Defcon 1 Direct Selling. Randy Gage

Defcon 1 Direct Selling - Randy Gage


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over them constantly, trying to protect them, you can create the same result with your team. You need to protect your kids from pedophiles and kidnappers, but you have to allow them to skin their knees and fall off their bikes. The omnipotent, charismatic, dynamic leader who for all practical purposes runs a benevolent cult ultimately weakens his people and destroys the team. They suck all of the oxygen out of the room.

      We can take my definition of strong leadership above and break it down into two components. The first part is about inspiring team members to become the highest possible version of themselves. To do that begins with leading yourself. You have to be the example, the person modeling the behavior, and most importantly, the one going after your own dreams.

       There are legions of negative people who will doubt you, ridicule you, and even try to sabotage you. If you’re not willing to fight for your dreams, the haters win. Your team needs to see you winning this fight yourself in order for them even to have a shot.

      The ironic thing about inspiring leadership is that it doesn’t come from simply being positive and recognizing good results. To actually inspire others, you must challenge them in some way. People look to leaders because they want someone who dares them to have a higher vision, raise their eyes above the horizon, and strive to accomplish more, whether for themselves or a noble purpose.

      Simply becoming the world’s best trainer and presenting the world’s finest training won’t succeed either. (Especially if you’re not actually doing what you teach yourself.) Your team will draw the biggest cues from watching the actions and behaviors they see from you. So be the example showing them the path to follow.

      The second part of strong leadership is building the environment that facilitates your people’s process of becoming their highest version of themselves. This is an important responsibility of all top leaders in Leveraged Sales. You do this through the system, training, and tools. It’s also vital that there be a defined leadership track to follow.

      Your people need to know what the pathway for becoming a leader with the team looks like. If you’re a new recruit in the army and your dream is to become a general, you have an idea of what all the ranks leading up to that rank are and the responsibilities of each one. Your people need to know what ranks, behaviors, and team activities put them on the path of becoming a leader with the team. (This will become much clearer to you in later chapters.)

      Now that you know what the role of a positive, empowering leader looks like, let’s explore the most important step you will take towards that end—accepting the sacred responsibility that comes along with sponsoring others.

      For decades I’ve been regaling convention audiences with my story of sponsoring my roommate into the first five companies I joined. (In fact, the story is so funny it’s been stolen by one CEO, two authors, and five other speakers. That I know of.) He joined each time because I agreed to pay for his distributor kit and activation order, for which he promised to repay me from all the money we were both going to be raking in. And in each of those attempts, he was the only person I sponsored!

      That system works well to sign up your first recruit quickly but doesn’t work out so well over the long haul. After I reached the point where I couldn’t even convince my roommate to join if I paid for everything, it became apparent I would need to improve my recruiting approach.

      Mentally I created a pretty simple equation in my mind. It basically went something like this:

       I was broke and I hated being broke.

       Most of the people I knew were also broke.

       The people in Leveraged Sales made money, earned bonus cars, and went on fancy trips. A lot of them appeared to be rich (and certainly were rich by my standards).

       I wanted to be rich.

       If I could sign up enough people, I would get rich.

       If the people I signed up also signed up enough people, they could get rich too.

      That was my basic recruiting presentation. Eventually I got good enough at that pitch to attract and sponsor people who actually paid for their own distributor kit and activation order. I felt assured that I was well on my way to success, because I had conquered the most difficult element of the business: recruiting. I did my part by signing up at least five people and then waited for them to make me rich. (Because I had seen the presentation that said those five would bring in 25, then those 25 would bring in 125, and so on.) It was all I could do to restrain myself from putting down the deposit to order my Ferrari.

      Shockingly, I noticed that my five people didn’t seem to be pulling their weight. I checked in with them frequently, reminding them that I needed to be rich and they weren’t doing their part. You’ve probably deduced how well that played out.

      Feeling Frustrated, I Resolved to Become a Recruiting Machine

      The actual number was a net loss of 27.

      I decided that those 30 people were obviously too stupid, ignorant, and lazy, and I needed to replace them with 30 new people. Which I did…

      Surprisingly, I got pretty much the same result. Again and again, the people I sponsored were too stupid, ignorant, and lazy. Finally, I had no option but to once again seriously examine the way I was attempting to build. It turns out, the problem wasn’t my recruits. The problem was me.

       I came to understand that the method I was using to bring people into the business could not be duplicated by most of those people.

      Reexamining My Process

      And that was a frustrating and disappointing revelation. But it transformed my career. That introspection led me to creating what became the duplicable system that made me successful. How to create that system is not the subject here. (If you’re not familiar with it, you can find it detailed in my last book, Direct Selling Success.) But here was the other vital breakthrough I discovered in this process:

       You have a sacred responsibility to those you sponsor. By bringing them into the business, you are committing to be a partner for their success, not just your own.


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