Network Marketing Leader

As a network marketing leader, you will sometimes have to get your team to take action for themselves when they build their own business. How do you get your team to take action in their business?

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How To Get Your Team Into Action

Ray Higdon: Ashley in the house.

Ashley: Hello.

Ray Higdon: Hi there. How are you, and how can I help you?

Ashley: I am doing great. Yeah. So, okay. I feel like I really struggled most in this business as a leader. I’m definitely more of a tough love kind of person, but what I’m really struggling with is people might… So the industry that I’m in is, really kind of relies on going live and videos and things like that, and I have all these people who sign up, and they’re so ready, and then it comes time to put your money where your mouth is or whatever, and they’re terrified. They won’t do it. And so I’m just really trying to figure out how to help them kind of overcome that. For me, I’m the type of person that if I’m scared, I’m just going to do it anyways, but a lot of other people aren’t like that.

Ray Higdon: Yes.

Ashley: So that’s just kind of what I’m trying to figure out, is how to help them.

Ray Higdon: Okay. So, let me make sure I understand. So you’re saying that you’re having people that are on the fence that don’t join? Is that what you’re saying?

Ashley: No, they join and everything, but then when it comes time, because I’m like, “Okay, the best way to get across is to go live and do the things,” but then they don’t want to do those things.

Ray Higdon: Yeah. So, one thing that I learned over the years was, in my first company that I was a part of, I did, man, six home meetings a week. I had a couple breakfast meetings a week. I was just meeting nonstop. I mean, I did, at minimum, six offline, traditional presentations a week for six months, easy. Easy.

And so, when I got serious about network marketing, and it was a few years after that… It’s funny I say that, because I guess I was kind of serious then. But when I really needed to make network marketing work, I kind of rebelled against the home meetings. And so I was like, “No meetings, you don’t need that, you don’t need that,” and I got feedback from some veterans in my team that were like, “Hey man, you don’t have to tell everyone to do home meetings, but you also don’t have to bash them.”

And the reason I tell you that is I’ve a pretty diverse team. And I had probably, I don’t know, there was a team of probably around 10,000 in my team that were all originated from people not on social media. And so I would, one, just an overriding kind of thing is, I wouldn’t dictate the way that they should do it.

And I know that you may see it as more effective, and for you it may be more effective, but I mean, I did have very diverse groups that did things differently than I thought were the best, but they still produced and they still created. The person that calls their friends and sells products still makes money. If I require them, I remember I used to require people, and I know this, we’re just in a different land nowadays.

I mean, nowadays there are companies that tell you, don’t even bother with warm market. It goes both ways. Some companies are, “Cold market bad!” And I just spoke for a company that they basically say, don’t go to warm market.

Oh. And so, but back then, I used to tell people, “Hey, have the guts to reach out to your friends and family members, and don’t care if they sign up, but at least reach out to them.” And I would have people quit because I pushed that. And I realized, I’m like, you know what, let’s get them baby steps. Let’s get them doing anything. And so often, I would have someone that didn’t want to do it the exact way I found most efficient, but they would baby step, baby step, baby step, baby step, baby step.

And then they would become open to other ways. And so, that would be my thing, and as far as tough love, the battle… If you’re one gear, right? I used to be one gear. I was one gear, tough love. And so, what’s wrong with you, man? Come on, step it up, girl. So I used to be one gear. The problem with one gear is, you think that you’re battling just willpower, or you think you’re battling just strategy or tactics or whatever. What you’re actually battling is how their dad treated them.

What you’re actually battling is an embarrassment in high school. What you’re battling is how their mom talked to them. And so when it’s one size fits all, when it requires a screwdriver but you’re only a hammer, you’re going to lose people that would have blossomed in your organization, and you’re going to have people really resent you for nothing really that you said, but for things that happened to them in their past.

And so, I would just be aware of that. I would be aware that every single person on here, or not on here, every single person, your business problem is a personal problem. So the reason that I kept people at a distance and the reason that I was… I had social anxiety for almost all my life is because of a betrayal of a guidance counselor in third grade.

I had confided in her on all the abuse I was getting at home. She thought I wanted attention, so she told my parents and they beat the holy hell out of me again. And so, you couldn’t have told me, “Hey, just step it up, Higdon. Get in there and be social and shake some hands.” I wouldn’t have understood why I didn’t like you, but I wouldn’t have liked you.

And so it’s something that the one size fits all leadership is tough. Now, hey, do some people need a kick in the ass? Definitely, no question. But I want to find out, do they have the level of desire that that tool matches with? And you I would be very careful of using non-conditional tough love in a group setting.

So in a group setting, I am always going to say, “Hey, if you’re here and you just love being part of the mission and you love making new friends and building a business isn’t really your focus, then totally cool, rock on. We love you and we appreciate you, acknowledge you, stick around, do your thing. But if you’re here to build a business, and I’m going to go into a heavy duty routine on how you can get there faster.” See, without that condition, if I’m just like, “Here’s the routine you should be following.”

