Biology 101: Everything You Need To Know About Network Marketing

Here’s a primer I hope illustrates the key to success in all facets of life – hell, the key to life itself -  to give you a sense of what works and what doesn’t in building a successful network marketing business.

Like it or not, all life, whether single-celled, leafy green, or business suited, is biological and as such we have two inter-connected purposes that drive all others: survival and replication.  The purpose of life is to survive and, seeing that we can’t live forever – yet – life also seeks to replicate itself by passing genes on to offspring, or writing great symphonies, or having a drink named after you like my favourite, the Harvey Wallbanger.  This isn’t a choice; it’s hard-wired into all living organisms.  If it wasn’t there’d be no life, no me writing, no you reading.

Now since we humans are especially clever life forms, we’ve developed especially clever ways of moving the survival and replication agenda forward.  But, really, we’re always following the same imperative: do what is necessary to survive and replicate.

As social creatures, we’ve survived and even thrived by forming communities for protection – which makes survival easier and, in some cases, creates great wealth. Within those communities there are invariably pecking orders based on perceived survival and replication value: align yourself with the strong and the successful, and you’ll be strong and successful too.

Sound like caveman psychology?  It is, and in evolutionary time we’re all less than a hair’s breadth away from our ancestors.

Think about it, do you get ahead by marrying unattractive losers and working  dead-end jobs?  Do you choose a second- or third-rate school for your children?  Do you consciously seek out friends based on how quickly they’ll drag you down?

Assuming you’re a well-adjusted human being (which is to say you care about your future), the answer to these questions is NO.  You do the very opposite things because success breeds success.  Winners back winners.

“I’m not teaching you something new, I’m asking you to take a look at things as they have been, are, and always will be.  In order to survive and replicate, you make choices, consciously or not, meant to align yourself with people, organizations, and systems that succeed.”

Let us leave the classroom at this point and take our new-found learning to the streets, the streets of network marketing, as precarious a place as any caveman hunting sabre-tooth tigers ever encountered.   Better still, let’s pluck our caveman from the hunt and drop him into the world of contemporary network marketing.  What would he think and what would he do?

Assuming he’s more curious than afraid, he’d probably see a world oddly like his own, where the fittest and most successful of the tribe consort with others of their own caliber or those who inspire to learn, and everyone else vies for a spot somewhere down the line.  He might notice that vertical mobility in the pecking order depends entirely on aligning yourself with winners, not losers, and certainly not with outsiders.  If he is a successful hunter, making him a leader in his tribe, he might rightfully seek out alliances with the leaders of this strange new tribe.  Perfectly natural.

What’s the take-away here?  What does evolutionary theory have to do with Network Marketing?

Well …

Let’s start by asking some basic questions: Who are you associating with?  Who are you bringing into your business? On whom do you spend your valuable networking time?   These people, are they motivated and success-driven entrepreneurs and/or professionals? Are they proven in the industry of network marketing or inspire to be?  That list of leads you’re calling, is it stacked with pure potential?  Or do you catch a whiff of wanna-be-get-rich-quick time wasters?

Are you happy with this?

Do you see yourself moving on up the line?

If not, it’s your life and I wish you luck, because you’re going to need it.

Survival and success in this business isn’t about luck, though, it’s about constantly learning from the best and hanging with the best so you can be the best too.

“It’s not magic, it’s science: there are successes out there, winners who’ve gone before you and blazed a trail.  Learn from these people, follow their trail.  Seek what they sought. Stop crying about how this industry doesn’t work, when it’s clearly YOU that doesn’t work. Suck it up! “

Like our caveman friend, you have 2 choices, annihilation or re-alignment – get yourself on a winning path so you can share in its success, make the right contacts, generate the right leads, and start blazing trails of your own.   Or you can cry and complain and look for reasons as to why it doesn’t work to justify your own failure.  You’ll pick one either way, so you may as well decide consciously.

You’ve got to start somewhere, right?

From there, build a team in your own image and attract the success driven people that spell success in our industry.  Become the person you seek to recruit and accept nothing less.