Company Knowledge

One thing your prospects are sure to ask you about is your company. Here are some basics you need to consider and to learn about your company to ensure that you are comfortable and excited about the opportunity and products you represent, sell, and distribute to your family, friends, and colleagues. 

1. You must know about the founders, current owners, and management staff of the company. What is their story, why did they create the company, and what is their experience in this industry and market segment?
2. You need to understand the ordering process and return policies of the company. And of course you must be ordering the products you represent.
3. It’s obvious that you need to know what your company’s product line consists of. But you must also know the features and benefits of the products themselves. Including where the materials that your company uses to produce your products come from, who controls those materials, and what the supply of them is.
4. Understanding how to optimize the compensation plan is very important. There are several types of compensation plans, and each has their strengths and weaknesses. But you must be able to talk about and show prospects and team members the features and benefits of your company’s pay plan.
5. It’s also important to know how and if changes to product line, compensation plan, and payout schedule can be made. And if so, who has the power to make those changes.
6. And last, but certainly not least is your personal testimony of the company, it’s products, and its ability to deliver on the promises it, and in turn you, make to your prospects.

 

Commitment

Commitment is measured by your willingness and determination to get the job done, no matter the circumstances. Commitment can be measured in many ways. It can be measured by how much it takes to make you discouraged and give up. Some people become discouraged very easily and quickly while others work harder, and smarter when things aren’t going as planned. It is your commitment to personal goals, values, dreams, and family as well as that of your business associates that determine how you will react to adversity.

Commitment is also measured by the time you spend on yourself, and working in your business. There are essentially 4 different levels of time commitment that people make or progress through on their way to massive success.

1. Sometime which is measured with 4 to 6 hours per week in the business.
2. Spare time. 6 to 12 hours of business building activity each week.
3. Part time. 12 to 25 hours per week, and
4. Full time, which will require a 25 to 50 hour per week commitment.

No matter what level you choose, your immediate results will be reflected in your ability to commit to a consistent effort each week during your available time. That is to say, nothing can get in the way or take priority to the specific hours you commit to consistently spend in your business.

Another way to measure commitment is by the amount of financial investment you are willing to make on your business. How much money are you willing to spend of personal improvement, business development, marketing materials, and relationships?

Ask yourself this question, if your goal was to create job dropping residual income in the next 2 to 3 years, and that outcome was certain, how much time and money would you invest to create that result, $10 per month, $50 per month, $100, $1,000 or more? Think of what’s at stake! It’s your future we’re talking about here. It’s your children’s future, it’s your grand-children’s future. A wise man told me once, that you can make excuses or you can make money, but you can’t make both.

 

Success-Failure Orientation

People experience results they are committed to! Those who are committed to mediocrity, lack and want will continue to experience this as long as they think, act and remain committed to those results. Those who adopt wealth philosophy’s and commit to abundance and freedom experience that result by increasing the value of their service and becoming the kind of person others will listen to and follow.

Success and the principles and practices that create it are learned not inherited. No-one is born with a success gene. Everyone who is successful, has learned how to become successful. And everyone who fails or falls short of their expectations has learned how to fail, and fall short.

The vast majority of people you meet each day are living paycheck to paycheck, and are so busy making a living that they don’t have a life. It is popularly believed that 95% of the world’s population is vying for 5% of the resources.

The 5% of the people who live with abundance, do so because they think differently. And as a group, they control 95% of the world’s money and resources. They have learned to find solutions instead of excuses. They don’t worry about what the neighbors think. They pursue their dreams with focus, passion and dedication.

Learn the success pattern for success. Provide the opportunity for everyone to learn how to be successful along with you. Some will choose to learn, practice and apply the success principles of this business, and others will not. Your job begins with your transition from scarcity to abundance, and great wealth comes from teaching others to do the same.

 

Use of People

There are some people in this industry who mistakenly feel like they are taking advantage of their relationships with family, friends, and neighbors, when they get them to buy products and services from them instead of the store. If you had a traditional store down town, wouldn’t you expect your family, friends, and neighbors to come and support your store? My dad did, I did, and every business owner in your community does!

There is no harm in teaching your family, friends, and neighbors about new products and services that they probably didn’t know existed or didn’t know they could afford. Your relationship should never be on the line with people. You are simply sharing what your store offers with others, and inviting them to buy great products from you at a great price with awesome customer service.

