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[profitclinic]

G'day gang 

I came across yet another example of Silent Self-Sabotage yesterday, so I thought I'd raise the subject here, since it seems to be so widespread amongst network marketers — and not really getting any better.

What is Silent Self-Sabotage?

It's where we become so obsessed with a particular idea, technique or strategy for promoting our products or business opportunity that we fail to notice the unspoken, subliminal messages we send to our prospects, customers and downline distributors — messages that actively undo all the good we might otherwise achieve.

It happens all the time, and I had to learn this the hard way, too. But it's a lesson I learned well, and it's been critical to my own success in this business.

So let me give you examples of three areas of network marketing where we shoot ourselves in the foot regularly, then I have a challenge for you — and a really useful incentive for you to get involved.

1. Lead generation

I had a young man in my team call me for help to create a flyer that he planned to distribute right across the regional city and surrounding areas where he lived. His plan was to do a letterbox drop, rent an office, make appointments and conduct interviews so that prospects would be impressed by his professionalism and flock to join him.

He was very excited by this plan, but I asked him to stop and think carefully about the REAL, HIGH-RISK, UNSPOKEN messages he was about to send people receiving his flyers, making appointments and attending interviews that could undermine his very costly campaign, disastrously, not just now, but well into the future.

There were three distinct messages (maybe more) that I could see immediately would sabotage his efforts from Day One.

2. Sponsoring

Twenty years ago exactly I was helping a new client company launch their sensational new fragrance products range. As part of the training for their distributors I was presenting an "on the job" training session for a group who had brought their real-life prospects to the meeting. About half-way into the presentation I suddenly became aware of a sea of glazed eyes staring at me. I'd lost them, and the distributors attending were looking panic-stricken.

My presentation was so polished and professional that they couldn't relate. I figured I had no more than one minute to re-capture their attention, then hold it for another 10-15 minutes, or I'd not only "burn" the 30-plus prospects in attendance... I'd probably lose their nervous, new-to-the-business, would-be sponsors as well.

This was one of those make-or-break moments....

3. Downline training

I was in Sydney for a weekend conference of my downline organisation in that city. On the Friday night I was at the home of my top local leaders, focused on finalising last-minute details for the conference when the phone rang. The lady of the house answered and it was clear, from her comments, that the caller was one of her downline team members with a problem. She explained patiently that she and her husband were meeting with me for last-minute preparations and that, as soon as our meeting was over, she'd call back. If it was too late, she'd call first thing in the morning.

I immediately saw TWO important and seriously urgent leadership training opportunities here, so I halted the discussion to strike while the iron was hot and prevent sending the wrong, damaging messages to TWO groups....

Your challenge

See if you can identify the unspoken messages in each scenario above, then post them here, along with your reasons why they're so dangerous — and how YOU would change things to ensure a better result.

Your reward, should you decide to accept the challenge

Everyone who posts a genuinely thoughtful, constructive reply will receive free admission to an exclusive LIVE, two-hour webinar (with multi-media support, printable resource notes and NO long distance call charges or numb, clammy ears from your phone handset!) on "The Lock-Nut System" — a uniquely powerful sponsoring and team-building approach that can produce extraordinary activity and retention levels in your MLM organisation, and is easily and quickly implemented once you know what to do, why to do it and how to do it.

I'll be the presenter and you'll be able to ask questions and get straight answers. There are no catches, no poaching, and no costs involved.

But wait... there's more!

The three (3) individuals who post the best, most helpful replies will each receive FREE autographed copies of TWO of my most popular paperback books on network marketing. Both are powerful training and recruiting tools in their own right. (And I'll pay the postage to anywhere in the world as well.)

This challenge closes at midnight on July 21, PST (USA). So pull on your thinking caps and start posting.

Feel free to post your own examples, too. Let's make this a really useful discussion — and let's get the word out to other network marketers.

Have fun!

John

(PS: Yes, I'll tell you what my own responses and results were — after the contest ends.)

[BradYounger]

Here's my attempt

1a. I found that if this person is going to all the effort of producing a Flyer, hiring an office and creating a schedule of interviews, he is telling his future prospects this is what you will need to do in order to be successful at this game. This would be amazingly overwhelming for the newbie prospects that he would want to be attracting.

1b. Conducting an interview. If anyone saw they were going to be "interviewed" I'm guessing they would be thinking - What sort of questions are they going to ask me. I don't want to be "interviewed" and probed.

2. My guess here would be that even the distributors as well as the prospects are thinking to themselves "there is no way I could present like that. If I have to do that to make it in this business then I want out now"

3. This is an all important lesson in the golden rule "Do unto others as you would have them do to you". This silent message is Its more important for me right now to talk to my up line then it is to talk to my down line and help them. This problem may not even been theirs. It may have been their down line. It would probably only take about 2 minutes to listen to the problem and make a better judgment on if the problem can wait to be solved.

