OPEN YOUR OWN DOOR TO OPPORTUNITY........
Success doesn't come to you. I strongly believe you must go to it and go after it. You don't need more strength or more ability or greater opportunity. What you need is to use what you have.
The golden opportunity you're seeking is in yourself. It's not in your environment. It's not in luck or chance or in the help of others.
It's in YOU!
There will always be a real opportunity where there is an open mind and a willing hand.
The golden opportunity you're seeking is in yourself. It's not in your environment. It's not in luck or chance or in the help of others.
It's in YOU!
There will always be a real opportunity where there is an open mind and a willing hand.
Grab this opportunity we all have in front of us and TEAM UP! Treat your AmeriPlan Business like a BUSINESS! Be willing to do WHATEVER ITTAKES - NO MATTER WHAT! Never Give up! Don't be a quitter! No matter what level you are at, it starts NOW with advancing your business!
Each one of these mistakes are very common and about 99.9% of IBOs make at least one of them if not
several. Once they realize the mistake they are making they can easily change it. However, these
mistakes, if not caught early on, can all lead to major problems. Because of this, it is VERY important that
you take a few minutes to read about all of these mistakes so you can learn how to avoid them.
Mistake # 1 Waiting for your enroller to call you and offer help
It is crucial to make sure that you ask your enroller questions. Do not wait for them to call you. The mistake people make here is that they assume the role of waiting for help and expecting it to come and be offered (via phone call) again and again. The truth is, your enroller like myself is running and managing a large team of people. The proper course of action is to contact your enroller via email, phone or instant message anytime you need help. So the mistake here is thinking that your enroller should call you to offer support. Avoiding this mistake is easy. Remember that if you need help it is your responsibility to step up and ask
your enroller. If you feel you are not getting the support you need it is then your responsibility to contact
your enroller’s enroller or your NSD.
Mistake # 2 is Not Being Prepared for Dream Stealers
Without a doubt you will come across people, usually friends and loved ones, who might try to steal your
dreams. They do this by trying to tell you, “Oh this won’t work, you won’t succeed. Don’t get involved in
that”. These people, even those we love, are called Dream Stealers. The people that are telling you it's
not good do not fully understand who we are and what we do. If they did, they wouldn't say what they say.
One of the mistakes here is when people start to tell their family and friends about the business
opportunity aspect of their new business before they are fully trained on how to explain it. So, their friends
and family come back saying negative things or perhaps asking difficult questions and the new IBO is not
prepared to answer. Avoiding this part of the mistake is easy. Don’t share the business side, becoming
an IBO, with your friends and family until you have been trained. There are some exceptions to this of
course. Some people know of a loved one who could really benefit right away from starting to work from
home. Use your judgment here. If this is the case it’s ok to start sharing with them. But for the most part,
share the IBO side of your new business only once you have been trained on the details. This could take
a couple weeks or couple months at the most. Many like to wait until they have earned a couple hundred
dollars first as well so that they can show that success to their friends and family. As for the dream
stealers, people trying to tell you that you can’t, people trying to take away YOUR dreams, there is a simple
fix: Don’t let them! No one can steal YOUR dreams unless YOU let them. Also, You have to ask yourself
who am I going to listen to? The person who knows nothing about the business and is just guessing,
assuming or being negative or the person who knows a lot about Ameriplan and already makes a great
income with them? Unfortunately though there will always be dream stealers. Their intentions are good...
but they don’t help. It’s best to just work your business.....you don't have to tell everyone you know about it
until you are ready. Here is a perfect example: If you were to tell your friends and family "Hey guys, I have
decided to open a restaurant". They will say, "no no no, don't do that. It’s too hard, it won't survive, you
won’t succeed!" They say this because they know most restaurants fail. They want to save you from this
because they love and care about you. But, if you waited, and then said "Hey guys, I opened a new
restaurant last week! Come on by!" They'd say, "Awesome! Where is it? We'll come on over!" It's
because it's already done, now they feel they should be supportive because…..you guessed it, they love
and care about you. So don't let dream stealers steal your dreams.....even if they do have good
intentions. By the time you are ready to share the business side of Ameriplan with friends and family they
may not only be supportive but they may have a real genuine interest in what you are doing!
