Business leaders with large teams constantly receive calls from team members with problems that have more to do with emotional needs than figuring out how to make larger bonuses and commissions.  The bonuses and commissions that leaders make has very much to do with the state of mind of their team. As a part of developing a smarter team, self-reliance and the ability to solve issues outside of business can become a very important issue in developing a sustainable and profitable business.

Your role as a leader is not and should not constantly be a shoulder to cry on. Although it is necessary to understand your team and occasionally help them work through some of life’s problems, you cannot become your team’s psychoanalyst.  Your job and main responsibility it to help people help themselves. If you cannot develop needy people into strong, self-reliant members of your team, you will never grow a large and sustainable business.

As an entrepreneur and business owner, you may sometimes feel like a church priest or bishop rather than a capitalist. You will see in a short period of time as a business owner, that anybody who has a struggling personal life will be affected in the business. It is a rare person that can be going through a personal hell and still be unaffected in business. Understand that you will be thrust into the personal lives of your team members, but how you handle those situations is vital if you really expect to help them out.

Whether you are a manager in a traditional business, or you are a network marketer that is beginning to see his or her team member grow, understand that you should be proactively encouraging your people to participate in personal growth activities and studies. You cannot be expected to constantly help an individual who is looking for a quick handout or personal counseling system. You simply cannot grow a large and productive team by constantly taking a careful inventory of all personal outside influences to their lives.

By developing a sales team or networking marketing downline, you have chosen to be a part of people’s lives.  However, you are also in business, and it is not an unkind or an unfeeling business leader who requires a team member to buck up and become a little more self-reliant before you can spend too much time in their business development activities that are devoid of momentum.

Personal independence and self-reliance is a sustaining need for your business to grow. If you rob your team members of their ability to figure out their own problems, how will they ever become leaders themselves?  How can they ever have the strength to grow if you are not around? Worst of all, how will you ever have time to spend time with the people who are willing to be more self-reliant?

Don’t be afraid to let your team members make a mistake. Don’t be afraid to let them mess up a presentation.  We live in a fast food society that demands gratification. If we think that we can solve the problems for our team and still develop leaders, we are kidding ourselves. A new team member is going to feel some disappointment, fear, anxiety and failure. Not every call will result in a presentation. Not every presentation will result in a sale. Teach your team that a miserable experience now and then may just be a part of a profitable business. Help them understand that just because they are taking lumps now, that things will get better if they continue to self-improve and get better

There is enormous personal growth that your team members will obtain when they learn to overcome their obstacles. There is great power in becoming self-reliant. Becoming self-reliant will be fundamental to developing a strong team and ultimately a fulfilled life.

If you want your team to overcome excuses and help them grow your business, you need to teach them accountability and self-reliance.

Self-esteem can be a powerful tool for both good and bad.  A member of your team with a poor self-esteem is not likely to ever be a big producer for you or ever fulfill his or her own personal goals.  In order to make it in any commission-based activity, money and self-confidence are forever blended together.  For many people, the inability to earn commissions or bonuses is directly related to their inability to believe in themselves. I don’t believe members of your team will be self-reliant until they learn to look at the mirror without wincing or constantly second-guessing their decisions. Doubt can truly cause a downward spiral and needs to be overcome.

Any true business leader understands that lasting profitability and growth comes from empowering people to become self-reliant. Having a bunch of robots that won’t function without exact instructions becomes exhausting.

To become self-reliant and to truly make money as an entrepreneur requires a person to understand something very basic: We are the masters of our own fate. We choose our path and we choose our destination. Our decisions determine our destiny. If you have a member of your team who never takes responsibility for his or her own success, you will likely need to move past that person and find somebody who will.

Each of us has an internal compass and the tools we need to succeed. Rarely is there a person born with perfect people skills or sales ability.  However, each of us was born with gifts and tools that will propel us to success. The truly successful people are the ones who accept the responsibility that they are the ones who must hone and sharpen their own skills.

When we accept the fact that we are our own agent, and that our success relies upon our own decisions, only then we will have the right stuff to overcome our inabilities. Before you can mentor a person successfully, that person must first understand that he or she must internalize and implement what is being taught, and that you cannot do it for them. Self-reliance can only start to grow when a person truly understands he or she is the captain of their ship, not you.

Success and self-reliance are fundamentally connected. To think otherwise invites short term wins at best. The first step to building a smarter team is to find people who will own their space and take responsibilities for their own personal development and not constantly shift blame to others.

A team that understands people and knows how to bond with prospects will always outperform the team that memorizes their presentation.  Building a smart and nimble team can take time, but if you want a business that can withstand hard times and flourish in good times, you must be bullheaded with your determination to train and mentor people to think and listen instead of just memorizing facts.

In the Ultimate Sales Machine, Holmes gives us 6 steps to set you up for great follow-up after getting a client or enlisting a new member to your team. The 6 steps below are inspired by Holmes.

1 – Create rapport.  What professional goals did you note during the first meeting? How can you help prospects achieve those goals? What personal tidbit, common interest, or funny story can you refer to later to remind them of your bond?

2 – Qualify and establish need. Do you understand prospects’ needs and objectives? What are the dreams and aspirations of your prospect? What are their most pressing problems and how can you solve them?

3 – Build Value. What do they consider valuable? What benefits or addons would appeal to them and build the value around your product or service?

4 – Create desire. What are their hot buttons that can increase their desire? What is the pain point that you can use to remind them of why they bought and why they will want to keep buying from you? Remember that people naturally gravitate away from problems toward solutions. Is their current career matching up to their dreams and goals?

5 – Overcome objections. What are their objections and how can you put them to rest? Do they really want to join your team or buy your product but a small obstacle is keeping them from doing so?

6 – Close. What closed them or caused them to join your team? Do you remind them with regular contact or product updates?

Low expectations yield low results. Very few network marketers have the guts to challenge their people, consequently their groups remain small and underachieve. Instead of setting high expectations they keep their downline protected from responsibility and challenge in the hope that the people will stay in and not be overwhelmed. Our goal as marketers should be to set the bar high for our people and us. We want leaders who work hard, not thousands of people dependant upon us forever.

Superstardom knows no sex, age or color. Being a superstar in anything requires natural born talent or cultivation of talent over time. However, unless you were born with every skill needed to be a superstar at your chosen field, you are going to have to be like the rest of us and build your talents. Knowing how to identify potential superstars in your downline and how to develop your own skills to become a superstar are essential to becoming profitable. Here’s your warning: becoming a superstar in network marketing is not for everyone, especially for the wallflowers who must change their entire demeanor. I do believe it is possible for people to become very profitable with coaching and extreme determination, but it is not for the wimps.