The Top 5 Reason People Fail to Thrive in Social Selling and 25 Tips to Help YOU Not be One of Them!

Have you ever experienced a defining moment? One that captures your attention and sends vibrations through your body; instantly your spirit is awakened, as though you have been appointed for such a time as this!

“In your life’s defining moments there are two
choices – you either step forward in faith and power or you step backward into fear”. -James Arthur Ray

My defining moment happened at a luxurious Estate in Breckenridge during a leadership retreat a few years ago. I was a Star Division Manager in a leading Direct Sales company at the time. A woman from the corporate office was there teaching us  how to interpret and strategize using our business reports.  We were informed that 97% of all the people that start either quit or do nothing within the first year. In light of these facts we needed to make sure we were recruiting more than enough people into our business to maintain forward momentum.

This disturbing fact of so many quitting was not a total shock to me having been in and around network marketing for the previous 14 years, but for some reason this time it really struck me. What stirred me was the fact that we were not in that room brainstorming how we could help more people succeed, there was no discussion of how we can do better, or what we as leaders were doing wrong that so many people were FAILING!

I thought to myself…it’s not right to bring people in knowing so many wouldn’t reach their goals! That felt really icky to me, maybe even a little bit like a scam.

The leadership training continued but my mind was elsewhere. My heart began to ache and my stomach twisted into knots as I thought of the 97% giving up. I imagined the enthusiasm they had as they first began their business, and I visualized them as they laid in bed unable to sleep due to excitement; thinking of the possibilities this opportunity could bring. How they dared to dream for a moment… of a life of freedom from their 9-5 job, or the luxuries they could offer their children, if ONLY they could make this business work.

I then felt those feelings of disappointment and frustration as they allowed themselves to let go of hope and walk away with their head hanging low, carrying with them another story to share with the world of how Network Marketing doesn’t work. BUT IT DOES…  (I knew this first hand) so, I had to find a way to teach them how to overcome!

I pleaded with the group and even boldly stated “Isn’t anyone else disturbed by this, this is not okay, 97% didn’t get into this business to FAIL!”

My concerns were met with a matter of fact answer, stating that it was just the way it was. I couldn’t believe that no one else seemed to care about so many failing. As leaders wasn’t that our job to help them succeed?

I was attracted to this business because it allowed me to help people grow personally AND make a great income doing it. Win, Win. For me it wasn’t as much about the money as it was helping people to realize their dreams. If I was going to stay in this social selling industry I would not be a part of building up peoples dreams without helping them to actually achieve their dreams as well.

I walked away with a mission to figure out why so many are failing to launch and thrive in this industry, and what I could do to help more people succeed!

The Social Selling Industry is amazing and profitable, if it’s done right.

After all, I was able to rise to leadership, win free trips and make a nice passive income of thousands for my family working less than 15 hours a week so I knew it was possible for others to do what I had done.

Through discussions, analyzing and researching I uncovered these 5 common mistakes people make in their social selling business that are detrimental to their overall success.
1.   The dream or need is too small to motivate them to action.
2.   They spew information onto their friends and family who never asked to learn and never approach those who would be interested
3.   They spam their social media with product driven ads and sale announcements and turn people off
4.   They don’t know how to lead themselves or others
5.   They try to squeeze a business into the cracks of their lives only to find they don’t have time for it

Dreaming Big Motivates
An average person is not easy to set into motion, especially when faced with the unknown. Fear sets in when we one is faced with the reality of stepping outside of their comfort zone. It is easy to visualize yourself doing it but it takes courage to actually do it. Enthusiasm can create a wave you can ride for a while, but once you are faced with resistance that wave dies and you find yourself pummeled with the harsh reality of a task that takes a perseverance, that you have not likely developed yet.

I have found in my own experience and through watching others achieve big goals that it takes more than an average dream to make you act when the chains of your habitual mind, distractions and fear have taken hold. You must be willing to reach for something that your current situation could never provide you.

You must go beyond what you feel comfortable with and reach higher for something that is currently untouchable. A house, a car, a vacation, a lifestyle that is so far fetched that you struggle to even imagine it could be yours. Dreaming big is not the way of the common man/woman but it is a guarantee that anyone who has achieved huge success has developed the ability to Think Big.

