It Starts With Heart

If I started Network Marketing again in 2026, this is what I'd do

• Rebecca Sonuga

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In this episode I break down the real lessons from building a global network marketing business, what I’d strip back, what I’d double down on, and where most people waste time, energy, and momentum.

This isn’t about slowing down or “soft life” thinking.
It’s about working hard on the right things, staying coachable, building where your people actually are, and understanding the vehicle you’re building with.

If you’re serious about building long-term income, leading with intention, and avoiding the chaos that burns most people out, this conversation will land.

This channel is for women who want more, think long term, and are willing to build a legacy in the right way.

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Connect with me on insta https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasonuga/

With love,
Rebecca x

SPEAKER_00:

Hi guys, it's Rebecca here helping women build income and freedom online through travel and social media. Huge welcome to my page. I thought it was so fitting to do this video because coming up to six years in the network marketing space, I wanted to share if I was starting my business again in 2026, what exactly would I do and why? Now, if you are brand new to the industry, you've come across this video at the perfect time. If you are resetting, if you just need some new light bulbs, a fresh energy to go into the new year, whatever it looks like for you, you will definitely benefit from this video. Feel free to share it with your teams as well, anyone who needs to hear this. And the first thing I would do very differently than what I did six years ago is I would identify straight away what my mission is and what my message is. So at the beginning, I was trying to speak to everybody. I thought it was so important to speak to everybody, and I wanted to portray myself on social media as someone who is literally for everybody. And now when I say speaking to everybody, there is an element at the start, like you don't want to prejudge people, people in your warm network, you are going to be speaking to people about the business. However, when I'm talking about mission and message, I'm talking about predominantly on social media. So the people who I see struggling on social media when they first start and not getting either the response or not knowing what to post, it's because they don't know what the mission mission is and they don't know what their message is. So how I would identify my mission is really identifying first of all why I'm doing what I'm doing and who I'm trying to help. And then my message is about how I would get that across on social media. So super, super simple. So I'll talk you through mine. So my why when I first joined this industry was to get out of the corporate rat race because I was working really demanding hours in a really demanding job. I needed a lot of my mental capacity. It was very draining, and I was also a mum of a two-year-old. I was frazzled, I was missing people's birthdays, I was forgetting things, I was late for things. I had so much on my plate, I was just super unorganized and I was all over the place. I was a hot mess express. I did not need to add something else onto my plate to make my life more challenging, but I knew it was super, super important because if I was to ever have any flexibility in my day to be able to fill my cup, to do more of the things that I loved, such as going to the gym, getting my nails done, and working my business on my own terms, I then wouldn't have had the capacity to be a better friend, a better mum, a better partner, and so on. So that was my why. And then when I accomplished my goal, which was creating the freedom, alongside that, I also created a legacy income. So now my mission is to help a hundred women also create legacy income. So legacy income in the company that I'm a part of is a willable income, meaning that we get residual pay, we get that every single month, forever, for the rest of our lives, and we can pass it on to whoever we want to pass it on to after we are gone as well. So I've got the 100 women mission, and then my message is speaking to people who was where I was or who are where I was when I started. So frazzled, overworked, overwhelmed, wants the time, the look, the location freedom to be able to work on their own terms and to have flexibility in their day. Now, when I started, I didn't have the hundred women mission because my mission, my vision wasn't as big. So when I started, that was why I was speaking to everybody. And then I really quickly identified I needed to niche it down and understand who I was speaking to. So at the beginning, and this was right near the beginning of my journey, guys. This is why I know that it's it's easy for you to actually do something similar to this. I thought about the thing that I needed when I saw this opportunity and how I could be a pioneer for the woman who I was trying to help, which was me at the time, if that makes sense. Okay. And the person who I was trying to help was someone who was needing a burst and increasing confidence to be able to show up on authentically on social media and online. Now, why was this important? Because, like I said, coming from a corporate background, my life looked so different, but so did my social media. I was a ghost. I was not posting, I had hardly any followers. I was um like my boss at the time tried to talk me out of starting my business. So talking about this on social media was really, really uncomfortable for me, but