Let’s start by finding leaders. Okay! Okay! I get it. We need a step-by-step plan to find top leaders.

We all agree that plans or blueprints help us keep on course. They help us know when to put the left foot first or the right foot last. They provide the details and instructions of what to do.

Finding leaders is easy when you have a master plan. By mastering each step in the plan, you end up with an empire of leaders.

With only five leaders you can build an army of distributors. That’s the importance of finding leaders. When things go horribly wrong and everyone abandons you, your organization will continue to grow when you have loyal leaders.

That explains why network marketers work only a few years and finally retire from the business. The real network marketers work on finding leaders. Other network marketers are too busy.

The Master Plan to Finding Leaders

Leadership in network marketing comes from a three step master plan.

1. Define what a leader is.
2. How to find leaders.
3. What to teach leaders.

… Define what a leader is –      

What defines the leaders of today in network marketing? What qualities should a leader have? We all agree before you can start finding leaders, you must define what a leader is. Without knowing what one looks like, we are going to have a hard time finding a potential leader.

Leaders are professional students of their products, services and opportunity.

Leaders are those who read the manuals that come from their distributor kit. They are students of what they read. They are students of network marketing – always looking for new information and ideas. They are students of the products – buying and tasting their products – knowing what each one does and how it can help people.

Leadership qualities to look for in people include finding those who listen or view audio and video trainings, read books, go to meetings, and whenever they can, attend company conventions. You’ll see leaders hanging around with active leaders hoping to pick up a good idea.

Finding leaders for today are the leaders for tomorrow.

Finding leaders now will help you in the future. They are able to take up the slack when their mentor, leader and coach is out and unable to do leadership training.

Imagine that you decide to take a trip or vacation to Saint Martin Island. You are going to miss your local weekly training meeting. Somebody will need to take over.

You appoint Bill to do it. You leave on vacation, knowing you will not have to call every five minutes to check up on Bill. You have complete trust in him, because you have built into Bill good leadership qualities.

Leadership talent is also found in those who help solve problems.

Let’s say somebody in a leader’s downline hears some negative comments about the company or products over the internet and upsets them. The test and qualities that make a good leader will show when they handle the situation themselves and not bother their upline.

If the somebody in your downline is always coming to you over problems and not to their sponsor, you can bet the sponsor has leadership problems, disqualifying him from being an effective leader.

Now we have three qualifying definitions of a leader: professional students of the products, services and opportunity – leaders for today are the leaders for tomorrow – they help solve problems.

We have a good grip on what to look for, when finding leaders to build your network marketing business.

How do I find leaders?

It is easier than you think.

There are only two ways to find them. The first way is nefarious and unethical at best. It is to steal them. The second way of finding and creating effective leaders is, as Tom “Big Al” Schreiter puts it, “to build them from scratch.”

Let’s concentrate on the second way.

Building leaders from scratch means you find a distributor who is not a leader now and teach him or her exactly how to become a leader.

Before learning how to build network marketing leaders, you must learn to profile.

One of the recent online leadership events that I attended had everybody on the event tell them what a leader was to look like.

Most came up with these answers:

• A person who encourages
• A person who gets things done right
• A person who is coachable
• A good communicator
• A person who has vision and willing to make it real
• A person who wants to learn
• Someone who takes action immediately

Let me tell you how I profile a good leader: A person you don’t have to spend too much time trying to mold them into your image, to be like you, act like you, to do exactly the same things that you do, etc. It is okay to have leaders who are not carbon copies of yourself. Allow them the freedom to conduct their own business their way.

Part of the process of finding leaders to build your network marketing company is knowing one system does not fit all. Having a duplicable system is great. Most new distributors require it. Just remember, one system does not fit all.

So, what do we look for? How do we know who to build into a leader? How do we avoid wasting time building the wrong person who will never become a leader?

Finding leaders requires giving them a test.

You’ve heard the saying “talk is cheap.” If you are going to train everybody in the doghouse who claims they want to be a leader, you might as well shoot fish in a barrel. You’d have better luck. It simply does not work.

