
I lost almost 200 customers in two months and dropped rank in my company but because I understood the game, I continued to hit rank time and time again. Don’t let a lack of determination be the reason why some people live in victory but you have to live in mediocrity.
How to Avoid Dropping Rank in Network Marketing
Someone reached out to me saying, “Oh my God. I’ve hit this level and I’m not at this level now. I want to cry and don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get it back.”
This is an amazingly common thing.
I would almost say every top leader in network marketing at some point has hit a rank and dropped rank.
Every leader in network marketing who’s been around for any length of time has had their organization go up and come down a little bit.
Attrition
Usually, if you have lost your rank in network marketing it’s because you’ve had some attrition.
Some customers have come in and you were at a certain level, some customers fell out, and you dropped below that level. So, what do you do about that?
I’ll talk a little bit about what you’re going to do about that but more importantly, much more importantly, is what is your mindset about this experience that just happened?
Network Marketing Is A Business
I want everyone to realize that in our profession, it is a business just like any other business in the world.
If you were to look at the stock market, how many of you have noticed that the stock market goes up consistently all the time and it never dips?
No one has noticed that because it’s just not true.
We all know that. It’s common knowledge. It’s common sense. We understand that the stock market doesn’t go up all the time.
Apple, the first company to get to a trillion dollars in market cap is now at $816 billion.
They were a trillion dollar company and now they’re not. Does that mean Apple’s going to go out of business? Does it mean that Apple’s business model is broken? Not at all.
Look at Amazon. Amazon’s stock goes through the roof and then it comes down. Does that mean that the Amazon business model doesn’t work? Does it mean they’re going to go out of business? Should Bezos quit and give it up? Not at all.
That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
It’s equally ridiculous to think that your organization is going to go up consistently all the time. It’s never happened in the history of network marketing.
There is no company that’s been around for a few years that hasn’t had a down month.
The Nature of the Business
It’s just the nature of business.
It’s how business works.
We need to stop being employees and having an employee mindset. We’ve got to be business owners.
We’ve got to put on our business owner cap. We need to put on our big boy and big girl pants and understand that that’s the nature of our business, to have fluctuations.
If you analyze the stock market over a 30-year timeframe, it has averaged a 10 or 11 percent growth every single year.
Hopefully, depending on what stage you’re at in your organization, you’re growing at much more than 10% on a yearly basis. You certainly can do way more than that.
The bottom line is the stock market, while on average it will go up 10% a year, there are down years. Some years it goes up 20%. Some years it goes down 5%. Other years it stays flat, right?
Why do we think it’s different in network marketing?
Dropping Rank is All Part of The Game
I’ll give you one of my experiences and I’ve had many over the last 24 years.
I have an organization that has grown to well over a million customers and I had to work like crazy.
I had 440 customers and hit a certain rank in the company and I was so excited because my group was growing, things were happening, and I’m like, “Man, I’m going to hit the next rank. I’m only a few hundred customers away.”
Then one of my leaders quits. He goes to another network marketing company and my group goes from 440 customers to 250 customers within about two months. I lost almost 200 customers in a two-month timeframe.
Most people who would go through that experience would say the business model doesn’t work and they’d quit.
They’re going to stop heading towards success and they’re going to get on the sidelines. They’re just going to sit back and they’re going to play the blame game. “Oh man. This business model doesn’t work. This is wrong. I can’t believe they did this to me. I don’t know if I want to do this anymore.”
Thankfully, I understood it’s all part of a game. It’s just how things are.
When you think things should be different, that’s the challenge.
The thief of joy is expectation.
When you expect things to be different from what they are, it robs you of your joy. It robs you of your certainty, hope, and faith. And when you have no faith, you’re dead.
What do you do when you lose rank?
You do the exact damn thing that got you to the rank in the first place. You do it again.
Abundance vs Scarcity
It’s an abundance versus a scarcity mindset and most people are living in this scarcity mindset.
“Oh my God! I finally got to this rank and because I have so much scarcity going on, I don’t believe I could ever do it again.”
You got to flip that around and have some confidence that if you did at one time, you can certainly do it again.
But now you have a major advantage because you’re not starting from zero. You have a team in place. Maybe you had some customers or some distributors or whatever quit, but you have more than just you, certainly.
Your skill set is much greater. You’re a lot tougher.
When You Drop Rank, It Makes You Stronger
Network marketing is kind of like rolling a car up a hill. It’s a lot of work to get that car up the hill.
At the top of the hill, it’s kind of like the full-time income. And when you get it at the top of the hill and have enough leaders that are working and doing things, then the car will just kind of roll on its own and you’ve got the residual income coming in.
Until it gets to that point, you’ve got to push and push and push.
The first time you go up the hill, your skills in network marketing, let’s call them your muscles, are as weak as they’ll ever be.
Once you’ve done it and have gone halfway up the hill, you’ve worked those muscles and you’re stronger.
When you get to the top of the hill, you’re even stronger.
When you go back down to the bottom and you start a new team or you have to rebuild a team, guess what? You’re stronger than you were before.