Starting a new Ameriplan business is VERY exciting. There are a lot of things that you can do. You can
get your home office all organized and set up, you can make a run to the supply store to buy fresh paper,
pens, paper clips, a head set, post its and many other things you think you may want for your new
business. You can spend hours and hours designing marketing supplies like business cards, fliers,
brochures and more. You can take time to write out a business plan or a detailed goal chart. You can take
time to organize charts, spreadsheets, files and more. You can spend weeks reading, training, listening
to calls and watching videos online. All of these things are very exciting and will certainly benefit your
business in the long run. However, your first goal is to make back your initial investment and get to the
point where you don’t have to worry about your monthly $50 overhead. In order to do these two things all
you have to do is sign up four pieces of business on either side, either health plans or IBOs. So it’s
important to do just the basic necessities and then jump right into working your business. You should be
spending about 15% of your time doing the things like what was mentioned above and 85% of your time
getting out there and advertising, marketing, prospecting and talking to people. Sometimes in the
beginning people are afraid to get out and start talking to people. It is new for them and it puts them
outside their comfort zone. This is normal and about 70% of IBOs experience these feelings and that’s
perfectly ok. The mistake is made when these people “hide behind” some of the preparation and clerical
tasks mentioned above. Doing all that “busy work” keeps them from having to face their fears. The way to
avoid this mistake is know from the beginning that 15% of your time should be focused on the “busy work”
and 85% on actively marketing and prospecting. Also, part of the way to avoid this mistake is to contact
your enroller and let them know how you are feeling about starting to prospect and talk to people. They
can help you by showing you some simple steps to take to help make yourself instantly more
courageous.
Mistake # 3 Spending too much time on “busy work”
Mistake # 4 Having Unrealistic Expectations with Income
Mistake # 4 Having Unrealistic Expectations with Advertising and Results
Mistake #5 Not completing your Training
Mistake # 6 Failing to participate in at least 3 training calls and team meetings per week
Mistake #8 Overlooking the importance of setting a schedule and defining your goalsThis step is so simple but SO many IBO's don't follow it. You really need to set a schedule for yourself. For example: M-W-F 6 pm - 10 pm and every other Sat. 1 pm - 4 pm. Or even, M-F 12 noon - 4 pm and Sat. 9 am - 12 noon.
Whatever your schedule is, that doesn't matter. Create a schedule that works best for you. However, do
try your very best to stick to it. This is your own business, so now and then it's ok to make some changes
to your schedule. Life happens and other things come up, but if you miss some of your set hours try to
make them up somewhere else in the week.
Also, and this is important, treat your Ameriplan business just like a part time job outside the home. If you
stopped showing up to your part time job outside the home, were late every day, were not reliable or didn't
put in 100% of your effort, you'd stop getting checks, because you'd get fired. With Ameriplan, no one will
fire you, however, you will stop getting checks or worse not even start getting any. You wouldn't do those
things with a job outside the home so don't do it to a job inside the home. TREAT YOUR AMERIPAN
BUSINESS WITH AS MUCH RESPECT, IF NOT MORE, THEN YOU WOULD TREAT A JOB WORKING FOR
SOMEONE ELSE! I promise that if you don't value and respect your Ameriplan business, soon enough
you will find yourself working outside the home. And everyday when you go to that job, you will think to
yourself, "Man! I wish I didn't have to work this job!". Well, you don't, but NOW is the time to make sure you
never have to go and get another job again. Work your Ameriplan business, set a schedule, make a
commitment and give 100%!
