“Adventurers Needed! No Experience Possible!"
"Unlimited Salary Potential!”

Dr. Eileen Silva © 2005
email:ensilva@aol.com
web: http://www.easilymakingmoney.com

You’ve all seen the want ad: “Executives needed. Set your own hours, earn huge bonuses, 6+ figure income, travel. Prior management, college degree, and experience required.”

It sounded great, but you weren’t eligible. You either didn’t have the management experience needed (they wouldn’t count those 4 years of directing your first spouse’s life) or you weren’t sufficiently educated. When I graduated high school, the upwardly mobile immediately entered college, no matter what the sacrifice. It was their ticket to possibility.

Today, teenagers who understand software programming and computer related technology are snapping up the highest starting salaries. The catch riding that wave is that you must be knowledgeable about computers.

If that’s not you, don’t despair. My headline, “Adventurers needed: No Experience Possible. Unlimited Salary Potential,” advertises the career possibility of becoming an independent contractor in MLM.

Some of you are rolling your eyes now. You want to inform me that your MLM career has not been lucrative so far and that your biggest adventure has been trying to collect a paycheck.

Dear readers, take heart. You (yes, you!) have the potential to be the Bill Gates of MLM. Right now, in the year 2005, you are at the brink of an industry still in its infancy. This is the magnetism of MLM--- and if you can hang in there, learning the nuances of a young industry--- then you can be one of its brightest superstars in time.

Only a handful of people in the world understand this embryonic niche field the way pros like my husband, Taylor Hegan, and I do. Few people in the world have made both a four figure income or higher with several companies and earned in excess of a million dollars as a distributor, thus having a diversity of MLM experience with the “credentials” to demonstrate it.

Whether you count yourself in on that elite group or not, you can train with those who have that fundamental understanding of our industry, and you will then be qualified to call yourself on the “bleeding edge.”

To prepare yourself for extraordinary accomplishments in MLM, you must focus on industry mastery, not the end result of that mastery (money and the numbers of people). When I mention the importance of this to typical industry “students,” if they are successful already they agree, “Absolutely, no question!” If they have not yet made any money in the business, they reply, “Oh those so-called masters are all alike. A lot of hype about nuts and bolts and no substance.”

Use this checklist to get yourself in the MLM game more powerfully:
1.) Read and listen to current industry experts and personal development
mentors at least 20 minutes daily;
2.) Attend all your company’s major functions;
3.) Use your company’s products and/or services everyday;
4.) Focus on your potential customers’ needs;
5.) Learn every aspect of your craft from retailing to training to marketing;
6.) Be the sponsor you wish you had;
7.) Never knock a system until you have given it an adequate trial test;
8.) Maintain all the business elements that you master as you take on new skill sets one at a time;
9.) Do exactly what your top company money earner is doing for at least 6 months without any deviation;
10.) Eliminate criticism, emphasize positives;
11.) Notice all the exciting, yet ordinary, accomplishments you see--- an ice carving on a buffet, decorated cake, beautiful painting--- and consider the many futile tries that probably preceded the “masterpiece”;
12.) Stay focused, focused, focused and driven to be the best you can be in the industry, NO MATTER WHAT!!!

At best, only 2 out of 100 people reading this will do more than shrug off this advice. But, if you are one of those 2 people, you’ll feel richly blessed knowing that I wrote this column just for you… And reading it will have changed your career in MLM forever.

“Corporate Integrity Issues Still Loom Large"

Dr. Eileen Silva © 2005
email:ensilva@aol.com
web: http://www.easilymakingmoney.com

