About two weeks ago, I was watching the Mizzou football game and I turned to my wife Kendra and asked her, “Would you rather be a professional football player or a professional network marketer?” On the surface, it sounds absolutely ridiculous and there should be no debate. After all, doesn’t everybody want to be a professional athlete?
I’ve actually thought about this in the past and my answer, I’m sure to the dismay of anybody outside of our industry, is a resounding “Network Marketer.” Let me explain by pitting the two against one another in a head to head comparison cleverly entitled, “Pro Jock vs. MLM Jock.”
Fame
This one is actually closer than you think. Yes, even pro jocks who aren’t the superstars still get preferential treatment at the club, everybody flocks to them, guys want to be them and girls want to be with them. But, at what cost? How would you like to have the paparazzi following you everywhere? Every time you go out in public, you have to make yourself respectable and when you buy embarrassing items at the drugstore, everyone knows. Wouldn’t it be a lot cooler to have money and be anonymous? However, if you are looking at just fame, professional athlete is a clear winner.
Advantage: Pro Jock
Earnings
In the media, you constantly hear about how overpaid pro jocks are. But, are they? The average life span of an NFL career is 3.5 seasons and the median salary is $770,000. Simple math tells us that the average NFL player will earn $2.3 million over his entire career. Yes, that’s pretty solid, but most players have been exploited their entire careers, so they have no other marketable skills. If you make it as a network marketer, you can easily achieve a multiple 6 and 7-figure income for as long as you want to work. Let’s say you want to work for 10 years. If you are making $500K when you walk away from the business, you can expect your residual income to afford you at the very least half of that for the rest of your life. So, you will have already earned quite a bit more than the pro jock over your first 10 years, but for the sake of argument, it will take you 9 years of making $250K to equal the earnings of an entire NFL career while you do absolutely NOTHING!
Advantage: MLM Jock
Odds of Success
0.2% of high school football players make it to the pros. 3-5% of Network Marketers make it.
Advantage: MLM Jock
Doubters
When you are a little kid, of course your friends and relatives patronize you and say you can be a professional football player, astronaut, President, whatever. But when it comes down to it, unless you are an obvious superstar, nobody honestly believes you are going pro. In network marketing, most will say you are a sap and are falling for a pyramid scheme. Both jocks are underestimated and have to actually make it to prove themselves to the naysayers.
Advantage: Tie
Time Freedom
You only see the NFL players on Sundays, but they pay their dues behind the scenes. Training camp starts in July and at that point, their job owns them until December. For the most part, they see very little of their families and friends for six months, so they are missing soccer games, recitals, BBQs and all the other social outings that go on during the season. Network marketers make their own schedules. If I want to work at 1am or 1pm, I can. If I want to take a vacation for a month, I can. I choose to go to see the Rams on Sundays, it’s not my job. At this particular moment, I choose to not go see the 0-6 Rams.
Advantage: MLM Jock
Winner: MLM Jock
Of course, not everyone is going to agree with me and you make think I’m full of it, but for me, I would rather do this than be in the NFL. Can you believe that? As a huge sports fan, I never would have guessed those words would have ever come out of my mouth. Who knew?
