Determine

Focus

You cannot become successful in anything when you're trying to do too many things at once. As they say, chase two rabbits and you'll catch neither!

"Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives."

- Anthony Robbins

"Nothing can add more power to your life than concentrating all your energies on a limited set of targets."

- Nido Qubein

"What you choose to focus your mind on is critical because you will become what you think about most of the time."

- Noel Peebles

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus."

- Alexander Graham Bell

"Success demands singleness of purpose."

- Vincent Lombardi

"No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined."

- Harry Emerson Fosdick

don`t afraid to start

Winning starts with beginning

There will never be a "perfect" time. Start now, with whatever you have. The tools you need will come to you as you learn more about SFI and work toward your goals. And don't be derailed by "perfection paralysis" either. Realize that you won't be able to do everything perfectly. Do the best job you can. Keep learning and keep moving ahead. That's the key.

"You don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great."

-Les Brown

"Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was."

-Richard L. Evans

"A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop."

-Robert Hughes

"Don't waste time calculating your chances of success and failure. Just fix your aim and begin."

-Guan Yin Tzu

Be Realistic

Have a plan (a realistic plan)

Goals are vital, as Rule #10 makes clear, but you must also have a plan to achieve your goals, and it must be realistic.

Start with this: Though SFI is truly one of the few businesses where you can earn while you learn, think of your first 6-12 months primarily as a training period. Build this into your plan. In this era of "instant everything," I know that's a tough for a lot of people to deal with, but big incomes simply do not happen overnight. It's just not reality. If it was, everybody would be rich.

Instead, plan to work the hardest your first 6-12 months or so and get compensated the least. Don't expect large earnings until after you've educated yourself and given yourself time to put your plan fully into operation.

Tip: For a great book on creating your plan, try The One Page Business Plan for the Creative Entrepreneur, by Jim Horan

"Failing to plan is planning to fail."

-Unknown

"Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination."

-Fitzhugh Dodson

"I find it fascinating that most people plan their vacation with better care than they do their lives."

-Jim Rohn

"if you want to pick apples, don't plant weeds."
-Unknown

Set Your Goals

This may seem silly to you, but psychologically it can be a game-changer. No one knows why exactly, but publishing your goals seems to launch activity in your powerful subconscious mind that seems to literally "pull" you towards the achievement of your goals!

Studies on goal-setting have revealed truly amazing statistics. For example, a study of college students who used goal-setting in college found they eventually landed in the top percentile of all earners!

Setting goals is so easy to do, yet 95% of people never set goals. They just never take the time. And who do you think are the most successful, highest-earning people in the world? The 5% group of course! If you want to be in the 5% group, don't even think about ignoring goal-setting!

"People with goals succeed because they know where they're going."

-Earl Nightingale

"You can't hit a target you cannot see and you cannot see a target you do not have." 
-Zig Ziglar

"Put your goals in writing. If you can't put it on a sheet of paper, you probably can't do what it takes to achieve the goal."

-Unknown

"The achievement of your goal is assured the moment you commit yourself to it."

-Mack R. Douglas

"The establishment of a clear, central purpose or goal in life is the starting point of all success. An average person with average talent, ambition and education, can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society, if that person has clear, focused goals."

-Brian Tracy

"We all have two choices; We can make a living or we can design a life."

-Jim Rohn

"Take up one idea and act on it. Make that one idea your life. Think of it, dream of it, and live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, and every part of your body be full of that idea and leave all other ideas alone. This is the way to success."

-Unknown

Open Your Eyes To Opportunity

Open your eyes to your potential

You may not realize it right now, but inside you you have the potential to become very, very successful. Successful beyond your wildest dreams. So why aren't you? By and large, it's because our schools, governments, teachers, professors, and clergy don't teach you this!

On the contrary in fact, you've been programmed your whole life to accept mediocrity, to believe that conforming and compromising is the way you go through life and that real success is unachievable except for the "privileged." Of course, people that have become highly successful have learned this is not true at all and they have broken out of these artificial constraints...and so should you!

For me, it was reading the classic book "Think And Grow Rich"by Napoleon Hill at the age of 22 that opened my eyes. I was also greatly impacted by "The Magic Of Thinking Big" by David Schwartz. I still highly recommend these books to anyone who wants to do great things in their life.

At TripleClicks we are fortunate to have one of the world's most famous success experts and authors, Jack Zufelt, as one of our ECAs.

Like Napoleon Hill and David Schwartz , Jack opens your eyes to your true potential. Indeed, what Jack teaches is so powerful he has been interviewed on over 2,000 radio and TV talk shows. PBS aired a special about him that was broadcast via satellite to 127 countries. The United States Senate honored him for teaching Americans how to achieve more success in their personal lives and careers. He was even awarded the Presidential Medal of Merit by the President of the United States!

