Most network marketing companies include personal development as part of their business training. From motivational calls to practical training on goal setting, self-confidence and perseverance, the companies’ claims often go as far as ‘creating entrepreneurs’.

But are network marketing companies really entrepreneur factories?

I don’t think so. In fact, there are only 2 kinds of people who join network marketing companies:

1. Those who are already entrepreneurial (whether they know it or not).
2. Those who are not… and who are only representatives looking for an easy way to make money.

Let’s compare the two, and let’s assume that the desire factor is equal (i.e. both the entrepreneur and the representative want to achieve their goals just as much).

It actually all comes down to business planning, management and marketing.

Those who aren’t entrepreneurial are likely to simply follow the leader. They use the ‘system’ provided, as it is, without creative or forward thinking. Sadly, they often keep using strategies even if they don’t work, for the sake of ‘following the system’, ‘doing more of it’ and ‘playing the numbers’ game’.  Their job description is closer to that of a business representative than a business owner.

The result: While they may make money, they are completely reliant on the system and the company. They blend in and fail to attract customers to their unique skills and traits, and to their personal brand. They have a business that is limited for growth, and is not sustainable. Should they fail at generating results with the company’s system, they have nowhere to go.

Those who are entrepreneurial make it work. They adapt the system to make it work for them. While they use the elements of the system that create results, they inject their unique skills and interests in their online marketing strategies. They attract people to their personal brand, not merely to the company products or online business opportunity.

The result: Entrepreneurs build their businesses from the inside out. They apply their existing skills and talents, and they develop some more to become exceptional. They refuse to conform to systems that don’t serve their ambitious goals. They build their personal brand by sharing their unique value, by creating their own products and services, by strengthening their personal networks and by building a list of followers. They rely on themselves to be successful and to create a sustainable, evolving business.

Does that mean network marketing is bad for the not-so-entrepreneurial?

Yes and no. It means that joining a network marketing company and starting “your own” business won’t turn you into an entrepreneur. You can develop your entrepreneurship and leadership, but this will be a result of your own vision and dedication, rather than a result of the company’s system. While your company and mentors can help you with the motivational and personal development training, what you do with it and how you take action is always up to you.

It also means that unless you take full responsibility for your business success, you won’t build a meaningful, unique and sustainable business online, with your own identity, purpose, passions and skills for its foundations. If you want your business to be “your business”, your company products and opportunity should only be one out of many vehicles you use to make money and market your personal brand online for long-term success.

Get the Definitive Guide to Personal Branding for Network Marketers here!

Justine

Ups and downs are a fact of life. However, for small business owners and new entrepreneurs fighting for their place in the world of business (and in the heart of consumers), the downs can be long, hard and taxing.

Instant success and wealth is rarely the rule when it comes to starting a business online, and especially for those ‘idea people’ entirely new to sales, marketing and management, the road to victory (or to making any kind of sustainable income!) is often bumpy and full of obstacles.

But, one must carry on, get back up and keep moving forward. Thanks to the recurring hurdles and constant challenge, growth is inevitable and drives those willing to use it.

Here are 10 tips to beat the entrepreneur’s slump:

1. Confirm your goals and define milestones. This will help you define your path, reinforce your ‘why’ and meaningful goals, and appreciate your progressive achievement.
2. Get strong. Entrepreneurship will never be for the passive, faint-hearted and gutless. Work on developing a strong success mindset, so that you can always grow from your setbacks and keep moving forward. Develop a positive, courageous, productive attitude.
3. Mind your health. Always make time to keep fit, relax, and enjoy life.
4. Prevent overwhelm. Keep things organised and work with a manageable to-do list.
5. Seek advice and express yourself. Share your experiences with a mentor, coach, networking group, friend or family member. Why not go public and share it all on social media or your blog!
6. Express gratitude. Appreciate how far you’ve come, and how powerful you are at realising your greatest dreams! Be thankful for the amazing opportunities surrounding you (and don’t forget to grab a few!).
7. ‘Just do it’. Sometimes waiting for the right emotion prevents action. While you take action and ‘just do’ what you have to do, the motivation and enthusiasm will follow.
8. Take a break. If it’s all too much, take a break. It’s often a great opportunity to recharge and gain new insight on your goals and projects.
9. Get empowered. Develop new skills and knowledge to get more productive, confident and competent.
10. Focus on the process, while trusting the outcome. Celebrate small successes often. Enjoy the ride. Find creative ways to inject more fun and passion in your work. Trust that, through consistent and inspired action, you WILL accomplish your goals.

