How Boring are You?

No one wants to be a bore so how do we avoid becoming one?

First and foremost–don’t lecture or talk down to people. In Direct Sales we need to quickly learn how to “Edify” or build someone up (not tear them down). Note: the person we are building up is not us–it’s them. People may for various reasons (Money, Education, Business Success, etc.) feel superior to you and it comes across. What do you do with people who make you feel uncomfortable? You leave them as soon as possible.

Here are some examples of what to avoid:

• Don’t joke at another persons expense. Words do matter and while someone may smile and laugh down deep they don’t like your joke. If you have to make a joke out of someone make it out of yourself. You may feel funny and friendly and they feel hurt so you are getting the opposite of what you intended.
• Never threaten someone with a negative action or comment because you are upset with them. A good Teacher quickly learns how to successfully correct unwanted behavior and they do it with great care–because they do care! People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. ONCE YOU SHOW THEM YOU DON’T CARE THEY ARE GONE! You can be successful as a bully, because we attract who we are, and we all know very successful caustic people. So, if you want an organization full of bullies just become one or support someone who is one. Don’t allow bullies to take control. WE GET DESIRED BEHAVIOR BY MODELING DESIRED BEHAVIOR!
• Get your facts straight, be careful what you say, and if you don’t know say–I don’t know. No matter who you are, or what you know, you will quickly find out that someone else knows more and knows that you don’t know what you are talking about.
• All companies and people encounter problems that need to be overcome. Continually talking about the problem, once it has been identified, is counter productive. Focus on the solutions not the problems (starve problems and feed success). Quit stirring the hornets nest!
• Be INDIRECT about telling your own story. Try to leave yourself out of the subject (it’s interesting how people find out things you want them to know on their own). All of us like, and need, to portray ourselves as being successful but it’s “always” more valuable if someone else is praising us and we are not praising ourselves. Many things don’t need to be pointed out to others because they will see for themselves or find out somehow. Let others (with influence) tell how smart and great you are. “Bragging” is the first sign of a bore (someone who has the focus on self). Bragging tells others that we are very insecure because secure people don’t brag and people who have really gotten it done don’t brag either. A lot of people tell the same stories over and over and over (that can be boring because they may have gotten your point the first time). Bragging is also the first sign of a fake or someone with a padded resume.
• Never talk to someone like you might talk to a child who doesn’t understand!
• Never say a bad word about anyone because it reflects on you and it comes back to haunt you. This is hard but it is important! Many people join Direct Sales companies because they want to be a part of a cause or social environment. They will never be a fireball and that’s OK because that’s always going to be 98% of the people in Network Marketing.
• Don’t fake it till you make it! If you haven’t paid the dues it shows through because people will know. Being highly educated, having that MBA (padded resume) is a poor substitute for experience.
• Facts tell but emotion, passion, and caring for people sells. Facts tell, but stories sell. Leaders exhibit high energy.
• Be sincere; be brief; be seated…FDR.

A true leader is always recognizable by how many people are following them (boring half-hearted people aren’t followed). Hitler was a true (dynamic) leader but his character and integrity was extremely lacking. Work on yourself more than anyone else and be an influence for the good and noble cause!

Indispensable Man
Saxon White Kessinger

Sometime when you’re feeling important;
Sometime when your ego’s in bloom
Sometime when you take it for granted
You’re the best qualified in the room,

Sometime when you feel that your going
Would leave an unfillable hole,
Just follow these simple instructions
And see how they humble your soul;
Take a bucket and fill it with water,
Put you hand in it up to the wrist,
Pull it out and the hole that’s remaining
Is a measure of how you’ll be missed.

You can splash all you wish when you enter,
You may stir up the water galore,
But stop and you’ll find that in no time
It looks quite the same as before,

The moral of this quaint example
is do just the best that you can,
Be proud of yourself but remember,
There’s no indispensable man.

Storytelling

In the marketing book Grapevine, by Dave Balter & John Butman, we read that marketing is storytelling. “Word-of-mouth is storytelling, too, but it has the credibility of a real opinion based on real perceptions and experiences. Consumers are listening very carefully to the marketing story and retell it as they please. The best marketing stories are the ones that are based on how the product or service actually looks in real life but still allow plenty of room for the consumer’s imagination to go wild. …Although word-of-mouth is the oldest form of marketing communications, it is becoming more important than ever, primarily because people have come to almost completely distrust the marketing messages they see and hear every day.”

