The Challenge of being the leader that your team needs

In the network marketing industry, the idea that the success of any organization is simply a reflection of the success, degree of motivation and commitment of its people is especially relevant. David Packard, cofounder of Hewlett Packard, often said: “If you want to have a great company, you need to have excellent people working there.” As a result, one of the most important responsibilities that every leader has is to facilitate the success of their team. Good leaders know how to help people give their very best, guiding and supporting them to maximize their potential.

In fact, when good leaders have done their job, their teams proclaim, we have achieved this ourselves.

Without a doubt, our success is directly proportional to our ability to help others make the transition from being and thinking as average people to thinking as entrepreneurs. In an industry where every new distributor looks up to their sponsor in search of guidance, good leaders inspire their people to have confidence in them; great leaders inspire them to have confidence in themselves.

The reason why this becomes particularly important in Network Marketing is because the greatest challenge that new distributors face is not necessarily the lack of faith in the organization or its products, but the lack of faith and confidence in their own ability to succeed.

Here are three areas in which we can help our organizations, so that we can become the leaders that our teams need:

• We need to help each new person develop the success habits that will allow them overcome their own limitations and maximize their potential. The objective is to help them focus on their strengths, instead of concentrating on their weaknesses. This will allow them to not only become more efficient people, but to improve in all areas of their lives, such as their personal, family and entrepreneurial lives.
• Unless we manage to help each new distributor to rid themselves of their excuses, they won’t develop confidence in their true potential. Without this self-certainty and a long-term vision, they’ll soon quit the business in spite of their initial enthusiasm.

It is vital to understand that the real enemy of success isn’t failure, as some of us may think, but mediocrity—the idea that we can “just get by.”

New distributors come with a whole arsenal of limiting beliefs. Excuses such as: “I don’t have time,” “I’m not good with people,” “my spouse doesn’t support me,” “I’m not very good at selling,” “I don’t know anybody,” “The product is too expensive,” “it’s not my fault, my group is too lazy,” keep people from realizing their true potential and using their talents in building successful businesses.

• Finally, one of the major challenges that people and organizations face in their path towards achieving success is their inability to take proper, prompt and decisive action from the get go. Good intentions and the desire to succeed do not produce results, only action produces the optimal results we all want to see. Only a mind-set geared towards action in areas such as prospecting, sponsoring and sales, will translate each new distributor’s vision into a reality.

Nonetheless, we cannot forget perhaps the most important principle of any duplication business. Although success in Network Marketing, as in any other endeavor, is the responsibility of each person, it is also true that in any organization the group will always move at the leader’s pace.

Dr. Camilo Cruz’s pursuit of his American Dream has been shaped by two success principles: Decisive Action and a Positive Attitude. When he arrived in the U.S. in 1980 in search of that dream, he didn’t yet know that reaching it would launch a career focused on teaching others to make their goals a reality. As a Success Strategist, he now incorporates these principles into presentations that allow businesses to expand their ability to achieve their ultimate task: to create and maintain customers. He shares industry-specific strategies for Hispanic-owned, Latino-minded or “Latino-mining” companies that will create commitment, motivation, action and results.

Best Selling Author: Dr. Cruz is an internationally best-selling author of twenty books and audio-books with sales of over one million copies. He is one of the most prolific Latino authors in the United States in the area of personal development and peak performance. His book, “Think like a Millionaire”, co-authored with leading American author Brian Tracy, is rapidly becoming a must-read for Latino entrepreneurs.

Public Speaker: He is a sought after motivational speaker and a business coach to executive’s educators, entrepreneurs, students and business leaders from companies such as Aventis Pharmaceutical, Goodyear, AT&T, 3M, Avon, Warner Lambert, Amway, Mattel, as well as leaders from Chambers of Commerce, Educational Institutions and Professional Associations in the U.S. and abroad. Dr. Cruz contributes to newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and Latin America and is regularly featured on television and radio talk-shows.

Entrepreneur: He has launched three successful companies. He c0- founded Yupi Internet (now latino.msn.com), one of the most frequently visited Spanish-language portals, acquired by Microsoft. He is the founder of Taller del Éxito Group, a leading training and motivational company in Latin America, and elExito.com, the first self-improvement portal in the Internet directed to the Spanish speaking market worldwide.

Scientist: Dr. Camilo Cruz has been a professor of Quantum Physics, Thermodynamics, Chemistry and Mathematics at several universities in the U.S. He earned his M.S. in Science and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Seton Hall University, and he is a graduate of HACR / Harvard Business School’s program on Corporate Responsibility.

His book, La Vaca, is the Winner of the Latino Book Award for best Personal Development book, in Spanish