There are also people who see others as a means to get what they want. They see people as the next victim in their life of single transactions and short term income stream. These people seldom succeed in this industry. Short term thinkers can make some quick money, but just like a job, when they stop working, so does the income. If you are in this business for the long term, to create job dropping residual income, then you must look at people as lifetime customers and associates. You must build your business on trust and relationships. This is the only way people will order, reorder, enroll and reenroll in your business.

When people know that you are there to serve them, they will return to do business with you over and over, month after month, year after year. In this industry people are not a means to an end, the products and services you offer are a way for you to provide exceptional value to your customers and associates, and in return, you get paid based on that value.

 

Beliefs and Values

Your beliefs and values determine what you will be willing to do in the business and how and when you will do it. This includes how you feel about sales, money, work, family, relationships, and a myriad of other things that will determine your level of success. Your basic beliefs and values control the amount of time you commit to working on yourself, and in your business. They will also dictate the time it will take to achieve success and how you define it. The first and most important belief to master is: that you are in business. And as in all businesses you must become a professional, not a hobbyist in order to succeed.

At the core, your beliefs and values go with you wherever you go. People can immediately tell if you really believe in your products and services. Your language concerning money, selling, willingness to re-prioritize activities, and reschedule events to allow business building time and resources, will entice or repel your prospects and team. How you value people, will show up in every conversation and interaction with new prospects and team members. People know, whether you like them or not, whether you care about their achievement or not, whether you are willing to love them in times when they are unlovable, whether you encourage them in times when they don’t appear to be worthy of encouragement.

 Your beliefs and values also uncover your determination to overcome obstacles that might slow you down, as well as your willingness to grow and become all that you were intended to become.  If you think money is bad or that selling is taking advantage of your family & friends, or that you must attend every family activity or your children will be scarred for life, then that, will be reflected in your verbal and body language and will send a very loud message to your prospects that you don’t like what you are doing, or that somehow you feel like your doing something wrong.  The end result is that you won’t enroll new people in your business. You won’t frequently transact, and your business will suffer. 

There is nothing wrong with some re-prioritization, and rescheduling of events and activities. There is nothing wrong with teaching others about products and services they didn’t know about or think they could afford. You are a messenger, nothing more. The more effective you are at spreading the good news about your products and services, the more others can take advantage of them along with you. Which will give you the time and financial resources to achieve your greater causes and higher purposes that your core beliefs and values drive you to.

 

Willingness To Improve

Your success in this industry is determined by your mastery of the basic skills and knowledge of this business. Your mastery of these basics is based on your willingness to learn, grow, and become the kind of person others will follow.  At the 50 thousand foot level, the basics are: contacting, presenting, converting prospects to customers and associates, relationship building, skill transfer, duplication, and the industry success pattern for predictably achieving goals and dreams.

We measure your abilities in these, and 50 other areas with what we call personal effectiveness points or Peps. The higher your Pep’s the higher your checks. We have an astounding capacity to learn, grow, and gain the personal effectiveness that we need to become the kinds of people that can produce the results we desire. The speed at which the transformation takes place is, however, completely up to us as individuals.

History proves that it doesn’t matter where you are today. You have the power to learn, practice and take appropriate action that will produce the results you want.  You will learn in this business is that the single most important determinate of success is YOU! You, are the difference, not your up-line, mentor, company, compensation plan, product or service. Of course they are all important, but on the phone, at the meeting, and in the presentation it’s you, people are buying into more than anything.  The shortest route from where you find yourself today to what you imagine your new life to be, is the highway marked “Willingness to Improve”.

Success is never easy or comfortable. Businesses don’t fail because of what people do to them, they fail because of what you must become in order to make them work. Leo Tolstoy said this of mastering skill and knowledge: “Everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.” Many people are passionate about changing the world, but few are willing or they don’t know how to change themselves.