Life’s up and downs provide windows of opportunity to determine your values and goals.
Think of using all obstacles as stepping stones to build the life you want.
~ Marsha Sinetar

Here’s to learning, growing, rising and achieving great things!

Justine

People build personal brands around their own unique values, interests, expertise, skills and passions. Yet, most marketers often feel that there are 2 entities defining them… personally and professionally.

This has been one of my greatest challenges as a business owner and network marketer. I’ve grown professionally in corporate working environments where there were the ‘professional me’ (exposed) and the ‘real me’ (private). My ‘private me’ rarely made it to work. My ‘professional me’ helped me get my job done and advance my career. I felt awkward at work parties and felt a profound lack of connection with my colleagues.

When I became an online business owner, I instinctively used the same approach. While I was starting to build my personal brand via my blog and social media, I still reluctantly bared all. My first profile photos were those of a professional, bland woman… with hardly any passion in her eyes or personal style in her clothes! Needless to say to those who know me, it was a totally inaccurate image of myself. So, there was the boring, professional, ‘expert’ me… versus the passionate, slightly-geeky, impatient, optimistic, creative, nurturing, cheeky, anxious, stubborn, proud, generous, and ‘genuine me’ behind the curtains… and behind the brand.

While the founding elements of my business and brand were real to me, they were no where to be SEEN. While I acted with integrity and personal ethics in everything I did, without lying or faking, I still revealed so little of myself that the result was… well, little.

So what’s changed? How did I become ‘at one’ with my overt authentic personal brand? I had to beat (and continue to fight off!) the FEAR and other counter-productive thoughts about personal branding and authentic marketing. Some of these thoughts are:

-       No one is interested in who you really are.

-       Your ‘fake you’ offers more value than your ‘genuine, flawed you’.

-       Your ‘professional you’ will sell more than your ‘real you’.

-       Exposing your authentic self makes you vulnerable and weak.

-       You don’t have anything unique or valuable to offer.

-       You cannot lead from the front… there are too many people in front of you.

Ouch. Did that hurt? If you think or feel like this (as I did and still do at times) you’re not only hurting your feelings, you’re hurting your business and your brand.

In an online marketing world where people want to build relationships, gain trust and truly engage and connect with people, those self-limiting thoughts and fears create HUGE obstacles for personal brand and small business branding.

Here are some tips to show your real self through your personal brand, and bring harmony to you, yourself and your brand:

1. Accept that who you are is good for your business and brand.
2. Understand that what makes you unique makes you memorable and valuable.
3. Use your authentic self to build trust and relationship, and genuinely engage your audience.
4. Rather than faking it, flaunt your ‘best self’ and include your aspirations and vision in the definition of your personal brand.
5. Grow as an entrepreneur. Gain the knowledge and skills you need to become awesome at what you do and to become a leader.
6. Accept that you are HUMAN. Don’t hide your weaknesses like the plague… rather, find creative ways to use them to your advantage and constantly learn from your mistakes.
7. Share inspiring or significant moments in your life (personal or professional). Open up! What inspires you will inspire others. What moves you will move others. What changes you will change others. What empowers you will empower others.
8. Conquer the fear! Forget about being judged, being laughed at, or looking stupid. If some visitors don’t like who you are, they don’t belong in your market anyway! Use personal development to get empowered and appreciate yourself and your unique value!

What challenges have you experienced in defining your personal brand and promoting it?

Justine

We all need to prioritise. We’re all given the same number of hours every day (rarely enough hours!) to complete various tasks. When running a business, a home, a family and a life, prioritising can become a complex task.

