Have you ever gone along to one of those meetings where only as you arrive do you realise the objective is to recruit you into Multi-Level Marketing? I have.

At first analysis the system is fool proof. Follow the program, build your team, sell some product and you are going to be rich and successful!

It demonstrates the simplicity of applied logic and the leveraging of numbers; and yet…….less than 1 in 1,000 MLM recruits are successful.

Basically the MLM system fails to deliver because it is a numbers game dependent upon you being the possessor of a hide thicker than an elephants. It requires exacting teamwork from a large number of disparate people each with a differing view of “their” business and differing needs and wants. 

The logic fails the humanity test.

Click on any social media site or online magazine today and you are overwhelmed by articles and ads offering SUCCESS in 1,2,3 or 5 simple steps. Do these programs work?

I may well lose friends and totally fail to influence people here but I think most of this is poppycock and hype. Sheer unadulterated psychobabble perpetrated by the need to fill space and the never ending need of people to hear their own voice or see their name in print. And yes don’t rush off to check…..I have in the past written the 5 Key Steps to…..etc. I am now maturing!

All right…..send your email now signed “Disgruntled and Disgusted” of ……..(enter suburb).

Let’s step back a little and consider the early management advice of one of my key influencers and a true management guru, Peter Drucker. He really thought deeply about business and business success. One can gauge the very depth of his thinking by his brevity of words and his no nonsense common sense, I offer a few simple Drucker quotes below:-

1. “The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”
2. “Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.”
3. “What's measured improves”
4. “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
5. “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.”
6. “Success comes to those who know themselves - their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.”

It was hard to choose these six almost primitively simple Drucker quotes as they were chosen from around 300 Drucker quotes collected on my computer. Each quote deserves contemplation and through contemplation will provide an essential element of management.

Each quote hints at and leads the mind to see the larger plan behind and excitingly that unfolding image will be as powerful, as functional and yet different to each one of us.

In my mind his thinking reduces management to its core componentry, there are no new Emperors Clothes on promise here.

So what is SUCCESS? Let’s look first at what it is not. It is not big cars, big spending, private jets, corporate jaunts and attractive sexy partners; they are life style choices.

SUCCESS is achieving your own goals or your own objectives. If you set out to complete task (a) today, when finished you have succeeded. In Drucker’s mind the 6 quotes above would when understood and implemented represent 6 huge successes which, as a whole would represent a far greater, lasting, collective success.

SUCCESS is not the destination it is the culmination of the hundreds, possibly thousands of small successes you achieve along the journey. As with any great structure designed and built intelligently and with care the end result is always stronger and more resilient than its constituent parts. This is SUCCESS.

Can everyone succeed? No. Business requires certain personality traits and a good deal of skill, vision, courage, determination, stress and complexity. This is more than some people want or can handle.

Certainly through start up almost every business is a very hot kitchen to be in! To not have the desire or the personality to run a business is not a failure it is a simple fact.

Where does this leave us? In my opinion with four critical attributes (yes I know!) you can probably succeed in business:-

• A sound product or service
• Confidence in yourself and your vision
• A written business plan including objectives, marketing and basic financials which you measure the business against
• Absolute guts, determination and a preparedness for hard work