A leader brings value that encourages others to display mentoring leadership…

A long term decision to display mentoring leadership all the time; not sometimes, will happen when the leader takes 100% responsibility for their business…

Everyone is looking for mentoring leadership all the time even if they are not aware of it.. A leader who doesn’t market or tell people simply what they want to hear, else the result would bring false and malignant expectations. Leaders will always invest in themselves. They will invest in the things that are in need of help. This is done with a little self assessment, say you are bad at a couple things, one being generating leads at a 2 out of 10 scale and the other being closing at a 7 out of 10 scale. If you double your efforts with generating leads you will still be a 4 which is still not very good, and if you double your closing efforts you will be at a 14, and now you are hitting home runs. The leader would have picked closing because it will make up for their lack of skills in the other areas. Non-leaders would have picked generating leads and would still be waiting to find someone to close.

Leaders don’t always go with the crowd.

Anyone of high value (a leader) in any organization will stick even if their guru leaves a company. A leader will make a tough decision that they are going to stick with what they have and recognize the fact they have the skills to build what they already have rather then going to look for the next best thing.

An awesome mentor/leader of mine Ray Higdon is one guy you should be following to see what you should be doing to become a leader in your business.

Leadership Posturing

When I signed up with my first network marketing company back in the 90′s I was exposed to leadership posturing and I didn’t even know it. I was really in doubt of my skills at a marketer at that time, and boy I see how green I really was back then.

Like most people I cut my teeth with Amway a still thriving network marketing company even today. I was approached by a co-worker and he asked if I would be interested in making some side money that wouldn’t interfere with my life. I was like “sure!” So I attended my first network marketing meeting at the age of 19.. I tell you they hyped up the whole presentation. I finally came to the point where I was asked to sign on the bottom line. “Um, not sure if I can do this..” the response I got was so classic I will never forget it! Clint, You are probably right.. this business is not for everyone..

Leadership Posturing Lesson Learned

Well what would any red blooded American do at this point? lol I signed of course, but what I didn’t realize is that I was more goated into doing the business than actually having someone to guide me through the next critical year in my business. Btw, another great line to use on prospects is.. “Well, I am not so certain this is a fit for you. The people that produce in this industry are coachable, confident and can follow simple steps that I outline. Based on what you just said, I am not sure this business is a fit for you, at least not right now”. The challenge to the prospect and the fact that you just took everything away from him is usually too much to bare.

Knowing what I know now about this industry and all the personal development I have gone through in the last 12 months I can tell you this… Its ok to get the reluctant prospect to sign by using this method, but if you are going to let your new recruit just sign and then you leave them to their own demise you might as well go find another business.. People are not interested in being sold they are interested in being helped. So help them, to the point where they can help themselves, and then and only then should you cut the chords a little and let them fly. Encourage them and build them up. That is what leaders do…

Being A Postured Leader

Being a leader today is more about showing people how to act rather than showing them how not to act and doing the work for them. By this I mean, show them by taking action in your own business and lead by example. Explain the reasons why you do what you do in your business. Also, being transparent to the extreme is a refreshing way to show people you care about them when mentoring. I would expect these things in a leader and I think you should too.

Don’t Over Think This…

There are essentially 7 things that will make your starting a home based business startup a success, here they are in no order of importance.

1. The parent company must be product driven, not distributor based. It is your customer base that is going to create your residual income not your distributors. Distributors will come and go, and as long as you have a strong product you will always have customers. To truly create a passive income you need to have customers. Some network marketing companies have a one to one customer to distributor ratio which simply means that everyone selling the product is a customer, and there are no additional non-distributor customers buying the products.
2. So as seen in the previous item you will need to have a high customer to distributor ratio.  You want at least a 2 to 1 ratio. This means that people buy the product because they like it and it works.
3. Momentum is what your company needs in order to be worth pursuing at least initially. This is going to help you gain some cash flow when you are first starting and is one of the things that will instantly add to your bottom line when you are first starting in the business. It is also very rare to find in the industry today, but when you do identify a company that has this happening you need to pay attention. This one thing alone will allow average people build a huge business while the company is experiencing explosive growth before hitting the stability phase. Timing is key here, if you get in front of the trend before it really hits you will be able to ride that wave as the company does.
4. This is kind of related to momentum, but a sub item. The company has to have a product with the ability to have viral growth, and the ability to grow naturally via customers.  What everyone needs to understand is that viral growth is exponential not linear.  This type of growth will happen through no further input into your company and only based on the customers reaction to the product.
5. The management of these companies are so critical in the development of the company it will literally keep the company growing or drive it straight into the ground. Don’t make the mistake of thinking management of a company has very little impact on the future of said company. Your company has to have a plan and leaders with some of the following successful traits. A leader should be dynamic, have business experience, and can create a culture through leadership,
6. A compensation plan that has good profit margins, but the products are not over priced.  It has to have the ability to make $500 – $1000 in the first week as a distributor.  It has to have a plan that encourages you to work with the people under you not a binary compensation plan.  The plan has to have the ability for people in the middle of the compensation plan to make money also.  This next point is critical, it is absolutely imperative that there is a path for the average person to get from nothing to $10k a month in under one year.
7. Lastly your company has to have the “intangible” factor, this is all of the good things that happen in a company that cannot be explained.  You really can not tell this before you join the company.  Even if you have all the other elements listed above you may not succeed because of this last element. A good example of this is having a company with a simple marketing message where the product literally sells itself. The product has to be such that people perceive it as essential vs. something they perceive as optional. In network marketing companies it is great to find a product that is easy to sell because that means the people that join the company will also have an easy time to sell and earn cash.

