How this business is meant to work: 9 Rules (Things to avoid, things to promote).

Also known as:  9 Things to Avoid in your MLM Team

by Challen Yee, co-founder Team Better Living

As you are a person who is considering a position of leadership in network marketing, I’m going to give you some straight talk about Network Marketing or the Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) industry. Understanding the information in this article can help you avoid unnecessary pain and set you on a healthy direction in an MLM career.

You may know little or nothing about MLM or you may have heard about some horror stories about MLM, I certainly have heard a bunch and some I’ve experienced some of them personally.

One of the biggest reasons I’ve seen for people’s horrendous experiences in MLM is that new people who get involved in a team before they fully understand how that “team” really is, because they are solicited and join without knowing what to look for or who to talk to.

What happens next can break a person’s desire to be involved with an MLM business for life. Don’t let the good person you sponsor end up being a poor sheeple and for pete’s sake, don’t let that person become you!

A TOXIC team often looks good at the beginning to the inexperienced, but unsuspecting members end up having to deal with unreasonable and unfriendly expectations set forth by their sponsors., who are often saying one thing to you and something different to others behind your back. Totally unprofessional!

MLM is a customer driven expansion plan and ultimately necessitates a “team” system or philosophy that an “independent” business owners can leverage to ease  introducing the opportunities to new members and to help support existing customers and business builders.

From the company’s point of view, they would like nothing better than having an orderly and ethical expansion in their customer base, how that occurs depends on individual personality, company and personal training and leadership.

After understanding the simple beauty of how MLM actually works, it truly is unfortunate the amount of unprofessionalism, dishonesty, ruthlessness and chronic toxicity.  The main reason for such a lack of professionalism is because virtually anyone can join a network marketing company. Using a corporate example,  almost anyone can become a manager or department head in many industries, and forever taint an employee’s opinion of the company for life.  Although in a corporate job, this a failure in management can often be traced to the CEO level, in network marketing, team leaders usually set the predominant tone for their team. However, where there is bad, there is also good. No industry is exempt from exposure to good and bad personalities and network marketing is no exception.

Yes. Good people have succeeded in MLM and are making money doing it.

Hence, before you join a team or even if you are already involved with a team,  there are a lot of destructive habits you ought to be aware of. These bad habits should be avoided because they cause great damage to the profession and your own ability to achieve your goals.

This is an honest business that offers serious long term benefits for those who know how to stick with it and know how to avoid jumping into the poor management traps.

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OKAY, Here are are 9 Rules to live by:

RULE 1

DO NOT stock pile unsold product or product you cannot use.

This type of business practice is not consistent with any kind of business especially an MLM business. Bad teams never seem to explain to their members the basic rule of business is to make a profit, not to spend money and go into debt. It can be so bad, some teams expect you to buy all kinds of expensive personal items (like a new BMW you cannot afford) just to keep up an image of success. Some teams will literally lock you up in a room and not release you until you spend a few thousand dollars of product. I am not kidding. They seem to think fleecing a customer once (or more) is a effective strategy.

Any serious business will keep some kind of accounting and business owners should strive to use the bulk of their business time and effort into profit producing activities, like prospecting and sponsoring, and NOT spending like drunken sailors to impress upper management or to unwittingly fool yourself into thinking you are wealthy by spending like crazy.

DO buy product or services that you would normally use as you need them. You can stock up a little like you would any useful product, but be reasonable.

RULE 2

DO NOT discourage good people who are not actively building their business and making money.

People often need to “find” themselves before they embark on building a business, sometime the process takes time. Though the MLM business model is extraordinarily simple, building a business rapidly is not for everyone at any stage in their life. People just enjoy the products, being around upbeat and supportive people, and sharing great testimony about their favorite products.

Although we understand that everyone can run a business in virtually any circumstance, it can take time for people to either be at peace or come to grips with how an MLM business fits into their life. One of the benefits of engaging in an MLM business is that you can do it while you learn and since it is your business, you can do it at the pace that is consistent with  your goals. Prodding people an treating them like cattle is simply unprofessional and a poor use of your time as a leader.

DO have a heart to help others and help build a community of goodwill, good tips and fellowship. “Keep them around the campfire,” meaning value their voluntarily being in your community.

RULE 3

DO NOT make a business of profiting directly from your team.

In other words, don’t try to make a profit of your team members when you should be helping them build their businesses and getting your financial reward from the parent company or fair costs for products. If you are in the training business, that’s different, but if you are building a team, training for them should be free or at cost. People outside of your team are okay to charge market rates for training and coaching.

Some team leadership will focus on getting their profits primarily from seminars and training materials, admission charges and just about anything aside from the company’s compensation plan that is based on network building.  Secondary profit strategies employed by some leaders can be hidden to unsuspecting team members. Charges can include air and bus fares, hotel accommodations, and just about anything that doesn’t have to do with building the customer base.

DO as a team seek to support each other’s efforts to build relationships, prospecting, training, and recruiting and make possible the opportunities to meet people’s needs whether it results in a new team member or not. Celebrate successes of everyone. Encourage. If you make money the right way, you will make more friends and less enemies and put more leverage on the company comp plan and rather than abusing a captive audience.

RULE 4

DO NOT engage in begging, chasing, or harassing people in effort to grow your business.

