Author : Kim ORourke

How much focus have you got in your business? Have you set smart goals for your personal life, your business life and for the marketing of your business?

If you want to grow your network marketing business then you will need to be doing some marketing (just like any business)

What this means is that you approach your network marketing business in a professional way and treat it like the opportunity that it is This means finding out your target market, knowing what appeals to them and communicating that with them in ways that they can understand and in places your message will reach them

However, it's really important that before you start any marketing activity at all that you know what you are trying to achieve with your marketing In fact, I would go as far as to say that you should not even attempt to do any marketing activity, or attempt to grow your network marketing business, unless you have written down your Smart Goals

Your marketing, after all, is what will achieve your business goals and ultimately your personal goals And the achievement of your personal goals is probably why you came into network marketing in the first place

If you can't get customers buying your products, then how are you going to make sales? If you can't find people to join you in your network then how are you going to build a residual income? Sales and residual income mean money I know money isn't everything, but what money does is paves the way to your dreams And your dreams are absolutely everything

The only way you're going to make your money is via your marketing You use your marketing to find your customers and attract the right business prospects to you And your marketing, as I said, needs some 'smart goals' setting before you start

The word 'smart' in 'smart goals' stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely There are variations on this, but essentially it all boils down to these meanings

If you'd like to learn more about setting smart goals, my site goes into them in a lot more detail, as well as giving you some examples (see author box at the bottom of this article)

The difference between your different smart goals might look like this:
Personal goal - to retire to the Bahamas in 10 years time on an income of 100K a year
Business goal (for this year) - to build an income of 20K with a downline of 200
Marketing goal (for this year) - to recruit 10 new frontline distributors a month (I'll assume a percentage go on to duplicate)

The next step will obviously be how you do that The 'how' becomes your marketing strategy and plan The 'how' might be through online forums, advertising in the local press, business networking groups, and so on When you put your marketing plan together it needs to have the activities in place to create, on average, 10 new distributors a month

You see how it all links together?

10 new distributors each month gives you 120 in total We'll assume, for ease of maths, the other 80 come from downline duplication So by the end of the year you have your 200

Your income matches the 20K that you set out to achieve

And you're on schedule for the Bahamas

(NB You will need to have done a bit of maths beforehand to make sure your figures add up )

With marketing goals you can have annual goals, but also 6 monthly and quarterly, and even monthly
It's up to you - it's your business - but as you keep an eye on your goals, and how you're doing against them, you'll know whether to adjust them or not This is one of the reasons for setting smart goals - as they are easy to measure how you're doing against them

A lot of people I know have their personal goals in place (worryingly, with no plan of action of how they might achieve them)
A smaller percentage of those have their business goals in place
A tiny proportion of those have marketing goals in place
And the really smart ones track what they're doing - but that's a whole other subject!

Kim O'Rourke is a professional marketer who specialises in coaching marketing to those who would like a successful network marketing business. You can find help on exactly how to set smart goals by visiting my website at http://www.marketing-your-network-marketing-business.com

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