The Best Network Marketing Leadership Advice I've Ever Been Given

Today I’m going to share the best network marketing leadership advice I’ve ever been given.

First, I’m going to share that leadership advice that drastically changed how I work with my team. Next, I’m going to share with you some of my biggest takeaways from working with and coaching over 500 six and seven figure earners personally. Lastly, I’m going to share with you how to take this information and actually implement it into your network marketing team.

What was the leadership advice that changed how I worked with my team?

First, let me set the stage. I was the number one income earner in a network marketing company and I went to this event. There was a gentleman there named Larry Thompson. Larry had been in network marketing for over 50 years. He joined the same night, the same hotel that Jim Rohn joined network marketing and he was a trainer there and it was really, really good content.

I asked him afterwards, “Hey, man, could you check out some of my training and just give me feedback?” I’ve always been that way. I’m always looking to improve. I’m always coachable and I’m always wanting to hear from others and get constructive feedback.

He goes through some of my training and he says, “Yeah, you know, what, it’s really, really good for about 5% of your team.”

I’m like “dang, what do you mean by that? What’s that supposed to mean?”

He said, “Well the way that you describe things, is you’re coming across, as if everyone that will ever watch that training has extremely high desires, wants to make millions of dollars and wants to crush it and that’s about 5% of any network marketing team.”

The advice that I got from Larry was so powerful and we now call it the Thompson rule. We talk about this inside of our leadership book and talk about it on our YouTube channel quite often.

The Thompson rule is 80, 15 and 5.

80% of any network marketing organization has a desire level to make $0 to $500 a month.

If you’re reading this, I’m willing to bet that you are not an 80 percenter and you want to make lots of money. This confuses you and you think well, how do I get these suckers wanting to make more money? The reality is 80% are not going to be high desire individuals in your organization no matter what you do. We will come back to that in a minute.

15% have a desire level of $2,000 to $3,000 a month.

Only 5% of any team has an actual desire to make $25,000 or more a month.

I’m willing to bet that as soon as I said those three categories, you placed yourself in one of them. So maybe you’re not making lots of money just yet so you placed yourself as an 80 percenter, not true. That’s not how it works. These are levels of desire, not levels of results. You can have….and I’ve met people that are making millions of dollars a year in network marketing, but I would actually place their desire level as an 80 percenter. Why? Well, what actually dictates the levels of desire? Attempts at personal production. If you are not attempting personal production, then okay, you might be an 80 percenter, and that’s okay. Its attempts at personal production. There are people in your organization that aren’t making anything at all, but they’re actually five percenters because they’re attempting personal production nonstop. They think about, they breathe, they eat, they sleep, and they think all day long about becoming a top earner in network marketing.

You have to know the difference between who has results, but what are their actual desires, and culture is allowing people to feel good, regardless of their level of desire or level of result.

If you have that million dollar earner that you know, built up their business, and now they’re just not that interested in continuing to grow, you need to be okay with that. Company execs need to hear that, leaders need to hear that. If you have someone that joins your team and they’re dead broke, but their level of desire isn’t that high, you need to be okay with that. See the mistake that a lot of leaders make and I definitely used to make this mistake is I thought that I needed to take my level of desire and projected on everyone else so they have the same level of desire. This is like the parents that really want their kids to go to medical school, but the kid doesn’t want to. All that ends up happening is the kid ends up feeling like a disappointment. Same thing in your team. Most leaders operate like a sales manager, like they have a quota and everyone needs to be meeting this quota and they go around slapping their clipboard and saying, “Hey, why don’t you step it up? Hey, how are you doing, man? Just checking in on you and when you’re going to do something?”

Stop making people in your organization feel like a disappointment.

A great analogy here is the gym owner. The gym owner understands levels of desire. If I go to the gym, and I got my headband on, my Beats by Dre, I’m all fired up and I spent four minutes on the treadmill only to finish, take a picture by the dumbbells, posted to Instagram, and then go get a 2200 calorie peanut butter banana chocolate shake at the smoothie counter. I’m literally gaining three pounds every time I go to the gym. What is the gym owner say? Well, he or she will say, “Hey, way to kill it, buddy. Hey, good job out there.” They’re not going to challenge me. They’re not going to say, “hey, you didn’t do much, get back in there.” Why? Because they liked my auto-ship. I mean, membership. I get those two confused sometimes. They understand that it’s levels of desire, if I feel good, and I’m paying them (by the way, for me to feel good) then who are they to say stop feeling good?

