The key is to automate things little by little, perfecting each system, and moving on to the next one to make your life easier - making yourself more efficient and productive.  Have you ever wondered how some network marketers are so good at what they do? How they can succeed so wildly while others see little to mediocre results. Well there is a great explanation for this, and it’s actually the exact same one that explains how any business succeeds or fails.

The reason is of course that these businesses – like the successful network marketers –have SYSTEMS in place, to make as many aspects of their business as possible run smoothly and like a well-oiled machine.

You see, in a nutshell, systems are what make the world go round. Even the government is successful (relatively) because of systems that are in place. It’s the same for the military, and again the same for every major corporation in the world.

Now, let’s be clear. When I talk about having a system in place, I’m not talking about the newest flashy Internet system supposedly designed to generate 20 leads per day into your business, on auto-pilot, where you never have to talk to a single prospect ever. I’m sure you’ve heard of those, and seen as much of those as you care to ever see again, but that’s not at all what I’m talking about. What I am talking about are systems that you have in place, for all the different aspects of your business. You see, every business, including a successful network marketing business has essential tasks that need to get done. These are the tasks, very often tedious and minuscule, but if not done... then everything begins to falter and eventually collapse. If that sounds dramatic to you then you probably aren’t seeing the success that you could be seeing.

That’s because people who have systems in place know just how important they are.

Let’s think about some of these tasks that must be performed to sustain a successful network marketing business... Lead Generation, Contacting Leads, Closing those leads, Getting new distributors set up in the system, Training new distributors, Bookkeeping, Etc.

First and foremost is prospecting and lead generation.

Without this your business is surely dead in the water. But even this as a whole can be broken down into different elements and steps. For instance if you’re generating leads offline then you need to advertise. However you advertise, whether it be in the newspaper, radio, television, Yellow Page ads, conventions, home parties, mailings, postcards, etc… it’s a task that can and should be turned into a system that becomes automatic, and gets done consistently.

The point here is not about lead generation systems, it’s about having a system that assures tasks get done consistently!

Without systems you can easily get overwhelmed, and when this happens you become virtually paralyzed and stagnant... and then nothing gets done. Simply put, your system could at first be nothing more than a time schedule, where you do certain tasks at a certain time each day. Of course the more automated and hands off all of this is, the more efficient you become, and the more time freedom you get to enjoy, which is the ultimate goal for all of us network marketers is it not?

Break Down Each Task and Then Begin Creating Systems

Each task as a whole needs to be broken up into pieces, and then sometimes even those pieces broken down, to make the system much smoother. Let us carry on down our list and get into contacting leads. Now if your lead generation isn’t systemized, and you’re not doing it at a specific time each day; and you’re forever scattered regarding where you’re advertising; and what the advertising is saying etc. – whether offline or online – then you’re not being efficient and productive with your time. What happens at that point is that in the time that you should have allocated to contacting the leads that you’ve generated, and get them into your closing funnel (which again should be set up as a system), instead you’re goofing around with your lead generation and never getting to the meat and potatoes of your business… which is closing leads.

You can see pretty clearly that one system feeds another, in a cyclical manner.

Of course all of this can seem very overwhelming, and if right now you’re fretting and thinking about how you don’t have even one system in place (and that you’re doomed to fail now), it’s important to realize that it’s never too late to start. The truth is that your first step should have been joining with an upline who had a system in place already, and then simply let them train you to use it for your business. Unfortunately not everyone joins an upline like that, and therefore sort of have to begin from scratch or switch and join a new team.

Here’s a hint… If your immediate upline doesn’t have a system in place that they’re using, then go above their heads and find out who if anyone in your upline does. You never know if the person who sponsored them or even two levels up has a system that they’re very successful with. Your sponsor may simply have never tapped into it themselves. So sometimes you have to do a little investigating. If not then your next step should be mapping out everything that needs to be done within the cycle on a continuous basis... Sort of like we did above, and then expanding that and breaking each thing down into smaller steps.

It’s all starts with knowing the exact steps. Once that’s done then you need a plan of action to get all the things done on a continuous basis. Basically a schedule!

Once you’ve got that schedule down, then begin to put it into action and see where you may have to move things around to allocate enough time for each step. After that it’s a matter of automating as much of everything that you can. That might mean outsourcing some of it, and it might mean using tools that automate it, such as email auto-responders to keep in touch with prospects, etc. The key is to automate things little by little, perfecting each system, and moving on to the next one to make your life easier – making yourself more efficient and productive. If you eat the elephant one bite at a time, then you’ll wake up one morning realizing that your systems that you took the time to put in place are handling most of your work for you!