 

Personal Quotes

Opening of book – Personal Improvement – When you began your business, you enrolled in an intensive personal improvement course. Business ownership demands personal growth that is not always easy or comfortable. But remember that Businesses don’t fail because of what people do to them; they fail because of what you must become in order to make them work. Are you willing to become the kind of person others will listen to and follow? – Clay Stevens

 Sales Aptitude – Confidence comes from competence! – Clay Stevens

 Sales Aptitude – the way you share is more important that what you share. – Clay Stevens

 Sales Aptitude – The greatest sale you will ever make is the day you finally buy what you are doing. – Clay Stevens

 Sales Aptitude – sales is not a single event but a series of events with commitment checks along the way. – Clay Stevens

 Presentations – the purpose of presentations is to see if your prospect will commit to doing something about what their dissatisfactory circumstances. Or if they are committed to continue to complain about their situation. – Clay Stevens

 Personal Effectiveness – Take possibility to predictability and tip the scale of probability in your favor. – Clay Stevens

 Overcoming objections – I can’t decide or I’ll wait – You know waiting is an option. But you know that nothing gets done by putting it off until later. You are alive and making decisions right now. Right now is the period of time over which you have control. Right now is the time that’s available for you to take action. Action that is not taken now, doesn’t get taken. Doing things later never works, because later never comes and it never will. It is always now, and now is the time to act. Do it now and it will get done now. – Clay Stevens

 Overcoming Objections – I don’t know if I can do this – No-one ever fails. Everyone always succeeds in producing results. And the results you produce are based on the way you think, the practice you engage in, the choices you make and the effectiveness of your skill in applying those choices and skill. – Clay Stevens

Overcoming Objections – I don’t know if  I can do this – If you are failing, then learn, practice and apply new strategies, skill and knowledge to produce different results. The only way to fail is to not take action or to continue to repeat action that creates unwanted results. – Clay Stevens

 Trust & relationship & Personal Improvement – Pouring the Drinks is Not Enough! You must be able to quickly build a trusting relationship with prospects in order to get them to order more than 1 drink. – Clay Stevens

 Time Management – The common man merely of spends his time. The successful man invests his time in things that bring about specific results. – Clay Stevens

 Follow-up – “We don’t use people to build our business; we use our business to build people.” – Clay Stevens

Creativity – Creativity is the truth made fascinating – Clay Stevens

 Success Pattern – Take possibility to predictability and tip the scale of probability in your favor – Clay Stevens

 Work Habits – Every prize has an equivalent price. – Clay Stevens

 Beliefs and Values – More people say “No” to this business for lack of belief than they do for lack of understanding how it all works. – Clay Stevens

 PEPs/Confidence – Success comes from competence. And competence comes from learning, practicing and applying skill and knowledge in their proper sequence. Are you having all the success you want? – Clay Stevens

 Overcoming objections – No matter what choice you make, you will have to make it work. No choice is without risk. No choice will produce a positive result without work. The optimal decision is the one that gets you where you want to go, and for that to happen you must pick one and then go to work. – Clay Stevens

 Everyone is born a winner. But champions are made! – Clay Stevens

 Leadership – Great leaders inspire people to have confidence in themselves not in the leader. – Clay Stevens

 Leadership – Leadership is the science of getting people moving towards you and then with you. – Clay Stevens

 Product Promotion – Effective product promotion is a process of understanding, informing, persuading, and prompting potential buyers to ask you how to buy your products and services. – Clay Stevens

 Product Promotion – Effective product promotion creates more than single transactions. It creates trust which creates great relationships and loyalty. Loyalty that is rewarded with life long customers. – Clay Stevens

 High Yielding Questions – Substitute your opinion and advice with high yielding questions. Use the time you normally spend talking, listening to the responses you elicit with high yielding questions. – Clay Stevens

 Product Knowledge – It is difficult to effectively sell to a customer if you cannot show how a particular product will address their needs. – Clay Stevens

 Product Knowledge – My rule of thumb is that if I know more about a product than the sales person I don’t buy from him or her. – Clay Stevens

 Product Knowledge – You don’t need to know everything about everything in order to build your business. However, you must know what your products do and don’t do. – Clay Stevens

Connectedness – People you meet on the internet presume that you are happy, successful, and possibly going somewhere. Because you have entered the internet social scene indicates that you have at least some ambition and desire to meet other people and engage in conversation. – Clay Stevens

Names list – The power of the list is more than names on a piece of paper. They are or could be the life blood of your business. They might get in as a customer or an associate, or they might lead you to someone who will get in and tear it up! No matter which it is. The facts are that 100% of people who create an effective names list, and then contact and follow-up with each and every one of the names on the list create job dropping residual income. – Clay Stevens