Don't know if these are right but that's what I got out of it on my first read.

Cheers
Brad

[tommyb]

Well. . . What I think the the big problem is that everybody was looking to their upline for help, which tells me that they didn't have the right training up front to know what to do to "not" send the right signals to their new prospects.

Monkey see monkey do

Tom

[Martin Luxton]

Hi John,

Preliminary thoughts.

1. Was the letterbox drop based on any criteria or did it go to all and sundry? Did he take any steps to pre-qualify his prospects? Wouldn't he have done better trying to impress people with his sales record? I agree with Brad about overfacing the prospects, plus he would need a secretary as well. If he had no secretary people might think he was too unsuccessful to hire one. If he had a secretary that would present an extra barrier for people to go through.


2. You had two different audiences so you had to find a way to relate with both groups at the same time.You were also not what they expected. You should have thought more about your audience.

Maybe it was back-to-basics time - a brainstorming session on why people buy fragrances. Put the audience in pairs, give them a sample of each fragrance and get them to try and sell it to their partner. Then you go round and give them little hints to improve their performance and put the best pairs on stage to show the others how easy it is.

3. If you hadn't intervened the lady of the house would have assumed you condoned her behaviour. How long does it take to solve a problem? Why did the lady AND her husband have to be with you every second?
She could have stayed on the phone while you and her husband continued the meeting and recapped for her later. She could even have asked you to speak on the phone to her downline. This would have made the downline person feel special and given the lady of the house a good training opportunity to watch you troubleshooting. She could even have invited the person over to join the meeting. "We have nothing to hide", "we value your input", "you are never a problem for me".

If she really had to hang up she could have given the other person a specific time to phone back THAT night, no matter how late it was. What does "too late" mean?

Martin

[profitclinic]

Some good responses, but they're a bit too vague about WHAT the self-sabotage is in each case, and very few REASONS as to WHY that self-sabotage is happening.

My initial impression is that answers sound like "canned" training responses with little real understanding of the causes.

I'm not saying that's the case — just the impression I'm getting.

In the medical profession it's illegal to prescribe a treatment until you first diagnose the problem. It should be the same in business, including MLM. 

It ain't rocket science, but it's not always self-evident, either. It requires some thought.

Good start. 

John

[Martin Luxton]

OK, version 2.0.

1. Indiscriminate letter dropping of flyers screams "I'm desperate - I'll take anybody". He thinks he's reaching a wider audience when in fact he's alienating the very people he's looking for - those who are looking for a serious business opportunity with a serious company. Abandon the flyers and use the money to advertise in a local newspaper or a magazine targeted at the make money at home market.
   
  He thinks he has skills in areas he's not trained for. How much interviewing experience did he have? People expect a certain slickness in a formal job interview. If his interview techniques were poor he could hire the wrong people or even handle good candidates badly and put them off. A few HR friends have told me that when they have the manager of the department that's hiring on the interview panel that manager is often like a bull in a china shop and can undo a lot of good work. Stick to an informal chat over the phone then, if they have potential, visit them at their home where they will feel more comfortable and relaxed.

2. You made wrong assumptions about the knowledge level of your audience. You should have talked to the distributors beforehand or given them a copy of the script and asked them how they felt it would "play" with the prospects.

3. Poor prioritising skills. Downline with a problem comes first because they are your bread and butter.
 
 If the meeting was really that important she shouldn't have answered the phone - it should have been switched to an answering machine. She has to learn to ring fence her time.

Using vague language when precision is called for ("too late" and "first thing in the morning"). When people have a big problem they need a firm commitment from the solution holder otherwise they will fret and create negative scenarios in their mind. 

[profitclinic]

Hi Martin    (...and everyone else!)

Good answers, but here's another question for you:

Q: What's the most popular extreme, high-risk sport in the world?

A: Jumping to conclusions without knowing the facts.

One of the main reasons the young man wanted to go this particular route is because it was so familiar and comfortable for him. He has excellent business qualifications, good advertising experience and skills, and solid experience in interviewing.

I've actually given you all the information you need to answer the challenge. There are no hidden facts you need to know to answer accurately.

The key?

Think about what's really happening: what unspoken messages are being sent in each situation that can sabotage any real chance of success?

To help you focus on the right things, here's a quick case study:

All human progress can be charted on a continuum, the absence of achievement at the bottom and the completed achievement at the top. We're usually found somewhere between the two extremes, working our way upward or sliding backward.

But a continuum on its own can be a fatally misleading perspective. Consider this example.