After gaining some experience in MLM you will find that effective storytelling is not “marketing” storytelling. Network Marketing companies like to describe Distributors telling stories about their products and getting paid. In other words, you are now getting paid for something you use to do for free. However, this may not be the case depending on how you tell stories. Once you become a distributor and people realize you are “pushing” the products they may hear your stories very differently (they may be waiting for the close to get them to buy a product). In other words, they know you are selling and people don’t like to be sold. So, keep your stories your own and keep them real.

Annette Simmons in her book, Whoever Tells the Best Story Wins, said this about Why-I-Am Here Stories: “When someone assumes you are there to sell an idea that will cost them money, time, or resources, it immediately discredits your “facts” as biased. However, you chose your job for reasons besides money. Tell this person what you get out of it besides money. Or if it is just about the money for you, own it.”

Get rid of the “marketing” slant when you tell a story about your products or the benefits of your products.

What do we mean by “marketing” versus “real” story? Well, here is a classic example:

“The marketing messages for Segway promised a whole new era of transportation. Whole cities would be redesigned around the Segway. It would alleviate air pollution. It would enable handicapped, out-of-shape, or immobilized people to gain new freedom of movement. Seniors would never leave home without it. It would revolutionize all kinds of jobs. Mail carriers and parking meter attendants, people with short commutes to work, employees in giant warehouses and theme parks–people everywhere–would leave old-fashioned walking behind and start Segwaying instead. The number of cars would plummet along with the pollution they create. The planet, in short, would be transformed.

While the prelaunch hype was going on, people told stories about the hype and shared their opinions about how the Segway might change the world. They made up stories about Dean Kamen. They talked about the unbelievable press coverage.

Then the product was launched. A few people started buying them. The city of Atlanta outfitted a few of its Information Guides with them. Almost immediately, the word-of-mouth stories did not even remotely connect to the marketing story. They sliced into the credibility of the marketing claims. People said that tourists were having a lot of fun pushing the Info Guides off their scooters. Then President Bush (forty-three, not forty-one) took a test ride on a Segway and fell off. But the marketing story was that it was impossible to fall off! Next, the city of San Francisco banned people from riding a Segway on its sidewalks. It just got worse and worse. The word-of-mouth Segway stories were horror flicks and sitcoms.”

You should have some “real” experience with the product and you should know stories about “real” people.

What is Your Big Dream?

Since the beginning of his company I have been following the progress of Eclipse Aviation and the founder Vern Raburn. I have great admiration for what he has accomplished in his revolutionary development (founding father) of the Very Light Jet (VLJ). Raburn is from Tulsa, OK (like me) and has always loved flying. While I am a private pilot (love planes too) I really marvel at watching someone who, in my opinion, is a great pioneer in his field and most likely will eventually change air traffic as we know it today.

Can you just imagine starting with only your big dream and making it a reality? If you have followed the history of his company (the remote likelihood and difficulty of his success) you will find it even more amazing that his VLJ’s are now being produced.

I feel this quote from the book by Robert Greenleaf, Servant Leadership, describes Raburn’s accomplishment:

“What are you trying to do? is one of the easiest to ask and most difficult to answer questions.

A mark of leaders, an attribute that puts them in a position to show the way for others, is that they are better than most at pointing the direction. As long as one is leading, one always has a goal. It may be a goal arrived at by group consensus, or the leader, acting on inspiration, may simply have said, ‘Let’s go this way.’ But the leader always knows what it is and can articulate it for any who are unsure. By clearly stating and restating the goal the leader gives certainty to others who may have difficulty in achieving it for themselves.

The word goal is used here in the special sense of the overarching purpose, the big dream, the visionary concept, the ultimate consummation that one approaches but never really achieves. It is something presently out of reach; it is something to strive for, to move toward, to become. It is so stated that it excites the imagination and challenges people to work for something they do not yet know how to do, something they can be proud of as they move toward it.

Every achievement starts with a goal–but not just any goal and not just anybody stating it. The one who states the goal must elicit trust, especially if it is a high risk or visionary goal, because those who follow are asked to accept the risk along with the leader. Leaders do not elicit trust unless one has confidence in their values and competence (including judgment) and unless they have a sustaining spirit (entheos) that will support the tenacious pursuit of a goal.

