My Prospect Thinks Network Marketing is Too Hard!

Have you ever had a prospect tell you that network marketing is too difficult?  Too much work required to become successful?  Is that true, or is it an exaggeration?  Obviously, everything worthwhile requires work, but I have found that most of the time, the prospect is looking at the effort required, rather than the reward they would receive for their hard work.

I’m not afraid of hard work, especially when I know what awaits me on the other side.

The Effort of the Effort

A lot of times I find that what prospects are really looking at is the effort of the effort. 

For example, you want to work out, and you get up in the morning and think about getting dressed to go out there; there’s an effort of getting out there. 

You’re pushing yourself to get out there and you’re thinking about it, but once you start working out, it feels incredible. 

Then you tell somebody, “Remind me that when I don’t want to work out that I’m actually going to love it once I get started at it.”

Elite People Seek Groups to Advance Themselves 

Elite people seek groups to advance themselves. You might be thinking, “Well, Tim, I don’t think of myself as elite.”

I didn’t either, but I wanted to be.

When you think about this from the person’s point of view, they’re looking at the effort instead of the reward. The reward of working out is worth the effort of working out.

This is the way that I’ve always viewed this, even back in the military when we would go on marches with heavy rucksacks on our backs. 

The guys would be saying, “Man, what are you doing? Slow down. Take your time.” 

I would say, “No, I want to get the hard out of the way.” 

That was always my concept, because I know I’m going to be working eight to 10 hours a day and I want the highest return for my effort. 

If I was able to hustle up the hill with that rucksack, then I’d get to sit down and wait. That was the reward while everybody else was barely moving up the hill. I wanted to get up there and sit down. 

That was always my view of it. I guess I got beyond that whole effort of the effort and I just go after it.

Looking at Effort Without Experience 

A lot of times you’re looking at the effort of what it’s going to take, but you don’t have any experience. 

Once you have experience, you put in efficiencies and economies of effort. 

What do I mean by that? If you’ve never flown before, and you’re thinking about flying and packing, and getting to the airport on time and how long it’s going to take to get through security, you’re looking at it without any experience.  Thinking about it or going through all of that for the first time can be overwhelming.

But once you’ve done it five or 10 times, then you know the economies. You know exactly what you need to do, and when. 

A lot of times the prospect isn’t looking at the fact that once they get that experience, it’s going to be a whole lot easier. 

Pessimism Philosophy

People who say network marketing is too difficult are possibly saying, “I’m not qualified.” 

I had to bring this up, because you’ll want to believe them. 

When I’m talking to a prospect and that person is continually talking about the effort and the difficulty, or they blame it on time instead of the difficulty or something like that, I’m actually listening for something else. 

I talked about this in another video, “How to Deal With Excuses in Network Marketing.” 

It’s the pessimism philosophy. 

It’s the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, who said, “I can’t win. Therefore, the only victory is refusing to try to win.” 

That is always on my mind when I start hearing somebody trying to talk themselves out of it. When I hear that, I let them talk themselves out of it. 

I don’t want to work with that person unless there’s some kind of a spark; or determination to succeed.

Perhaps Arthur was mirroring his environment or his view of life.

Often times a person’s point of view has to do with the environment they’re in. If a lot of people around him were pessimistic, then it’s likely that his whole philosophy was based upon his environment or his outlook on life.

Can Anyone Have an Independent Point of View?

My question to you is, “Can anyone have an independent point of view?” 

Regardless of the environment, regardless of the attitudes of people around you, can you have an independent point of view? 

I would say absolutely. I would also say it’s more difficult, and so I like to get out of that environment in order to continue on. 

In any situation that I’m in, everybody else can be really, really upset about it, for example, a car crash. But I can have an independent point of view and say, “I want to go try to find the person that’s hurt here and see if I can help that person out. I want to start running through emergency procedures.”

You see there’s a difference between somebody who’s leaning up against the guard rail crying, as opposed to somebody who can have an independent point of view and say, “No, I’m not going to lie down and cry. I’m going to get out there and figure out how I can help.”

It Pays to Be a Winner

When I joined Spec Ops, I was looking to advance, to be better. 

I believe that this is an absolute fact because I saw it all around me: Elite people seek groups that they think will cause them to advance. 

I’ll never forget the first time I heard this phrase: “It pays to be a winner.” 

What does that mean? Wind sprints, pushups, pull ups, swims, and I will assure you that I never would have pushed myself that much. 

We were doing wind sprints in Coronado, California, in about 1982. We were running about a 40-yard sprint, back and forth. 

I heard this phrase, “It pays to be a winner.” 

I thought, “Of course,” but I didn’t realize that it’s horrible to be a loser.

Whoever won the first 40-yard sprint got to sit out while everybody else had to sprint back, and then sprint back again to where he was, and then he would join the race. Guess who would constantly win? That person who won. 

That’s why they built that philosophy in our heads: It pays to be a winner. 

It’s also horrible to be a loser. Why? Because whoever was last in each sprint, got cut. 

Wow, does that motivate you if you really want to be a part of that team!

I’ll never forget that feeling that I’ve never run that fast. Why? Because I didn’t want to get cut.

That did make me better. I joined that team.

I remember when they showed the Spec Ops video in boot camp, it looked like a bunch of guys getting beat up to me. There were ridiculous runs, ridiculous swims, ridiculous boating and various different things. 

When I went back to my company after watching that video and signing up, they said, “You signed up? Why would you put yourself through that hell?”

I said, “I don’t know.” 

I know what it was now. At the very end of the video, the guy was just standing straight and you could see his resolve, and his feeling of, “I made it.” 

I wanted to feel that. 

I think that when people are looking at network marketing, they want to get better. At least, that’s what I assume is the situation, unless they’re constantly telling me otherwise. 

It Is as Hard or Difficult as it Is

I know this is a stupid phrase, but it’s as hard or difficult as it is.

No factor. 

What do I mean by “No factor?” 

Anytime we were in a planning op we would have a particular attitude.

The guy who was leading the planning would say something like, “Look, it’s going to be difficult for us to get over this hill. It’s going to be difficult for us to swim out to the submarine.” 

We would always have this attitude called, “No factor, sir.”

When something looks to be hard, you’re projecting out the amount of effort that it’s going to take, but a lot of people exaggerate that. 

If it was a thousand-yard swim or a mile swim or something like that, we would always think, “We’ve already done that many times, so what’s the big deal?” 

What do you think about this? Tell me your view. Is the effort worth the reward?

Have you ever run into a prospect that was projecting a much bigger effort than it was? Was he making a dragon out of something that was really just a bird?

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