I’m thinking back to the days when I was building my first network marketing business and finding a great lesson in ego management. If you’re building an organization and doing a lot of warm marketing, stick with this. It’s important stuff…
The company I was with strongly encouraged using center of influence - people you see on an everyday basis - for both product sales and the business opportunity. I jumped in with both feet…I REALLY jumped in with both feet, not always reading the signals around me. Back in those days, If it moved, I prospected it.
And one of the people I prospected was my daughter’s teacher. She was young, open to new stuff, interested in the nutrition and weight loss products we had and (truthfully) easily influenced. I signed her up.
I was thrilled with myself for bringing this young lady into the organization, and suppressed the thought that she might not be ready to build a business, and she was just doing this because she wasn’t strong enough to know how to say “no.”
But things being what they were at the time I was happy to have a new distributor. It was as much about ego as anything else. Didn’t know it at the time though.
One incident made things much clearer. I asked this woman to be a part of the weekly training call I was doing for our team at the time. I introduced her to the group and asked her who she was and how she got here.
And she answered truthfully. “I am Larry’s daughter’s teacher.”
In that moment I knew I had made a mistake. I heard it in this young woman’s voice. The focus was no longer about her, or how well she was going to do in her business. I made it about me - she was the person I used to show how good I was at this stuff. “Look! Larry got his daughter’s teacher to join his organization.”
No one said anything. I’m not even sure they had an awareness of what took place. But it poisoned the call. Had I talked about how this young woman was smart, and willing to do something different from most young adults it would have been a different energy altogether.
And I did want what was best for her. But it wasn’t my dominant vibration. My dominant vibration was , “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME! I’m a good recruiter!!!”
She was gone from the business after a month. She never did find a home in the organization, never did use the nutritional products correctly, never did do the things that were necessary to make retail sales or build a team. She never got the sense of what it would take to make it in a home business.
She probably wouldn’t have made it anyway. Most don’t. But I believe I killed off any chance she had by failing to celebrate her decision properly.
A slight shift could have made all the difference.
And perhaps a slight shift will make all the difference for you too.
Are you sponsoring into a network marketing company? Building an affiliate program? Some other sales or marketing organization? Be a strong personality. Be willing to work on the edge of your comfort zone, whether it’s on line, off line or somewhere in between. People follow strength.
People stay away when they perceive you’re more interested in yourself than you are in them.
Celebrate your team. Give them a safe place to hang out, and bring their team to.
Celebrate the team of your leader. You’re a part of it. Draw from their strength. You’re all in it together.
Make it about them!
Your (Cheer)leader,
Larry
Looking to get rid of the fear associated with prospecting? Next FAREWELL TO FEAR Class begins Sunday July 11. CLICK HERE for free info.
Well written! These are the lessons of experience.