So the old saying is ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’.  When it comes to network marketing in today’s high-paced environment there aren’t many statements that could be more true.

I remember my first month involved in my 1st network marketing opportunity.  I was as green as they get and full of energy.  I couldn’t wait to let people know about the awesome product my company offered.  What I didn’t know was that I was about to learn a really hard lesson.

I had a really bad case of what is known in the industry as ignorance on fire.  I knew what I had my hands on, but I didn’t know how to attract the ‘right’ kind of attention to it.  I didn’t have much experience in the hot new trends of marketing… or the old ones for that matter.

I decided I would go the route that was familiar to me… forums where my peers hung out.

At the time I was heavily involved in a few bands so as one would expect I figured I’d let all of those people know about the cool new product I had that could really help them out.  I thought I’d be met received and greeted with, “Wow thanks, Steve.  That really is a big help.”  However the reaction I received was far from friendly.

Instantly the very same people I knew were now convinced of a few things:

1. My forum profile had been hijacked and someone was using it to spam the community.
2. The company I was marketing for was a complete and total ’scam’ designed to rip off the ‘poor musicians’.

I felt like I had walked into my worst nightmare.  Nothing I did or said could convince them that it really was me.  Every brand new reply to my comments came complete to some outrageous and unsubstantiated claim from Ripoffreport.com.

I wanted to die.  I was completely stuck between having no credibility with the people I knew the best and my past credibility as a ‘pretty good dude’ was completely screwed as well.

I wish I would have had more training at the time, but like I said at the top…  You don’t know what you don’t know.

The hard lesson here is no matter how well you know your friends, they’ll still be resistant when you try to make solicitations that they didn’t ask for.  It’s better to let those who are interested find you first.

Happy marketing