When you are looking at your current company or one that you were trying to build in the past, you may not have realized that they already may have a couple of these factors working against you.  Trust me when I tell you to look at this information from the eye of an unbiased outsider as a customer not as a distributor.  I am a person with experience in failed network marketing companies (Flashnet, Starnet365, APPGas) just to name a couple. Really do your due diligence, does your company or potential company have all these things in place?

I would be remiss if I didn’t share with you a company that has been experiencing all of these elements above.  The combination you see above is so rare, it has only happened a couple times in the industry. So here is the deal, ViSalus Sciences is the company that is leading the way in every aspect of this list.  The company is still young, but they have hired some of the brightest minds and scientist in the world to help continually grow the company for years to come. Leaders in the comp plan are hitting the highest levels in the company in less than a year. Now that kind of cabbage can change your life in a hurry. Go and check out ViSalus Sciences now and I will be here to answer any of your questions you may have before or after joining.

Why do you want to start your own home based business?  What is it going to do for you?  If money were no object anymore, what the heck would you being doing with your life?

I have thought a lot about these types of questions over the last 10 years.

My reasons why… Gosh, where to start.. I do feel I have not been challenged for the last 10 years. I have been just getting up and going to work, day in and day out.

I have been having this feeling of not accomplishing something in my life.  I have been saying constantly that I am not done, I have more in me and it needs to come out.

I lost my son about 5.5 years ago, I didn’t know the reason why I had to endure that.  What was gods plan for me?  I didn’t know at the time what the reason was, but now I am starting to get the idea, I was meant for something more, and time is short on this earth.  Further emphasis was put on this with my father’s passing this past spring.  I was only 39 years young then. Seriously, I should be taking pills by now or something right?

Coming into my daughters 14th year of life I see her growing up and that excites me and makes me sad at the same time. Excited, because I get to share all my life experiences with her and hopefully make her a wiser person because of it.  I also am sad because time is going by so fast.

I can’t believe I have been at my job almost 20 years now and still there.. when I said 10 years ago I was going to find a way to get out.  I am all about safe and secure for the past 20 years, and I need to now embrace challenge and change more than ever in my life now.

Another reason is my never ending credit card debt.  That is a mountain I need to get out from under.. It all started with my last failed entrepreneurial adventure gone wrong.  No one could of predicted the downturn in the economy, but I could have responded differently instead of being bummed out for the last 10 years.

I am sorry to say this, but I see people at work being complacent every day. I asked a guy just today even, are you moving forward in your life?  His response was “yes, but not very fast”.  He tells me we need to talk soon.  Yes we do my friend, because I am building something more than just an income here…  I am building a legacy of lasting friendships, and personal growth, and yes of course the money.. It seems like it is going to be secondary at the point in time where I become debt free, or as far as I can get without owing stupid bills like credit cards.

I have my whole life ahead of me now, a new wife is going to be here on 11/11/11 and a new start for her and I together. I am so blessed to have such wonderful people in my life now. I wonder what happened to the people I used to talk to all the time.  Where did they go? What are they doing?  Did they start being complacent on me and can no longer bear to pick up the phone and say hi, or even call back when I say hi to them.

Reasons… I know that is not the end of them, and this list is going to continue to grow over time.  What I do know is that I am tired of not doing the things that need to be done for me to get where I want to be in life.

So, Where are you going to be tomorrow? What are your reasons why?  Let’s talk soon, it’s never too late!

I have been asked this question a couple of times from my team. What steps do I take to build my business online? Well I have some steps I can share with you in a second. First I wanted to share a thought with you. Your daily discipline is going to dictate what you do in the future.

So think back to the last couple of days and note the routine you have done. Hopefully you will have realized that you were doing non-productive activities. I call this “being busy on your business instead of being busy in it”. You need to recognize that the way you have been doing business is not working and you need to change your routine to change the results of doing business.

