Leader/Ender Bender…

This week we talked about organization. I mentioned ecosystems and what your upline is doing that isn’t working for you. I want to share a story with you. I hope that is okay?!

I do crafts, mostly quilting, cross stich and such. I wanted to paint my craft room because it was the lovely ICK color, I call sheetrock. I think they put some paint on the walls, but it was the same color as sheetrock.

I took before pictures. After I finished, I took a few days to really organize everything and make it so neat. I had actually been deciding on how I wanted to organize it and sort all my fabric, tools, misc. stuff, books and so forth. When I got done, I took pictures of the new room. Let me tell you, it was (and still is) amazing! I could literally look at a new pattern and know exactly what I had to make it. I would know what I would generally want and where it was located. My scraps were in bins according to size, so if I had a project that called for a certain size fabric, I would know where to go in my room to see what would work for that pattern.

So what does this have to do with MLM and business…

I know we are getting to know each other, but I relate everything in business and life to various things that I know, see, hear and so forth!

I am sharing this because I want you to see how being organized has helped me with my hobby. When I get an extra 30 minutes, I can literally work on my project and get some traction. It is amazing really. A quilter I know said she gets in 10 minutes a day. She said she gets more done in that 10 minutes because it is focused and organized. I did this for 6 months, 10 minutes a day, that is!

I got the top of a quilt completed and an ender/leader project ready to be sewn into a top. For those of you who don’t know these terms, let me help you out.

Leader/enders are little pieces of fabric. Most of us used to use a tiny piece we would have cut off and probably thrown in the trash. The leader is the first piece you put under the sewing foot so that it grabs to the threads and makes them stable.

A sewing machine is like any other machine with moving parts, when you first get the feet moving and the needle moving, there is a brief moment where it takes a second to get the rhythm flowing to make the stiches perfect. It is in that very first section that stiches can be a little wobbly and uneven.

If you think about this, it is interesting that we term it leader because all leaders have this period too. Think about your MLM business. You are new in this business and yet they encourage you to bring in other people.

Wait, what? I need to learn all this stuff before I can LEAD!

This is crazy!

So, we hit the training videos, okay, I see that, now I know THAT, what about this?

We go mad learning all the information. Now, 2–4 weeks later we know everything! We have received a master’s education in our products and our compensation plan. Whew!

Now, when we talk to someone, we throw up all this information at them. We forget the key to success is to keep it simple. We are off, leading….and yet, what we really want to be is the piece — the pieces.

Okay, follow me here, we know what a leader is now, it was generally a scrap that was full of threads and was eventually thrown away. A quilter realized that she could take these stitches and make them work to her advantage (more on this later).

Let me back up some here, when we make a quilt, we pick out our pattern. It generally is something we like because we are going to be sewing this for a while just to sew all that together, to get a top that we then must quilt. This is not a one-night stand project…. lol.

So, the pattern we pick could be our new recruit. Let put this all-in perspective of our business, okay?!

We have to get the fabric that will work with our pattern to make it look as amazing as possible. This fabric is equal to the tools that you give to your new person. These tools are important to make the new person successful. Just like in a quilt, you have to balance the colors and textures of the fabric, you must do the same for the new person. Throwing 10 hours of training at a person who is a busy mom, has a full-time job and is brand new will only stress them out and get them stopped in their tracks. On the other hand, someone who just lost their job and has no children could handle the 10 hours of training and be like ninja skilled leader!

Once we have the fabric (tools) selected for our pattern (recruit), now we have to go cut and get ready to sew the pattern together. This is where we take the new person and go over what they are doing, what is working, what is not and get them ready to build stronger teams.

Leader in place, we get to sewing….and thus the new person’s business goes together, piece by piece. Can you visualize each step of the process? Do you have solid systems that are flexible enough to choose the right fabrics for the pattern? There is nothing wrong with making a quilt as it is pictured. However, that is not going to work in everyone’s home. Each home has different styles, themes, colors, etc. People are EXACTLY the same…we are all different too!

So, next time you are talking with someone about being on your team, look at them as a pattern….do you like the pattern and can you live with it for a long time? If the answer is yes, my bet is that person will have better success than the one that you can “deal with” for a bit to help build your team.

Maybe look at your team as the quilt that has to sit in your house…and you have to look at it every day. This will help you attract the people that you want and help you decide not to take on the fabric choices and patterns that don’t make you happy too!

We will talk more about this quilting topic. I love taking things from our everyday lives and relating them to business. Let’s face it, we all learn and grow differently. Some of you will get this quilting comparison and others will be like, that girl has lost her mind.

I can promise you I will put this another way and the person who understands this will say what you are saying now. Stick with me for 365 days and I promise your life and business will be on a higher level. I want to provide you with healthy options to help you find you again too!

Want to discover how the leader and enders are critical for your business? They are massive to understand if you want a steady growth, without a lot of babysitting!

The 🤫“dirty secret” I promised and the golden nugget…By now, you have your dream customer (DC) and can tell me what they do daily. You have a strong vision of them. Your question and focus on for this week will be, how do you serve them? What is the ONE or TWO things that your DC has as a pain point and doesn’t even know it? What does your DC struggle with now and they know it is struggle, but isn’t sure what to do?

Make a list of the things you did not complete this week. Make this year a time to be more efficient in your work and not dragging things from day to day!

For now, I have to bounce…

Be your best and don’t copy your upline!

Cheers,

Stacey

I promise that if you follow me for the next 365 days, your business will be stronger. You will have more of the people you WANT in your business and you will be happier and financially stronger!

Like my fan page in Facebook @StaceyMartinCoaching — message me here to see if there are still opening to the inner circle. We are only allowing the first 100 people who join our challenge into this special group!