And I don’t give any kind of conditional statements of if this, if that, whatever, then you’ll have people quit because they don’t want to disappoint you. And there’s no reason for them to. And so, I know I’ve been chatting. Does this make sense so far? I’ve got one more thing for you.

Ashley: Oh, yeah. This is very eye-opening.

Ray Higdon: Yeah. So a lot of network marketing leaders, they operate like sales managers, and they’re just walking around the sales floor with a clipboard smacking it, right? Like, “Hey, Tina, break time’s over, get back on the phone.” And so, I remember I coached this insurance team and there were like 10 of them. And they were in this pretty small office.

And so, I’m going to make up some numbers, because I don’t recall their overhead numbers, but they have this office, and let’s say they were paying $5,000 a month for this office. And with janitorial or commercial whatever and insurance and whatever else, yada yada. And so they’re paying $5,000 a month and they have 10 people in there. Well, what does that mean? Well, we need at least every person to generate 500 bucks a month, or we can’t keep the doors open.

And so that’s a real scenario for most entrepreneurs. Not in network marketing. They have a limited amount of space, they’ve got a finite amount of space. They got to make it generate more money than it costs or else they can’t stay in business. Well, what if you were the niece of Jeff Bezos and there… Or let’s, let’s go a different route.

Let’s say you’re the niece of Elon Musk, and Musk is moving his operations out of California, and he says, “Hey, you know what? I got this 600,000 square foot warehouse that I’m no longer doing anything with, you know what, use it for whatever you want. And it’s got tables, it’s got desks, it’s got phones, just do whatever you want for your business.” So you get this free warehouse, it’s got, I don’t know, 8,000 desks in it and phones, how hardcore are you going to be per person on how much they generate?

Probably not much, right? You’re like, hey, I’m getting it for free. I mean, hell if they generate one sale, it’s fine. Well, the difference in network marketing is you have an unlimited number of warehouses. You have 10 million warehouses all over the world that don’t cost you anything, but only add to your benefit. So not only do you not have to brow beat everybody, and in fact, it’s even better than that.

Of these 10,000 warehouses worldwide, they actually compensate you for sitting at the desk. So like a lot of hair salons. At a hair salon, usually the, whatever, owner of a hair salon will rent out their chairs. They’ll rent out their shares for, whatever, I guess it varies, but let’s say 500 bucks a month or 200 bucks a month or whatever. And so the amount of haircuts that that person does maybe really not that huge of a concern to the owner because they’re paying them every month.

And that is your network marketing organization. Now, we don’t want people to pay and we just don’t help them and we’re not helpful at all and we don’t care about them, but we also don’t want to pressure them. We also don’t want to add pressure that could make them feel like they’re in the wrong salon and they need to move on.

We want them to feel like they belong and we appreciate them, we acknowledge them, et cetera. And so that would be… So instead of saying, “Hey, you got to go live.” “I really don’t want to.” You got a couple options. One, find out their level of desire. Do they really want to crush it and going into coaching and actually coach them on why are they so nervous? What happened to them in their past where they were really embarrassed?

Or what is it that they truly associate with doing videos? If you were on, those of you who were on our Rank Makers LIVE 2020 event, we coach Heather Cranston. I talk about her all the time, because she was just, it was just so awesome. People saw… It’s rare for you to witness transformation in front of your eyes. Usually it takes time. But you people witnessed it in 30 minutes, a complete transformation of a human being, and it was amazing.

And so Heather was one of those people that did not want to do videos. I don’t want to do videos, I’m not comfortable, blah, blah, blah. And my wife hit her with, “What happened, where you were so embarrassed?” And she’s like, “Oh,” she got real quiet. And then she’s like, “Well, in high school I was valedictorian,” or whatever she was.

And she really screwed up a speech, apparently, and a lot of kids laughed at her. Well, she associates going on video and her subconscious links that exactly to that high school experience where people are going to laugh at you. And so you don’t know, without coaching them, you don’t know like the real reason of why they’re so scared to go live.

There very well could be one person they’re connected to on Instagram or Facebook that they’re just too nervous in front of, and that that’s what keeps them back. But it really, what the bottom line here is, it is always associated with something from the past, and that’s what you’re battling.

So the one size fits all is tough leadership for network marketing. You’ll get battle-honed warriors that will take the tongue lashing, but you’ll lose, I would say, at least half of society that just won’t put up for that, or they’re just not built for that.

They’re just not built to get tough love. Like me, I want tough love all the damn time. I love people cutting to the chase, giving it to me straight. Like I’m just designed for that. You telling me I can improve, I will crawl over broken glass for a hundred yards. But I’m a lunatic. Most people aren’t like that. So just being aware of how people operate, actually.

Ashley: Perfect. Thank you very much.

Ray Higdon: You’re welcome. You’re welcome.