Placement Builds Resentment

Early in your networking career, you may feel the urge to place someone you have sponsored under someone else on your team.

Don’t do it.

Your motives may be to reward or encourage or to just get someone moving.

Don’t do it.

First, it doesn’t work.  We have tried it many times and have talked to many fellow networkers who have tried it.  The resulting change in activity is absolutely zero.  If someone is not working, they will not start working just because you have put someone into their business.  If they are working already, they will work no more and no less than before.

Second, it creates resentments all around, and from the most surprising places.

Let’s say you have sponsored Alice and Betty who are now front line to you with no one on their teams yet.  Then you sponsor Carl and decide to place him under Alice for encouragement or reward.  Here’s where the resentments and friction begin …

1. No matter how well explained, Carl may resent the move and feel he is being treated like cattle.  He will see the move as a benefit to you and Alice but not for him.  You tell him that he now has two people helping him, but he sees you as sponsoring and abandoning him.
   
2. Although Alice may appear grateful, she will resent being given the responsibility of training Carl when you sponsored him.  She may see you as shirking your responsibilities and may see Carl as a burden she is not ready for.
   
3. Most companies have ‘fast start bonuses’, and perhaps a separate sponsoring genealogy.  Alice will resent you for collecting the bonus in the beginning, and the long term bonuses later, while expecting her to train Carl.
4. Carl will resent the fact that he built the relationship with you, not Alice, and now he finds himself dealing with a stranger.
   
5. Alice is new to the business and is being forced into a leadership role she has not grown into.  As Art Jonak says, “When you place people, you are are robbing the new sponsor of the joy of achievement.”
6. Betty will resent you for not placing Carl under her, and will wonder why you chose Alice.
7. Betty will resent Alice for having received Carl as a ‘gift’.
8. Betty will resent Carl for making money for Alice.
9. Carl will resent making money for Alice and you.
10. Alice may develop a ‘welfare mentality’ and wonder when the next gift will appear.  She may resent you for not placing more people under her as you did before.
11. You may have placed Carl and others below your payline, and you will resent those who advised you to do so.
12. You may resent Alice when you see her promote past you based on Carl’s efforts.
13. You may resent Carl for helping Alice to promote when he could have helped you.
14. You may resent yourself for not thinking things through before making a decision.
    

You should be setting an example for your team by continuing to sponsor and train new partners.  At the same time, you should be working as closely as possible with all active members of your team to do the same.

Work with them and THEIR list to help them build wide and deep and set an example for their teams.

Learn more about MLM Leadership in this free MLM Report.

Bob and Anna Bassett
519-371-1028
Skype bobbassett
bobandanna@togethertothetop.com