Jack's books and CDs can literally change your life and I highly recommend them to all our affiliates! Check out all of Jack's products at: http://jackzufelt.tripleclicks.com

"Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune."

-Jim Rohn

"Unless you change how you are, you will always have what you've got."

-Jim Rohn

"Learn something new. Try something different. Convince yourself that you have no limits."

-Brian Tracy

"The millionaire says to a thousand people, 'I read this book and it started me on the road to wealth.' Guess how many go out and get the book? Very few. Isn't that incredible? Why wouldn't everyone get the book?!"

-Jim Rohn

Leaders are readers

It's ABSURD to think you can succeed in SFI if you're not visiting the SFI Affiliate Center at least once a day and reading the latest information and updates. EVERY DAY, at the very least, you should be checking all of the tabs on your SFI homepage (Alerts, Tips, To-Do List, TripleClicks, Scoreboard, etc.). You should also be reading the latests posts on the SFI Forum. If you're not reading all or most of these things, you are clearly NOT serious about SFI and you will therefore not succeed.

Tip: I post multiple times at the SFI Forum almost every day, including weekends. By reading my posts, you'll gain a LOT of insights into the direction of the company. You can easily follow all my postings by clicking the "Follow" icon behind my name and then using the Follow monitoring feature of the Forum.

But don't stop with the SFI Affiliate Center. Go out on the Web every day and subscribe to marketing newsletters, read business blogs, etc. There's an absolute wealth of information out there, much of it now 100% free thanks to the Internet. And, of course, there are books galore that will allow you to run circles around the non-readers of the world. We've even got some of these great books at TripleClicks.

Everything you need for your better future and success has already been written. Go out and get it...and read it. It's one of the easiest ways to climb the ladder of success.

"If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you! If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you!"

-Zig Ziglar

"Learning is the beginning of wealth. Searching and learning is where the miracle process all begins. The great breakthrough in your life comes when you realize it that you can learn anything you need to learn to accomplish any goal that you set for yourself. This means there are no limits on what you can be, have or do."

-Albert Einstein

"If you want to be truly successful invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom."

-Sidney Madwe

Make it Happen

YOU make it happen, no one else

Not only is this a key rule in SFI, but I consider this to be amongst THE most important lessons in life. NO ONE ELSE can make you successful. It's all up to you. YOU are the "master of your destiny" and responsible for your own success. Period.

Conversely, there's not anyone or anything that will make you a failure. It does no good to blame the economy, your education, or whatever bad breaks you've had in your life. Doing so means taking on a victim's mentality. DON'T EVER DO THIS. I can guarantee you that many thousands of people have succeeded despite having it much worse, so don't make excuses and don't convince yourself that you're somehow a victim.

And the grass isn't any greener on the other side either. You have now (or can acquire) everything you need to be successful. Just remember that it's up to you and nobody else. Then go out and do it.

Now, for those who might be thinking, "well, that's easy for you to say, Gery!"…the fact is, I've achieved what most people would say is extraordinary success, but it was not handed to me, not by any stretch. I come from a very small Nebraska town and very humble beginnings. When I started in business I had no business education, no experience, and no money to invest. And it took four long years (the first two moonlighting into the wee hours of the night while holding down a full-time job), before I ever saw a profit. I had no mentors, no great upline leaders or sponsors to guide me, nor any wealthy relatives to come to my aid. But I decided I was going to become successful and I did. And I've put in the work every day for nearly 25 years now to stay successful.

So...it's not your sponsor. It's not your upline. It's not the economy. It's not the government. It's not the compensation plan. It's not any of these things or any other obstacles perceived to be in your way. If you want to become successful, you can go around the obstacles, go over, go under, or go right through them. Success is yours if you want it, but ONLY YOU control this. Always remember: "If it's to be, it's up to me."

"I don't know what my future holds, but I do know who holds my future."

-Unknown

"I found it easier to get rich than I did to make excuses."

-Jim Rohn

"He that is good at making excuses is seldom good for anything else."

-Benjamin Franklin

"I used to say, 'things cost too much.' Then my teacher straightened me out on that by saying, 'The problem isn't that things cost too much. The problems is that you can't afford it.' That's when I finally understood that the problem wasn't it-–the problem was me!"

-Jim Rohn

"Don't wait for someone else to make your life terrific. That's your job."

-Unknown

YOU succeed only if THEY succeed

I would like you to become successfull

You know what the number one complaint we receive is? It's affiliates telling us that their sponsor/upline doesn't support them, never answers their emails, never communicates with them, etc.

