I have been thinking about how I first got started in business.  My goal was to make a lot of money.  My plan was not as solid as my goal.  I spent countless hours just getting through the day to day operations and more hours analyzing my business.  I spent a lot of time with customers and employees but did not have a mentor.   I discovered that a few years down the road.

Merriam-Webster definition of mentor is as follows:  A trusted counselor or guide

The first few years were lonely and difficult.  I did not have a partner or a board of executives to advise me along the way.   Successful entrepreneurs often have to find answers and seek advice from others who have gone before them.  As you chart your path as an entrepreneur you will come across situations and obstacles in which you do not have the information or wisdom to make qualified decisions.  This is the time when you seek the help of a mentor; a counselor or guide who has gone before you.  If you can find a mentor sooner rather than later the first few years of your business will not be as difficult.

I read this article today and it encompasses what to look for in a mentor.

Enhance Your Relationship with Key Business Mentors by Morey Stettner

There are five personality traits of a mentor: conviction, passion, resilience, vision, the ability to live comfortably in the fog

Those traits are exactly what I was looking for.  Large companies have the ability to gather lots of information from lots of people and work together to analyze data and make decisions.  The typical entrepreneur does not have those resources and only has 40%-70% of the information needed to make a decision.

How do you choose a mentor?  Where do you begin?  Finding someone in your industry is a good place to start.  Look around you.  Find someone who shares the same ideals and goals as you do.  I found my mentors by attending seminars, trade shows and business meetings.  I kept looking for someone who did what I wanted to do.  Someone who was successful and passionate about their dream.  A good mentor will also reach out to you.  They understand what it takes to be successful and will want to help others along there chosen path.

Share your ideas and concerns as you build a relationship.  Your mentor will also offer constructive criticism.  Remember, your mentor has gone before you and will help you stay on track.  Ask them lots of questions and take notes.  Think about what you talked about before taking action.  You are still the one making the decisions.  Do not be afraid to go back and ask more questions.   As your relationship develops the trust will grow.

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You think people succeed because they are in the right place at the right time? Have you ever considered the possibility that success is not happen chance and that it is a result of a thought, planning, preparation and execution? It is and this audio will give you the kick start that you may be looking for to begin your planning today.

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We have purchased distribution rights to this and many other really cool training materials and we want to share this with you today – You don’t have to do anything except download it and put it to use.

Don’t give us an email – Don’t give us a name – just take it for free and come back for more.

Download your copy here

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Developing Unlimited Prospects Includes.

1) How to create an unlimited resource for prospects - Forget the Warm/Cold Market!

5) Find out how Prospecting will never be a stop for you or your organization again!!!!

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Take 10 minutes and watch this – I believe you will be glad you did.

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The Cab Ride

I arrived at the address and honked the horn. After waiting a few minutes I walked to the door and knocked… ‘Just a minute’, answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor.

After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90’s stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940’s movie.

By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

‘Would you carry my bag out to the car?’ she asked. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb.

She kept thanking me for my kindness. ‘It’s nothing’, I told her.. ‘I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother
treated’. ‘Oh, you’re such a good boy’, she said. When we got in the cab, she gave Me an address and then asked, ‘Could you drive through downtown?’

‘It’s not the shortest way,’ I answered quickly..

‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she said. ‘I’m in no hurry. I’m on my way to a hospice’.

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. ‘I don’t have any family left,’ she continued in a soft voice.. ‘The doctor says I don’t have very long.’ I quietly reached over and shut off the meter.

‘What route would you like me to take?’ I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator.
We drove through the neighborhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl.

Sometimes she’d ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, ‘I’m tired. Let’s go now’.

We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her.

I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

‘How much do I owe you?’ she asked, reaching into her purse.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘You have to make a living,’ she answered.

‘There are other passengers,’ I responded.

Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly.

‘You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light.. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life..

I didn’t pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away?

On a quick review, I don’t think that I have done anything more important in my life.
We’re conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID ~BUT~ THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.

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RUSS DEVAN is a popular industry-wide speaker and trainer, and he is president of Success By Design, Inc., the consulting firm he founded in 1991 to support both the corporate and distributor levels of Network Marketing. Russ is a long-time contributor to Upline. He is currently concentrating on developing his training system on the Internet. Russ lives with his family in Scottsdale, AZ.