See, that’s what leaders do all the time. You have someone that’s on auto-ship, you have someone that’s attending your events or buying your products, buying your service, but they’re not meeting your needs of desire and you make them feel bad. Guess what? Network marketing is the most easy relationship in anyone’s life to get rid of… Not easy to leave a marriage, not easy to leave a kid, not easy to leave a job, really easy to find the cancel button, really easy to get off auto-ship and say I’m out of here, I don’t feel good being here. You need to get better just like the gym owner.

Now if I go to a gym owner, and I say “hey, I want to get ripped, I want to get diesel. I want to become a superstar. I want to become an Olympian!” What are they going to do?

They’re going to point guide and direct me to what to do to get those level of results. That’s what you should do too. Allow people to feel good, regardless of the level of desire, level of result, what rank they’re at, how hard they’re pushing. Allow and be okay, but also pay attention when they raise their hand, point, guide and direct them.

I would love to help you out.

Before I get to my next point, what are some struggles in your team leadership? What are some perceived struggles? Sometimes people don’t have a team, but they’ve perceived every possible problem that they’re going to have. I would love to help you out. I have coached a lot of people, and I’m sure I can help you out. So tell me, what’s your number one frustration with your organization?

Here’s some of my takeaways from coaching over 500 six and seven figure earners personally.

I have worked with people that are making a million dollars a month in their network marketing business. I have worked with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people not making quite that but are making really, really good money and here’s what I’ve come to find out. The 80,15, 5 rule applies to all of them. There is no yeah, I met this one leader and everyone on their team was making lots of money, doesn’t exist. You need to get that out of your head. You need to stop feeling guilty for people in your team not making money when they’re not doing the work. It’s really simple.

Network marketing isn’t magical or mystical. It’s just like any other kind of performance based career. It’s what are you doing? How many people you following up with, how many people you’re reaching out to? How many videos are you doing? How many people are you asking if they’re open to checking out your product or service. That’s what dictates your results along with your mindset. If someone isn’t doing that in real estate, it’s no mystery. It’s like, well, they’re not doing the work. They’re not making money. In network marketing for some reason, there’s this idea that people can be making money without doing that work. It’s not possible. Stop beating yourself up over it. You want to take a look at how I’ve helped clients and high achievers is they change their language. You can still talk about going hardcore and crushing it and doing all that, but use the word if.

When you start a team training, say, “Hey, if you’re on here or if you’re here and you’re just loving your experience, you love the products, and you’re not really ready to build a business, totally cool. We appreciate you, we love you. That’s amazing. No problem. If you’re on here, and you’re really serious about building a business, let me give you some steps.”

See if is inclusive, it makes people feel included, regardless of their level of desire or level of results. When you say this is how you build a business, you need to be reaching out to X number of people a day, then it tells the people who aren’t yet ready that they’re not in the right team. They’re not in the right organization, and you would like them to go away. I know that’s not what you want because remember, 80%, that’s 80% of your check. Would you like to keep 80% of your auto-ships and your volume? Of course you would. So stop turning them off, stop making them feel like a disappointment, stop making them feel like they’re not doing enough for you. Change your language and you’ll change your retention.

How to take this information and actually implement it into your network marketing team.

I shared a little bit of how to implement this into your team by changing your language. You need to stop being so frustrated over those that aren’t doing anything. This is all about allowing. Number two is if someone comes to you and they say, “hey, I’m real serious. I’m going to rock and roll. I want to make it happen.” Don’t spend an hour on the phone with them because that’s not duplicatable. They can’t rewind it, they can’t replay it and they’re not going to remember it. They don’t want to dole out an hour worth of advice to anyone that they recruit…But now they think that’s what leadership is. Instead, point, guide and direct them. You may point them to a tool, you may point them to a resource or a video, or you may give them homework. Go do this, report back in, go prospect five people, report back in. This is something that anybody can do. They’re watching you, you’re telling them go do this, report back in, they’re asking themselves, could I do that to someone? The answer is, yeah, they can tell someone “go do this report back.”

What they can’t do is espouse amazing wisdom and information on an hour long call, which is what a lot of leaders do. See, because of that leader guilt, a lot of times the leaders will overcompensate by spending so much time on the phone with their people, they’re actually sabotaging them. They don’t want to do that and they can’t do that. They’re not even going to remember what you said anyway. Get better as systems, get better at pointing to videos, pointing to resources and pointing to your group.

Additional help with leadership.

We have a white label software that we help leaders with to make team leadership easier. That’s something you may want to look into as well (just send an email to [email protected]). I hope this was helpful.

I also have a free resource for you. This is all about leadership. These are the three most common things I see leaders struggle with and it’s a totally free resource. Here’s the link higdongroup.com/leader, click the link, enter your name and email and you will be sent to those resources. They will really really help you out and dive a little bit deeper into leadership.