Does Your Leadership Match Your Story?

If you’re an entrepreneur, understand that your organization, your company or your team is a crucible for your leadership and leadership ability.

Now, a crucible is a container that is designed for one purpose, and one purpose only; to apply intense heat and pressure to one thing in order to produce something else.

For example, in the Chalcolithic period, (and for the history buffs like me out there, this was a period of time around 4500 and 3500 BC, before the Bronze Age), crucibles were used to smelt copper.

Now what is smelting?

Smelting is a process where you apply heat and melting to extract the metal from inside raw ore.

So during the Chalcolithic period, people would mine the raw copper ore, and craftsmen would put that ore in a crucible and continually apply excessive heat and pressure to extract the copper from inside the ore.

Throughout history crucibles have been used to smelt ore, as well as used in cementation (which is a process used for making steel and brass). Today, it is used in science labs to heat chemicals.

Your leadership and leadership ability will be put through the the same process and what you end up with, will become your organization, your company and your team.

Copper Shop in Kenya (photo by Robin Hutton)
Copper Shop in Kenya (photo by Robin Hutton)

Does Your Leadership Match Your Story?

Since beginning again with the company I am a part of, I’ve had to continually remind myself of the many lessons I’ve learned over the years, especially where this year, my focus is leadership development.

Two of those lessons are 1. share your story, and 2. focus on your why. If you’ve read any of my posts this year, especially How Great Leaders Inspire Action In Others, it’s easy to understand that people don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it.

When I’m coaching someone I say that people follow people. It’s the reason why companies will spend millions of dollars on one celebrity endorsement; a face to represent what others see in themselves, or how they think about themselves.

And when it comes to the network marketing industry especially, the best way to build a team is to tell your story, and focus on your why.

Leadership doesn’t end at recruiting. It starts.

I’ve been spending a lot of time recently volunteering to helping others in different business and entrepreneur groups, focused on gaining experience in the many areas that make up, and are a part of leadership, and the biggest complaints I receive are these two:

1. Sponsors bringing people into their businesses, then blowing them off or being cold to them because they didn’t spend a lot of money; OR (and I received this one too), they were there to guide them and coach them to the sale, and after they purchased, they received the blow off.

2. People joining under businesses through people who are involved in another business and doesn’t care about the business they’re selling – it’s just another up-sell.

And, as I continue to become more and more involved in different groups that trend is growing.

From experience, these are among the main reasons why people quit, (no support when they need it, or they feel cheated), why people will leave their existing sponsor and re-join under a different sponsor (one who offered help), and ultimately;

It’s why some people have very little retention in their teams, and why some have high attrition rates.

So if you want a loyal team that stays around for a while, pay attention.

You cannot ignore members who join your business at a lower level, or worse push them off to fend for themselves, and only focus your time on helping members who come in at a higher level or spend more money.

I completely understand that people who invest more at the start deserve more of your immediate attention. I’m not saying they don’t, and I agree that you should give them more attention.

What I’m saying is that everyone on your team requires your attention. Here’s why…

Remember this: Everyone you recruit into your team all came to you because of your story and your WHY. They see your life, they hear your stories, they relate to who you are.

You’re an engineer, you’re a single mom, you’re in real estate, you started out broke with a negative bank account, you were homeless, you were battling something that you had to overcome, whatever your story is.

They saw it and they understand your WHY and they joined your business.

It doesn’t matter where they are in their life, the money that’s available to them, or anything else, other than they saw you, heard your story, connected to your why, then made a commitment (however small) to you – a financial commitment.

ALL of my sponsors, and even leaders in the company I work with (yes, even the million dollar earners), will take a minute or two to answer a question, even if I’m not on their team.

Why is that?

Don’t Forget Where You Started From

It’s because they remember where they came from; how they got their start; what they had to go through to get where they are…

And ultimately, they are leaders who empathize with their team because the people on their team are all at different areas in their lives. Some have money to invest and others barely have enough to get started, and that’s okay.

When I went from making nearly $80k per year to nothing, I had to borrow money to get started. I know a single mom with two kids who’s making just enough to pay the bills and keep food on the table making personal sacrifices to just get in and start making money.

These and more are people, who in many ways need a lot more attention. These are the people, in my experience, when they feel they are taken care of, will WANT to stay on your team and have the highest stick rates.

It’s customer loyalty.

Again, I know this personally. Even when he didn’t make money from me, my friend and sponsor was there to answer questions and help me.

And when I did get the chance to join the company I made sure it was under him.

So how do you provide for everyone on your team without burning out all your time?

Create A System, Build A Community

As a leader, learning to create systems around a community that can provide for everyone is quite simply the BEST way I’ve found to make sure no one is neglected.

As the leader, here are 5 simple things you can do to watch your business grow:

  1. Hold weekly training calls, where for one hour or so a week, everyone jumps on a conference call and you coach them on everything from how to get started to what to do next.
  2. Save the recordings and make it available to new people who join the business so they have a place to go to get their questions answered.
  3. Create a Facebook group and have people ask questions there, and either you, or someone you appoint spend a few minutes answering questions.
  4. Save those questions and create and FAQ that new members can reverence.
  5. To make sure people are engaged, hold contests and your own events. Learn to reward hard work and excellence.

In fact, make it part of your business. And a BONUS tip – create a tiered rewards program so that as people go from one level to the next, they are rewarded for it.

You must remember…

Being a good sales person or being a good marketer doesn’t make you a ‪‎leader. Having the ability to build large teams and recruit masses is a very different skill set from leading an organization. Recruiters build armies; Generals lead them.

Make sure that the leadership you show, matches the story you tell, or you won’t have a business, and you’ll always struggle.

Be a general. Be a leader.

I wanted to share a testimonial from someone I helped mentor, and the thing I want you to pay attention to is not what I was selling, but what he said. It wasn’t really about me… It’s about what he received.

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Entrepreneur, programmer, musician, stay at home uncle, video game aficionado, movie connoisseur, pool shooting junkie... In other words, just an every day regular guy living an extraordinary life and working from home. Enter your name and email address in the form on the left to find out how you can too.

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