How To Be A Good Leader In Network Marketing

Today I’m going to teach you how to be a good leader in network marketing.

First I’m going to share with you the biggest lesson that you can learn as a leader in network marketing. Next I’m going to break down what culture actually means inside the network marketing space. Next I’m going to talk about the balance of time as far as your personal efforts and working with your team.

One thing that I started wondering was how the heck do I get more of my people doing stuff? That line of thought can actually be very detrimental to you and that probably sounds funny but I’ve coached well over 500, six and seven figure earners inside the network marking space. I’ve coached people who actively earn over a million dollars a month from their company and I’ve coached people who have over 750,000 people in the organization and here’s what I can tell you. None of them have every single person in their team making money or working and you know what? That’s okay. You will learn why in this post.

What is the biggest lesson of network marketing leadership?

The biggest lesson is that you should not operate like a sales manager. Let me give you an example. A few years ago, I coached at an insurance group. They were a pretty small team, maybe 10 of them. I analyzed their scripts, what they were saying over the phone and I made some tweaks. Made some big changes and some little changes. They added forty thousand dollars a week in revenue from those changes. Now this small group they had a commercial office and (although I don’t know for sure) let’s say that they’re paying five thousand dollars a month for that commercial space. Five thousand a month and that covered arrows and emissions and janitorial and insurance and all that different stuff. They have 10 people so pretty simple math. We need at least every person to make at least $500 a month or we can’t stay in business, that’s almost like how a lot of network marketing leaders operate as if they need to be making a certain amount from every person in their organization or they need everyone in their organization to be making money.

We are going to bring this up a couple times but I want to give you a different way of thinking. Let’s say that you’re the niece or nephew of Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos, he leaves his California warehouses to go to Texas like Elon and he has a 60,000 square foot warehouse. He says to you, “hey you know what? You’re my favorite niece or nephew, just use my warehouse. It’s a call center, I have about a thousand desks in there and you can just use it. For tax reasons, I’ll just foot the bill. You don’t have to pay me a dime.” Let’s say you had that scenario. You get a thousand people in there, you’re not paying anything, how hard are you going to go around and smack a clipboard to make sure every person is making sales? You’re probably not going to be too hardcore on them, are you? Well what if they all started paying you (you sneaky snake you). What if you started offering them their desks for five bucks a month? Now how hardcore would you push on them making sales? You wouldn’t at all but you see you have it even better than that. You don’t have a warehouse, you have an unlimited number of people who can be in your team and those unlimited number of people in your team can provide some kind of compensation to you. It’s sometimes small, maybe they’re quite a few generations away from you but there is no overhead for you so you don’t have to carry this guilt of “I have to make sure everyone is making money.” By the way as you will learn in the next point, not everyone is in your team to even make money.

Instead of thinking like a sales manager, think like a gym owner. If I go to the gym and I work out for two minutes, I got my Beats By Dre and my headband, my wristbands and I work out for two minutes and then I go get a peanut butter banana chocolate shake and I walk out the door, literally gaining three pounds every time I go to the gym. What does a gym owner say? Doesn’t care about my level of desire, he provides a facility and I go in and I do my own desire. Now what if I had a bigger desire, if I go to the gym owner and say, “hey man I’d really like to get diesel. I’d like to get ripped, I’m going to rip phone books and flip tires and stuff….” then he would probably point me to CrossFit or say “hey we have a personal trainer.” He would point, guide and direct me to the option of my choice to help me with my renewed level of desire. That’s how you should operate. You should not judge those who aren’t working, those who aren’t showing up and making you money or them money and you should be instead an allow-er.

What is culture in the network marking space?

The above point leads us to my next point which is what is culture? Culture is the allowing of people to feel good regardless of their level of desire or level of result in your organization. The allowing. If I join your team and you’re super excited and you’re like oh man I think this guy has some potential and I don’t do anything. Am I made to feel less than? Am I made to feel like a disappointment? At every convention saying “hey, how are you doing? How are things going?” and I get this constant feeling that you wish I was doing something that I’m not? Network marketing is the most volunteer relationship on the planet. Not so easy to leave a job, not so easy to leave a marriage, really easy to find the cancel auto-ship button.

