The 7 Sponsors to Avoid Like the Plague, Part 7
Okay so we’ve gone through the first six types of sponsors you want to avoid like the plague: “The Cult Leader,” “Fast Money Mary,” “Pay-Per-Click Dick,’ the Celebrity Lead Magnet, “Catch the Wave” Dave, and Billy “Build Your Downline for You.” Now let’s look at the most dangerous kind…
This type of sponsor will always do your presentations for you. They provide the answers to all of your questions. They always have some extra product inventory you can borrow if you run out. It seems no matter what problem you have, they can solve it for you.
Confused? Don’t be. You see type number seven is the…
Helicopter Sponsor.
The name comes from the fact that they are always hovering over you, protecting you from any mistakes. Protecting you from yourself. But that isn’t your highest good. Just like helicopter parents, they actually mean well but do great damage. Kids need to be able to explore and yes, even skin their knees sometimes. And so do network marketers.
One of the ironic things about the business is that most people that struggle blame it on their sponsor. Yet almost all of the million-dollar earners all will tell you they had a horrible sponsor.
If your sponsor does everything for you, they suck all of the oxygen out of the room and prevent you from becoming the leader you are meant to be. And of course you do the same thing if you smother your people.
My belief is you should never do something for your people that they can do for themselves. And a good sponsor will have the same philosophy with you. They won’t solve your problems, they will teach you how to solve them for yourself. And then you of course will duplicate the same thing. And that is where duplication lives!
-RG
I’m in a bit of a shock … what I mean is, when reading this, I saw a bit of me in there, never having thought I could be a shadow of the most dangerous of all sponsors. My intentions are so far away from this! But it’s good to get a wake-up call. I don’t do everything for my team, but I do a lot, so perhaps I should start thinking about leveraging more than I have so far. Biz should be even more fun that way 😉 Thanks Randy!
Me too! Just like the old proverbial ‘mother hen’. Thanks for the wake-up call. I am certainly going to do things differently from now on.
It agree with you. The sponsor only will learn, will show. And to do the business each distributor should.
Randy
I think you pissed off alot of people I think it is funny you started off with alot of comments as you went on the list got shorter. Thank God that I don’t have any of these sponsors. But I have seen them in the past. I have been around for awhile. So I have experanceed alot of things. And I stay away from those kind of people. I love people who tell it like it is you are that kind of person. now you have a friend for life.
-RG,
Great series.
I’ve been fortunate to have sponsored someone that is smarter and more motivated than myself, and she sponsored someone that is like her.
I their case I just offered my support and help, then got the hell out of their way, and stood back and learned from them.
-djm
Ouch!
That could be me.
Thanks Randy
FINALLY – someone of real stature in this industry has the moxy to stand-up and tell it like it really should be. Thank YOU, Mr. Gage! My Dad wouldn’t allow me to pull-out of the driveway until I knew how to check the oil, the tire pressure, the battery and the radiator, and this was NOT negotiable. My children have the same guidelines to follow if they wish to drive our family vehicle. They also know where the triple antiobiotic is in case they fall down and scrape their knees when I may be unavailable to them.
Empowering people with the right tools will allow them to be the best ‘they’ can be, not you! Once again, the timeless proverb prevails and I’m paraphrasing, so please indulge me but allow yourself to receive the intended message, “Give a person a fish and they eat today, Teach a person to fish and they will eat for a lifetime…”
I sure don’t want someone hovering over me, which is why I even attracted a long distance sponsor by the way. 🙂
I see this a lot and it’s also related to what you can find on blogs and other web places. It’s like “come to me and I’ll take care of you.” Yikes!!!
And especially today I would say no hovering is ever necessary. It’s 2009 folks and people simply have access to everything just like you do.
Your commitment and integrity is far more important than micro-managing, and the only helicopter you need is to get up and see the forest instead of the trees.
“Tribes” by Seth Godin is on its way. Looking forward to it!
I’ve been preaching this for years only in a different area. I tell parents all the time the goal is to get your kids to the point the quickest where they don’t need you.
Most parents look at me dumbfounded. However, when their kid is on the side of the road with a flat they have to go rush to their aide because they don’t even know how to change a tire. Some teenagers don’t even know how to make a deposit in the bank.