In addition, you also need to set goals for yourself so you can always know where you are and where you
want to go. Your goals can be when you want to get to a certain promotion level or income level or how
many pieces of business you wish to sign up a month, or how many forms of advertising you want going
on each and every week (eventually your goal for this one should be 5 per weeK) or how many full
conversations you want to have with IBO and member prospects each day (your goal on this should be 3-
5 a day). Set goals, define where you want to go, and hold yourself accountable. It isn't always whether or
not you reach your goals, but sometimes it's just looking and asking yourself did you do everything
possible this week to help you reach your goals.
Mistake # 9 Not Understanding the Management Trap
Mistake # 10 Not understanding that volume equals resultsMistake # 7 Quitting before the blessingThe most amazing part of Ameriplan is when you can really start to see amazing things happening in your
business. You start to see growth on your team and real significant growth in your paychecks. This is
something that takes time to start to see, it doesn’t happen right away. We all want it to, most of us expect
it to, but the truth of the matter is, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Building a successful Ameriplan business
takes time. However, if you work your business consistently and with a strong desire to achieve
greatness for only 2-4 years you WILL reach your financial goals. When you do, your dreams become
reality and it is an amazing blessing. The problem lyes when an IBO quits the business before the
blessing. All too many times we have seen people say, “it’s going to slow”, “things are not happening”, “it’
s not going to work for me”. The thing is, it is going to work. It works for EVERY single person who stays
and works their business.
Here is something important to know. For all the people you see who are here working their business
successfully, the success actually came second. Their being here day in and day out came first. Most
people who are new simply assume people achieve success and so of course, because of that, they
then stay on and continue to work their businesses. But the truth is, people are successful BECAUSE
they stayed and continued to work their businesses. Being here is first, the success, in time, comes
second.
There are many people we know who quit the business because they are impatient and wish to see
immediate results. Do you know how you see all those diet commercials for pills, shakes and weight
loss programs. In small print at the bottom it says “results not typical”. This really means, “It worked for
this person somehow, probably because of a lot of luck, it can work for you, but typically, it won’t. Well,
with Ameriplan these results that you see people on the team having are typical, it does happen to all the
people, not just some who had some luck. However, as stated, it isn’t typical for the great success to
happen until 2-4 years have gone by. But, after 2-4 years the success you see people having is normal
and quite average! Imagine if you were 300 pounds overweight and a doctor gave you this safe magic
pill. The pill would make your lose 150 pounds but it takes 12 weeks to take effect. After 4 weeks of
taking the pill, are you going to stop taking it because it hasn’t worked yet? No, you aren’t, because you
know, it takes 12 weeks to take effect. The same thing is true with your business, you know and are
informed that it takes 2-4 years to create a 6 figure income with Ameriplan. So, keep working your
business, working with your training and keeping your eye on that 6 figure income because with
Ameriplan, results are typical!A simple and easy to explain mistake. There are about 20 training calls and team meetings available to
you each week and they are a HUGE part of your training. You will learn ways to market and advertise,
how to talk to prospects, close them and overcome objections. You will learn about the health plans and
how to do group sales. You will even hear from other successful IBOs as they share with you exactly what
they did to reach their level of success. So in a nut shell, attend these calls! They are scheduled all
throughout the week and different times of day and night to work well with any schedule. If you are part
time you should be listening to 3-4 calls a week and if you are full time you should be listening to 4-6 calls
a week.An all too common mistake is when someone is just so excited to get into working their new business
they skip the training steps. This is a short and easy mistake to explain and avoid. Simply, do your
training, don’t skip any steps. They are there because they are ALL very important to your success.
Remember, when you need help, contact your enroller. They are there to help however, if you don’t let
them know you need help, they can’t help.Its takes time for advertising to work. In most cases you won’t get tons and tons of replies from doing 1 or
2 forms of advertising only 1 or 2 times. Those familiar with the advertising industry will tell you that it’s
about repetition. Doing the advertising again and again is what creates true success. In some forms it’s
called branding. It’s how we all know that the two golden arches belong to McDonalds, the big check
mark belongs to NIKE and the red bulls eye belongs to Target. Speaking of McDonalds let me show you
an example of how important it is to do lots of advertising on an ongoing consistent basis rather than
doing it a couple times. When McDonalds hires an advertising agency to market their new McOyster
sandwich, the advertising agency doesn’t say, “Ok, we will run one ad on Monday, and then let’s all go
back to the office and wait until Friday and then see how many sandwiches were sold”. This wouldn’t
happen. Instead, They would say, “Ok, we are going to run 15,000 commercials and 150,000 print ads
and in 3 months let’s take a look to see how the sandwich is selling” This is how it would happen.
