Forget About Heavy Hitters – Go for the Real Leaders

If they linger in the crosswalk, mow 'em down Seem a little harsh? Visions of sweet little old ladies and odd ducks being bowled over like bowling pins as steely-eyed uplines barrel past looking for the real players - those instantly committed "Heavy Hitters" who'll blast past them to the top of the compensation plan.

Unfortunately, this is how too many people view the imagined fast track to success in Network Marketing.

In reality, I've found that the people who have ended up becoming our best and most loyal business builders see themselves as unexceptional and started this business clinging firmly to a committed "maybe." These people do not show up streaking for the finish line. They stick a tentative toe out into the crosswalk mustering their nerve to start along the path that leads to total commitment to the business. This is an act of complete faith on their part, because they have not yet achieved the success needed to foster true belief in the opportunity. They linger in the crosswalk with hopeful looks on their faces, often needing a helping hand to get to the other side.

Unless you understand the potential of the average person and what they need from you and want from this business, people in your group will be more likely to quit in defeat or be attracted to the latest greatest new opportunity that's presented to them.

The "Average" Advantage

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This is a new business for most people. As a leader, your job is to create a network of support that shows the "average" person how to bring other people on board.

In Network Marketing you have to give to receive.

It's not a quest to win the lottery by signing up some dazzling overachiever. Helping your average recruit start to see some success is the proven pathway and is the only way to build longterm commitment and walk-away residual income from stable, consistent, long-lasting growth.

I believe the key factor in eventual success for most people is their initial decision to become successful. Most people haven't honestly made that decision when they first set out in a new venture - even if they say they have.

The belief that success is obtainable is instead built on a foundation of smaller initial successes. That is why it's so important that your new builders receive the support necessary to achieve that beginning success.

When I started out in this business, I had no prior experience in Network Marketing. Yet I broke the speed record to the top of my company's marketing plan.

I had a lot of ordinary people like myself in my group, who I helped learn the skills to start building a business.

I worked hard making sure they experienced the initial success necessary to spark their excitement.

Later, when I decided to educate myself in the field of Network Marketing, I read an article about the type of person you should be looking for. I got excited! Here was some great information! It described people with these jewel-like qualities - "Pearls" who would quickly become leaders in any group! Well, I thought I had really tumbled onto something here. I could hardly wait to tell everyone.

I now had a fast way for my group to sort out people with potential. But as I was about to make those calls, I realized something: I looked at the

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top leaders I was about to call - the best people in my group - and I realized that very few of them started out with any of these qualities. It wasn't until they started to see some success with their business that their confidence grew and they developed the skills that made them eventual leaders.

As a Network Marketing trainer, I've met all kinds of people who have become successful.

This is a business where even the oddest of ducks can do very well.

Every once in a while when I'm doing a training, I look out at the audience and notice someone who I can tell - maybe for the very first time - is daring to hope that their dream can come true. The thing that I love about this business is that I can know without a shadow of doubt, no matter who they are - no matter what gender, age, race or creed - that it can.

This is one business where ordinary people can be very successful. They, and not "heavy hitters," are the backbone of the Network Marketing industry.

The key reason for this is that ordinary people are perceived as duplicatable by ordinary people. They aren't the dreaded "Sales Type," which is something the average person doesn't want to be. So they end up with a real advantage with their prospects as far as perceived duplicatability goes.

They begin to develop confidence by conquering initial uncertainties and fears and by learning from their upline, duplicating proven successful actions. They learn from their problems and gradually, with the needed tenacity, emerge as leaders.

When the going gets rough, it's the people who have emerged from the trenches, overcome their inabilities and built lasting www.TheNetworkMarketingMagazine.com 3 connections who keep your business there. These are the real leaders - and, like champion race horses, they seldom come ready made.

Their business starts to grow slowly and organically, then it begins to accelerate.

Beware the "Leader Pretenders" These "ordinary" and highly duplicatable people are the backbone of a solid group. But despite this, builders are continually looking for the flashier type, the guy who strides on board trumpeting his stellar potential, letting you know that signing him up was your lucky day. He demands your immediate and complete attention, because of what he's going to do for you. This legend in his own mind is most often a "leader pretender." And believe it or not, I have never seen one of these people turn out to be what they allude to be. But still, new gung-ho builders persist in looking for them.

I'll share a quick story about one who popped up in our downline. I got a call one morning from two of my best leaders. They had just prospected a guy who told them he'd been huge in another company. He told them that if this company was what they said it was, he was going to end up making them rich!

He had to be frank though, first he was going to interview other people in my company as potential uplines. He had a lot to bring to the table and he wanted a lot back. He mentioned another big builder in another downline who he had supposedly already talked to, who was trying hard to recruit him and supposedly offering the moon.

My leaders called me in a panic, asking me for financial help to give 5000 free tapes to close this “heavy hitter” on signing with them.

I said “No.” They did it anyway.

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As it turned out, this legend in his own mind never did anything. And to top it all off, he wouldn't give the tapes back. It caused them months of anguish. Finally, they managed to get some of the tapes back after threatening to fly to his home and show up on his doorstep.

The reason I wasn't pulled into this web is that I’d seen it before.

Earlier, another slick operator had told me he was in a bad financial position temporarily, but that he has been one of the star players in his previous MLM. He dazzled me with beguiling tales of how he’s helped his former upline retire and live her dreams and would do the same for me.

By the time the stars in my eyes dimmed enough for me to see what was really happening, I had already given this charmer more financial support than I’d spent on the launch of my own business! After getting all he could get, he and all of his Network Marketing junkie relatives left to join another lucky group, ripping off my downline all he could for his new venture – basically, committing criminal acts against innocent people and forever souring anyone remaining in his group on Network Marketing.