Names List – Our business is driven by relationships and word of mouth referrals, period. No advertising, no commercials, no banner ads, no spam, no flyers. Our business grows when one person talks to another person. – Clay Stevens

Names List – Left to chance, most people never write out a names list. And those who do, write down less than ten names. And those ten names are the least successful people they know. And those ten people won’t be teachable or motivated and so they won’t build the business, and your team will not grow. – Clay Stevens

 Names list – Your list will either be an asset or a liability. With little to no names on it, your list is a liability costing belief, attitude, and posture. With an abundance of names on it, your list is an asset adding to your excitement, belief, and confidence. Is your names list an asset or a liability? – Clay Stevens

Names List – Without a names list, you are left to chance meetings with people you don’t know, in places that are not always conducive to business building. – Clay Stevens

Planning – Failure is absolutely sure if you don’t plan to succeed. – Clay Stevens

Planning – People who plan their day’s and week’s activities accomplish about 80% of their work in 20% of their time. Non-planners complete only about 20% of their work in 80% of their time. Which are you? – Clay Stevens

Planning – Winners make a plan for success, and then execute the plan with great precision. Also ran’s run around enthusiastically, aimlessly, and predictably create chaos and inconsistent results. – Clay Stevens

Planning – The older I get, the more I realize that there really are only 24 hours in a day. The trick of success is to get as much out of every minute, hour, and day as possible. – Clay Stevens

Integrity – Integrity is akin to your health. If you have loads of money, but bad health, you really don’t have much. If you have great health, you can always acquire money. If you don’t have integrity, then you really don’t have much of anything else that really matters either. – Clay Stevens

Integrity – Deception is when a person says they are selling help and happiness when they are really selling hype and hopium instead. – Clay Stevens

Integrity – Hypocrisy is when what we do or say is in conflict with what we believe or promise. – Clay Stevens

Compensation Plan – It’s not the size of your group that determines your income, it’s the size of the value you provide to that group that ignites exponential income. – Clay Stevens

Dress & Grooming – You begin advertising and marketing yourself and your business to everyone the moment they see you. Even before you begin talking, people are making judgments about who you are, what you represent, and whether to listen to you or not. – Clay Stevens

Dress & Grooming – In the first few seconds your prospects and team make many judgments about you. Whether they can trust you, believe in you, or even like you. – Clay Stevens

Dress & grooming – Massive success requires you to relate to as many people as possible. When you dress like a small segment of people you will only be relatable to that small group. Everything you do and say must be relate-able to a large group of people, who may or may not be like you. – Clay Stevens

Dress & Grooming – 93% of our communication is non-verbal. What we say can persuade people to take action, but the way we dress and our grooming habits influence whether people ever give us permission to present to them. – Clay Stevens

Dress & Grooming – Dress and grooming are not really about fashion. Fashions come and go, but the way you choose to present yourself is very much your personal branding. – Clay Stevens

Language – Clear, competent, effective speaking is perhaps one of the best money-making skills you can acquire. – Clay Stevens

Language – People form opinions about whether they should listen to you, whether they like you, trust you, and whether they should take your advice based on the tone, speed, clarity, appropriateness of your words and your pattern of speech. – Clay Stevens

Language – Crude, sloppy, or inappropriate language communicates incompetence and ineffectiveness. Using appropriate language, correct terms, and respectful conversation will project professionalism and which will attract more people to you and your opportunity. – Clay Stevens

Personalities – Effective communication is the ability to transfer ideas from the sender to the receiver. If you speak in German to a person who understands only Spanish your message will not be received and your ability to help that person will be greatly diminished. – Clay Stevens

Personalities – If you can understand what drives and motivates people, you can help fulfill their needs and they will follow you any where you go. – Clay Stevens

Listening – The key to effective communication is to be interested instead of interesting! – Clay Stevens

Listening – The biggest communication challenge people have is listening too little and talking too much. You never learn anything when you are talking. – Clay Stevens

Listening – The formula for failure is 1) talk, and then 2) talk more. Some people have mastered talking to the point where they can talk people in and out of the business in the same conversation. – Clay Stevens

Listening – You have one mouth and two ears, use them in that proportion. – Clay Stevens

Relate-ability – Successful people begin just as we all do; with the first step, and then the next and the next and the next, until they wake up one day, and all of a sudden they have become an instant successes over the course of years of learning and hard work. – Clay Stevens

