Network Marketing (MLM) Home Business – Life Skills and Lessons Learned
I got involved with Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) or Network Marketing (NM) after subscribing to Robert Allen’s landing page.That was around in the first quarter of 2008 and it was my first time ever to be involved in a network marketing industry. I learned about Robert Allen after attending KC See’s You Can Create Wealth Seminar of Money Mastery way back 2007. They recommended reading the book on Multiple Streams of Income and I must say it’s a must read book about different money making machines. My curiosity to learn more about the author lead me to opting-in from his website’s squeeze page.
I got a call from an American speaking guy from Taiwan and I thought it was Robert Allen. I was super pessimistic when he told me it was network marketing. I got a very bad impression about the MLM from the media and friends when I was still staying and working from my country, the Philippines. I was impressed how he was able to handle my objections by throwing with another question after question. So in short he became my upline sponsor after spending sometime studying the online videos that he sent me. I did my own research and found the credibility of the company, products and the leaders as the best in the industry.
Here are some of the lessons that I learned:
1. Communication – this is the foundation of the training. We have complete set of materials like audio books from most of the top sales and mlm gurus. The lessons that I learned was very invaluable such that I never had the chance to learn them in my formal schooling. Say for example, we should treat sales as a form of communication. Everyone of us are in some sort of selling whether we like it or not or we just simply didn’t realize it. You sell yourself to an employer so that you will get that coveted job. Before you got married, you sell yourself to your partner. You sell yourself when you performed your best in a basketball or any sports tryout .
2. Mental Attitude – I did learn how to handle and accept multiple rejections both from face to face and mostly cold calls. I can’t remember how many rejections I received and no answer from my follow-up calls. You must be able to deal with different personalities. There were some who were super skeptical about the industry.No matter how you would want to ask them in a polite and appreciative manner, they will just say unpleasant things about you. Having this mindset is very important since the business is a numbers game or a law of averages.
3. Healthy lifestyle – this is the most important lesson that I will carry with me even when I grow older. At present, I’m still taking the supplements to keep me going with my daily activities. This was further reinforced after attending Tony Robbins Unleashed the Power Within Seminar last 2009. What you eat is very crucial about what you become. As much as possible though I’m not that consistent yet, I eat vegetables and fruits with watermelon and grass jelly drink as my favorite. Though I seldom play basketball, I make sure to jog if not do some exercises or a bit of dancing every time I came home from work.
Lastly, I want to share with you some very valuable lessons that I learned from a great leader. Whenever you talk to prospects you need to ask these 3 questions:
1. Is this for Real?
2. Can I trust You?
3. Will You help me?
All objections are based and rooted on these questions. If the prospective client or customer answers all of them with YES then he/she just bought YOU. Yes, You need to sell Yourself even in other business in general.
Achieving Your Goals and Dreams- How To Overcome Barriers?
goku super saiyan in dragon ball z breaking barriers
Do you have the power to believe in your goals and dreams? You have the power to achieve anything.
Last Thursday April 22, 2010, I attended the monthly Personal Excellence and Growth Meetup. It was fun and engaging experience as facilitated by the inspiring Patrick Yc Lim. We were given this questions and made us write down.
1. What is Your Dream? an example is what lifestyle do you want to have/live when you retire? We were divided into groups and made us to share our dreams. When you share your dreams with another person it becomes a commitment. This will make you more accountable. The goals and dreams should be as specific as possible.
2. Why is your Goals and Dreams important to you? You need to ask this question, Why? The more it is emotional to you the more likely you will motivate yourself to achieve your goals.
3.What could stop you from achieving your goals? There were lots of reasons and sometimes can be considered as excuses such as your job, friends, money, limiting beliefs, procrastination, health (sickness), out of focus. If you noticed these are mostly about oneself. So the old age saying by Socrates,“Know Thyself” is something that we have to start with. A great book reference is Thick Face, Black Heart by Chin-Ning Chu
We need to keep on asking deep questions. Say, when you say no money, what do you really mean no money?what are the ways of finding money? Is there a way to do it? Do I know someone who can support my ideas? Are there venture capitalists or angel investors that can help? There was a suggestion of about asking Google for help regarding the common questions.
4. What will happen if you did not achieve your dreams? The key is to associate with some sort of emotion such as pain say if you did not achieve your goal of creating the Personal Development School for the children, they will suffer the consequence of ignorance or poverty.
