Multiple Income Streams - Genius or Joke?
by Barry Gruber

When I started in network marketing over a decade ago, the predominant thinking went something like this – In order to be successful, you need to be laser focused on one company, and only one company. This is the exact advice that my first sponsor gave me 12 years ago.

I followed his advice and spent the next 12 months climbing to the top of what appeared to be a stable MLM company. Nothing was going to stand in my way; nothing could stop me from achieving my goals. Unfortunately, reality hit home in month 13. It’s quite a long story, but all I'm going to say here is the owners of the company turned out to be the type of people that I wasn’t interested in associating with.

So I packed my bags, did a massive amount of research, and moved to a startup company that promised to set the Internet on fire. They had proprietary, cutting-edge products that were sure to turn the industry on its head. Over the next 4 months, we built a team of over 6,500 distributors and earned over $30,000. Much to everyone’s dismay, this company had their bank account frozen because of legal issues. I remember thinking to myself, “We’ve just been unlucky; the next company will definitely be the one!”

To make a long story short, we finally came to our senses after soaring to the top of 2 more companies that ended up failing us. We had not failed any of these companies but each company failed us for one reason or another. One of the companies had an amazing product, a fantastic owner (who I still consider a friend today) and an excellent management team. Unfortunately for the distributors, they decided to switch to direct sales and eliminated the multi-level compensation plan, cutting our checks by 90%.

Eight years ago, I finally came to my senses. I realized that I couldn’t be 100% sure about any MLM company, partly because I had no say in how the company was run. Since I couldn’t review the company books or check the business plan, focusing on one company would always leave my team vulnerable. Most people understand that it’s too risky to invest all of your money into one stock. So why do so many of us take the huge risk of investing our entire future (and the future of our team) in one company? It defies logic and any business consultant will tell you so.  

Why have so many astute networkers begun to build multiple income streams? Let’s briefly review the 3 most compelling reasons:

1. Minimize risk – by creating a diverse income portfolio, you dramatically reduce your risk. When income is coming from numerous companies, your team will not be devastated if something should happen with one of your income streams.
   
2. Maximize revenue – just like a vending machine offers consumers multiple choices that appeal to different tastes, offering multiple business opportunities provides your prospects with varied choices that appeal to more of your target audience. Multiple streams of income allow YOU to “mine” much more revenue from your target market.
   
3. Make Money When Your Prospects Say ‘No’ – No matter how good a product and compensation plan your primary company offers, only a small percentage of your prospects are going to be interested. This is not a criticism of your company; it is just a fact of life in the network marketing industry. If only 2-5% of your prospects are ‘right’ for your primary business, wouldn’t it be nice to have something to offer the other 95%.

The questions for most people are, “How can I manage multiple business opportunities without losing my focus? Will I need to be an expert on multiple companies, products, and comp plans? Will I need a separate business plan and marketing plan for each one?”

The answer is to use automated tools that do the sponsoring for you. Autoresponders, integrated landing pages, flash presentations and voice broadcasting are examples of automated sponsoring tools. Once the automated tools create ‘hands free’ enrollments for your various opportunities, you teach the serious people how to use the same tools to build their business.

By using automated sponsoring tools, you eliminate the need to be an expert in the various business opportunities. With a system that does all of the sifting, sorting, contacting, inviting, presenting, and selling, you can focus your energy on uncovering the leaders and training them to duplicate your results. These two activities (1. interviewing new members & 2. training leaders) are the true cornerstones of any successful MLM business, as long as you have tools that handle the sponsoring (and duplication) for you.

“This all sound good in theory,” you say, “but will it work in the real world?’ With the right system & tools, it definitely will. Since switching to multiple income streams, I have personally sponsored over 1,900 new members into my business. By sharing these automated tools with my team, we have built a network of over 67,000 income producing websites that generate a minimum of 8 checks each month. You can do the same, as long as you’re willing to put in the necessary time and effort.

© 2010 Barry Gruber. All rights reserved.
http://www.TrainingJunction.info

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