Relate-ability – What makes someone likeable is not how much people actually like them, but how much people like themselves when they’re around that person. – Clay Stevens

Relate-ability – When people know that you are betting on them, instead of against them, they will respond to what ever you ask them to do. – Clay Stevens

Relate-ability – People don’t want to be overcome, they want to be understood. – Clay Stevens

Relate-ability – Relating with people “is not about being phony or acting like someone you are not. It’s about creating a connection between your internal beliefs and values, and those that you meet and talk to. – Clay Stevens

Relate-ability – Learning to connect fast with people by taking full advantage of your body, your mind, your voice, and above all your imagination will give you a significant head start on optimizing the potential in every relationship. – Clay Stevens

Relate-ability – Relating to others is really about helping people find a place to belong; a community of like-minded people going in the same direction. – Clay Stevens

Commitment is measured by your willingness and determination to get the job done, no matter the circumstances. – Clay Stevens

On your journey to success, if you’re don’t’ experience some adversity, your being cheated. It’s the adversity that makes you and your business focus on customer value. – Clay Stevens

Higher PEPs = Higher Checks – Clay Stevens

The bottom line is that people who are more effective make more money. There is no magic formula. High achievers perform at a high level. – Clay Stevens

You can only work with the willing because the unwilling won’t allow you to help them. – Clay Stevens

Work Habits – Effective work allows highly talented and remarkably untalented people alike to create incredible results. – Clay Stevens

Work Habits – The habit most likely to keep a person poor and needy is having time to do things over and over again, but never enough time to do them right the first time. – Clay Stevens

Work Habits – If you are well enough to go to work then you are well enough to build your business. You can be sick at home, or sick while creating your future. Either way you are still going to be sick, but at least you will have the promise of a different future. – Clay Stevens

Work Habits – Avoid being busy for the sake of being busy. Success oriented work habits are not really a matter of spending time for the sake of spending time. High achievers think and act so that by their thinking, their actions are specific and intentional and create predictable results. – Clay Stevens

Work Habits, Personal effectiveness – Everyday work is not a sum total of tasks done. It is not enough for anyone just to go through the motions. Effective work is not a list of deposits required to be made in some cosmic account. Success is achieved only when what we think, say and do are all in alignment with what we envision success to be. – Clay Stevens

Success orientation – Some will quit, others will concede, but those who are willing to pay the price will have the grandest rewards life has to offer. – Clay Stevens

Personal Improvement plan – If you don’t like what you see when you look in the mirror or the circumstances that surround your life. You have the power to observe, decide and take appropriate action that will change the person looking back at you. – Clay Stevens

Leadership can be measured by the amount of disappointment you will endure before you become discouraged. People who are easily discouraged seldom receive responsibility because those who are easily discouraged often quit easily, and in doing so influence others to quit with them. – Clay Stevens

Courage is the power that comes from a determination to pursue your passions even when logic and circumstances may tell you stop! – Clay Stevens

Spend your time with people who were pursuing their life’s passions. Distance yourself from everyone and everything that doesn’t support you on your journey to success. You simply don’t need the distractions. – Clay Stevens

Communication – Most discouragement is caused by set backs and most set backs are caused by in-effective communication. Leaders get paid in direct proportion to their ability to communicate effectively. – Clay Stevens

Leadership is letting people know that you believe in them, that they were born with great potential, and that you are there to support them to achieve that greatness. – Clay Stevens

Commitment – Everyone is motivated to create the result they are focused on, and believe they can achieve. Everyone is motivated to do what they are committed to. – Clay Stevens

Goal Setting – The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. people who don’t set goals achieve them 100% of the time. A clear definition of what you want helps you quickly spot distractions that lure you away from achieving your goals. – Clay Stevens

Success is the progressive realization of a worthwhile dream. – Clay Stevens

On the journey to success you will often trip on good intentions, and stumble over promises made. But victory is always achieved by those who work more than talk, who take meaningful action in its proper sequence. – Clay Stevens

Leadership – In order to achieve our own measure of success, we must achieve the ability to influence others to see who they really are, and could become, through a personal journey of profound change and development of their unlimited potential. – Clay Stevens

Personal Improvement – We must qualify for success. Not by punching a time clock, or working a long time. But by using our time and efforts to learn, grow, develop and become something. – Clay Stevens

