Actually I’m just going to really focus on one aspect here – the one I see as being paramount although there are other reasons you need to be communicating and educating the team of people you are building within your networking business.

There’s a really good article from Tim Sales that triggered this post (in the Prospex Library at this link)

When you are encouraging people to join your business – are you thinking about what’s best for them or what’s best for you?  Course, if you have been following the posts here and / or the articles in the Prospex library, you’ll know that thinking about what’s best for them is what makes you successful

So back to the point lol – when your team members are looking to build their own teams, they need to understand this too. You need to make sure that you have communicated that message effectively so wherever they are starting from, they approach their business in the right way. Don’t let them use set scripts when they are talking to people, I know we all feel happier having prompts when we are starting a new business but make sure that prompts are all they do have, otherwise they run the risk of simply regurgitating the info provided by the company without looking at how and why your business will meet the needs of the person they are speaking to.

As Tim says in his article, if someone is looking for more time to spend with his children, the fact that the company is debt free or has been around for 12 years is not going to cut it for him until much later in the conversation…

Not many of us are comfortable with selling and yet that’s what we’re doing when we choose to build a network, we’re not selling products really – we’re selling a concept, a dream, and the only way to make that work and retain the people that you bring in is to train them to do that too. That’s one of the reasons behind the saying ‘teamwork makes the dream work’.

We all need to understand and accept that there are people that our business won’t work for, however wonderful we know it is.  We need to be able to recognise these people and be confident and honest enough to leave them walk away with their (and our) dignity in tact. It’s your responsibility to make sure that your team are able to do this too.

Successful networking these days is not about bums on seats, it’s about building a team of people that are willing to grow together, that share a vision and are willing to spend time developing themselves and their own teams to make their vision work.

It’s easier for some people than it is for others, and there will always be those who get over-excited and bring in the wrong people, (those who don’t want to learn and work), on the back of that excitement. Your team training needs to ensure that this happens as infrequently as possible to protect the integrity of your team and the confidence of your downline members.

You need to be plugging your team members into training that will develop their communication skills, especially their listening and feedback skills and their confidence in themselves with regard to their own personal integrity and presentation skills.

Being able to identify and walk away from someone who is not right for your business is far more potent than letting them walk away from you. It demonstrates integrity and confidence in your business model.