Let's say that you're starting out in business, and you've set yourself a sales target for your first year of $100,000. You start out at the bottom of the continuum that measures your sales progress (like a thermometer), working your way up to your sales target, month by month. After nine months of battling, you've reached the grand total of only $25,000 in sales for the year with only three months left in which to reach your $100,000 target.

How do you think you'd feel at this point?

If you're like most people, you'll be pretty depressed, and your motivation and morale will take a severe battering. You'll probably feel that the task is impossible – that there's no way you can reach your target in the time remaining.

Many people quit at this point.

Yet the truth is you're precisely on target! Keep going as you've been going and you should reach the magic $100,000 in the next three months.

Stop now and try to work out what's wrong with this perspective. Why is it so misleading? You have all the facts in front of you. The target is realistic. You're in a business that sells products that are in demand all year round, not seasonal. There's nothing wrong with your performance so far.

It's only this particular perspective that's inaccurate.

Why?

Finding the missing dimension

The key to identifying why this continuum is misleading is to ask yourself what's missing? What does it not show that you had to be told in order to understand it?

The answer's quite simple (like most simple, common sense things that nobody ever sees until they're pointed out).

What are we expecting this continuum to tell us about our progress?

Two things. . . money (our cumulative sales totals for the year) and time (the starting date, the twelve months target date and the dates in between).

But how did you know it was twelve months? And how did you know that $25,000 was the nine months total?

The continuum doesn't tell us a thing about the time involved. Only the money!

The missing dimension is time. We can see where we are in relation to our sales target, but we need to be told the time periods separately. In other words, the continuum only shows us where, not when. (Quantity without quality.)

It's a one-dimensional context that fails to give us enough information on which to base sound, informed business decisions. In the absence of factual knowledge and correct perspective, our emotions take control. This is why we feel depressed and ready to give up.

We need to add an extra dimension – time. So let's put the information we have into a two-dimensional context… a graph.

The amount of information now available to us is significantly greater. For a start, we see that the continuum we thought was charting our progress was only the vertical axis of the graph. Our actual progress is represented by an exponential curve that more accurately reflects reality.

The main message, though, is that at $25,000 in 9 months, we're right on target to achieve our objective of $100,000 in sales in our first full twelve months in business. The effect of this knowledge on our motives and morale is dramatic. (Exponential!)

Yet the only thing that's changed is our perspective – the angle from which we're viewing the exact same set of facts – from A to B in this diagram. The facts themselves haven't changed in any way.

In the first diagram, we were viewing this graph end-on (A).

Why an exponential curve?

All human progress is accurately represented by exponential curves – learning curves, growth curves, healing curves – because of our ability to improve the results we achieve in a given time.

Ralph Waldo Emerson put it eloquently.

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do;
not that the nature of the thing itself is changed,
but that our power to do it is increased."

In other words, practice makes perfect. The more we do something, the better we get and the faster the results begin to happen.

Consider what happens when we keep our customers satisfied and fulfilled.

Research shows that one happy customer will eventually result in seven new customers. If those seven are also happy, they'll bring in a total of 49 new customers. It doesn't take long to see the kind of exponential growth this can create.

1 –> 7 –> 49 –> 343 –> 2,401 –> 16,807

Add to this the original customers, most of whom will continue buying from us, and the result is better still, even allowing for diminishing returns from existing customers who move, get married, get sick, die or go elsewhere to buy.

An exponential curve is a much more accurate and reliable perspective when measuring our business growth. It helps us to do the right things for the right reasons.

I hope this helps you to better understand cause-and-effect and to focus on the real causes here. Accurate perspective is the key to understanding almost everything in life.

John

[Martin Luxton]

Quote from Guy Finley on secret self-sabotage

http://www.topachievement.com/guyfinley.html

Any action we take to appear strong before another person is actually read by that person as a weakness.

[Davet]

FIRST:  LEAD GENERATION

Renting an office to conduct interviews.  Well, the prospect may or may not be impressed.
But this is for sure.  Unless the Marketer plans on keeping the office rental which will
be very costly over time , he will probably want to stop the rental.

When the prospect who becomes a distributor sees his up line no longer have an office,
I'm sure he will  get a message that  his up line is  failing or at the very least down grading his
business.

Also when the prospect comes to the interview, he will probably get a message that this
is more of a regular type of a job instead of a entrepreneurial type of business.
And also he will tend to think of his up line more as a boss instead of a partner.

This is not a good way to get prospects.  When the Networker conducts his interview what
is he going to tell his prospect after the interview ?

One interview is not enough time to really tell if the prospect is a viable candidate o r not.
More time is needed to be able to get to know the prospect before the networker can make a decision on whether or not this will be a good prospect or not.