First Step in your daily routine should be to clear out the clutter. This means getting rid of all the unwanted distractions, and focusing at the task on hand. No more checking emails incessantly, no texting, and no spending 3 hours on facebook.

Second thing you should be doing is creating one piece of content for your business each and every day. So you will be creating a video or article at least once a day. Yes this means you are going to miss the latest Sons of Anarchy episode.. You should be DVR’ing it anyways to skip the commercials, which will further save your precious time.

Third idea to get a solid daily routine going in your business is to spend about an hour a day listening to training for your online business, and also listening to personal development type speakers. Remember your financial growth will mirror your personal growth. Don’t leave money on the table by not developing the right mindset for the job.

Lastly, you should be making 20 connections with people daily. I do realize that you may not be able to do that every day at this point, but you will soon. Just keep following your daily routine, and the principles of attraction marketing and you will be on your way soon.

Now, at this point you are probably saying to yourself. “When do I sell them on my business?”

The truth of the matter is you should not be selling anyone on your business when you first meet them. I am sharing with you how to convert a person from your cold market to your warm market. Develop the relationship with them first, there will be plenty of time to sell them later, but you will not meet resistance when you talk about the thing you are passionate about this time. Bottom line, don’t Get anyone, don’t treat them like a piece of meat that you have to devour, and by all means please don’t beg them to join your business.

I just watched the most motivational and uplifting personal development video I think I have ever seen.  I will share that with you at the end of my post.

So I get up today, it’s Monday on my celly, uggh.. not another 5 days til the weekend… I just worked the weekend also because I am greedy right? Not…!  I have been trying to get ahead in life. Doing it wrong like that for way to long.  I hope you can relate to what I am about to share with you.

I am going to repurpose some content I listened to from the TGIM – Eric Thomas video I am going to share with you, but I believe that it needs to be written down so you can read it over to yourself.  What would your life look like if you didn’t live in fear anymore?

I have been living in fear myself.. I have just realized it, and it has come to my full attention now. I am done with that noise, check this out…

I was scared to succeed!  Let me say that again… I WAS SCARED TO SUCCEED!  OMG I can’t believe it, but it’s true.  I was holding myself back because I had grown so accustomed to living in my cozy little comfortable world that I forgot about my dreams.  When I landed what I thought was my dream job back in 1992, I thought I was gonna be set for life. I fell into the complacent trap of what I thought was a safe and secure job.. Think about this… I wasted the last 19.5 years doing something that kept me from living in abundance in my life. I can only wonder what I could have accomplished if I had spent the last 2 decades building my life with a rich robust faith.  I am not bitter, and I am not whining… I just recognized that something is going to change.

Now is the time for change…

I have recognized I was self defeating myself, and I have and constantly work on my outlook on life so I keep pushing negativity to the way side.  No more fear, live in faith… This was so impactful for me I can’t believe it has not hit me sooner. I would make a better millionaire that I would make a welfare recipient.  Life was not that hard for me but safe and secure was that chain holding me down. that’s why I have more in me and it’s gonna come out.  I deserve to be a successful entrepreneur, and I will not hold myself back anymore!  I have always had this desire in me, it just needed to come out.. I know some of you are having your aha moment now.  I really truly believe that 90% of the time at least, people are holding themselves back from greater things happening in their lives.

Won’t you join me on a journey? A journey that will explore the deepest depths that our conscious mind can reach. A journey of a thousand miles that will end with fruitful abundance rather then defeat.  I am on a role today.. I hope you are feeling what I am saying.  Its ok to be fearful we all do it, but don’t go bury your head under the covers and think your life will get better by itself. Take charge of that future and make your dreams come true. You Deserve Better!  Stop settling for less, you deserve the best!  You do not deserve the usual!  I love that!

Go ahead and watch the video, but know this.. I have a better way, let me show you! If you have felt my words and was motivated by the video.. tell me below in the comments. Lets start a dialogue on how we can get you to where you want to go…

Le Penseur © by raulua

When starting out my entrepreneurial journey there was one thing that was keeping me from achieving the success I wanted.  This one thing called negative self talk was eating me up. I want to share with you the story that was going on in my head before I figured this out.

The story went something like this: “Can I really create wealth? What do I have in me to share with people on the internet that they even give a rip about? Why are so many other people making success look so easy?” Well, I have news for ya, either those easy peasy people were lying to me or I was missing something.  I finally had my defining moment with this when I realized I had missed something. The something was me, myself, and I, or in your case maybe  its you… See I was defeating myself and not believing in myself from the get go. Who knows when those thoughts got in my mind, but my mind was not in the game so to speak. I was like an addict that didn’t want to admit to having a problem, but when I finally did I was able to figure out what to do to fix it.

