A lot of us join a network marketing program because we want to be our own boss.  I know that was the case for me.  After I was let go from a job that I had for more than 10 years, I wanted to be able to take control of my career.  There is, however, one problem with being your own boss – you are also your own employee.  How to you balance being the employer and the employee?  Who wins?

The Art Of Compromise

When you are a part of a network marketing program, you have to wear many different hats.  You have to be the boss, the office manager, the accountant, the gofer, and everything else in between.  One of the things you have to be able to do is compromise.

As an owner of a business, you want to get the most out of your employees.  The problem is – YOU are the employees.  One of the things that you can do to help you compromise is to sit down first as the employer (the boss) and list all of the things that you would like to have accomplished.  Make sure that you give priority to the MLM income producing activities.

For example, you know that your most of your MLM income starts with prospecting.  So as the boss, you would like your employee to spend as much time as possible prospecting. 

As the employee, you don’t like prospecting so much.  It’s tiring and can be stressful, because of that you don’t really want to do any prospecting at all.  You would much rather do other things.  Unfortunately, there isn’t anyone else that can do the prospecting for you.  What do you do?

Meet in the Middle

The boss wants 6 hours of prospecting every day.  The employee wants 1 hour a day.   Why not do 3 hours a day and make sure to give your employee a reward for doing anything over 3 hours of prospecting.

I know this may sound kind of funny having a conversation with yourself about how to run your network marketing business but believe me, it works. 

In order to be able to create the MLM income that you are looking for you have to be able to do all of the jobs that come with owning your own business.  And one of those jobs is making a realistic schedule that the network marketing boss and the employee can both live with.

As you may know, I am training to run a half marathon in about 6 weeks.  While I was on my run this morning, I was thinking that the best part of running up a hill is reaching the top and seeing an area that you can coast down for awhile.  This got me to thinking that your first year network marketing is a little like running up a hill.

I know for me, my first year was tough.  I didn’t know anything about multilevel marketing.  I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  I just knew that I wanted to be able to earn money from home and take control of my career.  

The thing is that being in a network marketing program isn’t like every other business.  I mean – it is and it isn’t.  Let me see if I can clear it up a little.  I ran a half marathon a few years ago in Florida.  I had never ran more than 3 miles before signing up for that half marathon and I didn’t really know what was going to be involved.  It was hard and there was a lot of training that I had to do in order to be able to run 13.1 miles but I did it and I was very proud of myself. 

I wanted to be able to feel that sense of accomplishment again so I decided that I would run the same half marathon in Florida again this year.  No problem, right?  Well, my husband talked me into running a second half marathon here in Raleigh, NC.  His reasoning for me running the race here was – I was going to be training here with him anyway (he signed up for the race long before I did) it’s just one more month of training and when I cross the finish line is will be great.  This went on for a while and I finally decided that I would do the race too.

I figured that running a half marathon here in Raleigh would be the same as running the one in Florida.  Here’s the thing.  These two races will be nothing alike accept in the number of miles that will be ran.  The race here will have hills, lots of hills vs. the race in Florida that will be very flat.  And the temperature in NC in early November is very nice for running whereas the temperature in FL in early December can still be rather warm.  Last time I ran it, the temperature went to 80+ degrees.  Even the elite runners were feeling the heat.

Here’s my point (I know you were probably wondering where I was going with this).  No two network marketing programs are alike.  No two network marketing products are the same.  And no two marketers will work their business the same either.  But if you can make it to the top of hill, you will feel like you accomplished something special in your life.  There is no feeling like making it to the top of a hill or reaching the finish line.

Whatever MLM program you are with, set yourself a goal to reach and do whatever it takes to reach that goal.