Duplicability - How Network Marketing Businesses Grow

Network marketing is more about leadership than it is about anything else. After all, you are in this business to learn about--and consume-products that you feel strongly about, and then train others to do the same. Without training, many of the people in your downline will be left stranded, without any direction and unsure of just how to get the business going. This uncertainty will trickle down to people in their downline, and before you know it, you will have an ineffective and fundamentally paralyzed organization. It might be easy to want to pass the blame on others, but as any leader knows, any company is ultimately a reflection of its leadership.

There is one word that you will hear bandied about quite often in this business. It is called duplicability.. This means the ability to take what you are doing and duplicate that same success in others. In other words, teach them the same techniques and philosophy that govern how you conduct your business and replicate those same methods in the people in your downline.

Ultimately, you are attempting to duplicate yourself, and this involves more than just transmitting information about how to make a sale. It also requires transferring your own psychological make-up--that can-do, take-no-prisoners attitude that drives you to the levels of success you attain. This kind of duplication requires that the leader spend time with the learners, sharing much about his or her own hopes, fears, aspirations--sharing personal stories about how he or she made the break into network marketing.

Given that this is the case, it should prompt you as a leader to take pause for a moment and consider what it takes for the learners to really connect with you. Can people in your downline relate with you? Do you they see you as one of them, or do they get them impression that they are dealing with someone who is so polished in his presentation that “they could never be like” you? Are you dressed like one of the boys, or are you wearing the same attire you might wear to a professional business presentation in the corporate world?

Some network marketers coming out of a business background forget that in this business, there is no need to try to impress anyone. The further removed you seem to be from your learners--in style, dress, surroundings--the more difficult it will be for them to think that they can duplicate what you’re doing. They’ll pass up your success to certain factors that are not within their control, such as personality type. (“No wonder he’s so successful, he’s a born salesman,” they might say.) Of course, the question as to what is or is not a barrier to relating with your downline is a subjective and relative one, which will dictate exactly what is appropriate for how you dress and come across. But you should at least make an effort to appraise the backgrounds of the people you’re dealing with, and adjust your approach accordingly.