First it was Enron. Then it was Arthur Anderson. Reeling from the implications of corporate mishandlings, cover-ups, and fraud, we were ill-prepared to hear that World Com had perpetrated a multi-billion dollar fraud. Where does this now leave the relationship between business and the working sector? Is it a negative for the network marketing industry ---- or is there a positive note here somewhere?
If my twenty-three years in the business as an active distributor have taught me anything, it is that when you worry about your retirement funding, the security of your pension, whether or not social security will be there when you hit the magic age, etc.--- you begin to realize that “a penny saved is a penny earned.”
You begin to see that if you could INCREASE your cash flow with another income stream, especially if you could save hundreds to thousands of dollars legally on tax breaks for the self-employed, then you see how our industry can offer some measure of relief against financial panic.
I decided right after I made my first $3,000+ a month supplementally in my MLM part-time business, that I no longer had to worry about that precarious teacher-retirement fund, which had been the subject of many gloom and doom discussions. If you will build your part-time income for the purpose of providing an enticing nest egg and some lifestyle enhancements, then you can largely ignore the catastrophes that the rest of the population frets over.
You have a larger measure of control over your own integrity when you do home-based business. If you ever see that management of your primary career company is asking you to push the envelope, then the security of having your sideline business will give you the freedom to leave, rather than to compromise your integrity.
I feel it is the perfect time for MLM companies to aggressively seek professionals from all areas of endeavor. We can also offer an opportunity for dissatisfied MLMers to utilize their skills and contacts with us, if their MLM company can’t pass the “sniff test.”
Here are some things for you to think about when you are “sniffing” your current company:
1. Has your company always paid all checks on time?
2. Have they ever bounced checks?
3. Have they kept promises “within reason?”
4. Have they moved downline?
5. Have they wrongfully terminated leaders?
6. Have their business practices withstood scrutiny?
7. Do they edify their leaders?
8. Would your mom check them out thoroughly, knowing what you know,
and recommend them highly?

If, for some reason, your company fails to bear up under this scrutiny, then it is time to explore other options.
Now is the BEST time to be a networker, whether you are young or old, male or female, bright or dull, well-educated or a high school dropout, able-bodied or handicapped. You CAN make it in our industry if you want to badly enough, and are willing to focus with integrity until you succeed.
MLM will give you an opportunity to weather the storms of controversy that are swirling about Wall Street and the corporate world with a peaceful mind. While others freeze with tension over the security of their nest eggs, you will be relaxed knowing that your secondary income stream can more than offset any potential loss.
Anyone who sets his or her mind to it and doesn’t quit, can make over a thousand dollars a month in a good company like mine, if he or she mentors with a successful person.
Use today’s negatives to create a real positive for yourself. Join me in never having to worry excessively about the things we cannot change. Our industry is poised to show you the way to financial freedom, defining “financial freedom” as lack of concern over money shortage and obligations.
If you, like hundreds of my monthly readers, are still sitting on the fence trying to decide whether to join the industry, RUN! --- don’t walk---to the phone and call me or someone like me today. Isn’t it time to feel good again?

“If You Build It, They Might Come"

Dr. Eileen Silva © 2005
email:ensilva@aol.com
web: http://www.easilymakingmoney.com

My address book is full of names of people who worked hard, “paid their dues,” persevered . . . and then JUST when they became big money earners and had arrived at the top of the leadership ranks --- THEY came (the company management), THEY saw (the big bucks) and THEY conquered (changed the comp plan, changed the rules).

I call this one the “What Have You Done for Me Lately, Baby?” syndrome. Why is it that some limited-thinking micromanaging company executives believe that they alone are responsible for the MLM company’s success? That mentality baffles me.

Here’s how it goes: a top distributor like you attracts, enrolls, trains, and develops dozens of leaders and perhaps thousands of distributors who basically are “smart consumer” types.

At first, if you’re like some of my industry friends, corporate management really caters to you. After all, they couldn’t get their company off the ground without your help. They have already discovered that. I have yet to see the first product that totally sells itself. Even my astonishing 10 day metabolic reset weight loss system which works virtually every time and contains all 3 products, including 14 complete glycemically indexed meals for $59.95 complete with a money back guarantee --- needs me to promote it, after all.

So, there you are --- being wined, dined and catered to. The management and you become one --- they have searched their whole corporate life for you (they say), and they are absolutely pleased beyond words that you chose to work with them.

They and you are The Dream Team . . . at first. One (nameless) friend took such a sleepy little company from Nowheresville to millions a month. They appreciated it so much that they changed the compensation plan to punish him and a few of his leaders, changed the company policies to further financially punish him, and then, eventually, terminated him without due cause.

They developed close relationships with the people he brought to the table. As my husband, Taylor Hegan is fond of saying: people don’t drop down from the sky. It was only because of the leaders’ hard work that the company had those relationships. Yet, they decided he and his leaders were expensive and expendable.

I am appalled when I hear people say that a leader is not worth $20,000 a month or even $200,000 a month. Some professional athletes get over $10 million for just a signing bonus . . . and there is a very real possibility that they could sustain a career-ending injury before they make a single contribution to the franchise. Anyone in MLM who has ever made $20,000 or more a month deserves respect and whatever dollars they are entitled to.

