Welcome to the New Economy

The economy has changed. Unemployment is higher than I have known it to be during my lifetime. And the sad fact is we may never see the economic prosperity we have enjoyed these past recent decades.

History has shown that during times of economic recession, the number of scams increases. Just this week we saw Bernard Madoff sentenced to jail for his ponzi scheme conviction. And there will be many more to follow. These may not be on the large scale of the Madoff scam, but will not feel so insignificant for those poor people who loose their life savings.

The upside, however, is that times of economic recession also create opportunities for those people who are able to grasp the changes and ride the wave. Many people are losing their jobs and are willing to consider business opportunities they would not have considered previously. 

Some of these people will consider direct sales in a new light. People no longer feel that working for someone else provides the security they always believed was there. They want to work for themselves and have control over their financial futures.

Direct sales offers the average person the capability to begin a business without a significant up front investment. They do not have to buy or rent a store front, they do not have to stock inventory, and they do not have to pay employees. In addition, the rewards for a direct sales business done correctly can be quite generous.

One out three new millionaires in the US is coming out of the direct sales industry. So the question is, how do you "do it correctly?" It is a known fact that 95-97% of new direct sales entrepreneurs fail. That is why I have put together my newsletter, "Secrets of the Three Percenters." Click below for your free subscription.

Character Always Counts

I subscribe to a number of Ezines and have learned a great deal from so many of the great mentors and leaders of our time through their weekly rants.

As I was reading Chris Widener's 7 May article #3 The Last Word... I was struck by how much I agree with his take on leadership. The article is  Chris's answer to a question he was asked at one of his seminars. How can a person increase their sphere of influence. Chris states that in study after study, it is shown that people chose to follow other people based on two simple characteristics:  skill and character.

I suspect that very few people want to follow a person who demonstrates incompetence! So it only makes sense that leaders need to be quite good at what they do. In life, we are constantly working to improve ourselves. That applies to all areas of our lives whether it is professionally, personally, spiritually or physically. We tend to gravitate to those who we perceive we can learn from. When we work or play side by side with someone whose skills exceed our own, we find ourselves performing at a higher level. We learn from that other person's skills. Even if they don't realize they are teaching, we learn because we are watching, replicating, and trying to improve. We challenge ourselves to perform as well as (or better than) the "expert" so that some day we will be the expert.

But regardless how skilled a person is, I believe character is even more important. We will follow a skilled person until we learn everything we can learn from that person. But if they do not have integrity, we will not continue to follow once we have learned all we can learn through their expertise.

If that experienced person also has good character and we feel we can trust them to deal with others with integrity and respect, we will continue to follow or at least be positively influenced by the expert even if we have learned all the skills they have to teach.

In fact, I have observed (at least within myself!), that frequently a person with integrity does not have to have the same level of expertise as a person without integrity to be able to influence others. People want to follow people with integrity and character.

So if you aspire to be a leader, remember that character definitely counts. You will always be working to increase your competency and skill. People will respect you for your efforts and forgive you for not knowing everything.

But they may not forgive you for a lapse in integrity - even if you only demonstrate it one time.

Integrity is Essential to Your Direct Sales Business

I recently wrote an article regarding integrity entitled: "Network Marketing and the Importance of Integrity." In this article I tell the reader that it is important that they understand what they believe in and then practice those beliefs. That is what leads to building powerful integrity. The nature of the network marketing business can lead people to forget the basics of a life of integrity. I believe that is based on two basic truths of the network marketing business:

     1. Duplication. Because we are taught duplication, duplication, duplication, we don't question what we are being taught to duplicate! We aren't being taught to think, we are being taught to follow the leader. Which is OK, if we are being taught ethical principles.

     2. Network Marketing businesses are often presented as easy, get-rich-quick opportunities. The lure of easy money tends to make all of us forget to ask ourselves if we are applying ethical principles to our behavior. And, regrettably, it can sometimes attract less than ethical people to the business to begin with.

Therefore, it is so very important that we all know with certainty what we believe in and that we apply those beliefs to our every day business activities. We constantly need to be asking ourselves, "Is this right? and, Is this a behavior I want to be associated with?" If we can answer "yes" to these two questions, then we are living with integrity.

When we are conducting our business with integrity, then we become leaders that prospects will want to follow. Isn't that what attraction marketing is about?

Please read my article and let me know what you think.

Trust Or Respect? Pick One!

Have you ever thought about the difference between trust and respect and the relationship between the two? Trust. According to dictionary.com, trust is defined as: "reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence." Your friends trust you. They trust you because they know you. They have observed how you behave in many social and sometimes professional situations. They know what you value and they know what you care about. They also know that you value them and their friendship. Respect. Dictionary.com defines respect as: "esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment."  We respect people we work with because we see how they manage their work and how they behave at work. We know what they can accomplish because of their accomplishments and because of the effectiveness of their efforts at work. When we meet a new person, whether it's at work or in our personal lives, we do not necessarily trust them. Trust takes time to develop. But we do respect them. We take it on faith they are accomplished in their field. Over time, we learn to trust. Over time, we may lose respect! So consider this. Our friends trust us, but they don't respect us. People we just met respect us, but they don't trust us. Apply this knowledge to your network marketing business, and you will understand why it works they way it does! Your friends know you aren't an "expert" when you start a new mlm business. That makes it so much more important for you to become an expert . You need to learn everything you can, build success, and become an expert. The Renegade Network Marketer is a system to help you build an internet presence and thereby promote yourself as an expert. And once you have established yourself as an expert, who knows... maybe your friends will start to respect you!