What Should You Look For in a Network Marketing Sponsor?
I often see people interested in starting a home based business spend an inordinate amount of time “sponsor shopping”. Surfing the Internet searching for the “perfect” sponsor can be both time consuming and very confusing.
It’s confusing because people don’t really know what or who they’re looking for.
Which brings me to the key point of this blog post —
What kind of sponsor should you be looking for?
Should you be looking for….
- the person who makes the most money in this company?
- the person with ties to the company leadership?
- the person newer to the industry who will be able to spend a lot of time holding your hand?
- the person who is most like you in temperament?
While all of these choices might, on the surface seem logical, these are not the characteristics or ingredients you should look for in a sponsor.
So what SHOULD you look for?
It’s very simple, but it took me a while to figure it out.
And before I did, I was exactly the WRONG kind of sponsor, not really helping my team or their businesses.
You want a sponsor with one key character trait —>
You want someone is going to TELL YOU THE TRUTH.
Tell it like it is. No sugar coating.
You want someone to tell you what you NEED to hear, not what you want to hear.
This is what Rosemary and I tell everyone who joins our team:
We’ll do what we can to help you make the kind of money you want, but it’s going to be one of the most challenging things you’ve done in your life. It will take work, money, time, and occasionally getting out of your comfort zone.
We will never do the work for you. We won’t give you all the answers. But we WILL show you where to look for the solutions to what’s holding you back.
In other words, we will help you become LEADERS, not someone just blindly following a system. There’s little doubt that you can make money following the Carbon Copy PRO system.
But you can make BIG MONEY by being a leader.
That’s where we come in.
So what kind of sponsor should you be looking for?
- Not the biggest money earner
- Not the easiest to get along with
- Not the one who will hold your hand
You want a person who will help you when you need it by showing you HOW TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM ON YOUR OWN.
You want a person who will STRATEGIZE with you, not do it for you.
You want a sponsor who will help you to develop your LEADERSHIP SKILLS.
You want a sponsor who will EMPOWER YOU TO LEAD, not enable you to follow.
You see the difference?
How Much Are You Worth?
Today, I was listening to a DVD by one of my favorite personal development gurus, Jim Rohn talking about value. He asked the question, “How much are YOU worth?’
Why do some people get paid $8 an hour, while others are given millions to perform their job? It has everything to do with value.
The amount of money you make is directly related to your
VALUE IN THE MARKETPLACE
People make minimum wage at a job because they don’t have much value to the market. I’m talking economic value only here. A person may be extremely valuable to society in other ways, as a parent, a son or daughter, or a church member, for example. But when talking about value to the marketplace, I am specifically talking about the skills you bring to the table.
On the other hand, a CEO who is bringing in BILLIONS of dollars to his company is paid MILLIONS per year.
Why? because of his value to the company.
That’s why I have always been adamant about EDUCATION AND TRAINING. There’s not better way I know of to increase your value to the marketplace.
Take the example of Network Marketing.
You have just started your Network Marketing business, having never done anything like it beforehand. Flash forward 3-6 months down the road, and you still haven’t made any money.
You haven’t made any money because your value to the marketplace is still very low.
Let me ask you this.
During those 3-6 months, what have you learned? What training have you received?
Here is what my wife and I did in our first 3 months after we started our Network Marketing home business.
We signed up for specialized training in Pay Per Click advertising. Then we signed up for specialized training in Social Marketing. We bought and read as many books as we could get our hands on. We purchased CDs and listened to them in our car on the way to work. We purchased DVDs and watched them over and over instead of watching TV.
In other words, we improved our knowledge 100 fold, and in the process we increased our value to the marketplace.
When we first sponsored someone in our business (and there were very few at first), we didn’t know much and had little more to offer our new members other than the training the company offered.
But now, months later and several training courses later, we can COACH our team with a high degree of certainty that we can help them make money in their business FASTER than we made money with ours.
Why? Because we know more.
And because we know more, we have attracted more new members to our team. Along with this has come a corresponding spike in our income. It’s been very obvious to us what has happened.
WE INCREASED OUR VALUE TO THE MARKETPLACE
And now? Now we have people calling us to join our team.
