Your Compensation Plan Sucks

Calvin: Hey guys, Calvin here from Young and Wildly Successful. If you’re a network marketer, I’m calling you out today. I’m going to tell you something that is probably going to blow your mind, but is something that you probably already know. And that is that your compensation plan that you have right now in your company sucks. It sucks. But this video’s not about your compensation plan, this video is about why it sucks and why you shouldn’t even care.

Okay, so I’ve got your attention. And I think the big thing to remember here guys is that there are millions of network marketing companies out there, and there’s even more compensation plans. And then just when they’ve got a compensation plan, how many companies do we know around the world, that then change it? You know, they have a compensation plan to get started, then it changes when they hit maturity, sometimes a compensation plan puts their company out of business, sometimes it allows them to succeed. Ultimately, I want to demystify some of these things, because I see so many people talking about “Oh, I’ve got to get the right compensation plan.” You don’t. Compensation plans are bullshit. Compensation plans don’t matter. And the reason why they don’t matter, is because it has nothing to do with your success. I’ll repeat that because I know so many people put so much emphasis on it. People market as “the only compensation plan you’ll need” or “the best compensation plan on the market” when the reality is that if you look at the very best network marketing companies and the very worst, there’s still people that are successful, in both.

In fact, I want to direct you to a study. This is a study that was done with over 650 compensation plans and over 43,000 network marketers from around the world that completed this study. And what they found, was that they ranked the very best to the very worst compensation plans and everybody, 43,000 people voted, and we had some of the top network marketing companies in the world on that list, and we had some of the best network marketing companies, ones that you would know of, at the very bottom of the list. In fact, one company in particular, I just managed to find, I just did some research, one company that was at the very bottom of the list, they got two votes out of 43,000. Now what that means is that in this company that no one knew this vote was happening or whatever. It just appears that no one decided that the compensation plan is great, is a company called Your Health. And everything I’m sharing with you is the true [inaudible 00:01:58] the study, I put all links below, some people are going to be pissed at Your Health, but I want to tell you, its not about Your Health. Because then I did some research on Your Health, and one of the guys I know, he happens to be an Australian as well, young guy, he’s only 25 years old, Dave Nelson, this guy is losing his shit at this, because he’s dominating the marketplace. He’s making on average, and I don’t know exactly how much he’s making, but on average his rank was I think a 1-star white diamond, he’s making on average around 21 grand a month. That’s US, so you do the math on Australia, guys. And 21 grand a month is decent money. Now to take nothing away and this is a fantastic guy and a fantastic company. My point is this. It doesn’t matter if you were the very bottom of the list and you’ve only got two votes out of 43,000, that said your compensation plan sucks, the reality is that everyone that is in Your Health, there’s people in Your Health that are making money, there’s people that are not. There’s people in [inaudible 00:02:49] that are making money, there’s people that are not. There’s people in [inaudible 00:02:52] that were making money that are no longer making money. That’s another conversation for another time. The point I’m making guys, is that its irrelevant because in every network marketing company, in every compensation plan, it is not about how much you get paid at the end of the day, its about your work you put in at the beginning of the day.

In fact, there’s three things I’m going to share with you on this video that are going to change the game for you. Because you look at the compensation plans going “How much am I going to get paid?” And you want to get paid, I get that, I understand that. But what you need to understand is “How much am I going to do to get paid?” Not “How much am I going to get paid? How much am I going to do to get paid?” Because this is the way that this sort of funnel works, or this pyramid structure works. At the very top of the pyramid, and I’m a fan of this, the top of the pyramid is activity. Then from activity leads to results, results then leads to customers, customers then leads to money. And that means that you get either compensated by direct bonus or by residual income, whichever one you look at, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that the bottom of the funnel doesn’t work unless the top of the funnel works. The top of the pyramid is the most important part. The reason for that is because your activity determines your results. Your results determine how many customers or how many distributers or how many business bureaus, whatever you call them are, and then from that you’re going to get paid. And it doesn’t matter if you have one customer or a million customers. It doesn’t matter how good the customers are. It doesn’t matter how good the compensation plan is. What matters is the number of people. Now yes, I’m not going to say that there aren’t some compensation plans that are better than others. There are. There are some compensation plans that are going to help you get to a million dollars or a hundred thousand dollars faster. But guess what. The people that get to a hundred thousand or a million dollars faster just had it easier. If you can get to a million dollars on a shitty system, you can then make anything you want to have happen. So I encourage you, not to try to look at the compensation plan, because thinking that’s going to be the savior for you, when in fact it won’t. The reality is, the one thing that’s going to save you, the one thing that’s going to make you be the difference, the one thing that’s going to allow you to go from being someone that got started, to someone that actually succeeds, has nothing to do with how you get paid. It has everything to do with what you do about your work. And there’s a whole heap of reasons why a lot of network marketers make nothing.

One of the big things that I want to share with you is about strategy. Because so many people don’t have a marketing strategy. The company has a marketing strategy on how to get you involved, but you don’t have a marketing strategy. You don’t have a prospecting strategy, a lead generation system, a funnel, you don’t do online marketing, you don’t do referral marketing. You talk a good job, you talk about prospecting, but how many people did you actually speak to this week? How many of those were actually qualified? I’m not talking about investment measures, I’m talking about a strategy to get people to come to you. Attraction marketing, guys. That’s a strategy.

