Are You Ready For The Storm?

There are a lot of different types of storms for businesses and more specifically, for Network Marketing companies in today’s business environment.

Good or Bad, Do you have a plan for how you will handle those storms?

Are You Ready For The Storm?

A huge number of companies in the networking marketing industry end up out of business because they haven’t prepared for the storm. What is the storm? The storm can be any major emergency that you will have to face while running your business. These storms can be good storms and bad storms.

The good storms involve a rapid and often unpredictable surge in your business that will have you suddenly dealing with more orders or work than you have the resources to support.

Bad storms involve situations that arise when some unfortunate instance occurs without warning and you are left to suddenly find a replacement or an alternative to continue running your business.

Regardless of whether you get caught up in a good storm or a bad storm, you must make sure you are prepared to deal with the situation you have been thrown into and navigate the storm without affecting your business. 

Bad Storms

  • Losing your merchant account

What happens when you lose your merchant account? When it comes to merchant accounts in Network Marketing, in most cases, it’s not if but when your merchant account will be closed or face interruptions. This is a storm that occurs far too often. You must have multiple merchant accounts in place so you can avoid being in a mess when the storm hits. If you’re relying on a single merchant account and that account is shut down, your company will find itself unable to process Credit Card payments literally overnight. For most companies, Credit Cards are a primary payment method. That’s a storm you want to avoid at all costs. Have multiple merchant accounts so that if one goes down or suddenly goes out of business – you’re prepared to rebound and continue to run your business.

  • MLM software fails

To run a successful MLM business, you must have a strong supporting software, that has the capability to properly organize all information and data that is associated with your MLM business. Your MLM Software must be efficient in helping you deal with payments, accounts, and calculating taxes. You must make sure the software’s performance is sufficient to meet your goals. Your business goals should ideally be incorporated within the software. Before choosing a cheap or budget software solution, remember that if your MLM software should suddenly fail it could leave you at a risk of going out of business altogether. Make sure that you’re working with a software company that is focused on providing the value that you need for your distributors, your customers, your software and your back-office.

  • The top distributor leaves your company.

What happens when your top distributor leaves your company and takes your entire Downline with it? This is another storm that occurs frequently. Your immediate response must be to leave the door open in case they ever change their mind but to shift your focus onto building the success of dedicated and loyal distributors rather than trying to pursue the one that left.

If a distributor quits your team, they are signaling you that they aren’t really serious about your business and you shouldn’t be wasting your time with them. One of the biggest mistakes you can do as part of the MLM industry is to attempt to drag people across the finish line and make people successful. In order to avoid this situation and prepare for it beforehand: Build a network of teams that will continue to grow and replace the downline that was lost.

Good Storms

  • Sudden massive growth in your business

What happens when you have massive growth in your company and your orders increase exponentially all of a sudden? You must be prepared to ramp up your manufacturing, your distributors, and your logistics. You could have a surge of distributors joining all of a sudden. You must make sure beforehand that you have the resources and the emergency actions plans (EAPs) in place to make sure you have got support for the distributors, and that the distributors are getting their products. You must have enough support in place so that you can answer all the calls and reply to all the emails so you’re able to navigate this good storm with integrity and maintain running your business efficiently.

  • Paying too many commissions all of a sudden

You could suddenly have to be paying too many commissions all of a sudden. You could go from paying 200 commissions per week to 2000 commissions per week. You must make sure you are working with a good commission payment platform that can ramp up and get those commission payments out to your as soon as possible. There’s nothing more damaging to your momentum than hard working distributors not being paid.

Our Recommendations

There are many different Storms that you potentially face as a business and as a Network Marketing company. Start by putting together a list of potential storms and create Emergency Action Plans so that if the time comes that you find yourself in one of them, there’s a well thought out plan already in place to help you and your business get through it with minimal impact.