Think about this. Do YOU want to make money for someone who demonstrates no support or assistance? Of course not. It's the same thing with the affiliates you sponsor. If they feel you do not care about them, they will not want to build their SFI businesses because they will not want to see their hard work benefiting some stranger they never hear from. Surely you don't want your affiliates feeling this way!

If you're sponsoring affiliates and then leaving them to fend for themselves, just quit right now because you're guaranteeing failure for yourself. Every affiliate you sponsor is a potential goldmine for you. You MUST understand that only if THEY succeed, do YOU succeed. I can't stress enough the importance of understanding this rule!

And, yes, it's true you can't MAKE the affiliates in your downline successful (they have to want that for themselves), but let it never be said that you weren't there for your affiliates!

Start by opening up good lines of communication with all your affiliates. This is how you can teach your affiliates how to succeed in SFI and how you build relationships with your affiliates (very important!).

First, set up a greeting for your affiliates HERE. Once you've set this up, all of your new affiliates, upon logging in at the SFI Affiliate Center for the first time, will see an alert that you've left them a message. By clicking on this alert, they'll then be able to read your message. This is an easy, automatic way to get off to a great start in building relationships with your affiliates.

Next, you'll want to develop some form of regular outgoing communications to stay in touch, share ideas, and provide training. We recommend a weekly (or every-other-week) e-mail using the PSA Mailerand CSA Mailer. Just enter your message and hit submit to automatically send a message to all of your PSAs (personally sponsored affiliates) and CSAs (co-sponsored affiliates). 

Now, you may be new to SFI and/or business in general. You may feel you have nothing you can teach your affiliates. That's OK, you can learn and grow into the leader role over time. And, after all, all the training your affiliates really need is at the SFI Affiliate Center. But what you must never do is allow your affiliates to think their sponsor (you) is uncaring. If you do that, if you do not communicate with your affiliates, success will be a hundred times harder to attain.

Tip: For dozens of additional great tips and ideas for growing your team, see this page.

"You can get everything you want if you help enough others get what they want."

-Zig Ziglar 

"It is literally true that you can succeed best and quickest by helping others to succeed." 
-Napoleon Hill 

"A leader's job is to look into the future and see the organization not as it is, but as it can become."

-Unknown

"Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self-esteem of their personnel. If people believe in themselves it is amazing at what they can accomplish."

-Sam Walton

Treat TripleClicks as YOUR store

As one of our affiliates, you and SFI are partners. Therefore, you need to think of SFI products as YOUR products. And you need to think of TripleClicks.com as YOUR store.

Because it is your store, when you buy products and services for yourself or others, you always need to shop your own store (TripleClicks) first.

If you owned a bakery, you wouldn't be buying cinnamon rolls from the bakery down the street. If you owned an office supplies store, you wouldn't drive to a competitor's store to buy a stapler or paperclips.

Image is an illustration only.

It's the exact same thing as an SFI affiliate, especially when it comes to products you're ALREADY buying. Your store (TripleClicks.com) probably carries many products and/or services that you ALREADY purchase from a local store or other service provider. You should transfer those purchases...to YOUR store. 

Remember, we're not talking about spending extra money, just changing from where you're buying. 

So what's in it for you? What benefit do you get out of buying from your own store? 

For starters, your purchases at TripleClicks earn you valuable VersaPoints, which you can parlay into numerous benefits and increased earnings. You also earn Member Rewards Points with every purchase.

But it's goes much, much further than that. The fact is, SFI's success—and your success as an SFI affiliate—is tied directly to the success of TripleClicks (TC). The more successful TC is, the more successful SFI's affiliates will be. 

A popular and successful TC means: 

• Easier sponsoring of SFI affiliates 
• Easier referrals of TC members 
• More and better ECAs 
• More products & services 
• Better prices 
• Lower shipping costs 
• and MORE 

...which all leads to larger affiliate commissions of course!

Work with the workers

Way too many people focus on QUANTITY. They sponsor dozens, even hundreds of affiliates–which is great–but it is ultimately QUALITY that is the real key. Once you've found or developed 3-5 topnotch affiliates, you're going to see a lot of great things happen with your commission check.

How do you develop quality affiliates? It's real simple: WORK WITH THE WORKERS! 

When you see people who are working SFI in your group, work with them! Tip: You can easily locate these people by checking your "My Movers" list on your SFI homepage daily. Support them closely, and train them to do the things you do so that you are creating duplication and maximum leverage.

It's of course more natural for us to let the workers in our group just do their own thing. After all, they got active without you even telling them to, they're already sponsoring new affiliates, referring TC members, etc. They don't need your help or support–or so you think.

Meanwhile, you're spending all your time trying to get the people who obviously don't "get it" to do something. As the old saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink—yet you continue to try.