It was this kind of issue that inspired me to join the MLMIA board. Distributors may be independent contractors, but they certainly can join companies who are bound to answer to a court of law if they disregard the law.

You should always know your rights instead of just accepting whatever companies tell you. I am well aware of several cases of distributor abuse where wealthy companies with payroll attorneys “took the law in their own hands” to get rid of powerful and highly paid leaders. And the distributors can prevail, and have prevailed, when they haven’t given up.

Let me clarify that I personally know quite a few corporate MLM management teams, and most have integrity and should not be lumped in with the type I’m targeting here. But if you’ve had the misfortune of connecting with the wrong team, you can always let your feet do the walking. Don’t forget that your grievance could be worth a lot since you have already invested all that time in pursuit of residual income. You can cash monthly checks for several years from grievance compensation just like you can cash commission checks.

Join me in helping to police OUT of our industry those few black sheep in management who are here for themselves and will “legally” rob distributors. You, like my friend, should be able to confidently build it and not fear that THEY will come.

“So You Want to be a Millionaire…”

Dr. Eileen Silva © 2005
email:ensilva@aol.com
web: http://www.easilymakingmoney.com

We are in the best of times and the worst of times for MLM . . . Jobs are scarce, and many people are facing employment insecurity. Time freedom and income freedom, which used to give us our “sex appeal” as an industry, have shifted in their impact. Regular jobs sometimes offer flex-time, which puts a J-O-B on a par with our industry, and the income freedom that you are seeking has remained elusive for many, where as a salary, however meager it may be, is predictable.

Ask yourself these questions:
1. Where is your company headed?
(Mission statement, leadership, integrity issues. . .)
2. What is your life mission?
3. Do you have a genuine, trusted role model who exemplifies true devotion to the company and its substance?
4. Is your “mentor” successful on the level you’re striving for?
5. Who is your target audience?
6. How appealing does your product/service appear if you remove the compensation?
7. What is your basis of emphasis--- is it about “you” or “them”?
8. How are you planning to upgrade your lifestyle when you double your income?
9. Do you have a clear-cut work program designed to generate your immediate and short-term goals?
10. Is your belief locked in enough to sustain you through disappointments and setbacks?
11. Are you willing to learn to lead from the back of the room?
12. Are you patient?
Answering these questions should give you clarity about what you want and what you’re willing to sacrifice to make it happen.

Beginning this business, you are entering what I call the Bun Syndrome. My husband, Taylor Hegan, and I always have what we refer to as “a lot of buns in the oven.” We’ve got “buns going in” (new distributors), “buns cooking” (beginning builders), “buns browning” (leaders developing) and “buns leaving the oven” (advanced leaders on the way to millionaire status). As we are not in the ‘convincing business,’ we expect our team members to participate in leadership mentoring and follow through with commitments on their own.
I want to recommend to you a book that I have gleaned insights from and that has expanded my thinking, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell.
Ask yourself one more question,
“If you continue to think like you’ve always thought, you’ll continue to get what you’ve always gotten. Is it enough?”
As I continue to re-invent myself as an industry leader, I realize that I cannot ask people to do what I am not currently doing, nor can I expect them to exceed the pace I set.
Even though we have earned over five million dollars with our company and worked our way to the # 1 distributorship production level, we still execute all the elements of the business and continually field test to see what is effective in today’s marketplace.
Everything works some of the time and nothing works all of the time. We must be ever vigilant to examine ways of expanding when the economy fluctuates.
It is imperative that you stay open to breakthrough thinking and give the industry a three-year internship commitment. Then, get ready for the most thrilling time of your life. The MLM business is fun, lucrative, creative, non-discriminatory, rewarding, people-oriented and ever-changing.
If you want to attach yourself to a career with no ceiling--- you have come to the right place. As a former schoolteacher, I have to pinch myself when I think about the lifestyle that Taylor and I now lead. I make more in a month than I used to make in a year.
As you consider your MLM future, remember: “You cannot be anything outside of yourself greater than you are within.” If you truly want to become a millionaire in this business, your own mindset and behavior must reflect financial success. Remember: “likes” attract “likes” and “winners” gravitate toward other “winners”.
There is room for you in our MLM winners’ circle if you earn your rightful place by becoming a top producer. It is all about LUCK:
L aboring
U nder
C ertain
K nowledge
The best part is--- you create your own luck.