I am sometimes asked, "Why do so few people make it to the top of their network marketing system?"

The truth is, the top of the network marketing system is open to everyone-unlike traditional corporate systems, which allow only one person to reach the top of the company. The reason most people do not reach the top is simply because they quit too soon. So why would someone quit short of the top?

Most people join only to make money. If they don't make money in the first few months or years, they become discouraged and quit (and then often bad-mouth the industry!). Others quit and go looking for a company with a better compensation plan. But joining to make a few quick dollars is not the reason to get into the business.

The Two Essential Reasons to Join a Network Marketing Business

Reason number one is to help yourself. Reason number two is to help others. If you join for only one of these two reasons, then the system will not work for you.

Reason number one, means that you come to the business primarily to change quadrants-to change from the E (Employee) or the S (Self-employed) quadrant to the B (Business owner) or I (Investor) quadrant.

This change is normally very difficult for most people-because of money. The true E or S quadrant person will not work unless it is for money. This is also what causes people to not reach the top of the network marketing system: they want money more than they want to change quadrants.

A B quadrant or I quadrant person will also work for money, but in a different way. The B quadrant person works to build or create an asset-in this case, a business system. The I quadrant person invests in the asset or the system.

As a B or an I, sometimes you don't get paid for years; this, a true E quadrant or S quadrant person will not do. It's not part of their core values. Risk and delayed gratification disturb them emotionally.

Delayed Gratification and Emotional Intelligence

One of the beauties of network marketing is that it focuses on developing your emotional intelligence as well as your business skills.

Emotional intelligence is an entirely different matter from academic intelligence. In general, someone with high emotional intelligence will often do better than someone with high academic intelligence but low emotional intelligence. That explains, in part, why some people do well in school but not so well in the real world.

The ability to delay gratification is a sign of higher emotional intelligence. In a recent study of emotional intelligence, it was found that people who could delay gratification often led more successful lives than those who could not.

This is why the educational system inherent in a good network marketing opportunity is so important. It's the emotional education or emotional intelligence aspect of their programs that I find so valuable for people.

Many people write me and tell me they loved my book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad , but I fear that many of them don't get the most important point of the book: Lesson #1, "The rich don't work for money."

Once I have built or bought an asset, that asset works hard to make money for me. But I will not work for money-I will work only to build or buy assets. Those assets make me richer and richer, while I work less and less. That is what the rich do. The poor and middle class work hard for money, and then buy liabilities instead of investing in assets.

What Kind of Asset is a Network Marketing Business?

Remember, there are two reasons required to be successful in network marketing: to help yourself, and to help others. Reason number one means helping yourself get to the B side of the quadrant. What about reason number two

The beauty of most network marketing systems is that you don't really make much money unless you help others leave the E and S quadrants and succeed in the B and I quadrants . If you focus on helping others make this shift, then you will be successful in the business

If you only want to teach yourself to be a B quadrant and I quadrant person, then a true network marketing system won't work for you. You may as well go to a traditional business school, which focuses only on your becoming a B quadrant person.

The beauty of a network marketing business is that your goal is to create assets, which are other B's working under you-and their job is to create other B's working under them. In traditional business, the focus is for the B to have only E's and S's working for them.

The type of business I was taught to build is a business with me at the top and E's and S's at the base. I really don't have room at the top for many other B's, which is why in my businesses, I strongly recommend that all my employees look into network marketing as their own part-time businesses.

The traditional corporate system really is a pyramid, because there are a few B's and I's near the top, and more E's and S's at the base. A network marketing system is a reverse pyramid: its primary focus is to bring up more and more B's to the top.

One type of pyramid, the traditional type, has its base on the ground; the other type has its base in the air. It's a pyramid that pulls you up instead of pushing you down. A network marketing business gives everyone access to what used to be the domain only of the rich.

A fter retiring in 1994, financially free at the age of 47, I began to research the network marketing industry. Whenever someone invited me to a presentation, I would go, just to hear what they had to say. I even joined a few-but not necessarily to make more money. I joined in order to take a long, hard look at the positives and negatives of each business.

After working my way through masses of wannabes, hustlers and dreamers, I began to meet the leaders of some of these businesses. The ones I met were some of the most intelligent, kind, ethical, moral and professional people I have met in all my years of business. Once I got over my own prejudices and met people I could respect and relate to, I found the heart of the business.

I am often asked, "If you did not become rich and famous from a network marketing business, why do you recommend people get into the business?"

It is because I did not gain my fortune from network marketing that I can be perhaps a bit more objective about industry and its real value-a value that goes beyond the potential of making a lot of money.

It's Not the Money

"We have the best compensation plan."

I often heard this comment when I was investigating different network marketing companies. People anxious to show me their business opportunity would tell me stories of people making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month because of the business. I have also met people who really do make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month from their network marketing business, so I don't doubt the massive earning potential of network marketing.

The lure of making a lot of money draws many people into the business. Yet I do not recommend looking into a network marketing business primarily for the money.

It's Not the Products

"We have the best products."

This is the second most emphasized benefit I was presented with in my investigation of different network marketing companies. In fact, I was completely taken by surprise by how many products and services are delivered through network marketing systems.

As my search went on, I found network marketing businesses that offered:

Consumable home care products; telephone services; real estate; financial services; Internet Web sites; Internet market distribution, selling at discount just about everything that Walmart and K-Mart sells; health care products; jewelry; tax services; educational toys.

. and the list goes on.

At least once a month, I hear about a new network marketing company with a new twist on products or compensation plan. I join some because I want the product or service they offer. But product or compensation plans are not the main reason I encourage people to look into a network marketing business.

It's the Education

The number one reason I recommend a network marketing business is for its system of education.

One problem I had in business school was that many of the teachers had no real-life business experience. In network marketing, the people at the top who teach have to be successful in the real world-or they wouldn't be at the top. In the world of traditional business schools, you don't have to be successful in the real world of business to teach business. Maybe that's why the instructors in the traditional business education don't earn as much as some of the instructors in network marketing education.

Some of the more important real-life business subjects that network marketing companies teach include:

An attitude of success; leadership skills; communication skills; people skills; overcoming personal fears, doubts and lack of confidence; overcoming fear of rejection; money management skills; investing skills; accountability skills; time management skills; goal setting; systemization.

The successful people I have met in the network marketing business have developed all these skills from their network marketing training programs.

Do Your Homework

Your job is to invest the time to look past the compensation plan and products and really look into the heart of the company to see if it is truly interested in training and educating you.

That takes more time than just listening to a three-hour sales pitch and looking at colorful product catalogues. To find out how good their education really is may require that you get off your couch and invest some time going to their training and education functions. If you like what you hear, take some time to meet the people who do the educating and training. That's what I did-and what I found impressed me.

Look carefully: most network marketing companies say they have great education plans, but I found that many did not have the great education and training systems they claimed: the only training was a recommended book list-then they focused on training you to recruit your friends and family into the business. But there are many network marketing companies that do have excellent education and training plans-in my opinion, some of the best real-life business training I have seen anywhere.

Regardless of whether or not you reach the top of the network marketing system or make much money, the training is of great value for the rest of your life. If the educational plan is good, it can improve your life for the better-and maybe forever.

This passage is excerpted by
permission from "The Business School
for People Who Like Helping People,"
by Robert T. Kiyosaki, with Sharon
Lechter, CPA, authors of Rich Dad,
Poor Dad.

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