This article first appeared in the November 1993 issue.

The Teambuilding System is a proven, powerful Network Marketing business-building process that is so simple anyone can do it. It is the most duplicatable way to grow your business that I have ever seen–and I’m convinced it is absolutely, positively infallible. It cannot fail!

I’ve worked in this business for more than [18] years now. In the past, I’ve succeeded with some programs and I’ve failed with others. There were times I went broke; times I earned $10,000 a month. I’ve had companies go out of business on me. Others I quit because it just wasn’t working.

Today, my [partners] and I earn a consistent $60,000-a-month residual income and we’re on the verge of another quantum leap. What that next level will be-¬$80,000 a month, $100,000 or more–I honestly don’t know. But I do know this: My success has been accomplished by learning how to duplicate my current level of success with key leaders in my downline organization–and helping them to do the same.

The key is building a team of men and women who can be trained to do whatever it is that you are producing–in terms of volume and income–and consistently moving them up to the next level of productivity following your example.

Teambuilding starts small: $100 a month in combined personal consumption and retail sales. Then, according to your compensation plan, you train a manageable number of people to do the exact same thing you’ve just done. You keep doing that over and over as you progress up the ladder.

Of course, there are other ways to build a business, but in my experience, Teambuilding is the best. It’s not the fastest way, yet it is the only system I’ve found that gives you all of the following advantages: highest productivity, lowest attrition, greatest loyalty from your people, strongest organizational foundation, highest quality people, most fun, real residual income, and ultimately, checks that grow consistently.

The Path of Least Resistance
In prospecting, most Network Marketers are taught to make a list of family, friends and associates–their warm market–and to prospect everybody and anybody they meet. It’s the “three-foot rule”–pitching the opportunity to anybody who gets within three feet of you. The thinking goes that sooner or later you’re bound to find somebody who’s interested in your business opportunity, somebody who’ll perform and make you a big check.

Prospecting this way, you’re going to encounter lots and lots of people who are resistant to what you have to say; people you have to work really hard on trying to convince them just to take a look at what you have to offer. That’s the Path of Great Resistance!

Talk to people because you enjoy talking with people. It’s amazing what happens when you don’t have prospecting as a hidden agenda.
The Path of Least Resistance begins by thinking through in advance what your ideal prospect/new distributor would look like. Ask yourself, “Who do I really want on my team?”

Don’t you really want somebody who’s already successful … someone who doesn’t need the money, but is instead a person who sees this business as a tremendous opportunity for growth, development and even greater financial independence … someone who’s always wanted to start his or her own business, but just didn’t know where or how to start?

Perhaps it’s someone who’s wide open to the possibilities of Network Marketing. Not someone you have to fight with about pyramids or sales objections.

Why not go after people who are aggressive, self-motivated, open-minded, good with people, who already have sales, communication, management and leadership skills?

If you were the founder and CEO of your own company seeking to fill an opening for a key top management position, you wouldn’t interview just anybody you went to high school with or just met on the street–would you? So why would you do that for your Network Marketing Sales company where you are the CEO and owner … where you are looking for the best people to build and manage your organization … men and women committed to their own and the business’ growth, success and productivity?
Having in mind a clear idea of who you’re really after on your leadership team changes the kind of people you approach to sponsor and how you approach them, as well.

Now, I’m not suggesting you don’t talk to strangers. I’m saying don’t prospect everyone. Talk to everybody, but prospect only those people who fit your criteria for the kind of people you really want on your team. Talk to waiters and waitresses, everyone you meet, and as you do, listen for those leadership/team-member qualities you’re looking for to emerge from the conversation. Talk to people because you enjoy talking with people. It’s amazing what happens when you don’t have prospecting as a hidden agenda.

Who To Talk To and About What
I recommend you develop your own list of characteristics and behaviors that you’re looking for in people to prospect and sponsor on your team. Here’s a list of some of the qualities I’m looking for when I prospect people–and I highly recommend you write down your own list and review it regularly:

• People who are open-minded.
• Someone committed to having something better than he or she has now.
• Hard workers.
• People-people.
• Attractive people; by that I mean a person other people are attracted to.
• People who have a plan for their future–who want to succeed by design.

