Overselling the Products
When you start your upline will tell you to sell the products to everyone you meet: your hairdresser, mechanic, anyone you meet at dinner parties, your kids' school teachers... Unless you want to be known as "The Pushy Network Marketer" in you neighbourhood, you need to tone down the "sell to everyone" routine or you may find your social life takes a massive hammering.
Relying on Sales to Friends and Family to Keep the Business Going
Write a list of everyone you know and sell something to them...and you'll never have to go to another family dinner again! Nobody starts a business purely to supply their friends and family - it's a business not a family reunion so treat it like one and look for a target market instead of easy prey. By all means let your family know what you're up to but realise they are as free to buy anything from anyone as the next person.
Lack of Product Knowledge
It really does help if you've tried the products and are familiar with what they do. Network Marketing relies on one-on-one sales techniques and overpricing in return for service and part of that service is your product knowledge so learn up.
Relying on Cheap Guerrilla Marketing
Been sticking post-it notes in toilets? Putting fliers on windshields? Would you buy a BMW if someone stuck a black and white flier for it on your car? MLM's rely on personally selling quality, high(er) priced goods so why advertise them in a cut price way? You're going to attract the wrong customers and distributors this way.
Buying too Much Inventory
You can be sure of two things in MLM: Your supervisor or upline will encourage you to buy as much stock as possible and you will be underwhelmed by how little you sell in those first few weeks. Cut yourself some slack and keep as little stock on you as possible - if a customer orders something and you don't have it then learn this phrase: "I sold out of those this morning. My next order is due Thursday..." Not having enough stock will be the least of your worries.
Trying to Sell Everything
Some MLM opportunities only have one or two products and others have hundreds. The biggest mistake a person with a huge product range can make is to try and order and sell the entire range - pick one or two key products and focus on selling them. By applying the 80/20 principle of picking the top 20% sellers you can hone your efforts onto promoting effective products instead of trying to sell a hugely diverse range to a diverse target market.
Trying to Sell to Everyone
Your supervisor or upline will tell you that the products suit everyone and your target market is every person. Anyone with half a sense in business knows that trying to please everyone all the time will result in pleasing nobody any of the time. There's no such thing as a product that everyone buys unless your a local council charging for water. You will have to do your own research into who is most interested in your products because MLM companies seldom do but it will save you time and money in the long run to find out who is actually going to buy your products. Most Internet Marketing systems are designed to find your target market by attracting people interested in MLM or its products.