As an online business owner, work at home mum of 2 preschool-aged children, business partner, personal branding trainer and mentor, marketer, wife and friend, I know what it’s like to have a massive to-do list and feel like I don’t have enough time to do it all. So I’ve spent some time to establish practical rules for prioritising my tasks.

Here are the 3 EASY RULES to help you prioritise:

1. Prioritise TASKS, not categories.

I often hear or read people saying that their priority is their family, their business, or their health. These are massive categories, and hardly a guide for efficiency. If you prioritise your family OR your health OR your business, how will anything ever get done in your other activities and responsibilities?

The key is to prioritise SPECIFIC TASKS AND ACTIVITIES within your categories.

2. Prioritise with TIMESPANS AND DEADLINES.

Prioritising something for ‘this week’ simply doesn’t cut it. How long will it take you to complete your task? When does it need to be completed? When will you spend the time to get it done? Whether your priority is fitness training at the gym, taking your kids to the playground, or setting up a new social media marketing campaign for your online business, you need to know when, how and how long.

The key is to determine TIME FRAMES FOR YOUR SPECIFIC TASKS AND ACTIVITIES.

3. Prioritise your PLAN AND FOCUS.

Once you’ve set your specific priorities and time frames, you have a plan! What you must now do is follow it, and allocate your focus to those activities within those time frames. Multi-tasking, while sometimes a necessity, is always done to the detriment of the main task at hand. So when you need your focus, plan for it and commit it to your tasks and time frames.

The key is to FOLLOW YOUR PLAN AND COMMIT YOUR FOCUS TO TIME FRAMES FOR YOUR SPECIFIC TASKS AND ACTIVITIES.

Prioritising tasks for your health, family, relationships and online business should never be overwhelming. When applied with those simple rules and a little bit of planning and goal setting, all your tasks can be completed effectively, without the stress and overwhelm.

PS: My awesome business partner Juli Parker did some fantastic training on this, including training on goal setting, taking action , beating procrastination and effective habits!
Get it at www.SpunkeBusiness.com >> Training >> Mindset Training

How do you prioritise? Got hot tips? Share them here!

Justine

I often see people who are not getting the results they feel they are entitled to in their online business. Despite commitment and hard work, they continue to spin their wheels using ineffective strategies, or using valid strategies ineffectively. But most importantly, they wonder WHY their results don’t match their efforts.

Let’s think about this for a second. Choose one or two areas of your business where you are not creating the results you want. Can you explain WHY?

For years I’ve been working hard (really hard) on my online business. Interestingly, I only achieved great results where I invested my time, effort, expertise, passion and skill. For anything I attempted in my business, without ALL of those, there were poor results.

Time + Effort + Expertise + Passion + Skill

This list is inclusive. All are required to achieve success. The various combinations don’t produce optimal results, and when we don’t achieve the results we aim for, it’s usually because we are missing something:

• Time, effort and expertise, without the passion and skill…
• Expertise and skill, without the passion…
• Time, without the effort…
• Passion and skill, without the time and effort…
• Skill, without the passion…

So what’s missing to achieve your goals?

When one takes responsibility for their results, there is no need for ‘wondering why’ or feeling deprived. It’s about finding what’s missing (time, effort, skill, passion, expertise) and taking action to fill the gaps.

You are responsible for your results. You decide on your goal (is it the right goal?) and you create the outcome.

Now, if you’re not achieving your results, can you explain WHY?

What will you do to change your results?

Justine

Personal branding is not just about marketing. In fact, it involves everything you do in your business, including the products you choose to market, the audience you attract and engage, your leadership, and the content you produce.

When you start to define a personal brand to build and market your online business, you define your passions, mission, and skills. You decide which elements belong in your unique brand, and which will help you build a meaningful and successful business. Your brand is all encompassing… it is at the centre of your business.

Creating a personal brand merely as a marketing strategy has its limits, particularly when your business is created before you even think about your brand. Personal branding is more than just stamping your name or your face on your websites or products. If your marketed brand (what you show at the front) doesn’t match the very essence of your business (what’s inside), your market may come through the door but are likely to leave empty-handed (and unimpressed!). Everything must be consistent… your target market, your products, your skills, your personality, your image, your marketing, your networking, etc.

