A Underutilized Skill for MLM team leaders: Learn to Manage Expectations
As you begin to build a network marketing team you will have a few team members you personally sponsor. However as you get good at this you’ll help some of them build their own teams and your dozen team members will grow to 100 or 1000 or 10,000. As your team grows your skills have to grow too!
One of the skills you want to develop is to manage expectations.
When people get used to you doing something they EXPECT it.
This is ok when you have a small team but as your team grows it gets more difficult to meet those expectations. That is why you have to learn to manage expectations.
What do I mean?
Let’s say for example that you make a habit of taking your team to dinner. When you have a small team it might not seem like a big deal. You buy their meals for them. But what happens when you regularly meet 20 or more of your team for dinner? After all you’re in the business to make money not spend all your money on your team.
We made this mistake originally hosting a team party at convention every year. We literally spent thousands of dollars hosting a party for our team. It was a lot of fun but it was also expensive. Early on I was spending one months income on a party! And our team was growing which began to make it more costly, more difficult to find room for everyone, etc. We had to stop hosting the team party. We learned from the #1 income earner in our company how hard hosting team parties can be when you have 1,000 people from your team come to your convention.
Another way to manage expectations is in response times. When you have a team of 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 people you have to be careful about how you spend your time. You want to help everyone but a lot of times people will come to you with things they can figure out for themselves. You have to delay your response in order to empower them to find out the answer for themselves.
What do I mean? Perhaps you don’t answer every email right away. Perhaps you only answer emails once a day.
Perhaps you don’t answer the phone every time. Sometimes you choose to let that phone call go to voicemail.
Why would I do that?
- If I let that email sit for a few hours my team member will either: A. Call me if it is urgent or B. Figure out the answer for themselves. By allowing them to figure out some answer on their own I’m empowering themand enabling them to be a leader of their own. I don’t want them to rely on me for everything.
- Those actions are usually not business building activities. A 3 way call with a team member and a prospect is a business building activity but someone from my team just calling me to chat isn’t. Someone calling to complain is definitely not a business building activity. Maybe I’m on the phone with that person and I miss a prospect calling me back.
- I’m managing my expectations so that as my business grows I still have time to enjoy the finer things in life. My team is empowered and doesn’t need me to do anything. I can take that cruise and not worry about my business falling apart.
Also remember, what if everyone asked you to do that? You don’t want to set a precedent that could get you into trouble later.
I’m not saying I don’t follow up with people. I’m not saying I don’t answer their calls and emails. I’m simply saying that sometimes I may choose to let that call go to voicemail or the email go unanswered for a few hours.
You have to learn to manage your own time and if your team expects you to respond instantly all the time you won’t ever get any work done. You have to empower them to do some of these things on their own. Remember if you respond fast now people will begin to expect you to do that ALL the time.
What do you think? Do you think I’m crazy? Do you agree?
Click on the comments to the right and let me know!
