What Network Marketers Can Learn From GM and Toyota

Keeping up with current trends in network marketing can seem like a full time job, but it’s easy to get left behind doing things the “old way” and wonder why you aren’t getting returns on your marketing efforts. Here’s why GM’s bankruptcy is a case-in-point for anyone who wants to increase their productivity as a network marketer.

If you’ve gotten the history on GM’s bankruptcy, there is a recurring theme. Many authorities on the car industry have said they were surprised that GM hadn’t failed sooner! The inevitable had finally come to pass.

With its top-heavy board of directors and a long history of poor business decisions (like buying the Hummer manufacturer) GM was at odds with the real needs of car owners. For decades, GM chose to ignore competitors like Toyota, and bet on its “All American” reputation to beat out the foreign car maker, even though Toyota’s cars offer consumer advantages like gas efficiency, smaller, low maintenance vehicles, and better designs.

(As a network marketer it’s a good idea to ask your self “Do I offer my prospects what they want, and do I meet the real demands of my audience?” If not, don’t be surprised when no one responds!)

GM teamed up with Toyota, briefly, in hopes of “stealing” the production secrets that have made it such a successful company. GM wanted to get a “quick fix” from Toyota’s manufacturing methods by copying “robots” that they imagined were used to put together car bodies with minimal human effort, thereby reducing overhead and increasing production.  GM was looking for easy returns without a lot of effort.

(And what about the average network marketer? Isn’t there resentment from those who don’t get “instant” results from their nifty corporate websites?  The truth is, it requires more than that to get your business seen by the right people and here’s whyJ

What GM found instead, is that Toyota employs an intense level of review and evaluation that produces continual change in design and production management. Their fluid approach allows them to meet the challenges of new consumer demands and to maintain a constant flow of communication between design, production and sales outcomes. (Marketing!) Unsuccessful models are either changed or removed, and better performing models are promoted successfully.

GM failed to learn the real business lesson that Toyota’s management offered them because they were looking for a “quick fix.” To make the evaluative changes required to improve GM’s returns, it would have required changing it’s entire structure and retooling all of its manufacturing plants. That’s why GM never caught up with Toyota. You can’t run with the pack when you have both feet cemented in the past.

“Old School” boardroom thinking is what killed GM. In this rapidly changing world, the inability to adopt more efficient and effective ways of doing business is the kiss of death. The “quick fix” that GM hoped to find is the equivalent of the automated, “Get rich quick” schemes that people look for on the Internet. There simply is no such thing, and if you buy into this concept, beware.

Toyota teaches a great lesson in how to build a business that brings home the bacon. In the home business industry there are very few companies that combine great marketing and evaluative methods with excellent products. Take a lesson from GM’s mistakes and use them to become the next “Toyota” of the home business industry.