Is this something you struggle with? I want to recommend a great book that will help you strengthen your dream muscle. The Magic of Thinking Big [David J. Schwartz] Achieve everything you always wanted: financial security, power and influence, the ideal job, satisfying relationships all by allowing yourself audacious dreams.

Richard Branson, a very successful entrepreneur, writes, “Don’t ever let anyone prevent you from dreaming. Imagination is one of our greatest gifts. Without it we would never make the changes that make the world a better place.”

Friends and family are the low hanging fruit but often they are sour!

You are asked to make a list of your friends and family and you feel empowered as you start to write name after name. They are going to love this…. They need this…. They will absolutely support me no matter what… you think to yourself, as you write name after name.

In my experience once you start presenting your life changing plan to your friends and family you generally don’t get to the tenth name on your list before they have completely crushed your dream and made you feel exhausted from trying to defend your newfound miracle.

You have told them everything you know trying to convince them that this is the best thing that has ever been created. Since you have seen the light, drank the kool-aid, and likely made a significant investment in this new venture, you are convinced you just haven’t said the right thing to make them understand how this opportunity will change their life, so you keep telling them more and more flipping through your content grasping for more ammunition to defend your honor and your hope. Only to be embarrassed and mad at the lack of support the people in your inner circle (that are supposed to have your back) have shown you.

Here is the problem, first of all they know you, or at least they think they do, and well, possibly you have either not yet done anything that makes them believe in your greatness, or you have achieved so much they believed you are different from them and they could never do what you can do.
Second of all, did you even ask them if they had any interest in learning about what you just spent an hour or more sharing with them? They may really need it, but are they seeking a solution to their issues? Are they ambitious or looking to do something that will upset their comfortable and predictable life? Likely the answer is NO!

You went to them because it felt easier than approaching a successful colleague or that sharp person you always run into around town. Because deep down, as excited and as hopeful as you are, you are not totally convinced that you can make this work, and you don’t want to risk your reputation and pride right out of shoot with your best prospects, so you start with the people that know all of your failures and faults because you are super safe with them, and they can’t hurt you at all! Right???

Wrong! The opinions of your family and friends matter more than anyone’s else, because if in your mind if they don’t see greatness in you, who will.  If they can’t trust you enough to buy into what you believe in, then your limiting beliefs are going to turn on you like machine gun and bombard you with feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness. You may even face feelings of not being supported or loved. No wonder so many people fail with in the first 30 days of launching. Starting with friends and family to help you launch your business is a terrible idea!

Unless…. you expect them to reject you, and understand you are just practicing on them without any expectations of them seeing the light. If you made it through this part of your business I acknowledge you, for staying determined and not giving up and allowing your failures to teach you and make you better.

If you really want to have success from the beginning you may want to try this:
1.    Practice on a few people and make it interactive, no one has an hour attention span of you dumping information on them.
2.    Ask intriguing questions that make them reveal the needs your business can fill. Then they are selling the idea to themselves not being sold to.
3.    Ask for permission to share each part so you get a listening ear. Say something like, “Do you want to see how the money is made?”
4.    After you have a bit of knowledge and once you have worked through the initial kinks, seek out qualified prospects. A qualified prospect needs and wants what you are offering.
5.    Be courageous and give the achievers and sharp acquaintances around you a chance to see what you have to offer. They will likely end up being your leaders.

Spam sucks and irritates people!
I apologize to everyone that ever felt spammed by my Facebook feed that was constantly announcing my sale or the latest and greatest from my company. I was excited so I thought you might be too. Now I see that you aren’t on social media looking for unsolicited advertisements or offers.  You want to be entertained and educated. You love hearing about and seeing pictures of my personal life, not feeling like I am rubbing my business and achievements in your face. Now I know!

I follow the unspoken rules because when I get 150 interactions on a photo of my newly painted house or my child’s homecoming, but only 3 likes from my most loyal fans on a sale post, I can take a hint… (it may have taken me like 5 years but now I understand) In a world where DVR’s and Netflix are the way people cut out commercials, they have zero tolerance at having your commercial or solicitation showing up in their social media feed. Can I get an Amen!