I did it anyway. So my mission at the beginning was to help people who were in my position to be like I was scared as well. These are the steps I took, and this is what's actually happening. And I took people on that journey. And my message was empowering women, inspiring women, personal development, helping people get out of the comfort zones. I did that through my messaging on social media. So that's how I personally did it then, and this is how that's how I personally do it now, regarding the hundred women and talking about legacy and all of that kind of stuff to attract the right kind of person. So think about you, the reason why you have joined this opportunity, your opportunity, what is it that you're trying to accomplish? You might already have a mission already in terms of what you're trying to achieve through this. Great, run with that. If not, think about the person you are trying to help. Like, what is it that you are trying to do? Or is it something personal for your family? Whatever that mission is, share your mission. And then your message is how you're getting that across on social media. So, how are you accomplishing that mission by speaking to that specific person who you are trying to speak to? In other words, niche it down. Don't try to be for everybody, just do what you need to do by narrowing it down and speaking through your social media to a specific person that you are trying to help. The second thing that I would do is I'd make sure that along with the big action that we always encourage people to take at the start, I'd also make sure I've got a little bit of direction as well. And what I mean by that is a bit of a plan. Now, I'm someone who jumps straight in. It doesn't take me a long time to make decisions, which is one of my superpowers, one of my strengths. So I'm not encouraging anyone to procrastinate and just spend weeks and weeks just planning, but have a little bit of a plan of what you are trying to do and how to go about doing it, which brings me on to the next thing about systems. So everyone, every team, every opportunity has a system. Okay, and it's a super, super, super simple system. So if you have a team where you've already got the training in place, follow the training, implement the training. If those people have got results from doing the training and doing the things that they're asking you to do, what's going to happen? If you implement those things, you're likely going to get the similar results. The people who don't get the results are the ones who veer off, don't follow the process, don't follow the system, try to reinvent the wheel with no experience, and then it doesn't work for them. Now, you might be in an opportunity that's quite new or a team that's quite new. A bit like when I first started six years ago, our team was a new team. We all sort of started at the same time. There wasn't any processes and training as such in place for us. We created what we call our blueprint, our success method. So we learned the hard way, but what there was was clues in the industry. So if you're in that position, plug into someone else outside of your business who you can learn from, and pick that one person and implement their system. It's super, super simple because really, industry-wide, we're all sort of doing the same thing. We just have different tools that we use to share what we're doing and slightly different templates and processes. That is literally the only difference. I'd keep it super, super simple as well. I'd work out my daily non-negotiables for my best day. If everything was to go to plan in a day and I could do as much income-producing activities as possible, what do my daily non-negotiables look like? And what do they look like on a shiz show day? So a shiz show day is when everything is going wrong. So when you don't feel well or your kids are ill or something's happened at work, you've had an argument with your partner, something's happened and it's like knocked you off course, you might have had some devastating news about something, you might have bumped your car, all of these different things that can throw us off track. And then the first thing that goes is your business. Oh, because why does your business go first before anything else? Because you are your own boss. And if you don't show up to your business, no one's going to sack you. You just say, Oh, I'll pick it up again the next day or whatever, or when I'm feeling better. You need daily non-negotiables on your shiz show days, no matter what happens in that day, whether it's your birthday, you're getting married, even positive things that are happening, what are your daily non-negotiables that you are going to stick to every single time? Make your shiz show day something that is super, super realistic. So if you at least got them things done, you're at least moving the needle forward, even if it only takes you 10-15 minutes. But then on the rest of the days, where can you be maximising that output as much as possible? And then every single week, reviewing what works and cutting out the stuff what isn't working. Don't repeat the same stuff over and over if you're getting zero results. Then, in terms of social media, I'd build where the people were. Completely ignored Instagram for literally six to 12 months at the start of my journey, and predominantly built on Facebook. And then I had a light bulb moment and thought, actually, my people are more on Instagram. And then I pivoted fully onto Instagram, and now it's a complete switch where I do little bits on Facebook, but it's predominantly Instagram. So think about where your people are. Is it Facebook? Is it Instagram? Is it