the bus route was developed, we started planning activities on Saturday in order to attract more people from the neighborhood. After promoting football, soccer, and cookouts in the neighborhood, the bus routes grew like crazy. The longer we ran the bus routes, the easier it was to attract new riders.
When that route was developed, I found an adult to take over it while I started a new route. Over the next six years, I started five routes that averaged over thirty people per route. Finding and developing new leaders was the key to starting new bus routes. I have developed a similar system while developing core training cities within my networking group. Starting a new route was the hardest part of the bus ministry but finding the right person to take over was critical for the continuation of the bus route long-term.
Starting a networking business is tough, but finding the right people to continue the business is the difference of your business lasting six months or ten years. Looking at things long-term is what the rich dad would recommend and that is how I recommend you build your business.
When your why develops into a big why as mine did, you need to find the right person who is passionate about building a network or about building anything because he or she will persist. The best advice that I have for anyone who is trying to build a networking business that will last long term is to find the right people. You will know that you have found the right person when he or she becomes very passionate. The right person who has this passion will be someone who is self-motivated. They will be the ones who you do not have to continue to motivate to canvas for new people to share their experience with. These people do not have to be called and asked if they talked to anyone today. Instead, they will call you excited to tell about the people with whom they have talked today. This is the right person. These are the people who will make your business grow long-term. Find these two and you will never have the blues.
Chapter 2: Getting Started
Thinking about Your Business
As you prepare to start, I believe that thinking about your business is the most important thing you must do before you start a business. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he:” states Proverbs 23:7. This is one of the most profound statements found in the Bible that applies to starting your new business. As you develop your thoughts in a more positive way, you increase your chance of success. Some 97% of businesses fail within the first three years. Having positive, successful thoughts regularly helps keep you from being a part of that 97% rate of failure.
I have never seen anyone who said they can’t, who CAN! It all begins with the thought, “I can!” Then, “I will!” “I can! and I will!” is a phrase or thought by which I live. I learned from a young up-and-coming NASCAR driver that a sign posted in his bathroom and workout room made the difference in his attitude towards winning when he was discouraged. That sign said, “I can! I will!” As he thought more positively, he began winning!
Those two words can and will make all the difference! Your thoughts are the beginning of your new business. Being around positive people makes the difference in how you think and how you think and believe is the way you will perform in your business. If you hang around five broke, busted, and disgusted people, you will become the sixth one. Birds of a feather flock together. If you do not believe me, take an eaglet, raise it in a turkey pen, and watch the traits of the eagle. This great majestic bird will be reduced to the behavior of the turkey. However, when raised in its correct environment, the eagle soars above all other creatures. Success breeds success in all aspects.
Positive thoughts breed confident, positive people. When you listen closely to the way a person talks, if doubt and negative thoughts fill his conversation, the way to overcome this type of person is to become “double positive.” That is what my mother did every time my father said something negative to me. He would say that I was worthless, but my mother would counter that with a caress and a statement that he did not know what he was talking about so do not listen to him. Mom took away the power of his negative talk and gave me a positive affirmation of how good I was.
Wow, I did not realize then that my mother was making a difference in my life by making me into a positive person who could accomplish anything I set my mind to accomplish. Thanks, Mom, you are everything to me! A song I have adapted to my mother is “Cat’s in the Cradle” by Sandy and Harry Chapin. The part I would like to adapt and reference says, “I’m gonna be like you, Mom. You know I’m gonna be like you!”
Now that you have thought about your new business, it is time to schedule your new business.
Scheduling Your New Business
When starting a part-time business, most people do not realize it is critical to schedule time in your day to work your new business. Because people are so busy and time is very limited, each day must be examined in order to locate the most productive time to work a new business.
I found that getting up early and discussing new and exciting information and experiences motivated me to accomplish more each day. That motivation helped me to find every spare minute of my day to email someone or talk to someone about my products or business. Since I was so passionate about the product and health, I found it very easy to talk to people about their needs. If a person is hurting and you have a possible solution, you will feel obligated to share.
The more excited you become about your new business, the more time you will schedule to work your new business. Each day you will make more time; maybe that time will be before work talking to people en route to work. This is a good time to connect with people as they are commuting many minutes to and from work each day. In addition, consider using your lunch break to develop your business. Bring your lunch with you, and after you eat, use the remainder of the time canvassing.
I found that I could schedule a conversation for fifteen to twenty minutes of my lunch hour and people would listen. If they were interested, they would give me more time. Fifteen minutes here and fifteen minutes there accumulate. Over time, I began to understand that the more time I scheduled with a person, the easier it became to find even more time. After a while, because I had that person programmed into my phone, I found myself developing a close relationship. I no longer needed to schedule a conversation with that person unless that person needed a long conversation.
As these people moved through the funnel from being contacts to being clients, my business started to grow. As my business began to grow, I stayed close to only one or two clients because of schedule restraints. Once those clients began growing their business with new contacts and clients, I began scheduling conference calls that allowed me to handle more people at the same time. Conference calls were critical to my daily schedule because I could converse with many people simultaneously. Scheduling conference calls in the morning, at lunch, and in the evening became a big part of my day.
Even though I did not have an official scheduling book (but you should), I did have a contact book that I worked from and transferred that information into a day planner. When I was leaving messages on answering machines (a great first exposure), or having a brief conversation with someone in order to send them more information, I would log that in my planner. Since I found myself looking at an empty planner, I started filling it with canvassing. Through it all, I found that the more I canvassed, the better I scheduled.
CLUE: Canvassing will fill an empty schedule.
Not only did I canvas to build my new business but also to reach the 95 percent of people who are a part of the rat race.
The Rat Race
Ninety-five percent of the people today are a part of the rat race. Most people are overworked