Don’t believe what people say, only observe their actions. What they do is more important.

So what is the test to determine who is a good candidate for being a leader?

Give them a book on network marketing. Tell them to read the book, and you’ll check back with them in three days to discuss the book.  You tell them this book is going to help them build their business. Let them know when you get together with them in three days, you’ll show them how to use the principles in the book in your business.

So you call back in three days to discuss the book. What happens? Either the person starts making excuses as to why he or she did not read the book or he or she tells you they have read the book cover to cover and are prepared for the discussion.

Which of these two outcomes of the test would you choose to help you with finding leaders? The choice is clear. I would go with the one who read the book and is ready to go.

If that person can’t put out the effort to read the book, what chance is there that he or she would put forth effort to take guests to meetings? To do a meeting? To do anything to build their own business? To drive to conventions? To put up with problems and challenges along the way?

Does this preclude the person from ever being a leader? Absolutely not! It just means they do not have leadership qualities at this time and are not willing to commit. It doesn’t make them a bad person. It just means at this moment, the time is not right for me, though they said verbally the opposite.

… What to teach leaders? –

After finding leaders, what do you teach them? The usual answers are:

• About the products
• About the company
• About the opportunity
• How to build a business
• How to create and build rapport
• How to blog
• How to write articles
• How to create landing pages
• How to have a mindset for network marketing
• How to sponsor
• How to retail products
• How to duplicate their efforts

Those are all great and every distributor needs to know most of them if not all of them. But this does not make a leader!

What must this distributor know to make him or her a leader?

What makes a leader in network marketing is the way they think. They think differently from everyone else. The answers and solutions they give to problems are different from all else. They meet challenges differently. They look at network marketing differently than from mindset of job seekers. Job seekers can’t see past their noses. Leaders have a vision and will do everything humanly possible to make it real.

Train a distributor who has passed the test for being a leader to think differently when confronted by problems, challenges or situations. You must give your potential leader the tools and knowledge for him or her to think differently. If you don’t they will not develop and grow. They will flounder aimlessly, and read and memorize all the wrong information.

Put yourself in two shoes. How would a distributor think? And how would a leader think?

Potential leaders seek different ways than what is spewed out by everyone else to meet every problem. They know the right words to use and avoid. They know how to talk over the phone and face-to-face. They can speak with knowledge about their products, services and opportunity and do it with ease in front of any audience. They know how to build value in their products and opportunity and use this value to help others..

Let me illustrate the difference in how a distributor thinks and how a leader thinks.

You just signed up a new distributor. She is excited about the business. You take her to your sign up page to order products and fill out the paperwork. She orders $650.00 in products including the signup fee. You get to the end of the page only to find the products are on back order for two weeks.

How would a distributor handle this, and how would a leader handle this?

A distributor would panic. They would immediately think their reputation is ruined. They just took money from someone and now the products are delayed – how dare they? “Everyone in the neighborhood and on the internet are going to think I’m a fraud. If the company can’t keep products in stock, what makes you think they are going to give me my paycheck?”

A leader has a different mindset. They would say, “Wow! The products are on backorder? That’s because they are in such high demand due to their popularity, the manufacturer can’t keep the products in stock.”

What does the mindset of this type of leadership quality do for the new distributor? It makes them think “Wow! I’m in the right business. I’m going to do well in this business.” This is leadership. This is thinking differently than the distributor. This is the only way a true leader makes his or her mark.

Here is an exercise to give those who are potential leaders.

First, write down all the problems you’ve encountered in network marketing. To add to the list of these problems, ask your upline and downline what problems and challenges they have faced.

Second, for each problem, write down what a distributor would think when confronted by them and what would a leader think.

Third, teach your potential leader solutions to these problems from stories and illustrations of everyday life.

Network marketing leadership skills are built up from knowing what to look for. It’s built on finding potential leaders from among distributors, and what to teach them once they are found.

Once you have found potential leaders, it’s your responsibility to teach them to think differently. To think not as a distributor, but as one who thinks differently to solve problems, meet challenges and deal with any given situation.

Remember, finding leaders is instant success.