So, you may ask, how does one get the information out online without irritating everyone? Here is my humble (but hard knocks educated) opinion.
1.    Share stories that subtly introduce the information you want them to know. Wrap them up in a good story or testimony and weave in seeds that they can absorb without putting up their guard. Share moments that are fun or exhilarating, tell them a story so inspiring it leaves them with tears in their eyes. People want to feel what you are experiencing in your business without making it seem like bragging.
2.    It’s all about balance. Keep your ratio about 5 personal posts to 1 business inspired post. Your followers will thank you.
3.    Make a business page or group and ask for them to follow or join but NEVER just add people to a group or page. If you take this step of creating a page or group you need to commit to posting regularly to keep them engaged and assure them you are a serious player in your business. If you aren’t committed they won’t feel loyalty to you.
4.    Post value based content helping educate and inspire them and to build interest on what your business offers. Ask questions to get them to interact and learn about your customers wants, needs and desires. Also make an enticing invite and welcome video to let them know what they will get by following your group/page.
5.    Lastly, don’t hide yourself behind your brand. Identify your personal brand that encompasses your business and reveals what makes you unique and interesting. Let your light shine! If you are funny, inspiring, knowledgeable, have amazing experiences, love food, love animals, family oriented, organized, or are a great resource, then let those attributes of who you are shine through. You should not be identified as your corporate brand but in the fullness of who you are. Allow your followers to see what you offer beyond what you sell or represent.

Instant leadership skills are needed to succeed in social selling but you don’t learn to lead in school
The first time I joined an MLM I was 23 years old. By this time I was married, a mother and I had 2 years of college and military service under my belt. I had grown a lot since high school through these experiences, but I still knew little about being a leader.

Frankly, I was still trying to figure out who I was. I had learned I was a terrible USN sailor (just ask my husband who saw it first hand) and a crappy student (which my D average can vouch for) so you can say I was still not sure what I offered the world, being that what I had tried so far was a bust.

At that time I was still living under the influence of who everyone in my life said that I was, and following their great advice like, Hey Bec, I know you are totally girly, hate structure and routine, but… the Military will pay for your college so you should join the Navy. I did…. and I am certainly proud of my time served, but it was absolutely not a good fit for me.  It is safe to say I had little self-awareness of my personality or talents, my self esteem was broken at best, and any confidence I had was born of the sheer determination to succeed; so that I wouldn’t have to deny my child the life I dreamed of giving her. It is one thing to deny yourself dreams and opportunity but to deny my child was unbearable. I was motivated to give her a better childhood than I had.

Obviously, I was completely prepared to have huge success in a network marketing business when we joined. (Insert sarcasm) My husband (Bless his support) and I, spent 8 years with that company, putting out of state trainings and sometimes product on my credit card, just to have the right to say “I was in the game”. (Pathetic ego talking) Looking back I am impressed with my tenacity to keep trying even when there was little evidence I could actually acheive the lifestyle of the rich and famous that I desired. It’s a hard truth that I did not have financial success in those years BUT…. I was being educated in much more important principles than how to spend money and live lavishly. It was during this time that I discovered success principles, read over 80 amazing PMA books.

I was growing in the ability to lead myself and others and began to associate with people who had a dream.

I don’t want it to take others as long as it took me and that is why I do what I do. I am your shortcut to becoming a leader. I will give you all of my best tips (hint: a free course will be included in this post) because I want your dreams to come true!

On my mission to discover why people were failing in social selling, the number one flaw I found was… that people were not ready to take on the responsibility and discipline of a business, nor were they prepared to empower others to lead.

The social selling industry encourages you to grow your success and leadership skills, but the need to gain product knowledge and learn their company’s proven “system” to success, takes up a lot of time and energy, so it is hard to also make time to plug into the personal growth aspect. Especially when you are self -teaching and do not have a roadmap to follow.

It’s not easy or convenient to fit in Personal Growth time, but this is the big mistake these new business owners are making. Learning and understanding how to self lead is vital to your long term success.

Action has been said to be king and can create fast results as well as big incomes but… most of us know someone who was a terrible leader that made it fast and high in the industry, only to fall swiftly and possibly to never rise again.

Leading yourself and especially a large team takes leadership skills.

What I have found a successful leader needs to know
1.    Understand your 4 letter personality type (This method is the most comprehensive breakdown of personality dispositions) and be able to identify and honor the personality types of others.
2.    Know your areas of strengths as well as weaknesses and identify them in others to work confidently, effectively and efficiently.
3.    Identify your limiting beliefs, mindsets and behaviors and reprogram your mind so it stops sabotaging you.
4.    Increase esteem and confidence in yourself so that you can be a servant leader and lead with humility and not ego.
5.    Develop the ability to be consistent, motivated and disciplined to take action, even when life is distracting and you don’t feel like it.

