Is your MLM leader manipulating you?

I had to laugh.  Well I did in this situation.  Not so funny in real life, in our network marketing world.  Let me tell you the story of what really happened.

My 9 year old daughter would get off the bus, barrel into the house and tell me how awesome her bus driver was.  He was the absolute best and he just loved cookies.  “Could we make some cookies for him, Mom?” 

This happened day after day and I thought to myself this guy must be amazing.  A bus load of noisy kids and he controlled them so well and still they loved him.  WOW.  I knew him from before (we grew up together) and I knew he was a great guy but to have made that kind of an impact on my children gave me this warm and fuzzy feeling. 

I decided to track him down and thank him.

Took me a couple of days but I found him and proceeded to tell him how exciting it was to hear my little girl wax so eloquently about him.  How wonderful he was.  I shared with him her desire to make cookies every night just to give to him.  I’m beaming and he’s smiling away.

Then the shoe hit the floor.  He listened to me, never interrupting me, smiled and nodded often but when I was done he told me the truth.  “I tell them that all the time.”  What do you mean, you tell them that all the time? 

“I tell the kids I’m the best bus driver they will ever have, I tell them I love cookies, I just keep telling the kids that all the time then it doesn’t matter what I do or how I discipline them, they already have that belief ingrained inside their little souls and continue to love me.  It’s all a matter of belief and then they listen to me better.” 

I had to laugh.  I couldn’t help it.  He was a master manipulator.  Honed to a sharp point.  (And yes, for all you parents out there, I trust the guy explicitly and he knows I will hunt him down and kill him if my kids are hurt)

Unfortunately I can’t do that with all the people I see who are getting manipulated into making bad choices in network marketing.  Following people who talk the big talk about how good they are, what a great leader they are, how successful they are at network marketing.

WHEN THEY DON’T HAVE A HOT CLUE HOW TO BUILD A BUSINESS!

That gets me mad.  Everyone has to start somewhere, everyone has to walk their own journey, everyone is seeking success and most will take a wandering path, double backing on their own footsteps.  That I understand.  I’ve been there, done that.

Honesty, integrity and authenticity is what people want, what they need, what they are searching for and to see people being sucked in by those who use those words casually to manipulate others, well, as I said before, gets me mad.

HONESTY

The very thing that most people are taught to ignore.  “Practice posture.  Posture yourself as successful even if you are not.” 

Posture IS important but that doesn’t mean you practice dishonesty.  The definition of posture is knowing where you are going, the belief you are going to get there and the knowledge that you have the right vehicle.  It’s a deep knowing in the pit of your soul that success is yours.  It has nothing to do with, there is no connection between, posture and dishonesty.  Posture is a peaceful place.

WHAT NOT TO DO: 

1.) Don’t make claims that are not true.  Read something recently where someone had posted you could make a 6 figure income in 30 to 90 days if you just clicked here and signed up.  Pure, unadulterated BS.  (Excuse the language)

2.) Don’t make claims about your team, implying you have built this large business when in fact all you are doing is spinning who has signed up with some affiliate program you are associated with.

3.) Don’t claim you are some great leader or how successful you are or how you can do this or that now that you are successful (?).  Reserve that for when you truly do reach an impressive income.  

CHECK YOURSELF CONSTANTLY.  Is what you are saying the actual truth?  Are you spinning something to make yourself look better?  Reread what you’ve written or posted on YouTube and ask yourself if what you are saying would pass a lie detector test and if not – DON’T SAY IT !  Check your core and never, ever practice deceit.  It WILL catch up with you.

INTEGRITY

Synonyms: character, decency, goodness, honesty, morality, probity, rectitude, righteousness, rightness, uprightness, virtue, virtuousness

As you can see, integrity is so completely tied into honesty it’s hard to separate them.  If you are serious about (which by the way does NOT mean freely giving everything away) helping other people attain their own personal dreams, then that is your complete focus.  This is the step that you must take to maintain your honesty, integrity and authenticity.  Take a good hard look at what you are doing.  Are you simply reeling people in by selling them tools or systems that will put a little bit of money into your pocket and help them find leads (which they don’t know what to do with) or are you really providing them a way to build their primary opportunity.  Can you take people and step by step walk them through building a successful business from A-Z? 

If not – check your integrity at the door.  Be honest about what you are promising people.  Unless you have developed a system that takes their lead (which you helped them generate) to their primary, DON’T PROMISE that they will build a huge business.  It’s a lie and that’s the disconnect guys like Frank Kern addressed in his State of the Internet Address. 

SO THE QUESTION IS ………..?

What are you really doing?  Selling people tools and systems to generate leads?  Then you are in the business of generating leads.  Be honest about it.  Nothing wrong with that as an occupation. 

DON’T:  Claim you will help people build their primary business when that is not what you are doing or incapable of doing at this stage of your life.

AUTHENTICITY

Chapter and verse could be written about authenticity.  Being the real you.  Letting people see the real you.  Not hiding behind a mask, posturing about something you know nothing about. 

People will be attracted to who you are and where you are in your journey.  Not all, obviously but more than enough for you to build your dream lifestyle.  You cannot be authentic without having honesty and integrity as part of who you are. 

You’ve all met people in your personal life, who you were attracted to because they seemed fun or extremely nice and then found out that they were shallow and vain or behind closed doors they gossiped about you and everyone else.  They were nothing like the individual you thought they were.  You feel betrayed.  There is no other word to describe it. 

Now magnify that 1000 percent when someone is trusting you to help them bring their dreams to fruition.  Trusting YOU when they’ve placed their future in your hands.  And you betray them? 

The very least you can do is be honest about what you can offer them and if you can’t help them build their primary business – DON’T IMPLY YOU CAN!

I spoke to a woman the other day, a very nice, wonderful, sweet woman.  She has never made a penny in her primary opportunity.  She’s spent years believing in the law of attraction.  Writing, blogging, hoping someone will become her friend and then ask her what company she is with.  Nobody has, or if they did, she has never signed anyone up.  Sales is a dirty word to her and she will “never” sell anything, they have to want it themselves(sell themselves).  Screening someone and rejecting them as a potential business builder horrifies her.  Everyone should have the chance and rejecting someone is ungodly.

Yet she writes beautifully about network marketing and creates the impression success is just a blog away for anyone who joins her !

Now here I am beating up the bus driver.  The guy who started this whole thing.  The manipulator of those less knowledgeable than him.  Him, I can forgive.  The others who play with people’s lives and dreams – forgiveness is not so easy.

And maybe it doesn’t matter.  I challenged a friend of mine on his guarantee of private coaching if someone doesn’t make their money back on a course he is offering.  I asked him how he was going to handle the time to coach all those people and his response floored me.  “I’m not worried about it, only 5% are going to finish the course anyways.” 

FIVE PERCENT???  They are handed an opportunity to change their circumstances and only 5% are going to actually do anything with it?

Maybe my anger is misplaced.  Maybe people like the round about, whirligig, unfocused, unprofitable hole they are in and I should leave them to the pretence of hope they are clinging to. 

It’s their life.

For those who do care.  For those who are tired of being lied to or being led astray there is hope.  There is more than just hope.  It’s as easy as leaving all the unproductive training you’ve already received behind, the training that has gotten you nowhere, the mentors/coaches/trainers who have led you on an unprofitable path and joining the team of Team Inc Pro.  The professional team of experienced marketers who’s primary focus is business and you! 

Sign up (top right hand side) on my blog.  Do it now.  You’ve spent enough of your life wasting time and not making any money.  Agreed?

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