Top 10 Reasons Why Network Marketers Fail To Succeed In 2016

We all have heard of network marketing. It's becoming more and more popular over the years because of jobs being cut out and people looking to start their own business ventures on the internet.

Network marketing is seen as a great way to get started in business with a minimal startup cost, done-for-you systems, zero liability and mentors to help guide you along the way.

In fact, Robert Kiyosaki, author of Rich Dad Poor Dad and very successful entrepreneur said,

“Network marketing is the fastest growing business model in the world today.”

Yet, the vast majority of network marketers fail every time they try to get started with another company. This has resulted in a bad rep for some companies and even the industry as a whole for many people.

But, is it really always the company's fault that their reps are failing? In some cases, yes.

There are many shady companies out there and you have to do your research before joining one, but there are also many quality companies that have helped create many millionaires while adding quite a bit of value to consumers.

A Few Companies That Have Been Around A While:

• Herbalife
• Mary Kay
• Amway

Amway even has their name on the Orlando Magic NBA basketball team's stadium. No scam company could do that.

So, that tells you there are companies to work with, but if you aren't making any money, it is usually your own fault. Here are the top reasons I see reps failing to succeed in 2016:

1. Impatience

As a network marketing rep, you are now a business owner. You cannot expect to do everything right from the start. You have to take action, tweak and learn along the way.

Most businesses take a while to start becoming profitable and that time period can be minimized with good systems and a helpful mentor, but don't be one of those people that just tries for a week, gets discouraged and quits.

You'll never get anywhere that way.

2. Lack of traffic

Usually, you are given resources like affiliate and recruitment links that you use to get sales and build an income. You can't expect everyone that sees a sales page to buy something though.

You need to operate like there will only be about 1-5% of people buying who are exposed to your products. This means you need TONS of traffic and you need to collect emails, just like any other business.

This is probably what is hardest to teach new reps to do. Most people just want to make money quickly after they start, but then the company tries to teach you a bunch of complicated lessons on marketing, SEO, advertising, email list building, etc.

This confuses and frustrates new people and they end up quitting. You have to get traffic though. Without it, you won't get anywhere.

Related: 30 Ways To Make More Money Blogging Online

3. Lack of simplicity

New reps cannot be asked to do a lot of complicated tasks when they get started in network marketing.

Many companies ask their reps to build websites, create blogs, start video channels, do paid advertising, etc. to get sales, but it takes years to get good at those things.

This is why a good mentor should create a super simple system for helping people get results. Here are a few ways to do that:

• Let reps buy a percentage of your traffic (co-op) where you do the complicated stuff for them
• Let reps blog on your established website and give them a place to put their links instead of yours on their posts
• Let reps do some videos on your channel while you do the editing, uploading and optimizing for them
• Give reps templates for to use for content marketing (like an outline for how to compose their blog posts)

Reps are new to marketing and business. Most of them won't have a knack for it. As a mentor, you need to make it as easy as possible for reps.

4. No connection with the products

If you don't have any connection with what you're selling, you won't be motivated to sell it. For instance, if you are a man, you probably won't do well selling Mary Kay products.

If you don't care about being healthy, you probably won't sell a lot of Herbalife products. That's just the way it is. Find something you have a connection with and sell those types of products.

5. Outdated Strategies

In 2016, the days of telemarketing are just about gone. No one answers the phone for people they don't know anymore.

We have caller ID, landline phones are almost extinct and millennials seem to prefer texting, emailing and social media messaging over calling. So, why would you be trying to call people to sell them something?

This is just one example of a strategy that might have worked 20 years ago, but shouldn't be used in today's world. You have to go with the trends.

6. Lack of constant education

No, I'm not saying you need a college degree to be a network marketer. In fact, many business owners end up dropping out of school and becoming successful.

This isn't a job, it's a business. That doesn't mean you should just keep banging your head against the wall trying to break through though. You need to educate yourself through books, courses and experience.

If you'll study successful people, there are two things they tend to do:

• Read daily
• Have some sort of meditative practice

Meditation is a whole other conversation for another time, but reading daily is a great habit that will help you get smarter and wiser.

Whether you read a chapter a day or an entire book a day, you need to constantly be educating yourself in the areas that matter. For network marketing, read books on:

• Persuasion
• Marketing
• Productivity
• Creating good habits
• Creating systems
• Self improvement
• Consumer psychology

And the list goes on and on. The point is, always be improving. Because as Rick Pitino once said, “If you're not getting better, you're getting worse.”

7. Bad habits

Tony Robbins will tell you that your success is about 90% mental and 10% technical. So, if you get the mental side of success down, you're already 90% on your way to succeeding.

Developing the mentality of a successful person really starts with good habits. It's the small tasks we do day-in and day-out that shape our results.

Write down what your daily habits are, good or bad. Then go through them and ask yourself if each one is helping your or stopping you from achieving your goals.

Eliminate habits that include:

• Procrastinating on work
• Not educating yourself
• Not eating healthy
• Not sleeping enough

I could go on forever telling you which habits you must get rid of, but I think you get the point. Divide up your goals into daily activities and your life will be much easier.

8. Not testing

If you don't test your squeeze pages, sales pages, sales videos, email autoresponder messages, etc., how will you know what works? A good marketer is always testing.

Now, in a perfect world, your mentor that you sign up under will hopefully take care of this for you or have a system in place to simplify it. But, sometimes you have to track the numbers yourself.

Always be testing. That is a saying that sums up marketing pretty well. When you find things that work, build on them. When you find strategies that don't, discard them and make changes.

9. Not helping new reps

Once you get to where you are making sales and recruiting some new people, you should be helping them. You should have systems in place, whether you created them or your sponsor did.

These systems should be very simple and straightforward, so your new reps can get their first sales as soon as possible. The sooner they get that first small win, the more likely they are to stick with it.

If you ignore new reps and don't give them anything to help them succeed, they will feel alone, not understand what to do and quit at the first sign of failure.

10. Not setting goals or a clear purpose

Why are you in network marketing? Sure, you want to make money, but you need to go deeper than that. What will the lifestyle of a network marketer or the money you earn get you?

Will it help you quit your job and have more free time? Will help you live a mobile lifestyle, so you can travel the world? Will it give you family the funds to live comfortably?

You need to be asking yourself these questions or you can kiss any potential for success goodbye. To build a business, you have to play the long game, not just the short one.

You need to know why you are working on your business. You need to know who you are doing it for and what will happen when you finally start succeeding.

It needs to excite you and make you want to work harder.

Once you have that, you need to figure out when you want to achieve these goals and set a deadline. Without a deadline, a goal is just a dream. It will always seem out of reach.

Without a deadline, you won't have a sense of urgency. If you need help creating goals and deadlines that set you up for success, read the post: How To Achieve Anything You Want In Life In 4 Steps.

Related: 55 Best Internet Business Ideas For 2016

Conclusion

Network marketing is probably one of the best ways to get started as a new entrepreneur.

There is no liability, you don't need to put in as much money as you would starting your own company, you get tools to help you, you have a mentor to ask questions, and you can make lots of money.

Still, no business is easy. If it were easy, everyone would be an entrepreneur and there would be no employees to actually keep the businesses going.

But, if you avoid these 10 mistakes, your network marketing career will be much easier and a lot more profitable.

What has been your biggest struggle in network marketing?