I’ve made millions in network marketing, I’ve made millions through investments, and I’ve also lost a lot of money too. Profit from my mistakes and learn how to best invest the money you make in your MLM business.

Network Marketing professionals often ask me how to manage the profits earned from their MLM income.

Three items to think about when answering this question for yourself:

A. What else would you do with your time?

B. What else would you do with your money?

C. What else would you do with your attention (def: The ability or power to concentrate mentally.)?

Every investment (stocks, bonds, real estate, your sister’s business) requires that you learn about it. And just the learning costs time and attention. And it is the using up of your attention that rarely gets factored into the “diversify your money” advice.

Probably what’s most important here is, the greatest amount of money you will ever lose, is that amount you will never make because of misuse of A, B, & C from above.

I was listening to a radio talk show about 10 years ago and the advice given was to, “Select the top 3 stock market sectors based on trends. Put 1/3 of your investment capital in each. Wait 10 years and you should be wealthy off your passive investments.” I was making about 50 thousand dollars a month above my expenses, so I thought, “why not?”

I chose the following sectors: Health Care, Technology, and Telecommunications. After losing about my money I changed to three different sectors. I looked at my portfolio today and I have lost another $11,848.78.

Don’t get me wrong; there have been times I’ve made over $50,000 dollars in the stock market – in a day. Fun! And there have been times I’ve lost $150,000 dollars – in a day. Not fun. In addition to that, I’ve spent an enormous amount of time on my “passive” investments. Many hours (per week) have gone into “pondering” (wasting item C from above) what the stock market is going to do next. Reading newsletters, magazines, newspapers, watching the stock market news and commentaries on TV. And still my return has been negative.

The only thing that has remained very stable and predictable is my network marketing income. Had I taken the same amount of money, roughly $500,000 and invested it into promoting my MLM home-based-business, would I have had a greater return? Yes. So what about the “Rich Dad Poor Dad” philosophy of “Buy assets that produce more income”? Or the more common way it’s stated, “Create multiple streams of income?” As you may know, I created a prospecting tool based on that philosophy Brilliant Compensation where I explain to prospects how wealth is created by investing in assets. So I’m very close to this subject. However, if you listen closely to the way I stated it in the online prospecting tool, I say, “So what are assets? Well the most obvious ones are: stocks bonds, real estate.” Then I say, “education and businesses.” And to that I’m referring to educating yourself about businesses. Whether that be your MLM home-based business or your pinball machine business.

Two common mistakes in making decisions on A, B, & C from above are:

1. Making decisions based on now vs. decisions based on the future. Of course you need to pay your bills now. They’re screaming at you! But keep in mind what I talk about in Brilliant Compensation: It’s not faster (in the long run) to tie your young son’s shoes than teaching him how to do it himself. If you tie his shoes for him, you silence the screaming urgency, but you’re still stuck with the job UNTIL you teach him to tie his own shoes. When you make financial decisions, make sure you’re looking at the long-term. Residual income that can be generated from an MLM business is sweet.

2. Making decisions based on “could you” instead of what “will you” do with your time, money or attention.Example: A guy determines that it’s a poor use of his time and attention to mow his own yard, so he hires the boy down the street to cut his grass. Now, what does he do with that extra time (A), and the extra attention (B)? He watches TV. Bad choice. When he was making the decision to hire the lawn boy he thought, “It’s a waste of my time to mow the grass when I could be doing more important things like building my network marketing business.” Make sure when you free up any of the three resources you use them wisely.

Summary: My personal opinion is invest your time, money and attention into KNOWING your network marketing business and getting really good and profitable at it. Continually reinvest your profits back into your network marketing business by promoting it more – that’s where the high return is. When you have a surplus of income, buy a secure investment like Treasury Bills until you’re ready to learn another business FULLY. By business I’m including all investment activities as well. Then focus your time, money and attention (from the surplus only) on knowing THAT business.

From my experience, diversifying my “money” has done nothing more than dissipated my focus, which has in turn lost a lot of money, time, and attention.

Tim Sales

Tim Sales helps network marketers gain the skills necessary to be successful in MLM. His MLM training is based on his personal success of building a downline of 56,000 people. Instantly access Tim’s free MLM training and learn the steps to achieve MLM success at http://www.firstclassmlmtools.com/MLM-Training-W13.aspx

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