One of my highest values is “humor” so that is always a slant I prefer to look at everything with.  Are you game to look at how humor can play a big part of your MLM business?

So, Have you heard the one about why God created children? Here it is:

Whenever your kids are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God’s omnipotence did not extend to his kids. After creating heaven and earth and seeing that it was “good,” God created Adam and Eve.

The first thing God said to them was, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?” Adam asked.
“Don’t eat the forbidden fruit,” said God.
“Forbidden fruit? Really? Where is it?” Adam and Eve asked, excitedly jumping up and down.
“It’s over there,” said God— wondering why he hadn’t stopped after making the elephants.
A few minutes later God saw the kids having an apple snack and he was very angry.
“Didn’t I tell you not to eat that fruit?” the First Parent asked.
“Uh huh,” Eve replied.
“Then why did you do it?” God asked exasperatedly.
“I dunno,” Adam answered.
God’s punishment was that Adam and Eve would have children of their own.
Thus the pattern of having children was set and has never changed.

Cute, huh?

This was sent to me by a friend, Dorothy. I noticed in the header of her email that Dorothy also sent the joke to a number of other recipients, some I knew and some I didn’t, but it had over 20 people.

The joke was originally e-mailed to Dorothy from Betsy.  Who knows who “told it” to her.

Okay, so what? Read the rest of this entry »

Leadership is about change. If you need no change, you need no leader. In times of change, people seek out more and better leaders. Those successful sought-out leaders embrace the following thought: “The best reformers the world has ever known are those who began with themselves.”

Mahatma Gandhi said, “We must be the change that we envision.”  Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”

The following comments are about personal change:

One person cannot change another person.

When I started as a young leader, I thought that a leader could change the people; and boy, did I work at it. I said, “All right, I’m going to give them thoughts, ideas, and principles; and I’m going to change people.”

After several years, I awakened to the thought that the only person who can change himself or herself is himself or herself.  You can change yourself, but I cannot change you.  You see, I am responsible to you but I am not responsible for you; and there is a world of difference between those two. I am responsible for teaching you good leadership, I am responsible for sharing things that can help add value to your life; but you are the only one who can take responsibility to change yourself, and that is what this whole post is about.

Most people need to look at the way that they look at change.

How many times have you heard somebody say, “I sure hope things will change.” The only way things will change for me is when I change. It has nothing to do with hope. You can’t just say, “Well, I just hope things will change around me,” and expect results. The only way that things will change for me is when I change.

I have also heard this before, “I don’t know why I’m this way.” Well, you are the way you are because that is the way you want to be. Let’s expose it for what it really is.

When you make the right personal changes, other things begin to turn out right.

So when people say, “I’d like things to turn out better for me, I’d like things to turn out right, I’d like things to turn out better in the organization, or in my family,” I say to them, “Start by making personal changes.”

If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a networker. I call leadership the great challenge of life. What’s important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specific qualities I have learned over the years:

• Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you’ve got to walk in front of your MLM organization. You’ve got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, discover the first sign of trouble.
• You’ve got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can’t get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is a devotion. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we’re part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem. Read the rest of this entry »
  Tags: leadership, MLM business, MLM organization, networker
  

The dreaded F-word, failure — it is so important, so common, and yet so misunderstood. Succeeding in Network Marketing depends on knowing how to apply the same leverage principles that make the business model work to the failures you’ll encounter in your day-to-day experience as a Networker.

Few people choose to study their own failures except to lament the consequences and formulate what they believe to be corrective solutions. Most of us have strong tendency to concentrate on the negative side of failure — it’s all bad. (This is terrible., I was counting on Bill to join! It’s no wonder, I must have sounded so stupid on the phone. . . . The meeting was awful! This one prospect just wouldn’t shut up about pyramids so it got all tense and no one signed up…. Oh my God, the company’s gone bankrupt, how am I going to explain it to my group ?!) While the experience of a failed effort can range from mildly unpleasant to devastating, in focusing on the experience alone, we miss the significant positive contributions. The fact is that, like it or not, it’s impossible to be successful without experiencing some degree of failure. Of course we want to avoid it, but how many of us avoid it at such costs that we end up avoiding success with equal determination?