You need to know that this is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing to build a successful business. I'm not saying you shouldn't follow up with those who don't immediately get active with SFI. You should. But don't spend ALL or even the majority of your time with this. And DEFINITELY DO NOT IGNORE your workers!

Indeed, the way you create those 3-5 "top-gun" affiliates that you need is by treating them LIKE YOUR FUTURE DEPENDS ON THEM!

If you're not in touch with your best, hardest-working affiliates at least every week (email, phone calls, chatroom, or whatever), I'm sorry, but you're trying to win a race with a car that only has one wheel!

How many affiliates will you have to go through to find your top guns? That's of course difficult to say. What I can tell you though is that they're out there (or are ALREADY in your group), and you'll develop them so long as you deny your natural instincts and apply the proper focus (work with the workers!).

Just like in a deck of playing cards, you KNOW there are four aces. If you start working your way through the deck, the first ace may not come up for a while, but eventually it will so long as you keep going through the deck. And if you don't quit, you'll eventually locate FOUR aces. It's the very same principle with SFI; the aces are there.

Keep sponsoring affiliates, work with your workers, and success will happen.

Tip: Don't waste time on skeptics or pessimists. They will NOT succeed in SFI or any other similar endeavor. They do not possess the qualities of a winner (this includes "rocking-chair advisors" who talk and talk, seem to know all the answers, but never act).

"Eagles don't flock–you have to find them one at a time."

-H. Ross Perot

Lead By Example

If you want your affiliates sponsoring affiliates, referring TC members, etc., then make sure YOU are are doing these things. Do these things and become proficient in these things so you can show and teach your affiliates the best ways to do them.

In the key area of duplication, your affiliates are definitely watching! Show them what it means to be a strong, active sponsor and THEY will become strong, active sponsors and help you further your growth and profits.

Leading by example works in the negative, too, of course. Want a downline of affiliates who do nothing? Then do nothing and that's what you'll likely get!

So...the rule is real simple: Whatever you want THEM to do, YOU do, because they are following your lead!

Tip: Having a Standing Order (SO) at TripleClicks is a great way to lead by example. Your Standing Order badge will reflect this status. Your PSAs and CSAs will see this badge on your Leadership Page and your Affiliate Snapshot. Make sure you are sending everyone in your group the right message!

"A leader can shape his followers best by showing them the way forward rather than telling them about it."

-Unknown 

"A leader is someone who is ahead of the pack. Even if it is only by one inch. They are doing, or have done, what they want or expect others to do. They are not watchers nor do they wait around. They take action...proper action....a lot of proper action! And they never give up!" 

-Jack M. Zufelt 

"You don't lead by lip service, you lead by example.”

-Jim Leyland

DO something to grow your business every day

You will not create a successful business by thinking about it. You will create a successful business ONLY by DOING...by TAKING ACTION every day. Every day, no matter what, make sure you're doing SOMETHING to further your business. If you're not, you're not even in the game, you're kidding yourself. No business becomes successful without daily focus and action.

What can you do daily? Here are just a few ideas:

• Follow up with recent prospects. 
• Send out some E-Cards. 
• Place a classified or other type of ad. 
• Send out some postcards. 
• Review the LaunchPad Lessons. 

• Review the Internet Income course.

• Send out a newsletter to your PSAs and your CSAs.

• Read an SFI training article you haven't read yet (or review one you have).

• Contact your sponsor, let him or her know what you're doing.

• Go to Google and search for articles on how to become a better marketer.

• Browse TripleClicks for new products you can recommend to your customers.

• Check the SFI News and SFI Power Tips blogs. 
• Review your Genealogy and TC Member List. 

• Review the Hit Tracker page to maximize your marketing efforts.

• Start a co-op and invite your PSAs to join.

• Add some prospects to your ECA database. 
• Review your "My Movers" report (on your SFI homepage). 
• Review "My Goals" (on your SFI homepage). 
• Review the latest posts on the SFI Forum. 

Tip: Don't forget to use the SFI Power Tools we've made available to you. Put the power of key codes, hit tracking, setting up your own co-op, the PSA Mailer, the CSA Mailer, reassignments, and more to work for your business. To not use these best-of-the-best tools is to operate your SFI business with two arms tied behind your back!

"The only difference between success and failure is the ability to take action."

-Alexander Graham Bell

"The future is purchased by what you do in the present."

-Unknown

"Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day, while failure is simply a few errors in judgement, repeated every day. It is the cumulative weight of our disciplines and our judgements that leads us to either fortune or failure."

-Jim Rohn

"Approach the start of each day with something in mind and end the day with one word...DONE."

-Unknown

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals."

-Jim Rohn

"All great masters are chiefly distinguished by the power of adding a second, a third, and perhaps a fourth step in a continuous line. Many a man has taken the first step. With every additional step you enhance immensely the value of your first."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson