This leader was cruel when I said: “My sponsor doesn’t help me.”

[Rudi Vanhaecke]

Is that a common problem? I hear it all the time.

 

People call me and complain:

 

“I can’t become a leader. I can’t even become a good distributor because my sponsor doesn’t help me.”

 

This is easy to identify as “distributor thinking.”

 

Here is the story I tell the caller to help change his “distributor thinking” into “leadership thinking”:

 

Here’s what happened to me when I first started in network marketing. I was in business for one year and ten months and had no distributors and no retail customers. I was an absolute failure.

 

A concerned leader would come to me and say,

 

“Big Al, you’re not doing very well.”

 

I had to defend my failure so I would reply,

 

“Of course I’m not doing well. My sponsor doesn’t help me. He doesn’t know any more about this business than I do.”

 

Then the leader stared at me and said,

 

“Big Al, tell me about your sponsor. Did he sponsor anybody else besides you?”

 

Oh, oh. This was getting personal now. I had to admit that my sponsor had indeed recruited other distributors into the business, but most of them were not successful either. Maybe just one or two of them became successful.

 

And the leader closed with this cutting remark. He said:

 

“Big Al, tell me about the one or two other distributors who are successful. Don’t they have exactly the same sponsor as you do?”

 

Ouch! That was mean!

 

But all of a sudden, I got it! I understood that I couldn’t blame my sponsor. After all, success had nothing to do with him because he sponsored successful and unsuccessful people. And if it didn’t have anything to do with the sponsor…

 

That left… me!

 

My distributor thinking instantly changed to leadership thinking because of this incident.

 

[Kenny Kolijn]

Good point, but there's still the fact that (for beginners) it can really make a big difference to have a helping hand or good advice from your sponsor. It could save them many months or years of trial and error. I'm not saying that they should totally rely on a sponsor or expect him to do the work for them, but at least getting some solid advice could make a big difference.

[Guest]

I liked this story and agree with Kenny: a sponsor should help the newbie to understand the company, to identify the to-do-first steps and to guide him or her to the right direction without wasting time.

For an experienced marketer, some steps are familiar, so that he or she can succeed faster, but they need also to understand the company "mechanics".

More than a single sponsor, the best should be join a company with a supportive team "included" (there are several around right now); in this way people can truly gain all the benefits.

 

[Nataliya Shumylo]

Anyone who wants to have a good sponsor and actually make a success online needs to join our team. I have 14 people in my downline now and talk to them on a phone when help is needed. But yes it can be frustrating for some people when they are not getting help.

[Maria McCarthy]

I agree with Kenny & Marisa. It is our job as sponsors to put ourselves in their shoes & guide them through the first stages & give them the tools for success that will carry them through the rest. There are some people who are always going to look for excuses to fail, though...and it IS imperative that you learn/know how to identify those people so that you know when enough is enough & when it's time to allow them to fail. It sounds so harsh but you are not helping someone when you do their job for them... you need to make sure you are teaching them how to do their job & they are receptive to learning. Otherwise, it wont' work.

[Paula van Dun]

I agree one should help ones downline if they have a serious question or problem. What do I mean with serious? Most programs have a page step1, step2 or a 'how does it work' page.

I am not wasting time on people that join everything that is free and do not take the time to read even the basics of the program they joined and send in a support ticket five minutes after they joined asking "how do I make money with this".

 

[Guest]

You've just opened a new interesting topic, Paula van Dun! Some people don't want to read a single line, but they want you to summarize the entire course because they don't have time to learn ...

[Maria McCarthy]

Very true, Marisa! I encounter those folks every day as I'm sure many of us do. I think a lot of it stems from all of those false promises of becoming rich for doing nothing out there.