How has our life changed? Not much, because we are still on a mission to INCREASE our value to the marketplace.
We recently signed up for one on one training with some of the very top leaders in our industry, to learn the hidden secrets that only the most successful network marketers know.
Why would we do this if we are already making some serious money online?
Because we know that as our knowledge and value to the marketplace increases, so will our income.
To your success!
This is the business and the automated marketing system that I chose above all others
Get Out of Your Own Way
Welcome to Day 11 of the “30 Tips in 30 Days” Blog Special. I had originally intended at this point in the series to go right in to tips for using specific marketing methods. But a slight diversion first.
A few days ago, I wrote of the importance of developing the “millionaire mindset” in order to succeed in your home business venture. Today, I would like to take it a step further.
If you get nothing else out of this post, get this…
What goes on between your ears is more important than anything else in determining whether you will be a success or failure in anything in life.
Last night, I was listening to one of the top earners in my company talk about this very thing. He talked about “Getting Out of Your Own Way.”
David’s premise (and I agree with it) was that we have all been preconditioned to believe in certain ways. This conditioning has likely been taking place since your early years and is supported by experiences in your present day life.
Thoughts are more powerful than anything else in determining how you feel about yourself and how much success you will experience in your life. For the network marketer, thoughts like “I’m no good at this”, “No one wants to buy from me”, and “I’m not qualified to lead my team” translate into reality very quickly.
The subconscious mind is a very powerful thing. Once you plant these thoughts in your subconscious, they work 24/7 to make these thoughts your reality.
But there is hope!
David outlined 4 strategies for improving your mental conditioning:
1). Increase your knowledge every day. The amount of time you spend doing this is not important. It is the consistent effort, day after day that is important. Exercise your mind by learning something new daily.
2). Constantly question your realities and your beliefs. This is very powerful. When doubts come across your mind, question their validity. Are they REALLY true? How do you know? For example, if you are getting ready to speak to a prospect and your mind fills with the usual self-talk like “This person won’t be interested in joining my team”, STOP right then and there and QUESTION it.
How do you know this person won’t be interested? Is it really true that your prospect won’t value you or your opportunity? This constant questioning will begin to condition your subconscious to change the chatter going on in the background.
3). Structure a new social influence. Who you spend time with and hang out with is HUGELY important. It’s just as your mom and dad used to tell you. Who your friends are goes a long way to defining who you are. Take a good hard look at your social circles. Do these people have the dreams or realities that are consistent with yours?
I’m not saying that you need to dump all your current friends. Just be very careful who you spend time with. Don’t hang out with people who are “dream crushers”. If possible, find people who are “walking the walk” and getting the kind of results you aspire to in your life. This goes for business and personal results.
4). Read and/or listen to affirmations every day. First, make a list of your most dominating doubts, those that pop up at every turn to tell you that you can’t succeed for this reason or that. Every time you notice one of these doubts surfacing, stop and write it down. Question this doubt as in Step 2.
Write some positive aspirations to counteract these doubts. In the example I gave before, the self-doubt “I am not qualified to lead and coach new team members” should be reworked in to the affirmation, “I AM qualified to be a great coach and team leader.” Then to back it up, make it a point to learn something every day about being a great team leader (see Item 1).
Repeat this process with every self-doubt that surfaces.
Now, make some copies of this list and post it in places you will see throughout your day. Put a copy on your computer, on your refrigerator, on your bathroom mirror, in your car… wherever you are likely to see it. Then look at your list whenever you pass by. You don’t have to study it. Just acknowledge the items on the list.
Your subconscious will take care of the rest.
I strongly urge you to ACT on this post. Don’t just read it, put it into action.
Here’s wishing you only positive and productive thoughts!
Bob
December 11, 2008; Cresskill, NJLIVE COMMENTS
Latest on Thu, 03:08: Mary.. let me know my error... let's discuss!
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: Sweet blog. I never know what I am going to come across next. I think you should do more posting as you have some pretty [...]
: Hey doc, right on! Need more people like you on the planet
: I was just introduced to your site through CCPro Forum. My initial question - how should one define "TRUTH"? (I love word-studies and that's a [...]
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