Business owners who conduct themselves in this manner do not understand two key principles of personal development.

One: you work in this business with complete faith and security in the reality of abundance. No matter how many people you think are involved in network marketing or are turned off by it, there is an much greater pool of people who are either untapped, have not made a decision to join yet, or have been seeking a better opportunity.

Two: The people you want to deal with will KNOW, LIKE and TRUST you. The last thing the average person wants to build a relationship with is someone who is desperate and the last thing you want is to waste time with someone who at best is only helping you because they feel sorry for you. Think, dysfunctional relationship = avoid.

DO seek to build relationships, listen and understand people’s needs. You cannot offer a solution unless you understand the prospect’s needs, wants and desires. Rather than ignoring a “NO”response, either seek to understand why they said “NO” or ask for a referral if they are a quality person. If in the process of engaging a prospect, if they suddenly seem to “back off” then you must not pursue, you must “back up an equal or greater amount.”

Another sub-rule of this is you do not want to bring in anybody who could say “yes.” As a business owner and team member you will be responsible to not only seek people, but to also screen or interview people,  and understand  that bringing in a bad apple will make everyone’s life more stressful, especially if you forced them into your opportunity and team.

RULE 5

DO NOT bad mouth other people’s companies.

Again, this results from a lack of an understanding of abundance and is unprofessional. There is enough business to go around without having to resort to insults and wasting time digging up dirt. Let your company’s performance speak for itself.

The truth of the matter is, almost every company product can be replaced by a similarly high quality product from another source. The biggest factor in most people’s decisions to stay with a company long term is the team community and culture, along with the long term viability of the mothership company.

DO strive to be professional. What goes around comes around. If you speak well of others and other companies, you help yourself remain beyond reproach.

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RULE 6

DO NOT operate from a belief in a lack of abundance.

I’ve already outlined a few cases where people can drive themselves into hole because they operate from a desperate mindset, they feel like they have to harass people as if they are the only hope to achieve success. It’s so important that I gave understanding ABUNDANCE its own RULE.

This is why the most training and activity needs to be centered around prospecting and recruiting new people, at least for people who have not yet achieved their residual income goals yet. If they are not prospecting for themselves ,then they should be helping others with their efforts. In some companies, the leadership bonuses only reach their full potential if you are actively building new lines no matter how many successful lines you already have.

We strive to make the process as simple and as pain free as possible.

As of this writing, the MLM industry is still relatively small compared to other large traditional corporations. So the potential growth is still in an early stage.

DO accept we live in a world of abundance. Don’t try if you do not have faith in this reality.

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RULE 7

DO NOT blame other people for a lack of success (and leaders who go around blaming other people as their mode of operation is highly toxic).

Success comes on the stairway of failure and taking responsibility for your actions and lack of action. If you have not achieved your desired status, look at your actions and see if they are consistent with what is expected to create the desired level of success.

Blaming others is an act of forfeiting your power, casting responsibility away from yourself and  forfeiting the valuable lessons that you should have learned from your own mistakes.

Failure is one of the greatest teaching tools. Begin viewing failure as a lesson you needed to learn in order to achieve the level of success you desire.

A person who never fails has not achieved anything nor is a leader who is blaming others for his or her lack of success.

DO take personal responsibility, it is your business. Others will help but you must take personal responsibility for your own success, if you do, you will receive your just rewards with respect to your results.

RULE 8

DO NOT make training your number one goal. It is important but not the most important if you intend to generate residual income.

This could be the problem of the team leaders who are focusing on the wrong kind of training or it could be feeding off the member’s desire not to do what really matters. Attending training feels like you are doing something productive, but no one ever got rich being a professional student. If you are not spending 80% or more of your business activity involved with prospecting and recruiting into a system that promotes independence and duplication, then you are not serious about running your business in order to produce residual income. Now you may only be able to afford a few hours per week to run your business, then, assuming your intention is to build an income, you must spend most of that 2-3 hours prospecting and recruiting.

Again beware of teams who are out to make money off training their own people. Who is making the money in this case? It is not the student.

DO understand that taking disciplined and persistent action in profit producing activities will result in profit making. Training is important but ultimately action is king.

RULE 9

DO NOT make for yourself a miserable time.

A lot of people are coming from a job, career or situation that they hate or is stressful. What they do on their free time can drive them into more anxiety or it can help relieve some of the stress either through the knowledge they are working on their fortune or freedom. As I mentioned before, being around optimistic and positive people improves life.

Like ballroom dancing, once you understand the steps, you no longer need to worry about where your feet are and you can enjoy the dance and move with the music, except in network marketing you get paid for this dance. This profession is little different from any other skill or discipline in this regard. The plan is simple, but it does take work.

DO enjoy the process and the friends and relationships you will build. It becomes fulfilling and fun that way and  one of the best marketing tools you’ll ever have.

Do you like what you are reading? Thanks for your interest. As a bonus for signing up for this free report, you can access the following:

Residual Income – Bonus Report 

If you are seeking to work with a new network marketing team, I invite you to consider Team Better Living. Go to the front page “You are invited” to step through our no obligation process. 

For more free coaching, feel free to follow my blog at challenyee.com and on youtube search for “challen yee”, can foliow there for free.

 

TEAM BETTER LIVING copyright 2015