Star Builder

Background

Recently one of my close friends that I sponsored, and who I believe will go far in network marketing in this opportunity sponsored his first person. He has been involved for eight weeks, and during this time appeared to be making little progress.

In this article I explore how it is important to accept that people work at different speeds, and how to live with that "Rome was not built in a day" whilst maintaining momentum.

His First Steps

Having introduced them to the product and the opportunity, it took my friend two weeks to join. During which time he asked me more questions and raised more objections about the product and the organisation than a lawyer cross examining on the witness stand. Just when I thought we had overcome the last objection, there was yet another time of playing devil's advocate.

Given that we are best friends, and we know how each other thinks, I persisted. If this were someone you did not know that well and you were experiencing what I went through, I would openly advise you to move on as it serves neither of you well - we are after all looking for people that are looking.

So after two weeks of back and forth, my friend signed up and was as excited as I was, though also resistant to putting the effort in at this stage citing previous experiences and running before walking. This lack of momentum was exacerbated by friends and family who judged it as a get rich scheme or a pyramid even though they had never seen or heard anything about it. For someone who has only just taken the first step on the bridge of belief, this can be quite damaging.

At The Cliff Edge

Several weeks later, and very little appropriate effort if he is being honest with himself, he had not managed to sponsor anyone and was ready to give up. He proclaimed to me that this business simply does not work but he will always always be a consumer of the product because of the impact to him and his family.

There were a number of times I thought that he was going to give up, and despite motivation and a number of dicussions I had resigned myself to the fact my best friend was going to leave the team. Somehow, after every time he decided enough was enough, he somehow bounced back the following day or the day after.

The Breakthrough

About five weeks after starting he headed off on a well deserved holiday with his family to the US, and was told in no uncertain terms by his wife that whilst on holiday he was not allowed to discuss the opportunity with anyone. Somehow he still found herself talking to friends and family, and the common responses were that "everybody is doing it" or "it is just a pyramid" or "it is simply not sustainable".

Well he ended up being stranded in the US because of the Icelandic volcano erruptions, and a two week holiday became almost four, which was tremendously frustrating for both him and his family. So much so that they went to visit other relatives as their time drew to a close.

It was that weekend that he ended up signing up this relative, who was excited about the business model, and the potential of the product to change people's lives. My friend on the other hand is buzzing, and is keen to develop the momentum further and cannot wait to get back to the UK and push things forward. As for me, well I too am happy as my best friend is still in my team and is full of passion again after an up and down roller coaster ride.

Working At Other People's Pace

It is important to realise that people work at different speeds, and that when you choose to sponsor them you need to support them on their roller coaster ride start to getting their first sponsored person. You cannot expect people to work at your pace, certainly constantly encouraging people to take action can be counter productive as you cannot make your goals theirs.

The challenge is maintaining motivation, because if things stop or even go backwards then it is entirely possible that the person you sponsored may never bring on anyone on to their team they will more than likely quit before ever beginning.

So how does one balance between pushing too fast and leaving to fall by the wayside? The key has to be the NLP principle of pacing and leading. In this principle you work to match someones pace, meeting them at their current state, and then after a period of time you begin to lead for a small period of time, before repeating the process.

This principles is useful in many many things in life and goes something like this:

• Pace -> Pace -> Pace -> Lead
• Pace -> Pace -> Pace -> Lead
• Pace -> Pace -> Lead -> Lead
• Pace -> Pace -> Lead -> Lead
• Pace -> Lead -> Lead -> Lead

At any time that you feel that the person is not being lead forward by you, you need to  re-match their pace. Also important is that this leading is not too far in any one step, if you do this you will go backwards, each should be baby steps.

Keeping Yourself Moving Forward

Whilst things are not moving at your pace, it should be noted that this should not hold you back. This is why you should not be working with just one person at any one time, and remember that some will, some won't, and there is nothing you can do about that.

Ultimately you cannot allow your success to be undermined by others who choose not to move forward, and at one point you need to let go for your own sake after a period of time, and if they come back to you then great.

In 45 Second Presentations, Don talks about working with different ships, a ship carrying gold, a ship carrying silver, and a ship that is M.T. He makes the point that you should choose to work with those that are carrying gold in preference to those carrying silver, and cutting lose from those that are M.T. which will do nothing, waste your time and hold you back.

I am pleased to say my ship carrying silver must have alchamists on board as it has miraculously turned into a ship carrying gold. The key here is knowing your team, what motivates them, and where they really are at, and knowing which ones to put the effort into and which ones to leave behind. On the face of it, this may not seem like responsible sponsoring, but I would argue strongly that it would nto be fair to those that are keen to learn and keen to do if you spent all your free time supporting those that aren't.