Not much happens without a dream. And for something great to happen, there must be a great dream. Behind every great achievement is a dreamer of great dreams. Much more than a dreamer is required to bring it to reality, but the dream must be there first.”

Leadership Vacuum

In MLM (Network Marketing) Leadership is paramount in obtaining Business Momentum, and it takes a leader to get things started.

Coaches like to compare momentum to starting a football game and “before the ball is snapped neither side has momentum and both teams start at zero.” Unfortunately, this analogy is not always the case because many times a leader starts with Negative Momentum.

Have you ever started on a new job to find that things weren’t quite the pictures painted in the interview? In fact, you begin to find that things are “bad” and it’s difficult to find a place to start. You shouldn’t be surprised because this is often the case and that’s why you have been hired—to fix things! Take the time to scope things out and determine a good course of action.

A Leadership Vacuum is a great opportunity not to be feared. Leadership starts with small beginnings and not a big splash because a big splash often leads to a large wake of destruction. And, the first thing to do is create an environment to succeed by eliminating negative forces and creating a great environment for success. Why go out of your way to create immediate situations (crisis) and tear things up?

Negativity is eliminated by success and, as coaches would say, “going back to the basics.” Leading by example through hard work. Mend relationships and build upon the strength of “others.” The largest hurdle to overcome will be egos and the realization that it’s “not about you” so overcome pride with humility. Egos destroy Team Building!  “Lord, grant that I may not seek so much to be understood as to understand.” St. Francis.

Customer Satisfaction

The late Peter Drucker (father of the science of management) talks about customer satisfaction in his book Managing For Results. Drucker makes two observations we need to consider about our customers (the customer is the business):

1. “What the people in the business think they know about customer and market is more likely to be wrong than right. There is only one person who really knows: the customer. Only by asking the customer, by watching him, by trying to understand his behavior can one find out who he is, what he does, how he buys, how he uses what he buys, what he expects, what he values, and so on.
2. The customer rarely buys what the business thinks it sells him. One reason for this is, of course, that nobody pays for a “product.” What is paid for is satisfactions. But nobody can make or supply satisfactions as such–at best, only the means to attaining them can be sold and delivered.

Because the customer buys satisfaction, all goods and services compete intensively with goods and services that look quite different, seem to serve entirely different functions, are made, distributed, sold differently–but are alternative means for the customer to obtain the same satisfaction.

That the Cadillac competes for the customer’s money with mink coats, jewelry, the skiing vacation in the luxury resort, and other prestige satisfactions, is an example–and one of the few both the general public and businessman understand.

But the manufacturer of bowling equipment also does not, primarily, compete with the other manufacturers of bowling equipment. He makes physical equipment. But the customer buys an activity. He buys something to do rather than something to have. The competition is therefore all the other activities that compete for the rapidly growing “discretionary time” of an affluent, urban population…”

Here’s a key question in understanding the customer: “What in the customer’s behavior appears to me totally irrational? And what therefore is it in his reality that I fail to see?”

TALKING TO PEOPLE

To be really good at Network Marketing we have to learn how to talk to people.

Larry King is considered a master at talking to people and has written a good book called How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere.

People study various subjects and even become highly educated in some disciplines. However, we need to realize that it is really difficult to be successful (stay on top year after year) without communication skills.

In his book, Larry King gives a list of eight things the best talkers have in common:

• They look at things from a new angle, taking unexpected points of view on familiar subjects.
• They have broad horizons. They think about, and talk about, a wide range of issues and experiences beyond their own daily lives.
• They are enthusiastic, displaying a passion for what they’re doing with their lives and an interest in what you’re saying to them at that moment.
• They don’t talk about themselves all the time.
• They are curious. They ask “Why?” They want to know more about what you’re telling them.
• They empathize. They try to put themselves in your place, to relate to what you’re saying.
• They have a sense of humor. And they don’t mind using it on themselves. In fact, the best conversationalists frequently tell stories on themselves.
• They have their own style of talking.

“There’s a saying that you broaden your horizons through travel, but if you are curious enough to listen to other people, you can broaden your horizons without leaving your backyard.”

We can learn how to talk to people!