By promoting a more informed and tolerant opinion of failure, I hope to counter the pressure that causes people to respond to failure in ways that inhibit progress and spawn more of the same.  I suggest instead that failure can be a compass for day-by-day progress as you build your Network Marketing business.

Your Failure Guarantee:
Perfectionism Read the rest of this entry »

If you think about it…

The secret to our Network Marketing business IS Conversation, and it is something we all have done for a long time, and many have even mastered.

Then let me ask an obvious question here:

Why do people not use more conversation as a sponsoring tool?  Good question…according to psychologists, we hold as adults around 100-150 conversations a day minimum…and these can be very strong prospecting tools if properly utilized.

Have you ever talked to someone and after they have walked away, you thought…”Shoot! I wished I would have mentioned my MLM company or MLM product…?” 

Well… nowadays, you really need to be more professional with your approach in conversations, and also in general…people today get hit up a lot by telemarketers and less than professional mlm’ers, and you need to have a much more professional and focused approach that gets their interest when their defenses are down…

That is why conversation is such a great tool…most people during a conversation are at ease and their defenses are at bay…not up… Read the rest of this entry »

We know we need to talk to people, so let’s look at a situation we all find ourselves in when we attempt to speak with someone we don’t know.

Place and time: an elevator in a professional office building, late afternoon.

You get on the elevator, push the button for your floor, and watch the numbered lights flick on as you climb.  What’s on your mind? Things you need to take care of at work before 5pm; what you might have for dinner that night; weekend plans. . . .

Then suddenly the elevator stops. It’s not your floor.

The doors slide open and there is a woman:  “Going up?” she asks, as she steps in. You smile politely and nod. She pushes the button for her floor, and the doors begin to close.

The woman looks very professional and carries a stuffed briefcase. She leans back against the wall and sighs. “What a day,” she says.

You smile politely. “Yes, yes, what a day,” you respond, and then you look away.

Suddenly your mouth goes dry and your mind goes blank—you stare up at the numbers above the door. Yikes! It’s like you’ve completely forgotten how to speak. You know you’re being rude, but, well, you don’t know what to say anymore.

The elevator continues to climb: 6…7…8…

All you can think about is your MLM business, and the fact that you know you should try to contact this woman — she’s professional and sharp-looking; who knows, she might be interested. You’ve read all the books and listened to the tapes.  You know you should — but your heart is racing.

9…10. . . 11 …

You smile in her direction. She’s watching the numbers. You think: This is the longest elevator ride of my life!

A voice inside you — the brave, confident, I’m-a-leader voice — whispers: Just talk to her, get a business card, do something.

But you’re frozen. Because there is another voice inside you — the scared, embarrassed, I-can’t-do-it voice — yelling:

Don’t say anything! She wouldn’t be interested? She’s too corporate, she’s not the Network Marketing “type,” she doesn’t need it. She would laugh at you.

12 … 13 … 14 … the elevator stops. The doors part, and the woman steps out and disappears. You lean back against the wall.  The doors close, you are alone.

And you . . .feel horrible.

Where The Action Is

Welcome to the Frontline — the Frontline of Networking.

Of all the “lines” in the world of Network Marketing — upline, downline, crossline, bottom line — the Frontline is perhaps the place of greatest fear and greatest productive action. Read the rest of this entry »

When is the last time you did a 3-way call to help build credibility with your MLM prospect?  Are you comfortable asking others for their 3-way time and support?

3 way calls can be very important to show the MLM team concept we have and is usually done after you’ve had a chance to determine you have a real MLM prospect. 

My philosophy is that a 3-way call should be a support call.  That means helping to get the MLM prospects questions answered and to train you in the process.

So here are 18 reasons to consider 3-way calling to help you in your Success:

1. Introduce prospects to someone in their field of interest.
2. Encourage a prospect to go to the next step in the information process.
3. Have the upline handle an objection or question.
4. Train a new member of the Team on phone techniques.
5. Get people excited. Read the rest of this entry »
   Tags: 3-way calling, downline, MLM business, MLM product, MLM prospect, MLM Team, upline