You notice how all my questions could have just lead to more questions, negative questions…  I would keep asking myself those defeating questions on a daily basis, over and over, and I was getting in my own way constantly.  If you are reading this article you are probably tripping over yourself also. I call this the “Shooting Yourself in the Foot Thinking.”

“Stop Shooting Yourself in the Foot, and Start Shooting the Fish in the Barrel..”

I want to share with you my life breakthrough, the epiphany if you will that made all the bad thoughts come to an end. So,  I was listening to my daily dose of personal development audio’s on the way home from my job the other day, and there it was. “If I wanted to have the success in life that I deserve just do this…” The step by step approach to thinking better.. My mentor knows I love step by step, but knows I can’t have it that easy. I tried.. LOL

These 4 beliefs said to myself every time a negative thought would pop into my head. They allowed me to erase the self doubt I had, and create a positive mindset through which I am finally focused on the things that really mattered to create the life I chose to live. You can also experience greater successes,  significance, and abundance in your life by following what I am about to share.  Those 4 beliefs are as follows.  Here we go!  “I am worthy”, “I am capable”, “I am deserving”, and “I trust myself”.

Now combining those 4 things and this statement “If you were to act as if it were impossible to fail.. you won’t.” You will hopefully start to realize you are creating your own walls, the mental ones that keep a lot of us from achieving and doing more in our lives.
It is my hope you have your breakthrough if you have not already, and you can finally start living in abundance.  If you feel compelled please leave a comment below, it will post after it goes through my spam filter so never fear if it does not show up right away.

My good friend Mark Gorman posted a great little home based business video and excerpt about keeping things simple when you start. Just like when a baby first walks it needs help from its parents to support itself, but in its simplest form you have to walk before can run.

The basic tools people come up with in their home based businesses are used to get more leads and translate those people into customers.  There is no easy way to achieve the results of this but there is a way to make the whole process simpler.

I am all for automating things but when I see people trying to run before they learn how to walk, well what can I say… there are no shortcuts.  Buying the latest software or E-Book is not going to get you to your goal any quicker because it’s just something else for you to learn, which may allow you to lose your original business focus.

You can also relate this exercise in business back to when you were a kid and you had a problem to do at school. The math teacher in this example wanted you to show your work and do it the long way. (Good advice btw to know how to do something manually before you automate it.) The long way being the simplest way to solve a problem by not complicating the process by introducing lets say a bit of technology to the equation. After doing this problem long hand you realized there is this handy dandy thing called a calculator, and when you first were introduced to the calculator with all those scientific buttons on it you didnt’ have a clue how to just add 2+2. You only started saving all kinds of time doing your math after you learned how to use the calculator.

I think Mark is spot on when he talks on this subject. “Lets try walking before we start running right?” The program I am referring to is the MLM Lead System Pro, and I highly recommend you check it out to help you grow your any network marketing business using simple manageable steps.

I was wondering what would make up a truly good network marketing company these days, and technology came to mind. In today’s data driven communication era having a good marketing plan is especially important. For some of you that means you will have to learn some new things to more effectively reach your target market. One thing that immediately came to mind for me was the use of mobile phones. Today, smartphones are really as sophisticated as your home computers, and in some cases even more so. It is up to the new wave of network marketing companies to keep up with the pace of the industry.

One company I can think of that is doing an excellent job of this is ViSalus. They have managed to harness the power of the mobile smartphone to allow you more freedom to build your team with minimum effort. They call the application Vi-Net mobile, and it is currently available for blackberries and Androids. It will be coming to the I-phone in the next couple of weeks. It allows you to sign up new customers and promoters to the challenge, and then allows you to keep track of their progress as they progress in their challenge or through the ranks as a promoter of the challenge.

To sum up what is going on with this company right now is they are leading the paradigm shift in the industry. The one where the company is taking a more active and unimposing role in your business to allow you to truly build a legacy for your family. I encourage you to check out this awesome company that is innovating the future and the health and wealth of the people it services.

Please leave any comments below about what you liked best about this article. Thanks for following…

To Your Success,
Clint

Blake Mallen co-founder of ViSalus Sciences shares first quarter 2011 reports and statistics. We’ve been watching the build up to this exponential growth since early 2010.  As a side note, if you couldn’t guess from the charts that Blake flashes on his monitor; ViSalus is officially in momentum.  Now that the Body By Vi Challenge is becoming mainstream we are looking forward to helping people get healthy and wealthy.

Sorry to say it folks, but as a country we have an obesity epidemic of epic proportions with no end in sight. As Blake points out, we are waging war against obesity.  Waging war against all the fast food joints of America. Our answer to this epidemic is the Body By Vi 90 day challenge, a healthy alternative to eating fast food everyday for lunch or breakfast. We are starting our fight in the U.S. first, then we are going to go global with our message.

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