 What are the goals of the prospect ?  Does the prospect really know what he or she  is getting into ?
Does he or she  really understand what it is he or she will have to do to grow their business.

Is the networker and the prospect going to be a good match.

More time is needed to find out these things and one interview is simply not enough time.
More meeting need to be conducted.

Also the networker will soon find out that passing out flyers is time consuming and hard to do unless you contract the job of passing out flyers out.

In order to get one or two responses, you need to pass out a minimum of one thousand
flyers. To get five responses then you have to pass out three to five thousand flyers.
In order to pass out four thousand flyers in one day a person pretty much needs
to start early in the morning and pass out flyers until 6 or 7 p.m. !
I know because I have done it many times.

So if the networker wants to get a flock of people to interview, it's going to take
20...30....maybe 40 thousand flyers !

Forget about the message the prospect will get if he ever finds out about that !


Better solution:
Instead of passing out flyers  the networker instead should purchase some small card board
containers able to hold small three inch wide by eight inch high mailers that they would
have to put a stamp on to mail to the networker.

The card board container would say on top above the mailers.... FREE TAKE ONE !.
 The mailers should have good copy listing benefits like Make Money at Home Report !
Or Get Your Free Report on How You Can Start Your Home Business !
The Networker could offer a Free Product Drawing Contest.

The call to action should be something like:
Just write your Name and Phone Number , apply stamp and mail to get your free information.

The Networker would then put 10 of 15 mail pieces in each container and put them on
local business counters like dry cleaners, laundry businesses, Auto shops, car washes
beauty salons etc.. etc..
The Networker should get permission first from the business owner.

This way the Networker would get a better quality of  targeted leads.
The Networker would not have to pass out thousands of flyers.
The Networker would be able to cover a bigger area with a lot less leg work.
This method will qualify the prospect better because he or she would of
shown interest about the offer by picking up the mailer and they also would have to pay for the
stamp and mail the mailer.

Also I would not rent on office but conduct business at home by phone or computer.
This way it would be a more convenient way to for both parties to get to know each
other to build a relationship and also cut overhead.



TWO: SPONSORING

For me this situation was a tough one to spot the silent self sabotage. When reading about  the situation it was pretty scary.

To try to find the answers I have to imagined putting myself in that situation.

 I'm confident, I know the product , I know the compensation plan, I'm ready to give the presentation .

John wrote:
My presentation was so polished and professional that they could not relate.

That tells me that I'm all caught up in myself, I'm going to make sure that I don't make any
mistakes with the presentation , I'm not thinking about the prospects. I'm surprised when
I seen that I lost them.

I'm so into giving the presentation that I almost ignore the folks that I'm talking to.

Once I'm into giving the presentation I'm vaguely aware of my audience.  I've become a tape recorder instead of a person.

So because I'm  not paying attention to the people that I am talking to, I also am
not paying attention to their reaction to the things that I say. I'm being to professional
like a drill Sargent , listen to what I say period.

Also because of all that I am not connecting with my audience. There was no warm up
or  very little. I should of used some humor so that my audience could have loosened up and relax and enjoy the presentation.

Because I was to Professional in the presentation, I made my audience feel that I did not really
care about them. I was like a talking sales page.

Another thing I could have done was let some of the sponsors give a testimonial
to provide some credibility for the program. What better proof then a living body say , hey this works for me it can work for you to !


THREE:. DOWN LINE TRAINING


If John were to ignore what was happening then that would of given the silent self sabotage message  to his local team leader that the problems of  her down line can wait because she  has more important things to do.

Her down line person that called with the problem would also give the same treatment to their
down line as well.  Why should their down line get any better treatment then what they them selves receive.

Instead John should take the opportunity to show both his team leader and his team leaders
down line that there is nothing more important than the problems off all the team members and
at all times when ever possible you should address your down lines problems .
Doing so will show great support to the whole team. And  any problems that arise
will be taken care of in a timely manner to avoid perhaps a bigger problem.


GREAT CHALLENGE !

Dave T.

 

[Davet]

Hey John
If you are puzzeled with my anwser. It might help if you knew that I had
not read any post of the other contestants . I just right now read
the rest of this thread.

Dave T.

[profitclinic]

Nope, I wasn't puzzled Dave — I'm just taking a back seat to see what people come up with. 

It's interesting how we tend to ignore the obvious and over-complicate things. It's a very common human trait.

Unless we can complicate a thing until it can no longer be understood or made to work, we don't believe it's real.

I'm genuinely interested in the replies and the thought processes here.

Some people may get a bit prickly when I question their conclusions, but that's still a case of jumping to conclusions... and you know what they say about the risks involved when we assume anything:

To assume makes an ass of u and me. 

Keep those responses coming, folks. It makes for a bit of fun.

John