Three best traits to look for in a recruit?

From an intriguing piece (PDF in case) in the New York Times...

Three traits that might be more useful than the old 'self-starter' or 'go-getter.' (From an extraordinarily successful CEO):

"When I play in Sunday-morning soccer games, I can literally spot the people who’d probably be good managers and good people to hire."

Based on what? asked the interviewer:

"One is reliability, the sense that they’re not going to let the team down, that they’re going to hold up their end of the bargain (ital added - KK). And in soccer, especially if you play seven on seven, it’s more about whether you have seven guys or women who can pull their own weight rather than whether you have any stars."

Then he adds this little gem:

"So I’d rather be on a team that has no bad people than a team with stars. There are certain people who you just know are not going to make a mistake, even if the other guy’s faster than them, or whatever. They’re just reliable."

'Mistake' here refers to the basics, not ingenuity or creativity in a pickle. The practice of medicine reports a similar phenomenon: plodders make better surgeons than talented stars.

Third, he asks his folks to choose something to be CEO of. He told them:

“By the end of the week, everybody needs to write what you’re C.E.O. of, and it needs to be something really meaningful.”

He adds

"And that way, everyone knows who’s C.E.O. of what and they know whom to ask instead of me. And it was really effective. People liked it. And there was nowhere to hide."

One way to do this in a business of newbie entrepreneurs is to see what areas of the business a person wants to be CEO of while they're in training. There are many parts to learn - dealing with the company, working with downline, scheduling your time, tracking your dials, talking to people - online or offline - these are skill sets to be mastered at various stages of the business.

If a person starts with what is meaningful to her, masters it, and is then available to teach that to others, she'd be, in this way, a CEO of that skill set.

Most new networkers have never owned a business of their own before. The CEO idea provides a way to learn the pieces, one at a time. And to take responsibility, a piece at a time.

To the extent that your business thrives as a team effort, here's how I read this.

Look for people who

1) report they are reliable and would not let others down (they do what they say they're going to do)
2) are not self-important stars, and
3) those who jump at the chance to be CEO of part of their business and help others learn that skill.

Your take?

Do you feel rejected when a dress doesn't fit?

Rejection. One of the biggest reasons people quit our business.

But I wonder, are we bringing it on ourselves?

New folks are told over and over that 'everyone will want this' suggesting everyone will buy it.
Only it's not true. There is nothing 'everyone' wants. Check your own experience. Has everyone bought?

What if, instead of telling new people (or ourselves) that everyone (should or must) want this, we tell them this: We're looking for a fit. Kind of like shopping for shoes.

Every 'no' then becomes, "Oh, this one doesn't fit."

Do you feel rejected when a dress doesn't fit? Don't you just ask the sales person to bring you another?

P.S. Yes, it might be true that 'everyone' says they want more money or free time. But do not mistake people venting about those things for readiness to do anything other than vent. Have you heard "Meet the Venters"? Audio here #12. And in the Orange book here, chapter 2.

How To Tell Who You Are...

"You are what you repeatedly do." Attributed to Aristotle

How he made MLM cool

Rethink the cool. (Shoe ad)

"One day Sally meets a quiet nervous boy named Johnny. He says that he needs new shoes. Sally shows him her pair of Xspot sneakers, on which she's painted a bunch of neon pink skulls. Johnny thinks she looks pretty wicked in them. He likes that her shoes look like they're really hers, like she's been wearing them for a thousand years. Like the shoes weren't cool until she mad them cool.

That sounds nice, he decides."

Moral: girl makes shoes cool. They were not cool because they were a big brand name with some celebrity getting a billion dollars to say they are cool.

Gent makes MLM cool (business ad)

In a recent recruiting class, I showed folks how to create "Wanted Posters" for their potential recruits. Using different appeals, they started with who they were. Goal: attract like souls.

Anyway, one gent reported that he just created a short "wanted poster" in a local classifieds source, asking for a yoga lover who wanted to add to her income so she could do more yoga...like, ahem, the writer.

On the short Word Press page this gent created he told how he was a yogi, how he loved practicing and going to the teachings. But with his full time job, he didn't have the time to do the love of his life - yoga and meditation practice.

He showed pictures of himself taking teachings from Tibetan Buddhist masters. Very touching and effective.

He also had a link to his family "store." That, he said, was his way of building up some income so he could practice and meditate more.

I showed this page to several folks. And their reaction, each one, was: Wow I'd want to look into whatever he is doing - because HE is doing it.

His story had nothing to do with getting big money or buying the mansion or other signs of worldly success. It told how he was doing this (business) thing to give him more time to do the thing he loved most - meditation and yoga.

MLM made cool - by a person who learned to tell his why story. And it was not about the money first. (The recruiting class last month was an advanced version of Art of Recruiting.)

NOTE. On his first day running the short wanted poster ad, he wrote me that he'd already gotten a dozen responses to his ad. All yoga teachers with a business of their own. They were attracted because of who HE was. Because of what his values were. WAY MORE than the money.

"Make Money" as a lead pitch is losing more and more appeal for genuine people with a different order of values. Plus it's much harder to earn money if that's the only reason you're doing something.

The pursuit of ever more money has ruined the quality of so many things. Take food. Shelf life, cheap, and crave-ability is now way more important to big food brands than nutritious food. Look around to see the fatafat results. Are those the values you want to support with your dollars?

So consider advertising for business partners by leading with your values first. Then your question will be:

How will YOU make MLM cool with your wanted poster and your why story?

How She Gets Prospects To Like Her: One Question

Making calls to prospects is not easy, and getting anyone to call back or remember you is even harder. Here's a wonderful trick. Obvious. But never done. Just doing it right will make others remember you.

Arielle Ford, an extremely successful publicist for authors like Deepak Chopra (see here) and wannabe authors, wrote recently that the way she gets people to like her is not to be "predatory." Instead, she says,

"When you go after them, when you start talking to them for the first time, do it from a point of view of, What can I do for you? What do you need today?

"When you're in public relations and you're picking up the phone and you're smiling and dialing and calling the media, of course I would pitch my clients, but I would never get off the phone before asking the media person, "Well, tell me what else you're working on. What are you on a deadline on? What's the one thing that you need right now that you don't have?"

"And if I can find a way to help them, to make their life a little easier, then I've made a friend for life."

Amen.

When you're smiling and dialing, what if you asked the other person if there was something (besides them buying your product) that you could do to make their life easier or better today?

Wouldn't they be surprised? Here's one way.

Ms. Ford relates how one time, early in her public relations career, she was called by the manager of another big client, and before they hung up, he'd always ask her:

"Arielle, how are you today?" And she'd say, 'Fine.'

But then he'd say to her: "No, no no no - how are you really?"

She relates, "Wow, this guy really cares about me! What if I were like that with other people?"

And that's what she's been doing ever since. Her question at the end of her phone conversations is a version of,

What can I do for you to make your day better?

Pretty weird in today's rushed world. You showed you cared. And that's why it works.

P.S. This is a question you can add before you hang up when you're making your own calls.
P.P.S. Thanks to Bob Serling for Arielle's story