My wife’s business marketing experience selling Mary Kay products.

Network marketing teaches life lessons in business marketing. You can get a lot of experience and if nurtured properly you can become very successful from them. It may not be in the same business but that knowledge can help in a future business venture.

My wife is a beauty expert in her own rights. She takes care of her own hair, our kids and even her friend’s and their kids hair to. She believes in doing her own make up and does a great job at it. To capitalize on that passion she started a Mary Kay business.

She followed the Mary Kay business marketing plan exactly as instructed. She purchased the business package, which came with a lot of samples. she held meetings or makeover party as it was so called. She invited all her friends to come. I remember days when I was forbidden in the house because there were so much eager women wanted to learn my wife’s technique sitting in our living room.

At first, it looks like she was going to do well. She followed her mentors instructions. She made that list of her friends. She even invited people she met in the mall. People she did not know. She sampled out the products and did many makeovers.

So why did she fail?

Well first,the friends’ list ran out. She had no new friends to invite. The people in the malls and other high traffic areas were not too cooperative. It was hit or miss, mostly missing. The ones that did come were not buying from her because the products were too expensive for them. She ran out of money because she had to pay for all the products including the samples. Soon the pink briefcase was in the garage in the way. Another lost cause.

Well it did not have to be that way. Her upline misguided her into believing that she was going to be rich but did not tell her or explained to her where the money was coming from. She did not teach my wife the strategies that she had used to get leads. She did not explain the importance of marketing and advertising in the business. She gave her a water down version of the business marketing plan. What my wife did not know is that for every sample package she purchase she was making money for the upline. Her mentor was benefiting while she was giving away her money in the form of samples and make-overs. The only people making money and getting rich there were the uplines.

Friend list does not work in Network Marketing

One idea is that she could charge a cover for each person receiving a makeover. Something small and inviting but enough to at least cover the price of the samples. You see business is an investment and should be treated as such.It is about making money. Every investment you make should yield a profit. It has to be designed that way otherwise it is not a business.

If you start a business and does not calculate where the money is going to be made, how much is the potential income and how to keep it coming you have already failed. Network marketing is a business. You have to practice all precautions and strategies you would use with any other business. Most importantly you must have a business marketing plan.

Advertising is one key player in any business. You have to make your business visible to many prospects. She did not do that. She depended on the list and people she came in contact with on her travels.

You can give away stuff from your business in an effort to promote it, but you have to also maintain cost awareness and not over spend. The samples were very expensive and especially costly since she was not getting any returns on the investment.

Had she created a website, she could reach far more people. With a website she could pre-sell her prospect and make them more comfortable to spend. A website is the best tool for successful network marketing. The strategies are so much easier to implement there and everything becomes visual. You can target certain people and build a niche market. It is also possible to target a broad audience and separate them according to their needs from your business.

Another business marketing idea was to create a video of one or two makeovers and then play it for other prospect. She could have the same effect as if she gave them a make over herself. She could place that video on her website. She could also have used flyer's in her business marketing plan. They help to generate substantial business too

My point is just simply following the plan handed to you by an upline is not going to guarantee to make you successful. You have to be creative yourself. That make money instinct must be a part of you. Passion alone is not enough.

Persistence however is a great quality but only if you keep trying to improve on your efforts. If you keep failing doing something and keep on doing that same thing repeatedly, you will keep failing over and over again. You must change and try different strategies. If she had try different variations to do the business, she may have found one that work. However, being an obedient downline caused her to fail.

There must be a serious commitment from you to succeed. The briefcase ended up in the garage because of lack of commitment. The easy money she was promised did not happen so she bailed. That is one of the main reason people fail in MLM. They go in the business with the false feeling that they are going to make easy money. If you want easy money play the lottery, do not start a business.

I learned from my wife’s business marketing experience that in order to succeed in any business you must have passion,commitment and patients (perseverance). You need all three qualities not one or two and they must all be genuine.

Finally we got it . It may not be what we expected but we get it now ...