You have a higher level of leadership. You’ve probably learned to communicate better. You’ve been through so many different experiences that your muscles are stronger and you can do it again the next time.
The Valley of Death
I talk a lot about the valley of death and the valley of death is what kills network marketers because they don’t think this should be happening when every business model in the world says it should be happening.
It goes up and then it comes down and because it went down, you think the business model’s broken, that it doesn’t work and you quit.
Realize that if you go down, the way you get back up again is by doing the same thing that got you up the first time. You show more people. It’s as simple as that.
One other point that I want to cover here is how to avoid dropping rank.
Avoid Dropping Rank
You have to understand this concept.
I could do a whole show on this but the people who got you to the rank that you’re at are not necessarily the same people who are going to get you to the next rank.
You need to be building multiple teams.
In your compensation plan, if it requires you to hit four leaders to get to a certain level in order to be at a certain rank, don’t go for four, go for eight.
If you end up with six, you still have two leaders. If two quit, you’re still good.
It’s one of the reasons why I have so much security where I am in my company’s compensation plan is because I’ve got more than what’s required.
I could have 100,000 people quit on one team and I’m still the top rank because I didn’t do the minimum. I went over the minimum.
You’ve got to have the mindset.
Sure, we want to have positive expectations and want to expect people to be with us forever. We want to hug on them and love on them, but you got to realize that’s not always the case.
You need to build some extra teams so that you don’t have to get in that situation.
There Are Two Roads to Success
Success is a highway and there are two lanes.
You’ve got one lane leading to success. You’ve got the other lane leading to mediocrity.
All of these people get on the lane heading towards success.
There are tens of millions of network marketers and hundreds of millions in the history of network marketing.
We hop in our company. We start heading down the road to success. We’re excited. We’re pumped up. “Man, financial freedom. Going to live my dreams. Going to empower the world.”
Well, the road to success is not a straight road at all. It’s a winding road.
When you’re running down the road to success, you end up in the shoulder.
The Should of the Road
The shoulder of the road is what you call frustration. You get frustrated sometimes.
You’re shaking a little, you drop rank, some people quit, things happen. There’s a little chaos.
When you’re in that shoulder of frustration, you think, “Oh my God. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be on the shoulder.”
Then you beat yourself up and you think, “Oh my god. The business model’s broken. It’s not going to work.” And you fall off into the ditch.
The ditch is discouragement. Discouragement is when you lose faith.
You give up on those goals and dreams because you don’t see them as realistic anymore. So, what do you do?
When you get on the shoulder of frustration, you realize that it’s all part of the what? It’s all part of the game.
You’re supposed to be on the shoulder. You’re not supposed to stay on the shoulder but you’re supposed to be on the shoulder at times.
If you’re going fast and the road is winding, you’re going end up there. You can’t get out of it.
I’ve been there a thousand times. Sometimes, I’m even there daily.
When it starts shaking like that, I know it’s all part of the game. I’m supposed to be there. I can think intelligently and I get back in the lane.
I don’t beat myself up.
Be Patient With Your Results
Sometimes, you have to be patient with your results and impatient with your activity.
You can control your activity but sometimes you can’t control your results. Especially in the beginning.
If you’re new to network marketing, I want you to realize that what you learn in the beginning is more important than what you earn.
I know you’re thinking, “Bullshit. I want to earn some money,” but listen, thank God it took me five years to get to a full-time income.
Why?
Because it made me so much better of a leader.
I went through the frustration. I’ve banged my head against the wall. I cursed myself. I had the feeling of desperation and hopelessness and I went through all that for five years. It sucked.
I’m thankful that it happened because today, I’m able to lead people out of a ditch. I’m able to lead people out of the valley of death because I was in it.
If you’re going through some challenges, it’s a gift, not a curse.
Determination Is The Key To Your Rank
When I read Think and Grow Rich for the first time, it said that within the book lies the secret of success.
I read the book and it never said what the secret was.
The second time I read it, I looked for the word “secret,” and it never said it.
I read it a third time to figure out what the secret was and for me, it was determination.
The people who win big are the people who have that pig-headed determination that they are just not going to quit.
Lots of people succeed.
Why did they succeed while so many others fail? They had more determination.
They were willing to stick it out long enough to figure it out, to figure out how to make it work.
Don’t let a lack of determination be the reason why some people live in victory but you have to live in mediocrity.
You should be thinking that there’s no way in hell you’re going to allow a lack of determination and other people beat you.
I know you have problems and challenges.
I know you have obstacles and excuses but there is someone with a bigger excuse than you who are living in the land of victory, who made it, who’s a millionaire today.
Why did they make it even though they have a bigger excuse than you? They had more determination.
Have that same level of determination. Stay on the damn road.
When you get on the shoulder of frustration, realize it’s part of the game.
Get Back On The Road and Keep Going
If you drop in rank, keep showing new people, and you’ll get your rank back, and you’ll go all the way to the top, but you got to have the determination and the will to win.
I hope you do.
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Matt Morris
#1 Best Selling Author of The Unemployed Millionaire