How To (Not) Lead Your MLM Team

What is your responsibility as a leader, do you know?

I will address that in a moment, but let's first talk briefly about what they are not:

*** You are NOT responsible for your team's production, or lack thereof.

*** You are NOT responsible for your team's event attendance, or lack thereof.

*** You are NOT responsible for your team's conference call attendance, or lack thereof.

*** You are NOT responsible for your team being on auto shipment, or lack thereof.

None of that.

I don't know about you, but personally, I didn't get that at first.

I really struggled emotionally and mentally because I was carrying the weight of my entire team on my shoulders. And that was a heavy load to carry!

I was so set on my team members becoming successful and reaching their goals...every single one of them. In fact I wanted it even more for them than they wanted it for themselves!

So when they weren't getting results, or not getting them as quickly as they (or I) would like them to, it really drained me emotionally.

I had obviously made a commission on my new distributors when they came into the business and so I felt that I "owed" it to them, that I owed them a return on their investment.

I felt that I owed them success.

But fortunately, with time, I learned that this is no way to run a business. I learned that you can't run your MLM business on emotions.

It was a hard lesson to learn. But when it finally sank in, boy did I feel relieved!

I understood that it really wasn't up to me whether my downline was going to be successful or not. That if they didn't plug into the training it wasn't my responsibility. That if they didn't take my advice, there was nothing I could do about it. And that if they quit, it wasn't my fault.

See, as a leader you can motivate, you can cajole, you can push -- you can analyze, you can sweet-talk...

You can do a lot of things to try to get your MLM distributors to take action, but you know what?

Ultimately, it's not up to you. Fact is you can do all of the above and still find that it didn't make ANY difference.... (I'm speaking from painfully gained personal experience here.)

And when that happens, you can blame yourself and put nonsensical thoughts into your head like, "I must not be a good leader or my team would be getting results."

Not good...

Because it's NOT your responsibility to make things happen for your team members!

They are responsible for their own success.

And your responsibility...? Well, it's to lead by example.

That's it.

Because the only person you can have full control over is -- of course -- YOURSELF.

You can't bend wills. You can't twist arms. You can't make people stay faithful to their word. You can't breathe life back into dying dreams. You're only human!

And keep this in mind, too --

There are always going to be people who quit. It's just the way it is with anything in life, really... Not every single person is going to follow thru with every single task they set out to do...

So simply do your part...which is to lead by example. And let your non-productive MLM distributors worry about themselves. They probably aren't even all that "worried" -- or they would be coming to you, asking for your advice...don't you think?

Be there for them when/if they come. Other than that there's really only one thing you need to be concerned about:

Being the Leader.

Do that, and the RIGHT people will follow...

-LB

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