The way I find these people is to have a conversation with them.
I’m looking for people who want something better and who have some kind of plan on how to get it. I have little interest in someone who says they want a better life, but has no idea what it takes. It’s not important what I think of their plan: what matters is that they have one. That way, I know they’re the kind of people who will appreciate “Success by Design,” and I don’t have to spend a lot of time and effort trying to get them to see that you can’t succeed without a plan.

And that’s how I find out what somebody’s committed to as well: If they have a plan, they’re committed. They know what they want and have an idea of what they’re willing to do to get it. When they say, “Gee, I never thought I needed a plan for how to do it,” that’s not commitment. That’s a hope and a prayer. Although I have nothing against hope and praying, I side with the Quakers who say, “When you pray–move your feet.”
Commitment is vital, I would even say it’s mandatory for success in Network Marketing. If we researched all the new distributors who sign up in this business, I bet we’d find the number who quit directly equal to the number who started without a commitment–without a goal and a plan to reach that goal.

Success By Design (conceptual)
I think the “throw ‘em up against the wall and see who sticks” theory that’s so pervasive in Network Marketing comes from the misguided impression that the only way to succeed in this business is to sponsor a whole lot of people. That’s the MLM lottery, and the chances of winning that are not much better than the odds for hitting your state’s Lotto jackpot–currently averaging about 7.1 million to one.

What I’m encouraging you to do is the opposite approach to this business. It’s what I call Success By Design. You’re looking for five or six strong people (or whatever number works best for your compensation plan; my number is five). These are your leaders. That’s all you need. You can arrive at that goal quicker, with far less effort (and frustration) by seeking out those special, capable people you really want to be in business with right from the start.

Obviously, you will have to sponsor some number of people more than five to get five leaders. My point is to focus on signing leaders. Not just everybody you meet.

Once you have your first five leaders, don’t stop–but do slow down. Don’t continue to sponsor more and more and more. Focus about 15 percent of your time on bringing in new people and 85 percent on managing and supporting your team. Don’t dilute your effort by constantly going wider. Now it’s time for depth, and that comes from duplication.

The Three Tasks of the Team Captain
Job one is leading by example. You’ve heard, “The speed of the leader is the speed of the pack.” That’s it. When people talk about a “visionary leader,” they’re not talking about some ivory-tower theorist who hands down inspiring ideas from on high. True visionary leaders give their people vivid pictures of how to succeed by their own actions–actions that the others can readily duplicate. It’s modeling at its best.

True visionary leaders give their people vivid pictures of how to succeed by their own actions–actions that the others can readily duplicate.
The second function is setting the direction–establishing each of your leader’s goals and a time frame for their accomplishment. This is based on what each of them is committed to. It’s a process where you both work together to become clear on their “Where am I going?” questions.

The first step is to explore their possibilities and help them set the direction for their businesses. You have a partnership with these people, which is based on your aligning with their goals and your being committed to working with them to accomplish those goals.

Accomplishment has three parts: 1) the result; 2) personal growth and development; and, 3) fun. Your job as Team Captain is to set the direction for the achievement of all three of these goal areas.

For results, we’re talking about both volume and income goals. For personal growth and development, it’s education and training to develop the personal and professional skills required for Network Marketing Sales leadership. And fun is just that: What needs to be put in place to assure that we all have fun in our Teambuilding effort?

The Captain’s third task is support, which means communication and follow-up on tasks One and Two. Two other words for this are management and leadership.

Is It Duplicatable?
When people get excited about their products or their compensation plan, they tend to go wild with their retailing or sponsoring efforts. The problem is that those efforts can’t be duplicated consistently in a million years–in very, very rare instances, they may find someone exactly like them and achieve limited, isolated duplication by lottery-luck.

It’s great to be a product sales super-star and get the platinum-plated, rapid-ruby-retailer award from your company–but can you teach five other people to do that? And can they teach 25? No way.

Prospecting 10 people a day, having your armada of audios laying siege to half the Sony Walkmans in North America, and sponsoring 30 front-line folks a month is fantastic personal performance; but will you ever have anybody else in your organization do anywhere near the same thing? How can you possibly manage or support all those people?  You can’t.