I’ve since found that many of these big-time wheeler dealers are quite often temporarily low on funds and that you pay a price for enrolling them.

Leader pretenders tell you how it is. These wannabes come on board with their own “know best” plans. Real eventual leaders are coachable, they let you lead first.

Give the average person the support they need to come off the “maybe” that their lack of experience has them in. Then watch them slowly build an army of people like themselves. As the multiplication factor kicks in, your group will be building solidly in all directions.

Some people do come on board with a slight advantage. Entrepreneurial types - because they have built small businesses before, and teachers because they are nurturing, they tend to do well.

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Unlike the self-proclaimed “heavy hitter,” these people are teachable. They realize that they are in a new field and are generally quiet about their own abilities.

Many people in our business talk enough to get their tongues suntanned. But to be a good leader yourself, you have to learn to listen and to care about the dreams of the people you enroll.

Realize that new builders are plagued with fears, listen to what they have to say and show them you are dedicated to their success. Honest Networking leverages ability by providing the backup and support that teaches new builders the business.

Support vs. Welfare There is of course a difference between creating a welfare Network and a Network of support. Some people don't honestly want to do it. They constantly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. You need to quit beating yourself up over their failures.

The mistake you can make in this business is not letting your people know that the goal is for them to become self-sufficient quickly. You are helping them learn the business, so that they can help their people in the same way. Then you watch to see if they do. That is the real sorting out point.

There is a saying that you can't drag someone over the finish line, but that is not entirely true - because I have. The trouble is you have to keep dragging. Don't fall into that trap either. As in everything in life, there's a balance.

There is great joy when your fledgling leaders start running their own groups - and not a small measure of relief.

Sure, you are still there for motivational support, because even the best builders have down times when they need an injection of excitement and someone to plot taking over the universe with. They've earned that support. But they now have the skills to handle the day-to-day running of their organizations. You in turn have duplicated yourself and freed up your time to handle new recruits.

The goal is that when your builders have problems, teach them how to solve them themselves, rather than you solving them for them. Their

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confidence and control of their own groups will flourish, and you will have helped create a real leader.

You see the best and worst of humanity in this business. I wince every time I hear a story about some little old granny who invested her life savings in a garage full of widgets. Disreputable people have given the industry a black eye by promoting Networking opportunities as get-rich- quick schemes. If they would only realize that the honest long-term potential in business outstrips any scheme and it's there to be had by anyone.

But for every horror story there are scores of stories of triumph and nobility, of ordinary people who have redeemed their self-esteem and achieved financial independence through Network Marketing. And that is why I wouldn't be in any other industry.

Only the self-proclaimed "heavy hitters" come on board without self- doubt. Realize that most people starting out have a tentative commitment at best. They start in a definite "maybe." The best way to strengthen that commitment and turn it into a fierce determination to succeed is to provide the support that lets the average person in your group see some initial success.

They in turn will be duplicated by the majority of the population, who see themselves as "average people." Very quickly, you will have a string of determined builders hurrying along in your wake and your group will have momentum.

My favorite people to hear present this opportunity are often mothers. There's one woman who was left by her husband with two kids and in a very desperate financial position. She could barely make ends meet. She had all kinds of doubts and fears and self-perceived inabilities that hampered her in the beginning, but she learned from her mistakes.

As she started to see some success, her confidence grew and now she talks passionately about what this opportunity has done for her.

When she talks about how her kids can now go to a good school and live in a nice house, and how she can even take them on dream vacations to the islands, her eyes tear up. There's no one listening to her in that moment who doesn't catch that honest spark of excitement and think that maybe, just maybe, they could do it, too.

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People develop into true business-builders in stages. What I find is that the point at which a person makes the tentative commitment to talk to a few friends is the key to eventually becoming a committed builder. It's a fragile point that requires careful nurturing.

Even if this person only adds a few people to your group and never ends up building, he has provided the valuable service of bringing on board connections that expand the referral base and possibly bring in excited new builders.

It's not ‘till a person starts to see some success that you generally have your committed builder. So it's very, very important to know who is taking these first steps. You also want to know who they are going to be talking to, and you want to work closely with them, so that they see the initial success that ignites real enthusiasm.

You don't have to know much about Network Marketing to be an effective upline. The main thing that excites people is excitement itself.

Excitement is the mysterious electric current that can arc between people and is present in a thriving group. It can't be seen any more than electricity can, but it can be felt. People respond more to what you emanate than to what you say. They catch that spark of excitement and it helps them surmount their uncertainties.

Never underestimate the power of a single friendly phone call. And never underestimate the power of "ordinary" people once they see the initial success that allows them personal belief.

Credit card debt has topped a trillion dollars. Bankruptcies continue to have a domino effect on small businesses. Most people's finances look like a house of cards and they know that one unplanned-for emergency can bring the whole thing tumbling down. People in every walk of life are desperately looking for an opportunity.

I know that as a trainer, the key benefit we provide is that we get people off the nervous "maybe" most of them start out in. After being introduced to our system, they know that they can do it because we have taken care to be duplicatable to average people.

As I said earlier,

www.TheNetworkMarketingMagazine.com 8 I believe that the key element in success is the decision to be successful.

Upline support overcomes natural uncertainty and shows people what they can be.

When you start your business, you are functioning as the prime mover. You are generating the action that creates momentum, until at some point your people have their own fierce determination to succeed and at that point you have duplicated yourself and you have a leader.

Karen Justice is a cartoonist, a successful entrepreneur and has been one of the top earners in the Network Marketing arena. Her alter ego is a hormonally altered chicken with an attitude, who by the way is not aging gracefully. Karen is the author of Barracuda In Bunny Slippers and is a popular trainer and speaker. She’s also the creator of www.myfreebirdclub.com – an e card and training site for the Direct and Network Marketing industry.

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