When you put so much of yourself into your business, and when it becomes your vehicle to share your values, to harness your skills and passions, and to serve your communities with relevant content and products, you create a synergy between who you are and what you do. Personal branding allows you to build a business with such synergy, as well as implementing powerful social media marketing strategies to attract and convert your market!

Get your free personal branding training at SpunkeBusiness.com!

Are you building your business on your personal brand?
Is your entire business consistent with your brand?
How does your personal brand drive your marketing strategy?

Please leave a comment below, and if you like it, be spunky and share it!

Justine

How much can you grow within your personal brand? Can your personal brand EVOLVE over time? How will you cater for this personal brand evolution? Although your personal brand should have boundaries (set by your identity, passions and purpose), it must allow for growth within its scope.

Personal brands can be too big and too small, or just right! Some personal brands are so wide and undefined, that they prevent vision and focus. Those also fail to attract a targeted audience. Others are so narrow, that they limit potential and growth. Personal brands that are ‘just right’ are perfectly aligned with your current identity, purpose and passions, while enabling you to cultivate and expand your vision. They give  you room to grow, and cater for your personal and business evolution.

Here are some tips to give your personal brand room to grow and allow for this evolution to occur:

• Build your personal brand around your true passions! Something that you will be inspired to talk about and gain expertise on for many, many years to come!
• Pick a challenge within your brand, keeping you inspired to develop new skills and grow as you learn. Start building today your brand around future accomplishments!
• Be clear on your mission, your purpose, and your gifts. How will you continue to make a difference and have a positive impact in the long-term?
• Let your identity and genuine personality shine through. Be authentic and honest, always. Be yourself and share your personal growth and success!
• Channel in your experiences to promote growth. Your past experiences are relevant to the development of your personal brand, as you learn and gain new insight.
• Harness powerful strategies to carry and promote your brand. The resources you use will help you build an attractive personal brand and sustainable business online.
• Act on your inspiration! The most powerful vehicle for growth is inspiration!
• Give yourself permission to CHANGE! When things don’t fit anymore, change them. Constantly refine your vision, think big, and explore the unlimited possibilities. As YOU grow, ‘update’ your personal brand!

Sustainability often requires change, adaptability and growth. This applies to your personal brand too, the most important vehicle for your online business!

How do you make your personal brand sustainable, give it room to grow, and EVOLVE IT?

Justine

Katie Freiling has done it again! As the inspired and driven online entrepreneur she is, she has created yet another program to help network marketers grow an online business that is authentic, meaningful and profitable.

I’m so excited to share her course launching this week, because it will teach my fellow network marketing business owners how to apply the most important principle in building a sustainable business online: Personal Branding. Katie also just released 4 free videos for her pre-launch, explaining exactly why we all need a strong personal brand to succeed online, with some super insightful content.

I’ve been fortunate to discover personal branding from the very first day I started in network marketing. And I’ve seen many (many!) online marketers wasting months and even years trying to build a business solely by marketing their products, business opportunities or companies. Most of them could not infuse their own purpose, passion, and vision into their project to build a personally meaningful business and create long-term wealth. And while some of them made money, most could not see themselves branching out of their company to further develop their brand and business.

While most network marketers have a primary business opportunity to market, those who create online empires are the ones who build a powerful personal brand and who harness multiple streams of income. Not only can they create long-term wealth, they can also constantly reinvent and grow their business without relying on an external company and on being paid as a mere representative.

You can cash in on your company’s profit plan. Or, you can also Cash In On You. When you do, you can still make profits with your company, but you also become a better marketer, a stronger leader, and a true entrepreneur.  You can build your name, gain trust and respect from your market, and build an enduring list of avid followers and future customers. You can generate multiple streams of income, launch your own products, develop and share your expertise, apply personal meaning to your business, and make a real difference.

If you haven’t seen this yet, don’t waste another minute and go now to view Katie Freiling’s CashInOnYou videos!