Instead, what a duplicatable effort looks like can be small at first. It can be $100 or $200 worth of retail product a month. It can be signing five people up on an auto-order. What it needs to be is something that you are confident you can do and that you can show somebody else how to do month-in, month-out, and that they will continue to do easily and consistently like water rolling off a duck’s back. You need to create a level of retail and sponsoring performance your people can do without being told to do it, without being monitored and constantly motivated to do it. It must be that simple an effort.

Teambuilding By The Numbers
Let’s look at how this works with a simple $100 monthly effort. Forty percent of that $100:

Step One–is personal consumption; you know you can consistently use $40 worth of products every single month yourself. That leaves $60 of retail requirement. Anyone can retail $60 a month consistently, and if he or she isn’t willing or able to do that, they’re not going to build a business anyway–and they certainly aren’t leaders or team-builders.

Step Two: You have $100 of effort yourself, and you next show your five team members how to do what you do. Now you have a $600 duplicatable effort. Next, show them how you did that (you at $100 plus five others at $100).

Step Three: You have five leaders (each doing a $100 effort themselves) who each have five $100 efforts from their five team people. What new performance level have you reached? Over $3,000 a month in volume: your $100 plus your five team members’ $100 (i.e. $500) plus each of their five team members’ $100 (i.e., $2,500) which now totals $3,100. Now you teach your team what it takes to have a $3,000-plus group volume effort each month themselves.

And when you do that, what’s next?
With your five team members at $3,000 volume per month, your group volume is 5 x $3,000, or $15,000. At this point, you’re earning $700 to $800 in most comp plans. Let’s call it $750.

Once you know how to create a monthly volume from a team effort that generates $15,000 in volume and $750 income for you, you then show your five leaders how to do that for themselves. Since you’ve already done it, they simply follow your example and you spend 85 percent of your working time and energy in supporting and following up with them to duplicate exactly what you have done. The result is a group volume of over $75,000 a month, and your income is approximately $4,000.

Now, what if you have a goal of having your team-building effort go five levels deep? What that would look like is a total of nearly 4,000 people throughout your five generations or levels–which really is not that ambitious an accomplishment when all each person is doing is producing a $100 effort and teaching five other people how to do the same thing.

You need to create a level of retail and sponsoring performance your people
can do without being told to do it, without being monitored and constantly
motivated to do it.

The result is a total volume in your group of $400,000 and an income in the neighborhood of $20,000 a month.
If it took you two or even four years to reach that goal–so what? Could you commit to doing that–could you make a $100 effort yourself and then show five other people to do that exact same thing, and once you accomplished that, lead and support them to do what you all have just accomplished with their team of five?

Do you see that all we are doing here is based on a simple, manageable, duplicatable effort that anyone can do, and then showing five other committed people how to do that, too–and then leading them to build their team just like you did? That really is all there is to it. And it really is that simple: a simple effort you can do and show anybody else how to do, duplicated down through a number of levels. Each time you reach a new accomplishment of volume and income, you then focus on having your five team members do the same thing you’ve just accomplished.
The power of this is awesome! You just keep growing, and every time you reach another milestone in your business you turn around and show your five leaders how to do that themselves. You just keep doing this over and over and over until you and your team members run out of goals!

The Proven Power of Teambuilding
Teambuilding–no matter what volume or income level you target–is simple; the steps are always the same.

1. Get yourself to the first volume/income level by hitting your duplicatable sales volume goal.
2. Sponsor a manageable number of people who are committed to doing the same.
3. Show and tell them how to do what you’ve already done.
4. Once you’ve accomplished that, you’ll be at the next level, so show and tell them how to do that–and on and up and on.

Set the example. Give your team direction. Communicate and support them to accomplish the same thing you did. As you do more, they do more and you will be earning the most unbelievable income you have ever imagined!

Just for a moment, imagine how you would answer this question:
If you knew absolutely positively that I was telling you the truth about this teambuilding system, that if you hang in there with me, if you do what I do, if you work with me for the next three years, I’ll make sure that each of you is going to earn a $75,000 annual income from then on, will you commit to working with me for the next three years?