Basic strengths inventory – Mastery of the basic building blocks of success delivers treasures that transcend the monetary, and last an eternity. – Clay Stevens

Basic strengths inventory – People who preach easy riches acquired without work, travail, and personal growth are selling hype and hopium instead of offering help and encouragement. – Clay Stevens

Beliefs and values – Money is not good or bad. It’s nothing more than a resource or a tool. Having it gives you a way to show off your true beliefs and values. – Clay Stevens

Beliefs and values – Money can’t do anything by itself, it needs you. It can’t do anything without you. Money doesn’t give you power, you give money power to show the world who you really are and what you care about. – Clay Stevens

Beliefs and values – Your ability to succeed is in direct proportion to the harmony of your beliefs and values and proven success principles. You always receive the results your beliefs and values produce. – Clay Stevens

Leadership – Those who desire to succeed always focus on helping others solve their challenges. – Clay Stevens

Use of People – People are not a means to an end, they are not a meal ticket. When you look at others as people with challenges you have a solution to, success will easily come to you. – Clay Stevens

Beliefs and values – People experience results they are committed to! They will experience what ever result they are committed to by their beliefs, thoughts, and actions. – Clay Stevens

Personal Improvement Plan – Achievement of meaningful results come as a result of learning, practicing, and applying correct principles in their proper sequence. Success is learned – not inherited. No-one is born with a “success” gene. – Clay Stevens

Excusitis is a disease of those who would rather explain why circumstances and misfortune have kept them from a life of prosperity instead of learning, practicing, and applying skill and knowledge that would produce wealth and abundance. – Clay Stevens

Leadership – When people know that you are betting on them, instead of against them, they will follow you anywhere. – Clay Stevens

The pain of defeat is always worse than the pain associated with victory. – Clay Stevens

Whether you choose to endure your current and worsening circumstances or take on the discomfort of improving, you are going to face some pain. – Clay Stevens

Businesses don’t fail because of what people do to them; they fail because of what you must become in order to make them work. – Clay Stevens

“There are no stop signs or speed limits and rarely traffic jams on the extra mile.” – Clay Stevens

 Success is usually not a matter of effort for the sake of effort. It’s a matter of effective effort taken in proper sequence. – Clay Stevens

 The pain of defeat is always worse than the pain associated with victory. – Clay Stevens

  “Your life is a perpetual program of personal improvement.” – Clay Stevens

 Success is not a matter of chance, it’s a matter of choice. Success most often occurs by making correct choices in their proper sequence according to a proven, established pattern of success. – Clay Stevens

 Success comes from the effective application of correct knowledge and skill. – Clay Stevens

 “If you look up and notice that things are always coming directly at you, take evasive action – you are probably in the wrong lane!” – Clay Stevens

 Beliefs and Values – Everyone is born a winner. But Champions are made. – Clay Stevens

 ”Personal progress is the purpose of life. It is based on your willingness to surrender what you are for what you could become” – Clay Stevens

 “The depth of the water doesn’t matter if you know how to swim”. – Clay Stevens

 People rise to their highest level of competence. How high do you want to go? – Clay Stevens

 Our ability to think can not exceed our effort to learn and understand. Our results can not exceed our ability to apply what we have learned through appropriate practice and experience. – Clay Stevens

 Much education today is monumentally ineffective. Far too often we talk of what to do and leave people without the skill or knowledge of how to do it. – Clay Stevens

 Focus on creating meaningful results instead of changing people hoping that the “changed” will create desirable results. – Clay Stevens 

Changing people so that hopefully the “changed” can create desired results is a noble but hapless wish of those without experience. – Clay Stevens

Knowing is always better than not knowing. – Clay Stevens

PEPs – Personal Effectiveness allows you see the invisible, feel the intangible and achieve the impossible. Can you see, feel and achieve all that you dream of? – Clay Stevens

Don’t measure your value by your achievements. Measure your value by what you become on the way to your achievements! – Clay Stevens

“The average guy can only achieve average results as long as he remains the average guy.” – Clay Stevens

Average is the cream of the crap and the crap of the cream. – Clay Stevens

People adopt philosophical positions on certain topics and then spend inordinate amounts of time gathering evidence to support those positions. – Clay Stevens

Most people don’t care about getting their pictures on money, as long as they can get their hands on it. – Clay Stevens

The truth is not always pleasant. But whether we like it or not, it’s always the truth. – Clay Stevens

There are only two things that are infinite, the universe and human capability, and I’m not sure about the former. – Clay Stevens.

