Imagine your nephew came to you and said …

“I want to be an accountant. But, I don’t want to learn how to add and subtract. I refuse to go to school and take any accounting courses. And please, don’t tell me to read any accounting books. I just want the rewards of being an accountant. Pay me an accountant’s salary now.”

Pretty funny.

Yet, as network marketing distributors, sometimes we make the same illogical request. We say things such as:

“I want to invite people to my home presentation, but I don’t want to talk to them. I don’t feel comfortable talking to people as I am quite shy. Using the phone is very intimidating. I avoid meeting people so I can’t invite them in person. I feel self-conscious about this entire business. Couldn’t I just send a text message or post something on social media? And then, my living room would be filled with pre-sold prospects for my products and business! I just want to stay home and cut out pictures for my vision board. I don’t feel good about being a salesman.”

If it was this easy, our network marketing companies would not need us. They could post on social media, or send out text messages to thousands of people. No need to waste any money on commissions and bonuses for us.

For some of us, this is painful to hear. We want to be paid for our intentions, not for our efforts. Business does not work that way.

If we want people to attend our in-home presentation, buy our products, come to a meeting, or to join our business … we have to perform. We have to create results.

We invest time with prospects. Our return on our investment is that some prospects will want to check out our products and business. But we have to invest the time.

If we are unwilling to invest time in prospects, why should they listen to our sales pitch? To prospects, we would appear as “takers” instead of “givers.”

But back to the accounting career. If we are unwilling to do what it takes to be an accountant, then our accounting career is doomed.

The same for network marketing. If we are unwilling to do what it takes to talk to people, and learn how to talk to them properly, then we can’t expect rewards from our network marketing business.