My guess is your answer is the exact same one the five people I wanted on my team and went into partnership with told me when I asked them. They each said, “Absolutely!”

The truth is, I can do better than that. I can show them how to have their five team people each earning $70,000 a year. And so can you!
What it would look like is–each with ten people who are customer/distributors doing $1,000 volume per month (ten people @ $100 each). That’s a $500,000 monthly group volume!

That’s a $1,000 monthly volume goal effort for each distributor. Just about everyone can see themselves doing that if you show them how.
What if you only get half that volume? In most compensation plans, that’s at least $10,000 income a month!

Next, shift to an income goal.
Once you’ve established a duplicatable effort and you show an individual distributor how to do what you have already done, you will grow an organization where you are all essentially at the same level, whatever the highest level in your company is. Now, you’re all at the most lucrative level of the compensation plan.

Once you know how to earn $1,000 a month yourself, you can show other people how to do the exact same thing. Spend the next six months showing your five leaders how to do that themselves–how to earn $1,000 a month. Once you get people to a $1,000 goal, you’ve increased their income by $12,000 a year.

Once you do that, the chances of their going somewhere else to play, like switching opportunities, is next to nil. You have loyalty. Once you have five people under you earning $1,000, you’ve essentially quadrupled your own income! Producing five people who earn $1,000 a month has to make you $5,000 a month.

And once you get to that point, it’s only a matter of expanding your income and their income. You spend more time with your team enlarging their incomes and then they do the same with their people. Once your people are each earning $5,000, you’ll be earning $25,000, and you show them how they can each accomplish that themselves. Once they’re each earning $25,000 a month and you’re earning $125,000 a month, focus on showing them how they can do that, too, and on and on it goes.

RUSS DEVAN is a popular industry-wide speaker and trainer, and he is president of Success By Design, Inc., the consulting firm he founded in 1991 to support both the corporate and distributor levels of Network Marketing. Russ is a long-time contributor to Upline. He is currently concentrating on developing his training system on the Internet. Russ lives with his family in Scottsdale, AZ. This article first appeared in the November 1993 issue.

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Every day is the day that turns somebody’s life around forever. Is TODAY that day for YOU? By the end of this page, you’ll know the answer.

Think about the successes you’ve experienced so far in life, and I’ll bet you can point to a particular moment in time when each one began, just like the heroine of this brief but powerful story:

One evening, not many years ago, a young housewife realized she didn’t have enough cash on hand to buy some of the groceries she needed for the rest of the week.

As a stay-at-home mother and wife, she was entirely dependent upon her husband for income. So, when he arrived home from work that evening, she asked him for an extra 10 dollars.

Hearing the question, he turned to her with visible irritation. He heaved a sigh, rolled his eyes, and asked, “What for?”

She was stung by the contempt in his voice, and by the humiliation she felt at having to grovel for a measly 10 dollars. And in that instant, she made a decision: She would never ask another person for money, ever again.

Today, this same young woman is the vice president of a prestigious company, pulling down a hefty six-figure salary, with a string of promotions behind her and many more sure to come.

Indeed, she has never asked anyone else for money since that fateful day. And she never will.

In hindsight, it’s easy to recognize just where, when, and how a success story started.

But what about the successes you haven’t yet accomplished—the unrealized goals, dreams, and wishes you’re harboring right now?

We’re all looking for a transformation in some area of our lives. It could be something as simple as shedding a few extra pounds or developing an income for a few extra bucks.

No matter how big or small your current dreams may be, if they’re ever going to become a reality, it will be because of one critical day in your life’s journey.

The day when you hear the idea, experience the episode, or are hit with the realization that somehow, mysteriously, makes all the difference in the world.

The day when you finally get that elusive “missing piece” you’ve been waiting for—the thing that suddenly empowers you to actually do the thing you’ve only dreamed of doing up until now.

The day when you take a seemingly insignificant step that winds up setting you on a completely new path … and ultimately leads you to your goal.

Just one day. That’s all it takes to turn any “what if?”—what if I were richer, happier, thinner, healthier, more successful, more organized—into what IS.

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Here is a great video about never giving up…keep aiming for you dream.

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