Building Leaders is Easy Once You Teach Them How to Handle Problems - By Al Schreiter

Networkers everywhere are killing their businesses and they don’t understand why. Imagine investing hundreds or even thousands of hours into your business, and then systematically destroying your business with an incorrect point of view. I‘m going to share with you one of of my secret principles that makes Networking easy. This one secret principle might change your career forever! It’s weird, but no one ever thinks about it. First, a little background.

How many hours do you think the average Networking leader spends doing the following tasks:

• Listening to downline personal problems;
• listening to downline business problems;
• apologizing for incorrect statements made by the upline leaders or home office staff;
• playing referee between jealous distributors fighting over a single enrollment;
• berating home office staff who don’t understand Network Marketing;
• worrying about greed destroying certain members of the organization;
• groaning about unfair treatment and lack of recognition;
• trying to recover business that was stolen by unfair competition……

These activities take time. How much time can a leader afford on these non-productive, non-revenue-generating activities? These activities take physical effort. Leaders are physically exhausted after marathon telephone conversations with professional victims complaining that the world is against them. These activities take psychic effort. Leaders lose their mental energy fighting these losing battles. After one of these battles, the leader prefers to become comatose and watch television. There is no enthusiasm left for a prospecting campaign.

Who has the problem? Guess what? The distributor doesn’t have the real problem here. The leaders have the problem! The leaders have a wrong perspective or viewpoint. Here is what the unsuccessful leaders believe:
In order to be successful in Network Marketing….

• 100% of the home office employees must be perfect.
• 100% of all distributors must be honorable, charitable, problem-free citizens without a touch of greed.
• 100% of all distributors must never quit.
• 100% of the home office staff should become instantly available when they call.
• 100% of all upline leaders should be perfect role models who never make a mistake while speaking.
• 100% of all decisions must be perfect.
• 100% of all decisions must work out perfectly in the future.

Everything must be perfect, or they’ll just complain and destroy their business, and then look for a new venture with the perfect leaders, the perfect home office staff, the perfect compensation plan, the perfect product at the perfect price that satisfies 100% of all people 100% of the time, etc., etc., etc.

Yuck! As Zig Ziglar would say, "That’s some stinking thinking!" People are human. Your company, your upline, and even your downline are human. And as humans, they have certain characteristics, such as, they make mistakes. Humans are often selfish. Humans are professional quitters. They quit school, quit jobs, quit marriages, quit diets, quit New Year’s resolutions, and quit MLM programs. Humans often fail to return telephone calls. Humans are often rude. Humans take people for granted. They don’t show appreciation to their upline or downline when appropriate. Humans love to criticize. It makes them feel superior and helps them to forget their own personal problems. Humans think they are always right. After all, whom do you know that deliberately goes out of his way to be totally wrong? Why not just accept people as they are? This is the perspective and point of view that successful leaders take. They don’t waste time trying to change people, fix their perceived problems, or trying to eliminate all the problems in the world. Successful leaders accept that there will always be problems. They simply learn to live with the problems instead of stressing over each problem for the rest of their lives.

What do unsuccessful distributors do? If they see that their present MLM company has a problem, they quit! They join another MLM company and hope they never have a problem. What kind of crazy thinking is that? All MLM companies have problems.

Successful distributors and leaders realize that if all MLM companies have problems, you might as well pick the company that you choose to have problems with. Accept the problems and get on with business. Let your competitors try to fix the problems, fix human nature, and jump from one company to another. Encourage your competitors to do it. This will keep them busy while you build a large and successful Networking business. You’ll have exclusive access to all the best prospects because your competitors are too busy trying to fix problems.

"But don’t I have to fix some of the problems?" No. Our businesses will be quite successful if we just concentrate on developing three or four leaders. Once we have three or four trained people who think like we do…we’re invincible! Developing leaders is everything in our business. Distributors may come and go, problems may come and go, problems may come and stay, but if we develop long-term, loyal leaders, we’ll be here forever with regular bonus checks. All these other problems don’t have anything to do with locating, training and developing our three or four good leaders. All the other problems are just a distraction that you can ignore. "Hey! That’s a pretty good perspective on how this Networking business really works. What would happen if my downline adopted this point of view?" Massive growth. Massive sales. Massive bonus checks.

Can you imagine how powerful your opportunity meetings would be if everyone was positive and focused on their goal of locating and developing three or four good leaders? The atmosphere would be magic! With so much positive energy in the room, guests would join without even hearing a presentation! Prospects want to be involved with positive people who know where they are going. But let’s take a look at a typical crisis.

A few years ago, I gave an opportunity meeting presentation to about 50 people. It was in a small hotel room in the north of England. In the back of the room was a brand new distributor. She brought along her husband and her 11-month-old daughter. Also in the back of the room was a prospect with a $1,000 pin stripe suit, manicured nails, the perfect sun tan, a replica of a very expensive watch, and…. an attitude. He looked like the stereotypical stockbroker.

As I proceeded with my presentation, occasionally the baby made a bit of noise. Okay, the baby cried. Not real loud, but it was distracting. Does a baby crying have anything to do with locating and developing your three or four good leaders? No! So it’s not a problem. It’s a non-event. It’s totally manageable by simply ignoring the crying and continuing with the opportunity meeting. So I did.

Guess what happened when the meeting was over? the well-dressed guest left! He was completely turned off by the baby’s crying. His parting remarks? "How could any professional business allow a crying baby to interfere or distract prospects during a business presentation? I couldn’t possibly join a non-professional organization like that!"

Now here is the million-dollar question you have to ask yourself as a business builder and Networking leader: "If my prospect quits or doesn’t even join because an 11-month-old baby cries, will this prospect ever be one of my three or four good leaders?" The obvious answer is "No." This prospect believes that circumstances must be right in order for him to become successful. In other words, he is saying that success is outside of himself. Is this prospect ever going to develop into one of your three or four good leaders? No. The 11-month-old baby might have a better chance.

Leadership has nothing to do with the clothes you wear. Who would you rather have in your organization? The mother who brought her 11-month-old baby and her husband to the opportunity meeting or the well-dressed, weak-willed prospect who takes directions and career decisions from an 11-month-old baby? Leaders are everything. They are your long-term security. They are your keys to solid growth and consistent bonus checks.

Almost everything else you do in Networking marketing is trivial and a waste of time. Want some examples? Discussing company politics, arguing with know-it-all distributors, re-training uplines, arranging chairs at opportunity meetings, re-writing the prospecting brochure for the thirty-first time, arranging product displays, memorizing sales pitches, holding hands with weak-willed prospects, correcting people when they are wrong, scolding distributors for missing meetings, wishing you got more money for your efforts, demanding immediate shipment of backorders, demanding that everyone in every circumstance was treated fairly, listening to petty grievances, giving pity to people with hurt egos, trying to save professional victims, forcing distributors to go to trainings they don’t want to attend, trying to find somebody to blame, wishing people had the same vision you have, telling management how to do their job, etc., etc., etc.

We don’t become successful leaders by solving these problems! And we don’t become successful leaders by sponsoring and replacing "temporary" distributors. We become successful leaders by locating and developing three or four other good leaders.

"MLM Crisis Center, may I help you?" Make sure this is not how you answer your telephone. You’ll find yourself easily answering questions and handling problems when you are focused on locating and developing three or four good leaders.