Imagine signing up a new distributor for your home business organization. You’ve put her through whatever process you have in place. She has seen the company presentation. She got to know you, and you her. She’s nice. She laughs easily, and she seems to have real desire to do well. Forms are signed and a business kit is purchased.
A couple of days passes by and you get a phone call. She’s got just a few questions she’d like to ask you; do you have a few minutes. “Sure,” you say.
Five minutes turns into half an hour. You cover things she’s already seen in the presentation, as well as things that were on the first training module she was supposed to watch.
Same thing happens next day, this time you hear a twinge of buyer’s remorse in her voice. What if she can’t do it?
Sound familiar? Every person in network marketing finds this person in his or her organization if they stay around long enough. There’s a good chance you WERE this person at one point.
There are always three things at work:
1. Your desire to genuinely help someone.
2. Your desire to work with someone who has a lot of potential: to add that “stud” to your organization.
3. Your frustration with putting time and effort into someone who is starting to look like the wrong person.
And let’s add a fourth: your not wanting to feel like someone who “dumps” people after bringing them into a business.
They’re all valid and understandable issues. In 12 years as a marketer and trainer, I can tell you there are surprisingly few unethical people in the industry. We all set out wanting to do good. It’s just a fact that home business – including affiliate marketing and someone who markets their own product or service – attracts all kinds of people, including those who have a hard time keeping up.
So back to the original point of this article. When should you give up on people who don’t get it?
The answer: Never.
You never want to give up on anyone, because you never know when it will be someone’s time. When they will have enough desire to overcome the obstacles they have (including their own drama) and break through.
And of course this doesn’t mean you allow yourself to be a sitting duck for a thousand questions and complaints. In this day and age if you aren’t running a new person through a training process that has them learning on their own, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. And you’re doing the same for everyone else in your organization by your example.
Anyone who has been around already knows this. The people who are in profit spend their time and energy with people moving forward. They give group time and encouragement (from a distance) to people who aren’t progressing for whatever reason.
But emotionally, you keep a space of encouragement and positive energy for everyone in your group, and even the industry as a whole. It’s the kind of mojo you want around you.
And remember your own beginning. How long did it take you to “get it?”
And look where you are now!
Who’s to say the next superstar isn’t following that same path?
This area can be tough to adapt to, however with a heavy heart it can be accomplished. I noticed the challenge to most uncomfortable situations is to just get used to be uncomfortable so I can get comfortable doing the things I don’t really like…
ITS easy to turn your back and dismissed people and move one, but the ones that can hold an audience and maintain and manage an interest become the master.
Diane has definitely learned to mastered this.
Very interesting post.
To many times we forget that people don’t all progress at the same rate. The stragglers today could easily be the superstars of tomorrow!
Thanks Diane! 🙂
Diane, you are right but every executive must know where it is enough – I mean where you are still investing to your future (of your employee) and when it is just wasting your energy because it has been already lost.
L.