LinkedIn? Where are they? And where are you building them connections? Don't try to just scatter your gun everywhere and build on multiple platforms when you're not used to building anything online. The next thing I'd do is I'd stay in my own lane. This is a big one. Don't worry about what everyone else is doing. Don't worry about other people hitting their goals and whatever time frame they're hitting their goals. Focus on you, your mission, your goals, and what you need to do. Yes, get a bit of mentorship and some direction and do what you need to do to learn, but stay in your own lane. Tunnel vision always. And if someone messages you saying, Have you seen such a thing? Have you seen such a thing? Or what do you think about such a thing? Not interested in what they're doing. I'm focusing on what I'm doing. Now, the final thing that I would do from day one, knowing what I know now, is I would own the vehicle that I'm in, which is the fabulous and amazing industry of network marketing. How many people watching this video cringe at the thought of saying that they're a network marketer? We all have done it at one point. And I don't know why. In fact, I know why it was for me because I was getting pushback. So when I told my boss at the time that I was starting an online business and what it was, pushback, pushback, push back, didn't want me to do it. I had to actually go to my HR department myself, bearing in mind I was in a senior position in my role. I went to my HR department and I said, This is what I want to do. Is there anything in my contract that says I cannot do this? And they was like, No, actually, I've been doing XYZ and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I thought, fine. And then when someone would bring it up in a meeting, in a board meeting with serious people in there, someone would say, Oh, are you still doing that pyramid scheme? And then people would snigger, and then I'd be like, Oh, who's gonna have the last laugh when I'm out of here and you guys are still in them board meetings, which they are, by the way. Actually, it's it's I left my corporate job in 2022. I started the industry in 2020, so for the first two years, they were sniggering and they was laughing and rolling their eyes. And then when I said ciao for now and never had to go back to corporate again, now we've we've seen who's getting the last laugh. But the point I'm making is if I wasn't loud and proud about the industry and understood it, I would never be where I am now. So think about the industry that you're a part of, which is the world of network marketing. Think about how it changes lives, write down everything that you love about it and the things that you have witnessed with your own eyeballs in terms of what it has done for people. It might be someone in your upline or whoever, if it's not something that you've done yourself personally from being so new, as an example, and think about all of the amazing things about what it is that we do. The size of the industry, the companies that that have helped transform people's health, their income, the way that they travel, the way that they live and own what you are doing and let people know what they are doing. So many people talk about the products and not the actual business. I did that at the start because I didn't know any different. I was pushing my travel business and talking about earning travel commissions, saving on travel, like that's not even compliance to even doing the way that I was doing because I didn't know any better. And then all I was doing was attracting the wrong kind of person. I lost hundreds of people in my first year in network marketing because I wasn't owning the vehicle. I didn't give people the car with the full wheels on it. I was giving people half of a car with half of the understanding of what they really could do with this vehicle. And then when the it actually twigged and I started to talk more about the opportunity, I was talking more about residual income. I knew people were rolling their eyes, but I was doing it anyway. That's when I found people with similar vision to me, people then who also wanted to run with me, people who also wanted to create their own time, location, financial freedom, whatever it looked like for them, people who were mission-driven, people who were ambitious. And then that's when my business grew and I was able to leave the corporate world because it wasn't just me anymore. I was helping other people, and then obviously, in return, your business grows and you make more money anyway, which is great, but then you're also helping all these other people in the process and you're helping them make money. Okay, so I hope that's helped you. If it has, give us a like, give us a comment, let us know, and you're probably gonna enjoy the rest of the content that I start to share on this channel because it's gonna be simple, bite-sized bits of content that you can implement straight away into your business at all different kinds of levels because it's just about keeping it simple, okay? Keeping it simple, doing the simple things every single day, being super consistent with it, not trying to reinvent the wheel, and you will get to where you want to be. People don't fail because they work hard. People fail because they work hard on the wrong things, they're not coachable, they don't implement the things that they need to do, and they don't do it consistently enough. So I hope that's helped. And I will let you guys go. Enjoy the rest of your day, and I'll speak to you soon.

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Rebecca Sonuga

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