Next phase is execution and training, and a lot of companies are really good at this. They’re really good at training your people to jump on the phones, they’re training you to be able to find your why, all that stuff. I promise you, finding your why is great, its not going to help you unless you have a strategy. You’ve got to have a strategy. You have no why. You can be as motivated as you want, and you can run east trying to find the sunset, but guess what. It ain’t gonna happen. No matter how committed you are, it ain’t gonna happen. You have the right strategy. Then you want to be able to execute that strategy, which means training and repetition, the ability to execute. Innovation is celebrated, but execution is worshipped, guys. And so many of us are sloppy with our execution. We don’t follow up. We don’t hustle. We don’t jump on the phones. We don’t execute effectively.

And then finally, if you’re doing what you want to do and you even know how to do it, the final piece of the puzzle is the mindset. And really I want you to think about mindset as not as your mind but as your heart. This is where the why comes in. Because you can know what and how and still not make any money, because you can have a great compensation plan, but a great compensation plan will never save a poor work ethic. That’s big. Write that down. A great compensation plan will never save a poor work ethic. But the right work ethic will always save a poor compensation plan. And great example of Dave, doing $21,000 at the time of recording this video, based on 2015 stats. I’m sure he’ll have even more than that. The guy’s a superstar. I’ve got big respect for Dave.

So, I want you to understand something here, guys. That it comes down to not what you’re going to get, but it comes down to what you’re going to give. And just doing more is not the answer. Working hard is not the answer. Having a strategy is the answer. Executing that strategy and having the mindset to follow through is the answer. So I ask you, what’s your compensation plan? Not your compensation plan, but what are you going to do to earn that compensation plan? What are you going to do in strategy? How are you going to get clients to your business? How are you going to prospect? How are you going to think differently? How are you going to differentiate yourself in this industry? How are you going to stand out in the noisy marketplace that is wellness, that is passive income, that is freedom businesses and all that rubbish? How do you stand out in this marketplace? I’m saying this to you to challenge you. I’m saying this to you to get you to think outside the square, because if you think like everybody else you’re going to make the same money as everybody else. And 99 percent, or 97 percent of people that are in network marketing irrelevant of compensation plans, irrelevant of leadership, irrelevant of the quality of the product, irrelevant of how many doctors are on the board, irrelevant of all that stuff. 97 percent of people who join this industry, network marketing, make nothing. Nothing. 97 percent of people that do get started are [inaudible 00:07:55] and 97 percent of people that do get started are gone in 12 months. Why? No strategy, no ability to execute that strategy, and a poor mindset. Helping the mindset helps. The execution helps. The strategy helps. But if you only have two of the three or one of the three, it’s not worth it.

So I repeat what I’ve already shared. A great work ethic, a great strategy, and great execution, a great mindset will always save a poor compensation plan. And even if it’s a shitty compensation plan, you can still make big money if you are committed. But a great compensation plan will never save you. So rather than looking at the compensation plan, and thinking about how I’m going to get paid, instead I want you to think about how you’re going to earn it. How are you going to be able to bring people into your business? How are you going to focus on your activity so you can produce results, so you can get clients, so you can get paid, so you can get residual, so you can have the freedom? Don’t start at the bottom of the funnel. Don’t start at the bottom of the pyramid. Start at the top of the pyramid. That’s where this game works, guys. And so I’m just going to be straight up with you. I want you to share this with your upline, your downline. I want you to tell people about this. I want you to share this with somebody who joins this industry in the first place. Because I promise you, this is what happens.

And I get these calls all the time. “Cal, I decided to join a new network marketing company?” “Why?” “Well, better compensation plan.” Bullshit. Or people say to me: “Hey Cal, I decided to join a new network marketing business and I just didn’t feel like I was in alignment with the old one.” Bullshit. Or they say “Calvin, I just, this new product is a better product.” Bullshit. You know why? All those things might be true, but the reason why people join from one company to another company is because their current strategy is more market. They get involved, they get excited, they run out of steam because they have no support, or they don’t have a strategy, they don’t know what to do, and then they decide to jump ship, so that they can tell and sell everybody they just sold onto the last company, onto the next company. That’s the only reason why people leave. Because if people were making money, they had strategy, they were succeeding, if the system wasn’t broken, they would stay. But they don’t. They keep jumping from place to place to place. They doubt it. And if you’ve done this as well, same thing for you. If you’re really honest about it, you’ll know deep down inside your heart, your soul, that you did it because you didn’t feel confident with that product, you didn’t feel certain in yourself to be able to make it happen, you weren’t sure how you were going to make money, you lost the mojo and the drive and you couldn’t find a way to turn it back on. And you thought that jumping ship, to a new network marketing company was going to solve the problem. People do this with gyms, people do this with relationships, people do this with jobs, the pattern repeats itself, guys.

There’s not that many people, I mean we work with 70,000 people in 64 countries around the world. None of this is new to us. Its just new to an industry that has had blinkers on because you’ve been focused on the wrong thing. Don’t focus on the compensation plan. Focus on what you’re going to do to earn it. Focus on having a strategy. Focus on executing that strategy. Focus on having the right mindset. You do that, that’ll work. But I promise you, if you’re receiving the compensation plan, you’re receiving the strategy from your downline and most people are not making money. Well most people are doing the same strategy, well guess what. If you’re doing the same strategy as everybody else, how are you standing out? In business, if I do the same thing as every one of my competitors, well guess what. We’re all redundant. How do you stand out in a noisy marketplace? That’s another video for another time.

But I want to encourage you to live strong with a passion. Make today, guys and every day after, a life changing adventure. Don’t focus on the money, focus on what you’re going to do to make the money. Then the money will come. The money is irrelevant. The money is just a way of keeping score. What I want to know is what are you willing to put on the line to make it? And above all else guys, on behalf of myself and the whole team at Young and Wildly Successful, live life on your terms.