Goal Setting in a New Year

As a new year and a new decade begin, we are encouraged to set goals for the future. If you aim at nothing, you are certain to hit it - every time. Goals are an integral part of your vision. They are the stepping stones which keep you moving forward. Goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Realistic, and Time sensitive. (SMART - thanks, Gary LaRoy). Remember that the Bible tells us that where there is no vision, the people perish. The corollary to this statement is true as well ... where there is a vision, people prosper. Goals enable us to systematically move toward the successful achievement of our vision.

As our economic and business models evolve in the internet age, relationship marketing or multi-level marketing is becoming a widely accepted model for launching/building a small business. How do you set goals in an MLM business? More importantly, how do you achieve them? Setting SMART goals in an MLM structure begins with an understanding of the three types of people you will be recruiting into your down line.

The first recruit type will be sales people. These are the members of your team who join to get products or services for themselves and their friends/associates. They will earn enough income to meet their needs through their sales activities. They will not build extensive down lines and a significant percentage of team members they recruit into their down lines will have a very short life in the organizations. These team members will tend to bring fairly consistent sales to your organization but will not become jewel level members of the organization.

The second type of recruit for your team will be recruiters/trainers. These people will have the desire to make the higher revenues that come from developing a significant downline. These are the team members who will give your downline bredth and create revenue multipliers. Not every one you sign up will be a recruiter ... in fact the percentage of recruiters will be very small. The time you spend developing trainers will return multiples of income over a similar amount of time spent with your sales people.

The third type of recruit is the person who thinks that money can be made without investing time and effort. They are looking for get rich schemes and your business is not the place where they will accomplish that. These people will generally enter your organization with a lot of zeal and energy, but will quickly become disillusioned and fall out of your organization.

Each of these types of recruits represent costs to your business. You have to spend time with them. The amount of time you commit to each can directly impact the return from them which contributes to achieving the goals you set. The amount of time spent with the get rich schemers will net you little in revenues. Avoid signing them up and eliminate them quickly once you identify them within your team.

As you set the financial goals for your business, you need to make sure that your mix of team members within your downline will support the goals you set. As you work to develop your sales people and your recruiters, you will want to work with them to set their goals in a way that will allow you to achieve the goals you have set as well. Setting your goals properly will lead you to create and deliver development programs which will assist all the members of your down line to be successful as well.

If you would like to investigate the methodology for setting goals within a network marketing or MLM organization, feel free to contact me and we will explore how you can incorporate proper goal setting within your organization.

Tim Cummings
Cummings Enterprises