How Do You Like Them Apples?

               While reading a bedtime story to my children about a dragon and an apple the other night, my mind started to compare parts of the storyline to building a team in network marketing. As a mentor, you put time and effort into learning how to become the perfect mentor for you team.  The time dedicated to a business affects everyone in your personal life, family and friends.  The master plan is while your MLM business continues to grow you will surround yourself with a team of people that are going to work just as hard as you.  The apple reminds me of the new member of your team who just signed up into your opportunity.

            The bedtime story was about a lonely dragon that sets out to find a friend.  After many rejections, dragon while resting under a tree, catches an apple that just fell from the tree.  A sneaky snake is watching dragon and decides to have some fun.  The snake hiding by a rock plays a joke and makes dragon believe the apple is able to talk and wants to be dragon’s friend.  Dragon is excited about making a friend and brings apple home.  If you would like to learn more about the book check out the end of this post.

            When you start to recruit people into your MLM business, you are like dragon, determined to find a prospect that is excited to share your passion.  You take rejection over and over until you find your golden apple.  All your hard work has paid off and after speaking with your new business associate, you will have to take the time to pass your knowledge to your team.  Get into action and help have a plan already put together for your team.

            But…sometimes it does not always go as planned.  When you are following your own plan: recruiting others, working your opportunity, using your sales funnels, you get caught up.  You tend to go with the current trend and sometimes leave the old behind.  There are times when you schedule a time to meet with a member of your team.  You start to show up five minutes late to a conference call, next call you are fifteen minutes late, then you miss your next scheduled conference call.  Why would you do that?  You are busy, extremely busy, new people getting started, you do not have the time, you say, “it’s not a big deal, Joe can figure it out!”  Have you ever started to lose that connection with your team? You leave them in the dust…your apple starts to rot.  All this knowledge is being carried on, not being passed along. Why does this happen?  The prospect you worked so hard to reel in is no longer a challenge, you have them in your group and now it’s time to find “The Next Big Thing”.  This trend continues and before you know it, you have a barrel of rotten apples! There is proof of this all over the Internet by typing in any MLM/Direct Sales Company by name and adding the word scam.  You will be able to read failed experiences, some of the stories are unfair, and it’s not always the mentor’s fault.  Many of these bad experiences in the industry are the results of bad coaching.  Every single person has the chance to succeed and they really count on their mentor to get started and be there for guidance.

During the story about dragon, apple was left along and someone ate apple.  The dragon was upset because a friend was lost and buried apple in the backyard.  Your team is the heart and soul of your business and if you are not ready to lead them, share your valuable experiences, coach them to success, then why bother?  As the mentor, you have the power to write your own future by following an action plan.  The action plan has to be started immediately and do not lose sight of your goals as the mentor.  Setting your people up with a 90 day plan is a great start, this will help your team focus on specifics and take action on a daily basis.  Recommend purchasing some kind of scheduler, a day planner, pocket calendar, PDA or a Smartphone are a few examples. Always have communication with your team, here are some examples that have worked.

• A phone call is a great way to keep your team in the updated, whether it’s a one-on-one call or group conference call.  It can be about company events, training, new product launches, and personal development, anything that is important for your organization and keeps everyone connected.  If your person is brand new, a daily phone call is recommended for the first couple of weeks.  This will mean a lot to your team.
• The power of a video is a great idea for communicating.  A welcome video is a way your team can connect with you and this helps their comfort level because they are seeing a real person.  If time management is an issue, certain training session can be recorded and viewed anytime someone new comes aboard. This will save you time and open the door for extra time for someone else.
• Social networking has awesome communication tools.  Facebook  is great, you are able to create a group and plug your team into this group.  The team is able to keep in touch and post valuable information for the entire group to see or send a one-on-one message or instant message chat format.  The group can be used to post pictures from a training event, schedules of upcoming events, announce new members and achievements for everyone.       

As a leader, these are examples that can help make the start up process easier.  When the dragon started to feel better after burying apple, he decided to sit outside and enjoy the nice weather.  Dragon decided to sit under a tree where apple was buried.  An apple hit the dragon right on the head. When dragon looked up there was a new tree full of beautiful apples.  The story “A Friend for Dragon” by Dav Pilkey was about the rewards of true friendship. It reminded me of the rewards of building your network marketing business. It's about duplicating our own success and teaching it to others, so they can continue the process and grow their own apple tree.