 

Trust and Loyalty

This morning I was cleaning out some of my office folders that have notes in them from conferences and conventions that I have attended over the past months. I came across some notes from senior executives of a couple of billion dollar direct selling company’s.

 

The theme of the conference talks must have been trust and loyalty because all my notes have to do with reflecting on, thinking about, and remembering people in your life who you trusted and/or company’s you were loyal to.

 

As I reviewed my notes and contemplated their relevance to my life, months after the conference, there are a couple of seemingly important ideas that were shared, and so I will pass them along in hopes that someone else will benefit along with me.

 

Insight #1 – No matter whether it’s personal or corporate trust and loyalty, one important aspect of trust and loyalty seems to include the emotion of feeling. My notes refer to the words “I feel” over and over again. Statements like I feel like they know me, I feel like they care about me, I feel like I’m important to them, I feel like I’m special to them are repeated in almost every sessions notes.

 

So if we want to create trust with our friends, neighbors, colleagues, spouse, or anyone else it seems paramount to create a feeling of good will and that we are really there for them. This is very true from my personal experience coaching high school sports. Kids would do almost anything for me, because they knew that no matter what I cared for them, and always had their back.

 

Insight #2 – Listening and understanding are the key elements to building trust and loyalty. There is an interesting statement in my notes that says “focus on being interested, not interesting”. I can immediately tell when someone is interested in what I am saying or for that matter even hearing what I am saying.

 

The fastest turn off for me in any interaction is when I know that the other person is forming their response while I am talking. However, I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to talk to ANYONE who appears to be really listening to me.

 

So many people seem to have the need to be heard, or have the upper hand in a conversation, or be more knowledgeable, or be right that they seem to click on their auto-responder and either talk about themselves or spew some trite quip they heard or read in the media.

 

So I guess that my allegiance to people, community organizations, and the corporate world comes down to a few really basic things: being listened to with the intent to understand me, and to feel like I matter to the person I’m interacting with.

 

As the new year dawns, it has become my goal to engage others using the age old golden rule. The only way I will ever be listened to and understood, is if I listen and understand. So with only 50 weeks left in the year, I am committed to make a difference to the world by making others feel like they matter.

 

 

