I have made some huge money mistakes.
I want to tell you about them, in hopes that you won’t make the same ones.
Mistakes are a great teacher. It’s always best to learn from someone else’s mistake if possible, but there is value in our own mistakes.
That is, if we do actually learn from them.
In this series, I’m going to go through my biggest mistakes. They are big enough to be separated into different parts, which is…kind of sad.
This is my experience with network marketing. (which obviously wasn’t too great, since it’s on my biggest mistakes list)
I’ll explain what happened, why it happened and what you can learn from it…
That Crazy Juice Stuff
Have you ever been sucked into a network marketing business that you didn’t really believe in?
As you may have guessed, I have.
I joined a network marketing business that my friend sold me on. It seemed like such a good idea, but I was blinded by the income reports and the pretty marketing materials.
I have no problem with network marketing companies, but I do have a problem with terrible products.
The product was a juice that you drink daily. It had super fruit and all kinds of health benefits, supposedly. It tasted pretty good, but I didn’t notice a single difference in how it made me feel.
If I would have taken the time to look into the product a little more, I would have realized that it wasn’t a product I believed in or supported.
It wasn’t even a product I wanted to use. It seemed pointless to me, since I eat plenty of fruits and veggies and my high-quality multivitamins were much cheaper.
Man, what was wrong with me?
Total Cost: Around $1,000
How I Let $400 Expire
I ended up throwing away $400 worth of product.
Why? Because it expired. It expired! I felt pretty sick about throwing money down the drain, but I don’t think I would have learned the lesson if I hadn’t.
It showed me, literally, that I threw my money straight into the garbage.
I knew that I didn’t like or believe in the product, yet I kept letting the autoships come in. Month after month. I kept telling myself that I was really going to get serious and start selling this stuff. As you may have guessed, I didn’t.
If I would have been honest with myself in the beginning, it would have been more like a $300 mistake, but instead it cost me $1,000.
Lessons Learned
To this day, I am extremely grateful that I signed up for that business, even though I lost $1,000 and didn’t earn a dime in commissions.
Here’s what I learned:
- I learned quite a bit about network marketing, which I wouldn’t mind trying again…with a different company. I’ve found that I really like the idea of network marketing, but the most important part (in my opinion) is having a product that you truly believe in.
- I grew as a human being. There was a personal development program that accompanied the business. That was my favorite part! Four CDs every month with successful people talking about how to become better at life. It ranged from finances to health to goal setting and it was all high quality teaching. It was some of the best personal development I have ever heard and I know I learned some valuable things that will always be with me.
- It really helped to develop my sales and people skills. Network marketing is all about selling, but really, what isn’t? Any successful speaker will tell you that having sales skills is extremely important for any business venture. Network marketing helped me to actually apply some of the sales skills I learned.
- I learned how quickly I can lose $1,000, if I don’t follow through. It only took a few months for me to sink $1,000 into this product. The sad part is that it happened so fast, I didn’t realize how much I spent on it all until the money was already gone. Obviously this was before my budgeting days.
Final Words
The biggest take-away here is to seriously learn from your mistakes.
My failed business venture could have impacted me severely. And negatively. If I would have let it.
Instead I chose to get something out of it, and learn from it.
I recently heard Hal Elrod say:
“I don’t believe in failure. There is only success and quitting.”
That makes a lot of sense. I don’t know that I would really say I failed…I just quit.
The only way I could have failed would be if I didn’t get anything out of it. But I chose to get something out of it.
It’s important to understand that it was my choice to take the positives out of the negative. We all have that choice.
My hope is that you won’t make the same mistakes I did.
That’s it for today! But be sure to check out Part 2 and Part 3!
Photo Credit: Todd Quackenbush, Patrick