Duplication Is the Name of the Game

Network Marketing is by definition a process of duplication. You become successful only when you establish a profitable business and teach others how to do the same thing. Their volume contributes to yours allowing for virtually infinite expansion of volume and profitability.

There is nothing sinister or evil about the process of duplication. If done correctly, it can lead to phenomenal earnings all the way down the line. You see, each of us has a finite amount of time and energy to move volume. You may be a super-salesmen or saleswomen, but there are still limits on what you can do by yourself. If you have subordinates also selling, then the potential volume of sales of our organization as a team could expand dramatically. Of course, that won't happen unless your down line is trained and motivated to also become super-sales people.

Duplication can also be counterproductive. Let's say you are an expert at selling using a certain type advertising, if all your down line adopt the same advertising methodology, the effectiveness of that mode of advertising will likely decrease dramatically due to over exposure. Can you imagine if you had 50 or 100 affiliates all running the same classified advertisement, then none of the ads would be effective.

There is always a temptation to think only about yourself, about what you can do to increase the volume or profitability of your personal business. If you don't consider the potential effect if your whole organization is doing the same thing, you could be courting disaster. Let's say you are a writer like me, and you use that to draw traffic to your website. That is fine by itself, but if you teach your down line to do that as well, some of them might be able to do what you did, but most others obviously can't. You definitely don't want to restrict your business organization to the few who can do what you are doing.

As a smart sponsor you will always ask yourself if what you are doing, or planning to do, can be easily duplicated down line. You will be cautious about doing anything that would potentially negatively affect your business if duplicated down line. For example, you might be able to temporarily expand your business rapidly by investing a lot of money in it, but if that practice is duplicated down line, then you have in effect narrowed the field of potential affiliates to only those who are financially able to follow your lead. That could limit the future growth of your business considerably.

Be a Student of the Business

One thing about Network Marketing businesses is that they are inherently dynamic, ever changing, ever growing, always adding more products, deleting others and evolving to serve the customer and the distributors better. In order to keep up, the distributor or affiliate has to be dynamic as well. You need to be a perpetual student of the business or you will quickly find yourself being left behind.

We are in a time when many major store chains that have been around for years are suddenly closing their doors, going out of business. They simply couldn't keep up with the pace of change in their customer's attitudes and buying habits. Network Marketing businesses are no different. If they don't keep up, they will be left behind as well.

The old way business was done in years gone by doesn't deal with the new market realities. It used to be that network marketing involved doing a bunch of home presentations, warehousing products, distributing catalogs, doing home deliveries and all kinds of other things that are seldom done any more. We are now in the Internet age. The catalogs are all electronic. Products are drop shipped to customers everywhere so there is no more need for the home deliveries and no more need for warehousing. Business presentations are generally done online as well making them much faster and much more efficient.

Certainly electronic catalogs are much more cost effective, and can be changed minute to minute as new products are introduced and old ones that are no longer selling are eliminated. Besides, the general public is much more comfortable with buying products online than they were in the past. With the hectic pace of life today, catalog sales are booming. Most network marketing companies have jumped on that bandwagon.

Just as the marketing methods have changed, the look and feel of the networking businesses have changed as well. The way commissions are handled is more efficient than ever before because it is all electronic. Paperwork is now virtually nonexistent. Online games have been added to make things more interesting. Sponsoring is usually done remotely, and more often than not, the new affiliates have never met their sponsors before. Sponsoring can also now be done internationally as easily as it can be done at home. Most of the shackles of the past have been removed.

As big as those changes have been, the future promises to be even more dynamic. Each online business must continually strive to keep up or they will be left behind. This necessitates the distributors or affiliates of these programs to be forever adjusting to new realities, and only the strong will survive. You have to be a dedicated student of the business just to keep up.