Culture’s allowing people to feel good regardless of the level of desire, level result and this leads us to what we call the Larry Thompson Rule. My friend Larry Thompson who I learned a lot from (at that time he was a member of our mastermind) he came up with this rule that I really agree with and it’s eighty, fifteen and five.

Eighty percent of your organization whether you’re an amazing leader and walk on water or not at all, eighty percent of your organization has a desire level of zero to five hundred dollars a month.

Fifteen percent has a desire level of two to three thousand a month.

Only five percent has a desire level of $25,000 or more a month.

Now you may have heard that and said oh I’m an 80 percenter. You’re actually probably not because if you’re reading this post, it means you have a higher level of desire. It means that you’re trying to get better, it means you’re trying to improve your business, you’re trying to get better as a leader etc.

Let’s get into understanding those different percentages. People will ask well do I just create three groups? Do I create a group of the “losers” and then a group of the “mid winners” and then a group for the “winners?” No because this isn’t level of result, it’s level of desire. I know people that are a million dollars a year, that are 80 percenters because they no longer have a desire to grow. They’re not actively recruiting, they’re not getting sales, they’re not showing up to meetings. They’ve hit where they like and they have now declined in their level of desire. They may not have declined their level of result. Most people that get into our stuff are actually not 80 percenters because they have a higher level of desire and level of desire by attempts at personal production. If you’re a leader reading this and you haven’t recruited anyone in years, I’m going to question your level of desire because if you have a high level of desire, you also at the same time have a high level of attempts at personal production.

You don’t split people off into different groups, it’s just like…..well think about church. Okay in church there’s one sermon and there’s people that give a lot in the collection plate, there’s people that don’t. They’re not seated according to the how much they put in the collection plate. There’s one sermon, serves everybody. Some people they try to take something out of the collection plate and some people put a whole bunch of money in there. So it’s one sermon, it’s how you lead your team but it’s allowing people to be at any level of desire.

Let’s hear from you!

Before we move to my last point here, I’d love to hear from you. What’s an example of leadership that turned you off? What’s an example that maybe you were made to feel less than or feel like a disappointment? What was your scenario? The community needs to see this because there’s a lot more people that talk people out of network marketing by their strict hardcore leadership, hustle grind than there are that actually that kind of approach makes them do more. I’m trying to really help the profession here. We would love to hear your comments.

How do you balance and manage your time as a leader?

How do you do that? Do you stop personal recruiting? Do you just focus on the team? The answer is…you need to keep in mind what your actual job is. Your job is to continue to bring new blood into the organization whether it’s customers or reps, combination of both etc. without any addiction to the people in your organization doing what you wish they were doing. Now that’s a strong pill to swallow. Most people can’t swallow that but if you could, if you could just try that on, then what you would find is by you doing personal production, you would inspire the right people in your team to do the work. When you do the work you wish they were doing, you’ll be shocked and amazed at how many people then step up their game. But by you prodding them and staying on top of them and riding them and micromanaging them, that doesn’t inspire much. Most people aren’t inspired by that kind of stuff, but you go out and bring new blood in, you go out and do the things you wish they were doing, that’s when you have a chance of inspiring them.

Now if you do have people in your team that are rocking and rolling and you have a great you know relationship with them and they’re having you fly out to their city and do meetings with them, then definitely go for that. It’s when you’re trying to pull people, that’s the time I want you to claim back. Claim that time, that pulling. I’m trying to motivate these people, take that time and put it toward personal production and you’ll go find the people that are motivated and at the same time you’ll inspire other people while reducing your frustration, that’s the way to lead a team and I hope that helps you.

Now was this helpful to you?

If you would like more on leadership, check out my book on leadership. Freakishly Effective Leadership for Network Marketing. This is a best-selling book. I have had a lot of leaders go through it and it details some of the steps that I helped leaders with over the last 10 years of having less frustration while growing a larger team. I know it will be helpful for you. Here is the link, rankmakershop.com/products… Just click that link. It’s also available on amazon, on kindle, on audiobook and I know it’s going to help.