Fortunately for us our businesses are smaller scale, so we are not saying do 15,000 ads but none the
less you get the point. The key is to be consistent and do your advertising again and again. One of the
biggest mistakes people make is only doing 1-2 forms of advertising and then running home and waiting
for their phone to ring. And when it doesn’t, they think, “This doesn’t work!” and they give up. But that’s not
the case at all. It does of course work, but it takes consistent ongoing effort before you start to see your
results. Think of the work you do each day with advertising and marketing as planting seeds in your
garden. This has to be done in order to see the flowers. It also takes some time for the seeds to start to
grow. The seeds are working and starting to grow under the soil, but you can’t see it yet…even though “it’
s working” or they’re growing. Then, after several weeks you start to see a very little bit of green poke out
of the soil. You can actually now see some results of your planting seeds although still only very small
results. And, if you are patient, before long, you will see beautiful colorful flowers! You want to make sure
that you have realistic expectations of how short a time or long a time it will take to start seeing results. A
big thing that will help here is for you to work your way up to having 5 forms of advertising or marketing
going on at the very same time each and every week. This can take months to accomplish but make it
your goal. Those who master this have a very successful businesses! If you feel you are not getting
anywhere with your advertising sit with your enroller and revamp what you currently have going on. That’s
what they are there for and they can help!Ameriplan IBOs are trained to bring in other IBOs who are looking for a legitimate business. So, I feel that
if you are reading this, it is safe to say that you are not looking for a “get rich quick scheme” and instead
you are looking for a solid, reputable, real business where you can generate a significant legitimate
income. For most of us this statement should be true. However, this mistake happens when people
think, “Sure, I want a legitimate business, I don’t want a ‘get rich quick scheme’ but I do want to make real
money real fast”. Well, there is a problem with this….and don’t worry if this is you because about 90% of
IBOs, including myself, feel this way. There is an easy fix though. We have to remember the first part, we
want a real, legitimate business. Well, real a legitimate business doesn’t create tons of money overnight.
That simply isn’t the way it works. This is how we know it’s real. Most new businesses are in operations
for 12-36 months before they are even “in the black”, an accounting term which means making profits; a
term with an opposite of “in the red” which means being in the negative. (this is derived from printing
calculators which print in red if the number is negative and in black if the number is positive). So, most
real, legitimate businesses take years to start profiting, or being in the black. Fortunately for us it doesn’t
take nearly that long. In fact, to start profiting with Ameriplan it is only a matter of months. Usually 1-3
months maximum and it’s all dependent on the individual person, how driven they are, how committed
they are as well as how many available hours they have to work. This is the truth of the matter. Sure, it is
very possible to make hundreds even thousands your first month, many of our team members have done
it. But usually it is people who have 40-60 hours a week to devote to the business. I encourage you to
strive for your financial goals right off the bat however I advise you to have realistic expectations. “Rome
wasn’t built in a day”. If the truth is that you do in fact want a real, legitimate business then you need to
have realistic expectations on how long it will take to reach your financial goals. Please remember,
Ameriplan clearly states that if you work your business consistently 15-20 hours a week for 2-4 years you
will reach a 6 figure income. Please remember that Ameriplan doesn’t say 2-4 months or 2-4 weeks but
realistically 2-4 years to create a 6 figure income. Be patient, “If you build it, they will come”. If you feel like
things are moving too slow however, speak with your enroller and they can advise you on how to get
things moving quicker so you can start building those monthly residual checks we all love!