Retention

Have you ever seen someone get into networking with massive anticipation and excitement, only to have their un-realistic expectations dashed and then they quit? Let me tell you that this is more common than anyone would care to admit.Here is a classic example of what happens. Johnny calls his up-line and says, “I’m not going to the functions anymore,” which is code for I’m about to quit. Then the up-line whips out a whole list of questions to interrogate Johnny… you know… to find out what THEY are doing wrong. There are many ways to save people who are trying to quit. The most popular is the most ineffective. You can call the person and try to find out what they are discontented with. If they tell the truth you can begin to try to help them see the world in a different way.You can go through the list of all the things that they are supposed to be doing and point out the ones they are not doing and tell them that if they would just follow the program they would become successful. This has all the effectiveness of teaching a pig to sing. It frustrates the teacher and makes the pig mad. In the end you will not be one ounce closer to saving this person. Here’s why!There are at least three major problems with this approach, 1st) They probably won’t tell you the real reason they are dis-satisfied. What you are going to get is a set of excuses for why IT not THEM is not working and so they will not be open to your solutions no matter how much sense they might make, 2nd) They have spent significant time gathering evidence to support their position, and so they will have convinced themselves that based on experiences and facts that they are justified in quitting, and 3rd) And most importantly, they are in scarcity, negative conditioning, self doubt, dependence, expense, and fear rule. There is no way you can get them to be open to possibilities, recall and rededicate themselves to a life with purpose and abundance from scarcity, lack and want; it just can’t happen.These three perspectives carry massive negative emotional momentum. And in order to stem the tide, you need to move them to Bountiful. They need to experience success, experience goal achievement, experience job dropping income, experience abundance, and the only way you are going to get them there is by playing the game.During the game all of their concerns will come out. All of there reasons they are not succeeding will come to the surface and you won’t have to be the bad guy. The game will bring this right out. The game will help them connect the dots between their lack of success (no matter what it is) and what the problem is. And the best news of all is that the game will help them self correct at the same time it rewards them for doing the right things; at the same time it lets them experience success and emotional movement to a place of abundance.For you, the all knowing, all powerful OZ up-line, the teaching moment will be ever present. The game will give you the opportunity to teach at the appropriate times during the game. Remember, when you are playing a game, real conversation will occur, and all communication barriers go to zero. They will be open to discuss their experience of the business, and open to your teaching, open for real solutions that will not only keep them in the business, but get them on their feet again so that they can build the business with effectiveness.Using the Residual Income™ Game, the up-line could invite Johnny over to play the game and could have played for a few minutes and what ever his concerns were, what ever his questions or doubts were would have come out and he could have handled them and he would have been freed to begin again the journey to job dropping income!So lets recap quickly – You can go down the list of things they are supposed to be doing which will take about 45 minutes and never works but it makes the up-line guy feel better about having tried – Or – You can play the game and have a realistic chance of helping them to recover and succeed.If they have lost their focus, playing the game will help re-enroll them their dream and help them actually experience achieving it. If they don’t think they are making progress, the game will help them understand where they are in the success pattern.If they are having difficulty getting people in the business, playing the game will help them learn how to get people to a place of abundance so that they will make appropriate decisions.If they are having trouble setting goals, playing the game will help them make and achieve goals.Playing the game will help you create a success plan for achieving their goals. Only 3% of the population has a written set of goals. And of the 3% only a few have an actual plan of action to accomplish these goals. It is interesting that every successful person has written goals and a specific plan to reach them.Any concerns or problems that are keeping them from succeeding will come out during the game and the teaching moment will appear for you.Playing the game will allow them to associate with people who are accomplishing their dreams. Achieving some success.Most importantly, playing the game will re-establish your love and care for them. It will re-establish your relationship with them and after all is said and done it is this relationship that will keep them in and keep them going.INVITING SCRIPT
I would recommend that you invite them over to play the game just so you can re-kindle your relationship with them. I would call and ask them: “Do you remember the game we played when you first got in? I would like you to come over to play again this Saturday morning. We are going to have fun and prizes and I would really like to see you again. Can you come or would it be better to come to your house on another day?”Let the game do the work. Let the game do the teaching. Let the game help them to get it again. You will be the hero, and the game can introduce the challenging areas not you.

 

Habits

Habits are the #1 difference between success and failure! Successful people are simply willing to do the things un-successful people are not willing to do.The first thing to do with respect to getting on the success path is to determine what you are and are not. You can do this by taking the PEP test (contact the author for a copy of this test). The test will help you to determine what YOU need to be successful: More: time, money, better: skills, attitude, knowledge, understanding of the tools at your disposal, or higher PEP’s?Once you have determined what you are lacking, DO THESE TWO THINGS:1) De-junk – Get rid of the messiness in your life. This can mean cleaning out the garage, car, bedroom, living room, den, or any other part of your physical life that is simply messy and un-organized.It also means that you need to get rid of things that distract from your goal of becoming successful. Successful people don’t let in-significant/non-productive things get in the way of their success.Turn off the T.V. temporarily retire from the softball/bowling/knitting league. “Emphasis” on the temporarily part of this sentence. When he leads his group to their greater causes and higher purposes then he can join softball, bowling, knitting or any other group or club he wants. Because he can!2) Create a few simple habits that will improve your skill, attitude, beliefs and knowledge. This is a three part process.A) Find a mentor and hitch your wagon to them and thier advise.B) Create a schedule that will support your goals. You need some time in your schedule each day to:
*read from a positive book,
*listen to an educational CD,
*meet someone new each day for the next 90 days
*show the business presentation 30 times each month
*get 3 new people to function each month
*Play Residual Income Game each week
*get rid of all the names on your current names list in the next 60 days

C) Create measurable milestones, and then take accountable action. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

 The first milestones in any networking business are:*Get your products for free – this will usually require you to have 3-6 other people faithfully  using your products.
*Take the stage each month – make sure you know what you need to do each month to qualify to  go across the stage. This builds your confidence, and shows your team that you are doing what   it takes to lead the team & you are making progress.
*In 3 months get at least 1 new person on the stage and keep them there each month*In 3 months get 3 people getting their products for free and just like shampoo
  – repeat often for best results.