The Master-Servant principle - the idea is the master determines the goals and dreams. The master orders the servant to do or carry out the activities.The servant also looks for other partners who can help him with his tasks.
Another Principle is the Big Yellow Circle – the idea is to close your eyes and imagine yourself achieving your dreams and goals when you step inside the circle. The color intensifies by changing the color to orange as you become emotional with what you feel using all your senses. In my case, I imagine my self as a Dragon Ball Z character Goku turning into a Super Saiyan. If you don’t know what I am talking here take a look at his picture above. I used to watch this Japanese anime back then. I remember doing this kind of exercise that I attended at Unleash the Power Within Event.
Some words of wisdom that can help to motivate were;
“Success is Not What you Know – It is What You Do with What You Know” The key here is your ability to take action.
“Failure is not because you lack ideas or knowledge, It is because you lack courage.”
Ask yourself this question, “Are you afraid of the known or the unknown?” You can make similar analogy in life as the level of your comfort zones. You have to embrace the challenges in life because it means that you are stepping out of your comfort zone. Be afraid of the known because it is where you are now, your comfort zone. Go into the unknown where the infinite possibilities lay waiting for you.
Jerome Castaneda sharing with PEG group what his dreams are
Personal Excellence and Growth - Breaking Barriers Group
Thank You 2009 and An Exciting 2010 Goals!
WOW! 2009 will be my most memorable year! It was the year where I learned to develop my skills in internet marketing. My objective at that time was to learn how I can generate more leads to my network marketing business through pay per click. I learned more than what I expected and the thought of passive residual income while you sleep is such an inevitable and powerful tool. Internet marketing is such a lonely business if you do it by yourself so I highly recommend that you find a mentor just like when you enroll to get a college degree. I developed my skills in the field of search engine marketing – both in search engine optimization and Google adwords. It was my first time to buy a domain name for jeromecastaneda.com and learned to use this powerful blog resource of WordPress. Actually, I managed to rank on the first page for some keywords about my blog. Woohoo! I was able to dominate almost all the sites on the first page for my name Jerome Castaneda and hope to totally dominate it next year 2010. Indeed, wordpress is the king!
I had the chance to attend Tony Robbins Unleashed the Power Within 4 day’s seminar at the Singapore Expo. In those 4 days I had the chance to shape my destiny in my thoughts and managed to do a firewalker on burning coals. It was also in this event that I truly take care about my health especially the food that I ate. I just developed the love for green stuffs, vegetables and fruits. Wow, it was truly an awesome time to remember.
It was the year where I regularly attended a Personal Excellence and Growth Meetup with great life coaches, Mr. Patrick Lim and Ms. Jessica See. I’ve met like minded people and exchanged life experiences and philosophies to grow and become the person that I want to be. There were 2 things that I learned if you want to succeed or grow in life, 1. the people you know or associate with and 2. the books that you’ve read.
2009 was the year I started to grow my spiritual relationship with the Lord God through CFC-FFL Singapore (Couples for Christ – Foundation for Family and Life) as a member for the Servants of the Lord (SOLD) group. Here I got the chance to meet God filled spirited people where there’s no inhibitions about telling your personal challenges in life. Here we prayed for each one’s personal success, family and health miracles. I highly suggest to any individual to join a spiritual or religious group especially if you’re working away from your family just like me.
Now, some people (especially with hardcore employee mindsets) may ask me why on earth should I spend much time learning stuffs that is outside of my job skills as a Mechanical Engineer. My answer is very simple my friend, I have Big Dreams. I am taking Jim Rohn’s advise to work hard on myself than what I do on my job. Personal development builds up my character and my attitude at work. I have the power of concentration and the focus to become a very productive engineer not only at work but with my relationship and communication with my colleagues.
As I looked forward about my 2010 goals, I am very excited about the potential person I can become. Year 2010 will be the start of my 10 year master plan. I’ll continue the commitment of my never ending personal development blog, to become the best father to my son and a loving husband to my wife. I’ll continue to read or listen to books or audiobooks, to meet like minded individuals in personal development and internet marketing fields. I’ll continue to work and apply my skills in internet marketing, to help local businesses generate more sales to their business. I’ll continue to take care of my health by having a regular exercise and watch out on the food that I take. Most of all, I’ll continue to praise and worship God for all the blessings and for the person I become.
