Guest post by Stephanie

So there you are, sitting in a restaurant, watching this person draw little circles on a paper placemat. The person says, “All you have to do is find five people, and those people will find five people. And then, voila, you have this giant network and even bigger checks showing up in your mailbox.”

Or, in a more updated version, you are listening to a webinar where someone is drawing digital circles, but still feeding you the same “five people” story.

Well, it’s a good story. It’s also a good plan. The only problem with the story is that it’s the super-abridged version of what actually happens when you go to look for your five people. Don’t get me wrong. Supposing the company is good, and offers a fair compensation plan, the MLM business model is unbeatable at generating passive income. It’s just that the “five people” story skips a few steps along the way. Let me fill you in on these steps so you don’t get discouraged as you look for your five people.

Finding Your Five People
Suppose you are thrilled with the MLM business model, and you sign up with the company. You order all your promotional goodies and set out to find your five people, whether you prospect friends and family or you go with an online MLM model.

You are so excited when you sign up your first person. You drag them to an online webinar and they watch the same digital circles getting drawn. Perfect. Now, one of three things happens:

1. The person gets as excited as you are, and goes out to find their five people.
2. The person loves the idea of finding people, but in reality does nothing.
3. The person falls in love with the product, and sells mostly product to friends and family.

With the first response, you are in heaven! You have found a business partner who really matches you. They do exactly what you do and proceed to go out and sign up five business partners. Congratulations. You have just increased your network by an exponential amount.

With the second response, you float on pink clouds until you realize that the person isn’t going to do anything. They have big dreams, they just don’t know how to act on them. They don’t want to sell the product to consumers, but they haven’t a clue how to do the business, no matter how much coaching you offer them. Bummer.

With the last response, you end up with someone who often has fairly steady group volume, but doesn’t sign up any business builders. They sign up a bunch of consumers, but don’t help you deepen or broaden your network, which means you can’t maximize your commissions. However, these consumers do create a solid group volume for you.

The Moral of the “Find Five People” Story
So what’s the moral of this story? The moral of the story is that you should be aware that the “all you need to do is find five people” story is an abridged story. The story should really say, “You need to find five people just like you, and it might take some time.”

Now that’s saying something different. If you are motivated, driven, and want to achieve lasting success in your MLM business, you will need to look for five people just like you. They have to be just as motivated, have the same business savvy, have the willingness to learn, and be coachable. Most likely, you won’t find all five of those people right out of the gate. It may take a while.

In the meantime, work with and appreciate the people you bring into your network. Love the people who bring in consumers. They are your bread and butter, and will help you meet your group volume requirements. Appreciate the people who dream big dreams, even if they never get anywhere. Just be careful not to spend too much time with them.

Finally, never let go of the vision of finding five people like you. You may find one per year. That’s a very reasonable time frame. In addition, you never know when one of your underperforming “big dreamers” or a consumer will suddenly pop up on your radar and become one of your five. Got it? Good!