Do you ever wonder what your team is doing on a day to day basis? Very simple, look at what you are doing! Over the years I have observed this time and time again. You can explain things to people; you can encourage them; you can train them; but bottom line, they are going to do what you DO…not what you say.
I can give you a couple of great examples that illustrates this perfectly:
This first story is personal to me. This happened years ago when I was with my first network marketing company. I was new to the industry and I was a corporate person so I had absolutely no background in MLM. I was very excited about the business and I made up my mind that I was going to “go for it!” So I set a goal of getting to the highest level in my company. I had already achieved my second promotion which was Regional Director (RD). To get to RD you had to first get to Senior Manager (SM) by bringing 12 people into the business. Three of these 12 had to be personally sponsored by you. Then after getting to SM you had to personally sponsor 3 more and get a total of 12 in that Senior Manager group. Doing this made you an RD.
This doesn’t seem to be such a phenomenal feat when you consider that it means that you simply have to get 3, help them do that and then do it again. However, this was before the internet or even email or conference calls and webinars and certainly before Facebook, Twitter or online marketing. All we had back then (which was only 1995) was FedEx, home gatherings or hotel meetings.
I was very excited but I was new to the business and I had no one mentoring me so I went by gut instinct. In order to get to the next level of Executive Director (ED) which was the top level at that time, I had to help 5 people in my RD group get to RD as well. In other words, I had to help 5 new people do what I had just done.
So I kept sponsoring people, then I identified 7 people that I thought had the potential to become leaders. Each of these 7 came to all of the meetings and brought guests. They were excited about the business and they wanted out of their “day jobs.” I told them that I would work with them personally; that I would come to any meetings they had; I would do 3 way calls with them…I would do anything to help them get to RD. They were excited and we agreed that we would meet once a week for breakfast as a team to keep the camaraderie going and the team spirit up. It even got a little competitive between them as they raced for their promotions. But they all came to each other’s meetings and supported each other. We really bonded as a team.
Another aspect of the times was that we had to do everything with paper forms. We had forms for enrolling people in the business, forms to become a trainer, customer forms and paper brochures. It was a paperwork nightmare and since I was also working a full time career, I was running constantly and more or less spinning out of control. I decided that I had to get organized. So off I went to an Office Max looking for one of those little file boxes that can be carried around with a handle on top. I remember thinking “I can’t believe I’m buying on of these queer things.” But I found one that was light gray with black flecks that looked half way stylish and I set about making green hanging folders for each of the paper forms. I then brought this file box with me to every weekly hotel meeting. Whenever someone asked me for a form, I had it at my fingertips. People really thought I had it together…LOL.
Now to the point of this story: One day when all of us were gathered in the kitchen prior to guests arriving for a meeting at one of the houses I noticed lined up on the counter 7 file boxes with handles and they were identical. All of them were light gray with black flecks. Exactly like mine! When I laughed and commented on this, one of the guys actually said, “I went to 5 places before I found this one!” I had never even mentioned my file box to any of them. They had each just observed what I did and then individually without talking to each other about it, they went out and purchased the same thing I had. I was amazed by this but since then I have seen things like this occur over and over again.
The second story is much shorter but will equally illustrate my point: One day years later I was talking to another top earner in my company and I brought up this story to her. She then told me that she had a very similar story. When she and her husband got into the business they purchased 1,000 business cards and forgot to put “Independent Rep” on the cards. It was a company policy that “Independent Rep” had to be on your business cards so that you weren’t perceived as working for corporate. Since this woman and her husband were just starting out, they couldn’t afford to order a new set of cards so they purchased a rubber stamp that said “Independent Rep” on it and they painstakingly went through the motions of stamping every single business card.
Much to their surprise as time went on and they started to receive business cards from the reps on their team, they noticed that their team was doing the same thing. These people purposely ordered their cards without “Independent Rep” on them and then they ordered a rubber stamp and stamped each business card individually. They actually copied a mistake in order to do what these leaders did!
The moral of these stories is this: If you want to know what your team did today, look at what you did. Ask yourself this questions: “It everyone on my team did exactly what I did today, how much money would I be making?” Remember you are very influential in every move you make in life.
P.S. I did become an Executive Director and I did it in record time. I was the first one in Colorado which was a huge accomplishment at the time. All 7 of the selected leaders reached RD. I only needed 5. Eventually hundreds of RD’s emerged out of that group. My team grew to over 157,000 people. That’s what I love about this industry; if you help others with their success, your own is guaranteed.
Always remember you are powerful!
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