important characteristic to thrive in this business. Like most other epiphanies I’ve had since entering this industry it’s taught me that there isn’t just one magic solution that is going to fix everything overnight. I, like others in this industry, quickly became gripped by the success stories that I heard and began imagining myself in those peoples shoes. Now, there is nothing wrong with a healthy imagination, in fact a good imagination is essential to thrive in this industry. What really held me back was that I was all about instant gratification, I not only wanted the world I wanted it YESTERDAY, and the success couldn’t come fast enough. But over time I have come to learn that there was an enormous amount of personal development required and there were skills and habits that I needed to learn and implement, and the chinese bamboo tree metaphor describes it perfectly…

The Chinese Bamboo Tree

When planted, watered, and nurtured for an entire growing season it doesn’t outwardly grow as much as an inch.   After the second growing season, a season in which one takes extra care to water, fertilize and care for the bamboo tree, the tree still hasn’t sprouted.   So it goes as the sun rises and sets for FOUR SOLID YEARS – NOTHING.  Nothing tangible to show for all the labouring, trying to grow the tree.  Then, in the fifth year, something unexpectedly happens – GROWTH – the seed finally sprouts and the bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet in just ONE growing season.

It turns out the tree had been developing a strong unseen foundation all those years; a root system deep and strong enough to support its life and explosive growth.

Although your business might appear the same way in the beginning, full of efforts and no results, it is important that you continue to ACT (water and fertilize your business).  Success is not instant!!  And although to the untrained eye nothing is happening and you might have feelings of frustration or quitting, realize that you are growing the internal foundations needed to be in any form of business (character and will to overcome adversities) – for these are necessary to sustain and nurture your success and growth.

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I have a general rule of thumb when it comes to wealth creation, and it’s this: “If a billionaire explains how to get wealthy…listen with BOTH ears”. Its not complex. Its not esoteric. Its really just common sense, but unfortunately, common sense is not commonly practiced. In this video Robert Kiyosaki of “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” fame shares with you some of his tips on how you can escape the rat race with network marketing/direct sales as your vehicle….

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It’s been said that this industry is 90% mental and 10% execution. To have success at a high level there are four things you must excel at. The first of these is state management or state of mind. There are two things that control the state that we are in, the first is our physiology or the way we carry ourselves. Most people think that something bad will happen that will cause us to pout or become depressed, basically the negative response comes from the negative event but that is not the case. Depression is done physiologically, its hard-wired into our bodies the same way that happiness is hard-wired in our bodies. Most people don’t know that by simply putting a smile on your face you actually induce chemical changes in the brain and you feel better, but the we have all been programmed to believe that when something bad happens we are supposed to drop our shoulders and walk around in a funk but the truth is that our results are all in the way we carry ourselves, there is the event that happens and there is how we choose to interpret it, so really we hold all the cards, we are not at the mercy of our environment. The second thing that controls our state is focus. Focus goes where energy flows; if you close your eyes and repeatedly tell yourself to look for blue, when you open your eyes you are going to see a lot more blue, because you are looking for it now. There is a part of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS) that chooses what we focus on and blocks out everything else. So when you focus on a problem or a negative feeling you block out everything else and you lose out on a lot of opportunities and even worse when you are living in a negative state and you focus on a negative emotion you start to create problems that aren’t even there.

The second component is strategy. When you set out to accomplish a goal you don’t do it haphazardly, if you do then you are almost assured failure, you need an effective strategy for whatever you are doing. You can be the most motivated person in the best possible state but if you don’t have a STRATEGY for success then you are not going to get the results that you want. The way to find a winning strategy is to model someone who has already achieved the success that you want and by doing that you can turn decades into days. Mike Dillard’s Magnetic Sponsoring is the blueprint for success in this industry and it’s second to none, anyone who has read this or any of his other courses and implemented his instructions can attest to this fact.

The third component is limiting beliefs. You will only reach as far as your limiting beliefs will allow you to; they stop you from charging forwards towards a goal. To be successful you must find what your limiting beliefs are and SHATTER them and insert empowering beliefs. Tony Robbins says that “a belief is nothing more than an idea that you are certain about”, with that being said you can believe just about anything you want so why limit yourself? You can think of a belief as a tabletop and the legs of the table are references. The tabletop is useless without the legs just like a belief is meaningless without references. In most cases people who have had failure in their past tend to have references of failure which perpetuate their limiting beliefs. The greater the failure the greater the limiting belief, the truth is that it does not have to stay this way we are not our past experiences we are actually the lessons that we have learned from those experiences. When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.

The fourth component is old software. The mind is the greatest computer ever known, if you look around and see all the advancements and innovations around us they all stem from the human brain. So with everything around us evolving and changing it doesn’t make sense to continue to feed the source of all the change with old software, it defeats the purpose. Those that are successful in business are the ones that are not married to their original ideas, if you try something and it does not work you cannot be afraid to leave it behind and try something different. I have heard the definition of insanity described as doing the exact same thing over and over and over again hoping to get a different result.

Live your life with this model in mind and you will excel in business and life, but that is easier said than done. Sometimes we can go about our lives minding our business living just like this model says and suddenly something unexpected happens and the world begins to unravel right before our eyes and that is perfectly normal, after all we’re not robots. The real question is how long will you let it distract you? The longer you remain in your funk over an issue that may or may not be as detrimental as you make it seem, the less time you have to developing your business and enhancing your lifestyle.

Now the ball is in your court. Do you have the courage to leave your comfort zone (which is usually not all that comforting)? do you have the strength to pit your mind against the challenges that come with pursuing a life of success and freedom the likes of which your friends and family members cannot imagine? If in your heart you believe that you are meant for something greater than where you are at now, then the first step you MUST take is to get your Free 7-day  Instructional Video Boot Camp.

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