The new year is upon us. 2023 is here. More than likely, you’ve already set your goals for the year ahead. If you haven’t yet, now is the time to make them. In addition to setting goals, now is the time to look for opportunities to succeed in your business. The new year is a time for new opportunities. You may find that you are more perceptive to pick up on new opportunities at this time of year. Perhaps your brain is more sensitive to looking for new opportunities at the beginning of the year. After all the beginning of the year is a good time for new beginnings as well. Don’t let these opportunities slip by. Here’s how to identify them and use them to your advantage to achieve your goals and succeed in network marketing and beyond this year.

Embrace opportunity

Many people complain that they don’t have opportunities. They say oh I’m not lucky enough to have that opportunity. Or, they envy the opportunities that others take advantage of and wish that they could have those opportunities as well. In reality, the people who seem the luckiest are those who are able to identify opportunities that present themselves. Or, they create them with no opportunities present, at least on the surface. There are opportunities all around you. You have to keep your eyes and ears open in order to identify them and take advantage of them.

Identifying opportunities

So how will you identify an opportunity? That is an excellent question and one that many people, even the most successful people, ask themselves. It can be difficult to identify opportunities. Often, we don’t identify the opportunity until it’s already passed. Then we kick ourselves. We say “oh I should have thought of that or seen that and now that opportunity is gone.” 

Opportunities arise from common everyday events, such as a conversation with a friend, an acquaintance, or even a stranger. It can come in the form of a chance meeting or a message received by someone you haven’t spoken with in a long time. It could come as an idea of a way to do things in your business that will help you improve your success rate or even your productivity. You never know when you might identify an opportunity. The key is to keep your eyes and your ears open. What does this mean? It means to be sensitive to what you see around you. This includes what you see in your everyday life to the messages in your texts or in your emails. It also means to keep your ears open and listen for opportunities that are around you. And that’s what we’ll get into next.

Find opportunities to serve

Every conversation or message that you have with someone in your network provides an opportunity for you to serve. At the core of your network marketing business is service. You seek to serve the people in your network and meet their needs whether it’s through a product or service that you provide or by introducing them to someone who can help them with a challenge that they are facing. The best way to serve your network is to listen for a need that you can fill. 

Although in an ideal world, the people in your network would reveal their challenges and let you know exactly how you can help, the reality is that you have to listen for these needs. Often, the person will mention a challenge that they are facing either directly or in an offhand comment. It is then up to you to listen for this cue and think of a way that you can help. This could mean suggesting a product or service that you offer that can help them face and solve this problem. 

For example, if they mention that they gained weight over the holidays or they have the desire to run a 5K in the new year, and your business is health or Wellness related then that is your opportunity to suggest a product or service that can help them meet their goals. Or if they mention that they love the warming sense of the holidays, and your business pertains to Home Goods and eliminating odors from the home, then this is your opportunity to suggest a favorite scent or product that they should try to keep the holiday spirit going into the new year.

What if your business can’t help?

Sometimes someone will be facing a challenge that your business can’t solve. What do you do then? The good news is as a Network marketer you have a large network to draw from. There’s more to providing service than the products and services that you sell. Another part of service is connecting people to one another. For example, if someone mentions that they hate shoveling their driveway after a large snowstorm, and you know of a snow clearing service, then you can connect them. Or, if the person mentions they want to run a 5k and you’re not in the health and wellness business, but you know a good coach or trainer, then connect them. Introduce them the way that you would like the people in your network to introduce you to people that they know. This benefit is that you can show people how you want to be introduced to others. Additionally, this creates reciprocity, and they will be more inclined to introduce you to someone who can benefit from the services and products that you provide.

Look for opportunities in past and current challenges 

Another place to look for opportunities is in your past and current challenges. We all face them at one point or another in our business. No one can escape challenges in their business. However, the best part about challenges is that they allow you to look for opportunities to improve your business. 

What kind of opportunities do challenges provide?

1. They provide an opportunity to improve the way that you do things.

For example, if you feel like you don’t have time for your business and that is a challenge for you, then the opportunity is to find a way to make it easier to work on your business. Many Network marketers complain that they just don’t have time to work on their business and then they wonder why their business isn’t growing and why it feels like their network is shrinking. In reality, they don’t have the time to work on their business because they don’t make the time to work on their business. Therein lies the opportunity to make time in your business. Make working on your business part of your daily schedule and your daily to-do list. For many, this means scheduling a Power Hour either in a 1-hour block or broken up into smaller segments throughout the day. This makes it easier to make time for your business and get done all the things you need to in order to meet your goals and succeed.

Challenges provide the opportunity to identify areas of improvement.

For example, if you feel like you want to improve your communication skills, especially in regard to communicating with your network, a challenge provides the opportunity to look for more training on this topic. There are training programs that will help you communicate more effectively and efficiently with the people in your network and even those around you.

Challenges give you the motivation to achieve the goals that you have set for your business.

They give you the opportunity to have a reason to fulfill your Why. They incentivize you to achieve more for yourself and your business. If your challenge is staying motivated, especially as the year progresses, then this is an opportunity for you to rekindle your motivation and stay on track to succeed.

Teamzy can help you succeed in 2023 and beyond

If you’re ready to achieve your goals and succeed in the years ahead, Teamzy has the tools to help you lay the foundation for a strong network marketing business. In addition to keeping your network sorted and organized, Teamzy provides a host of other tools to help you stay on track in your business and build a business that you love. Click here to learn more.