Learning how to be an effective leader can take years to master but I have created a tool to discover your 4 letter type and simplify the process to help you short cut the time it takes to grow personally and as a leader.

At the very least this can jump start you in the right direction.

Click here Discover the Power of Your Personality to discover your 4 letter personality type and sign up for a FREE 7 day email course to learn a ton about the power of YOUR Personality and you are welcome to share it with anyone who can benefit from understand themselves and others better.

The last problem I identified in why people fail is they are not treating their business like a business but instead they approach it like a hobby.

To many failed business tried to operate in the cracks of time in between all of the other important things in their life and never manage to give it the respect and attention it deserves. There is one thing about time that is certain (which is similar to money) if you do not learn to control it properly then ultimately, it will come and go without making an impact, and leaving you feeling a bit let down.

These are my best tips on how to fit your business into your busy life
1.    Schedule and Prioritize your business from the beginning! Put it on your calendar. Block it out and set reminders to hold yourself accountable. Just like a job, give yourself hours to perform, to learn, to take action. You must give yourself the time to do what it takes, because if you don’t sow in time doing profitable tasks, your business will never produce the results you need for success.
Start small with whatever time you have, even if it is only 5 hours a week. and slowly extend the amount of time. It takes 15-25 hours to run a small organization (but you will love your hourly wage). It’s a good use of your time I promise. Once your organization is larger than 150 you will likely need to invest a bit more but then you can afford to hire out other tasks that will free up your time.

2. Honor your set hours even when you don’t feel like it. This is where self discipline kicks in. You commit then you follow through on your commitments. The 5 second Rule by Mel Robbins is a fantastic book to give you simple tools to help you take action and stop hesitating and procrastinating.

3. Be aware of wasting all of your time on non income producing activities. Many people put in time (matter of fact it often consumes their mind) and get frustrated by their lack of results. This happens because they are avoiding the activities they need to be doing due to fear and the resistance to getting out of there comfort zones. Focus your scheduled time on activities like making phone calls, focused networking, follow ups (the fortune is truly in the follow up) and creating marketing funnels. This takes courage but your bravery will be greatly rewarded.

4. Plan for distractions. I have heard repeatedly how (particularly Moms) struggle to stay focused because when forced to choose between the needs of their children and their business they will ALWAYS choose their children. The way to conquer this common problem is to have a plan B. Do you need to work later in the evening when the kids are in bed? Try bribing them with a special box of toys, game or program while you work for 30 minutes. Do you need to work away from the house (out of sight out of mind) leaving them in good hands so you can focus? The truth is.. if Mom is there, you are the first person they turn too even if there are others there to help. When you are consistent with your schedule and you let your family see you are serious you set a boundary that will help them respect your scheduled work hours. On the flip side if you never stop working and do not learn to have defined work hours they will never respect when you are working and it will cause you a lot of problems. I speak from experience!

5. Multitasking doesn’t work so stop doing it. Never start with emails or social media or you will be pulled down the rabbit hole. It’s a good idea to work in blocks. Make a plan to do one thing when you are using your scheduled times. For instance, If you are making calls don’t switch tasks, go in with your list and pound them out. It is also best to not switch between types of calls or tasks. Do all prospecting calls, then follow ups, then customer calls. Your mind works most efficiently when it can get into a flow.

Don’t worry if in the beginning you feel awkward doing these action based tasks. It is common for you to resist doing the one thing you need to be doing! Especially when you are starting it will feel awkward and even scary because all things feel that way when you do it for the first time. Just keep telling yourself that, trying is learning, and you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to give yourself the space to practice and create some momentum. In a short time you will get better at approaching people and sharing your business.

Remember, you are in the social selling business so it will require you to make new connections and ask questions. Yes, you will get No’s but the yes’s you get will change lives, and give you the extra money and ability to make those big dreams come true.
I hope this helps you and that you will sign up now for my 7 Day Power of Personality training.

If you enjoyed this and found what I have shared helpful please like, comment, and please share on your social media feeds. I promise to not spam you and I will bring tremendous value and tools for your best success. I hope to have another chance to empower and encourage you to Shine your light into the world.
Keep Shining!