To be successful in network marketing you've got to create a LOT of opportunities to get lucky. 

What does it really take to be successful in MLM? Many networking sages will insist it's all about proper training, a good lead source, or a hot product. Those things are certainly important, of course, but there's one more critical factor— an aspect of virtually every successful networker's story, that they rarely tell. It's almost a dirty little secret. Besides getting properly trained on how to sell a hot product to a good lead source— they also got lucky.

I was talking to a prospect recently who said he wanted to make $5,000 per month and asked if that was "possible" within six months. I then informed him that his question is impossible to answer, knowing full well my competition is likely responding with an enthusiastic "Absolutely!" But such a question is kind of like stating the algebraic equation Y+T+L = 5,000, then asking what Y, T and L equal. Mathematically, this would be impossible to answer. Nor is it possible in MLM: Too many variables in the equation.

Y = You Your ability, your efforts, your personality, your contact base (or "center of influence").

T = Them Those you enroll, and those they enroll— and their abilities, effort, attitudes, and contacts.

L = Luck Call it serendipity, call it fate, call it divine intervention. Call it what you will, but call it something, because it counts.

If you were a talented high school basketball player looking for a college to commit to, would you ask each recruiter how many NCAA championships you'll win? Of course not, because he'd have to predict the Y, the T (in this case it stands for Team), and the L factors. Even you can't accurately predict what you will do, how well you'll do it, how fast you'll get better at it, how you'll react to failure (or success), and how long you'll wish to do it. So, how can your sponsor possibly judge this? An even greater wild card is what others will do.

You can control what you do, but you can't control what they will do. Nor can you even begin to predict how well they will do and how soon.

I know someone who's been working the same MLM program for over three years, has personally sponsored 55 people, and not one has done a thing. I know another person who, just two months after joining my downline, enrolled a couple who built a leg of over 900 people in just 90 days. These are good examples, albeit extreme, of how unpredictable the success of others in your downline can be.

I've heard more than one wealthy MLMer claim "The harder I work the luckier I get" in an effort to sarcastically discredit the luck factor. No, the harder they work, the more effectively they enhance the influence of Y and T (You and Them) in the equation, and the more opportunities they created to get lucky. There's still something to be said for just happening to know the right people, being in the right place, and at the right time. You could have done the exact same things, in the exact same company, using the exact same tools, in 1998 (the midst of our most recent MLM slump) and had twice the success had you done them in 1991 (our last MLM boom).

The more regulatory conscience reader may wince a bit on my associating gettin' lucky to MLM success, so let's be clear. I'm not talking about luck in the sense of a lottery or gambling, per se. I'm talking about that intangible factor that helps us succeed in any type of business, or in life for that matter.

Was it skill or effort that put John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the same neighborhood as children?

Or that caused a stage hand named Clint Eastwood to catch the eye of a famous director?

Or Donald Trump to be the son of a successful land developer?

When he was a young child, Michael Jordan wanted to be a baseball player, but his family was not able to afford the necessary equipment, and there was no place to play in his neighborhood other than the street. Basketball courts, and basketballs, were everywhere. Had he been raised near a baseball field, and owned a bat and mitt, we likely would have never heard of Michael Jordan (did you watch him the year he tried to make it as an outfielder? - Mike definitely picked the right sport!). Obviously, talent was eventually a factor.

But how many very talented people never succeed because they just couldn't get a break? They were just never placed in the right situation, or introduced to the right people? There's quite a few in MLM as well. There's also just the opposite situation. I know someone who was the number three earner in a very large MLM company, yet openly admitted to having little knowledge of MLM, and only a handful of personally sponsored people. Fortunately for him, one of them was the number one earner in the company. This is one of the great beauties of MLM:

You can be very good at it and succeed, or you can be lousy at it, but know someone who's good at it, and succeed. Or be lousy at it, know someone who's also lousy at it, but they know someone who's good at it.

If you culled, cultivated and closed someone who's good at it, good for you. That's talent. But the guy two levels above you who just got a healthy pay raise by your activity is just glad to be your upline.

Success in MLM can also be very random. You might enroll 100 people in your career, and three will develop into superstars and make you wealthy. However, they might be the second, third, and fifth person you enroll— or the 94th, 97th, and 99th person you enroll. Same with lead sources.

I used to be an agent for a good lead supplier and I would sometimes have customers declare my double opt-in, phone verified leads to be "garbage" after only ordering one set of 20 leads. That's kind of like a fisherman dropping his hook into a pond, counting off 20 seconds without a bite, then declaring it a bad fishin' hole. If you order 20 good leads per month for one year, chances are at least one of those months you're not going to close anyone. And another month you might sign up half the lot, and you might average five recruits, an astounding 25% close rate, for the year. That would be one very good lead source. But if that zero month happens, just by chance, to be your first month, you'll likely declare the lead source a bust and move on.

You should never judge your lead source, your product performance, or your own sales and sponsoring abilities, based on singular events. Instead, focus on trends.

That is, the overall performance based on a series of events. If your first prospect doesn't like your product, that's a singular event. It's meaningless. Nine out of your first ten prospects might love your product, and the one that didn't just happened to be the first one you asked. But if nine out of ten don't like your product, that's a definite trend forming, and you should be concerned.

However, the laws of probability might still be playing tricks on you. What if nine of the first 10 gagged on your product, but only five of the next 50 spit it out- the rest loved it? That's a 77 percent approval rating! The point is, the longer the trend the more valid it becomes. The more data the better.

But MLMers are an ultra-fickle bunch by nature. They want it to work now, and if it doesn't there's a long conga line of competitors promising to make them richer, faster, easier with their products and sales tools, thus the trend over the last 20 years of compensation plans moving commission and bonuses to the "front end" of the plan with "Quick Start" or "Fast Pay" bonuses, which were virtually non-existent before the 90s, or "Compressed" unilevels (with the big 40 percent pay out on the second level), which were as rare before 1992 as a period within this paragraph.

They want instant gratification, and if they don't get it they're gone to the next opportunity that promises it. And a lot of great opportunities are being passed on simply because it was not given sufficient opportunity to perform. This is why, out of all the success factors that you can control...a long term commitment and focus on one good opportunity is, without question, the number one factor in becoming a successful network marketer.

Throughout MLM history all the most successful distributors have had one thing in common- the grass was greenest on their side of the fence. But you can't control the amount of rain. However, good luck is as inevitable as rainfall in Seattle. It's simply a matter of when it hits, not if.