Part of the guide: Network Marketing Lead Generation
I started thinking about this subject about a week ago, after a conversation with my brother Aki.
We were talking on the phone, and he made a really good point, he said:
“I’m 100% convinced that most of what we’ve learned our lives about success is pure bull shit…”
We were talking about how the vast majority of material on ‘success’ is really produced with the intention of selling more books, CD’s, courses, seminars, etc – and that most of the time – people who are teaching about success don’t really have what they teach in their lives, anyways.
A good example of this is the all too familiar person on Facebook who posts a link with a title that says something like ‘sponsor 20-30 reps into your business per month on autopilot’ but you KNOW when you look at the video that they have never enrolled a rep in their life.
That may be kind of amusing at best, outright manipulative at worst – but it connects with a deeper problem in the human psyche that I believe prevents us from living our life to the fullest potential possible.
The REAL problem that arises out of disconnected behavior like this is that we think that our real personality, who WE ARE isn’t what we need to be successful, so we need to put up this image for everyone to see that has no bearing on our true nature.
As an example, I was taught all through my life by ‘experts’ that the image of success was being clean-shaven, short hair, a suit and tie – being prompt, organized – and focused.
While there are certain elements to the ‘things’ that I was taught that certainly help bear fruit in business, the reality is that most of it is hogwash, and personally, it holds back my success to try and ‘fit the image’ – it doesn’t increase it.
As an example – after I got involved in my current MLM company, I went bananas flying all over North America doing meetings. I was in Alaska, Washington, Arizona, Hawaii, California – and Texas all in 6 weeks, doing Home Meetings, hotel meetings, coaching, and helping people reach success in their teams.
The first few meetings I did – I wore a suit, dressed up, and let me tell you – it made absolutely no difference at all how many people joined at the meetings dressing like a corporate crony than if I wore sandals, a dirty t-shirt, and didn’t shave that day.
Part of that is reflective of my ‘off the hook‘ personality – (i.e. a guy who liked wearing suits would have a less than desirable result trying to dress like me in a presentation) – but here’s the real lesson that’s learned.
TODAY – people are not looking for a ‘guru’ to lead them to salvation. People today are looking for connection, personality, friendship – and who you REALLY are.
If people can see YOU, and peer inside your heart, and they connect – that will take you further in business and in life than ‘faking it till you make it’ like the old adage goes.
PLUS – do you want to live life in a way that isn’t congruent with who you really are?
WHO ARE YOU? Why are you doing this? Why do you persist in your vision even when the world seems to attack you from all sides? What’s your real dream?
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →For me – I don’t want to quit corporate America to be a ‘professional’ at anything – I want freedom, lifestyle, connection, relationships, beauty, detachment, happiness, life – AWE, vision, thankfulness, spirit, trust, and LOVE.
THAT’S why I do what I do. Not only that, but it connects better in the marketplace.
Leave me your thoughts, and if you’re inspired, share the love.
To the top,
David Wood
Network Marketing Visionary.
Comments
Tyronne Ratcliff, October 1, 2012, 14:30
You make some great points Dave, I’ve been told on numerous occasions to “suit up” and look the part, to tell you the truth it just ain’t me. Faking it till you make it is even worse, plus you can only be something you’re not for so long, eventually people will catch on to the real you.
Bob Koontz, October 2, 2012, 09:45
Thanks David, you rock as usual. Awesome content, lead on!
Darlene Moore, October 3, 2012, 18:15
Thank you so much David for sharing. I was always a giving person which gave people the ability to take advantage of me and then one day I figured out how I was going to be a giver on my terms. But first, I had to improve me. Now I love to give.
Jun Mantupar, October 4, 2012, 11:00
We were taught that success was a suit and tie, being clean-shaven and prompt because we were raised LDS. Unlike the church, we can’t get tithing and have to create our own success. Time to break the molds.
Rebecca Ness, October 5, 2012, 14:50
I agree with you 100% David. You are always so insightful!
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The bit about flying to six states in six weeks doing meetings assumes a travel budget and a calendar most people don’t have. In my town the ‘be yourself, not a suit’ point lands fine — the part where authenticity requires that much airfare doesn’t translate.
Lonnie, I think what’s being missed is that the travel wasn’t really the point — the point was the suit made no difference to who joined, in Alaska or wherever. You could test the same idea without leaving your own town.
Lonnie’s right that most people don’t get six weeks of six-state meetings to run the experiment in. The realistic version is testing the same authenticity idea on the five people already in your own network — rare that anyone needs the plane ticket to find out.
Strongest case for the other side: the example given is one guy, one product line, small sample. ‘Dressing up made no difference’ at a handful of meetings isn’t evidence the image never matters — some rooms and some products probably do reward looking the part.
Three companies, thirty years — some rooms did want the suit, same as Walt says. This post just never met one.
Fine. Maybe the suit didn’t matter in his meetings. Does that mean the underlying pitch was any good? Ditching the tie doesn’t fix a weak offer.
Twenty-two years in a corporate structure taught me the suit was never really about the client anyway — it was about signalling to the people above you that you belonged, that you’d read the room correctly, that you could be trusted at the next rung. Dropping it for these meetings makes sense if there’s no ‘above you’ left to signal to, which is really the more interesting claim buried in this post. It isn’t that suits are fake and t-shirts are honest, it’s that once you’re not performing for a hierarchy anymore, the performance itself becomes optional in a way it never was in an office. I spent two decades reading rooms for a promotion that was never guaranteed no matter how well I read them. Eighteen months out, the strangest adjustment hasn’t been the clothes at all, it’s noticing how much of what I called ‘professionalism’ back then was just fear wearing a collar.