Time after time I hear many Network Marketers say how much work they have on their plate, trying to teach new people the ropes following up on orders, making sure that everyone has all the stuff they need, and then they are also trying to contact new prospects and do follow ups as well.

Whenever anyone tells me they are flat out doing follow ups with their team, I get seriously concerned that they will not find financial longevity in their business unless they make some changes to the way they operate.

Some Network Marketers become almost smothering, they are always trying to fix this for that person or organise this for someone else, and they are not letting people grow and develop their leadership skills. This is one of the greatest mistakes in Network Marketing.

Now I am not for a moment saying that when people join your team that you should just throw them out there, ill equipped to do what they need to do. Quite the contrary, we need to empower people as quickly as possible so that they can reach the level of success they want.

The key word here is “empower”, when we empower people we give them the opportunity to reach their own greatness, celebrate their own successes and in turn will be able to others to be empowered.

The simplest way to achieve this in Network Marketing is having a system that anyone and everyone can follow, and not matter if a person has just joined the Industry for the first time or if they are a seasoned professional, the system need to be simple, duplicatable and comprehensive.

Often when we know something we tend to assume others do to and when it comes to putting s system together the best advice I can give you is make sure you preview it as if you were someone who knew absolutely nothing about either your company or the industry. That way you will cover all that needs to be covered in detail.

One of the traps that is so easy to fall into is if one of your distributors is having some sort of challenge with a delivery or a sign up it can be so easy to jump on the phone to your company, customer service department and “sort it” for them, but you know what they learn from you doing this, that when any of their team needs help they need to “sort it” for them as well.

I know a lot about this because this is what I did when I first got started and guess what I built a great team, but no one knew how to do very much and I didn’t develop leaders, because I created a totally co-dependent  relationship between my downline and me.

So shorten up your learning curve and teach people how to do things, empower them. When I get phone calls now I listen to what the issue is and then I recommend a course of action and I always a assure them I am there to support them, but it is important that they first attempt to sort things out, and then come back to me if they get really stuck.

If you have too much work on your plate following up things for your team, step back and assess if you are empowering them or creating co-dependency, and ask yourself am I helping them become the leaders they want to be?

So avoid one of the greatest mistakes in Network Marketing and empower others, this will give you the time to do what you need to do to grow and maintain a healthy Network Marketing Business. It will also provide your team with the personal strength they need to do the same, so do the right thing for yourself and for the others who are in your Network Marketing business empower them.

Yours in Success

Linda Cargill-Selfe