Want to know how to be a successful network marketing representative? Do like the detectives on TV – simply follow the money and just do what the company pays you to do. Nothing else!

The flip side of this focused activity is stop doing what you are not getting paid to do. Stop being a product guru because the company is not paying you to know every trivial detail of product ingredients, they are paying you to find retail customers and new distributors. Stop going to meetings by yourself, bring a friend along at a minimum and if you can a new prospect. Stop visiting the company website to see what changed since yesterday, call somebody and tell them about the website instead and what was on it yesterday because you just might get a new customer today.

If this sounds radical, it is and it is very hard for some people to do. In fact is probably impossible without some help from their upline sponsor.

Most people think that retail clerks know everything about every product in the grocery store, have personally served them to their family last week and can recommend a great recipe to make the meal just perfect. Not a chance! They are not paid to know the details except for where it is on the shelf and the code to enter into the cash register. Their bosses would have a fit if they found out that they were taking the time to memorise the ingredients. Even chatting up the customers is discouraged if there is any kind of line up at the checkouts.

People obsess over details. We all do. Everybody likes reality television shows and we all read the newspaper to get trivial details about this hockey player or that politician latest scandal. But the bottom line is that these details are only there to get us to look at the advertising on TV or in the newspaper. When you become a network marketing distributor or representative or whatever your company calls you, you have to start thinking like the retailer not the consumer. This transition is not simple, nor is it easy if all your life you have been trained to be a simple customer who purchased what the advertising or sales sheet told you needed this week.

The best way to find out what you need to stop doing is for the upcoming week write down a list of things you did related to your business. Time you spoke to customers, miles driven on your car, products ordered and delivered, checks deposited. Then next week look at your compensation plan and see which of these activities produced income or commissions, or were required to find new customers or generate leads. It might be a shock the first week at how much time you worked for free.

Once you have a list, pick three activities that did not increase your income and simply stop doing them for a week. Keep your list again for another week, and then drop three activities next week. After a few weeks you will find that you can recognise the time wasters fairly easily and you are developing a more profit orientated attitude in your business. Thinking about earning a profit is the first step to being profitable. The more time you spend asking if an activity increases your sales or recruiting efforts the less time you will waste.

You might be interested to know that time wasters like Facebook or YouTube in corporate offices amount to at least 10% of the work day for every employee. This adds up to a huge cost, and like your home business it simply has to run at a profit. Corporations have meetings to refocus their staff attention and activities. Since you are in business for yourself, you just need to exercise some self discipline and focus only on money making activities to increase your financial rewards.

I am not saying this is easy but it is absolutely necessary if your network marketing business is going to prosper and grow. It is a business after all, not a hobby.