If You Want Your MLM Business To Be A Success, Learn To Avoid These Five Harmful BizzBlockers

It’s not at all a cake walk trying to build a successful MLM business these days. For one thing, you have a ton of competition. Good competition from all the other legitimate MLM home business opportunities. And competition, in a way, from all the bottom-feeders of the world who pretend to be businesspeople when they’re only snake-oil merchants peddling gifting programs and similar schemes.

Because we (The BizzBoosters) have attended SO many networking and MLM events over the last 10 years (we were once known in our town of nearly a million people as the King & Queen of networking) and because we were teaching networking in public workshops and via teleclasses, we’ve drawn an extensive list of what we call “BizzBlockers™”; things people do that block their business growth – particularly their MLM business.

What I want to share with you here are five of those BizzBlockers™. Those are things I highly recommend you avoid doing if you want to build your MLM home based business very successfully – online as well as in person.

You know, you can have the best of the best digital gadgets available, you can be an amazingly effective copywriter, or a really good story teller, but in the MLM industry where people need to work closely with their sponsors to make it, you won’t succeed much, or for long, if you have the reputation of being a bore, a complainer, a gossiper, or an egotistical ass.

Here are five pretty common-sense things I suggest you avoid doing at all costs. Avoiding those is simple, relatively easy, costs nothing and yet delivers great results over time:

1-Don’t criticize, complain, gossip, or spread rumors.
A golden rule for discussing other people – or other MLM business opportunities – is this: If you can’t say something good, say nothing. Criticism has a habit of coming back to bite the critic. And if people often hear you criticize or complain about others – individuals, upline leaders, MLM companies – they’ll never really trust you. How do they know you won’t be complaining about them to someone else one day?

You can never make yourself look good by making other people look bad – never forget that! Your progress in the world will be determined by your own efforts and worth.

On this topic, Jim Rohn says, “There are two ways you can have the tallest building in town: the first is to roll up your sleeves and build a building that is taller than all the others. The second is to destroy and flatten all the other buildings so yours stands the tallest.” I can assure you that you’ll make a lot more friends (and a lot more money) if you employ the former method.

Of course, you can avoid potential problems by discussing ideas and events, and staying away from talking about other people – unless it’s all positive. Keep the following observation from Ann Landers in mind at all times:
“People with great minds talk about ideas.
People with average minds talk about events.
People with small minds talk about other people.”

2-Don’t be the bearer of bad news (all gloom & doom).
NO SCARS. No scars? What does that mean? Write this 2-word axiom on a small card and put it in your wallet – or on a sticky note on the side of your computer screen. It’s a timely reminder not to show your scars to other people – that is don’t tell them about your operations, your financial problems, your downline problems, your illness, those really bad people at that other MLM company, your souring love affair, or how you hate the opposite sex.

People don’t want to hear about your troubles. You’ve got corn on your feet? Tell your mom, your sister and your podiatrist. No one else will care to hear about that. Just remember that when people say, “How are you?” it’s normally a gambit to open a conversation, NOT an invitation to describe the state of your health – physical, mental or financial – or that of your relatives, neighbors, distributors.

3-Don’t talk Me, Me, Me, Me, Me!
(avoid particularly the “mine is bigger than yours” syndrome)
The most common words in spoken English are:
1st = the, 2nd = and, 3rd = I (“you” only comes in 7th place!)

Annoying “Me-Me” talker:
“My cat got fleas, my dog was attacked by bees, my son got all Cs, my daughter won’t eat her peas, my sponsor I can’t please, and to top it off, someone moved my cheese ...”

Annoyed listener (thinking): “Okay … but What Is In It For Me?”

What is the number one thing people are interested in? THEMSELVES. We are vitally interested in our own journey through life! That’s natural. And that’s why you must keep in mind at all times that the chief interest of the person you’re communicating with – either face to face or on the Internet – is not you and your concerns. Whether you’re chatting to someone, making a speech, posting a new blog post or sending a broadcast email, the paramount consideration should be what interests your audience, not what interests you.

Here’s one of the best (of many) recommendations by Doug Malouf in his fun, informative book Power Up Your People Skills:

“Get other people talking about themselves. They’ll go away thinking what a brilliant conversationalist you are.”

Another way of expressing this most important BizzTIPPPS™ (Thoughts Ideas Principles and Practices for Professional Success) would be: DON’T BE A BORE!

How much time do you want to invest in someone who puts you to sleep? Any chance you won’t pick up the phone when you see his name – Al Bore – on your caller-ID display? Will you be in a hurry to respond to his e-mail? If your answers to these three questions were NONE, YES and NO, then do ALL you can not to be known as a bore.

“A bore is one who talks to you about himself – in the first person;
a gossip is one who talks to you about others – in the third;
and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself – in the second.”

4-No F.A.R.T.S.!
The use of any one of these will earn you the deserved reputation of someone with a “stinking attitude” (pun intended) and will make your interlocutor, whether in person or online, want to go elsewhere – in search of fresh air:
Flattery, Arrogance, Ridicule, Talking down, Sarcasm
Keep in mind at all times this wise observation by Brian Tracy: “People don’t like to be told, taught, or talked down to.”

5-Don’t “sell” at networking events.
Now, if the first 4 BizzBlockers™ had to do with bad things people do in person and online, this fifth one relates strictly to networking events where you get to meet people face to face. It is probably the worst BizzBlockers of them all (and we have over 50 on our list…).

From the book Masters of Networking, here’s a great recommendation from salesman extraordinaire Mel Kaufmann, known as: Kaufmann Corollary #2: Networking and Selling Don’t Mix.

“Networking and selling are like oil and water. Both are vital for your financial engine, but keep them in separate containers. Some professionals equate networking to selling. Not so! Selling severs a relationship, while networking bonds a relationship. Unless you have taken the vow of poverty, STOP selling at events! If you keep asking for the order, the next event you attend, the people you want to meet will avoid you as if you had the measles. Talk to people. And gather information, not deals!”

I hope the “knowledge” you gleaned from this article will be helpful. Remember though that knowledge is power ONLY when it’s combined with ACTION! If you think the BizzBlockers™ above are valuable, put them in practice, and seek out more of them.

I wish you ALL the business success you desire and deserve. Remember that the success you desire is function of your ambition, but the success you deserve is function of your ACTION!

Daniel G. St-Jean
BizzBooster, and The Sparkplug of Personal Development
Author of 7 Simple Keys To Spark Change In Your Life Now!
Co-author of 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life – volume 2