(seriously, don’t miss out on some massively valuable free content from one of the most influential network marketers!)

To your personal branding success,

Justine

There are leagues in network marketing. There are leagues for “just having a go”, for “going to make good money”, and for “going to be a top leader”. Your goals and behaviours determine which league you’re ‘playing’ in…

When I started network marketing, one of my most important early decisions has been to play in the top league. Not just ‘making a lot of money’, and certainly not just ‘having a go’. I focused (and still do) massively on acquiring the skills and knowledge that allow me to be in that league. I’ve affiliated with great people (in my league), partnered with the right people (in my league), and learned from and collaborated with them. And yes, I may have left people behind… but my door is always open for the inspired and the go-getters who want to be in that league.

Results always arise from goals and actions (big news!). So your results will depend on the league you’re in. If you’re just ‘having a go’, the results will match your attempt. If you want to make a lot of money, and you’ve got the commitment and vision to match, you’ll make a lot of money. If you want to be a top leader in network marketing, develop expertise and inspire others while building a sustainable business online, the results, too, will match providing the goals and actions are consistently driven. And providing your get in the right league!

We’ve all heard that success is often supported when we surround ourselves with successful people. See the ‘league’ theme coming back again? We’ve seen the ‘tribe’ concept taking off in the recent year for network marketers to associate and collaborate with each other. Tribes also belong to various leagues. So the question will always be: Who’s in your tribe, and what league is it in?

This is not to say we all need to aim for the ‘top leader’ league. We all want different things. However, we need to play in the league that matches our vision, aspiration, purpose, passions and goals. We need to get in the league that plays at our level. We need to surround ourselves with the right players and be in the most enabling networks. We need to get in the league that allows for the challenge AND the growth.

So what league are you in?

Justine

PS: I have partnered with a savvy online businesswoman and friend – check out her blog too: Juli Parker’s Blog. Together we create great things! Spunk-eBusiness, Coming Soon!

We all have many goals, all of which usually belong to the areas of relationships, health and wellbeing, finances and time management. We have short-term goals and a long-term vision for personal success. Everything we do is to ensure we are moving forward in the direction of at least one of our goals.

When some of our most important and meaningful goals demand great focus and commitment, we often sacrifice the thoughts and actions directed at other goals. This often gives us a sense that we will reach the goal earlier, and be able to focus on our other goals once this one is completed. Although this may work for short-term goals, it is rarely an effective strategy for our long-term vision.

There are 3 main reasons why realising our goals should be approached holistically:

Goals are interconnected.
Our goals are often interconnected, and moving forward toward one goal will often allow us to transfer this positive movement into another goal concurrently. The positive shift toward the realisation of one goal can always be harnessed to benefit another goal. For example, being healthy allows us to be better in business and in our relationships.

Ignored goals are hindered.
Secondly, focusing entirely on one goal unequivocally deprives our other goals and any positive actions taken to achieve them. For example, when we focus solely on our work or business, our relationships, time freedom and health often suffer. While we may realise one goal, the results are often dampened because all other areas of our life have been sacrificed and need re-building.

Our goals converge.
While we all have many goals, they all converge to the same vision, values and purpose. When we set the right meaningful goals, the actions we take and the results we accomplish all merge to sustain our values, to realise our vision and to serve our purpose. At this level, goals cannot be isolated.

Here are some questions to determine if you are approaching your goals holistically:

- Do you sacrifice your relationships for your business or work?
- Do you sacrifice effective time management for your finances?
- Do you sacrifice your finances for your relationships?
- Do you sacrifice your health for your finances or your work?

Explore your goals today, and determine which are getting ALL your attention, and which have been stalled. How can you create a better balance every day to move forward towards all the goals that are important to you? How can you pull back on some of the focus to allow other areas in your life to continue flourishing? How can you benefit from the interconnectivity between your meaningful goals and the positive thoughts, inspired action and results they bring? How can you place more emphasis on the process, rather than the end results?

It’s time to broaden the focus, to reassess what is really important, to take in the process, and to achieve personal success through a holistic approach!

Justine