I think there is a direct correlation to what you speak about here Randy. The place that each of us are at now is because of the type of person that we are. It’s going to take a different person if we expect to rise to a different level and our sponsor can never do this for us.
This is the most toxic because it’s the most subtle.
I didn’t agree with every single word you said Randy and I’m sure you didn’t expect me to. I still respect you and admire your philosophy and success.
Rick
Ouch. Reckon this is a pretty good description of what I would like to do if only I had the time! A great wake-up call. THANK YOU VERY MUCH!
This one i seems to have struck home with a lot of people, and me too. There’s some sort of balance between “Glad you joined- go to it!” and “I’ll do everything for you”.
Problem for me comes in not knowing the balance, and also being responsible for my own success, yet it kinda depends on how the people I sponsor do. If they keep messing up and quitting on their own, and I can’t step in, and the system is hard, then being responsible to me means DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
This confuses the hell out of me.
WOW!…I’ve always thought I could help people by making it easier for them. I see now “easier” comes from letting them learn from experience. Thank you Randy. I appreciate the pros like you.
please email # 1 and 2 of the 7 Sponsors to avoid. Thanks, Penny
If you click on each type above, it opens that post.
-RG
OK, thanks a lot for this thoughts!
Now I love it again that my nice sponsor grows with me and that I grow with my downline team.
I´m loving it!
Thanks, Randy, for the whole series!
Thank you, Randy, ‘you hit the nail on the head’ with your series of ‘Sponsors to avoid like the Plague.’ Your last paragraph states, ‘YOU should never do something for your people that they can do for themselves” is so powerful. Also, In this case, you have saved many of us who have a tendency to help a little too much, and ultimately resulting in a failed sponsorship relationship and too much wasted time.
I read Tribes by Seth Godin*, and talk about the Bible of Leadership; simple, yet profound. He states, “Paint a picture of the future. Go there. People will Follow.” Randy, in the case of the Helicopter sponsor: a true leader does not have time to hover.
Your series is insightful. I learned plenty.
Randy, Gracias!
* A must read about Leadership for our time$ (Tribe).
Hey Randy
It’s such an important one to be reminded of often. I no longer have the desire to do everything for my team because even when you do it really doesn’t help as you say!
The thing is some people are such perfectionists its hard to sit back and let people make mistakes. If we don’t it makes for a very frustrating time for us as sponsors though.
The best way to get out of it is to get busy with new stuff as then there is simply no time to be a mother hen.
FINALLY, someone with stature in the industry has the moxy to tell it how it should be – Thank YOU, Mr. Gage! My Dad wouldn’t let me or my brothers go anywhere near our family vehicle without knowing how to check the oil, the tire pressure, the battery, and the radiator. As a Mother or 4, all my children know where the triple antibiotic ointment is and how to use it in case I am unavailable to them if they fall and skin up their knees or elbows. Once again, that old but powerful Proverb still applies and I’m paraphrasing here, so please indulge me but allow yourself to receive it, “Give a person a fish and they eat today, Teach a person ‘how’ to fish and they eat for a lifetime…”
Randy,
Wouldn’t a simple yes or no answer be great, but there isn’t once.
Especially since I have made six figures doing meetings, doing direct mail and doing the Internet. In all cases I have had trouble finding anyone to duplicate me. As Tom Schreiter says if you think you have 2 or 3 leaders in your organization, you’ve miscounted! It’s the nature of people.
Regardless of the METHOD of marketing MLM people have a tough time of it, until they get to know, like and trust you.
They have to have four beliefs REGARDLESS of the marketing method.
They need a belief in: — The product — The company — The Industry — Themselves
If you don’t have all 4 core beliefs you could be doing meetings every day of the week and your growth won’t be there.
If you are in meetings and you have all 4 core beliefs you’ll have success.
If you are doing direct mail and you have all 4 core beliefs you’ll have success. If you are doing the Internet and have all 4 core beliefs you’ll have success.
I prefer meetings, as it grows slower but had a higher retention rate.
But, back in the early 2000’s I was sick and tired of meetings and wanted to stay home to raise my two newborns and spend more times in my shorts and t-shirts. Guess what, I didn’t miss any meals and neither did my downline.
Each specific marketing method is a niche’, yes.
And, you can “attract” different’ niche’s to your “meeting funnel” and go from there. As far as the internet goes, it needs to be a single product focus.
In fact, I am putting up a new website which does nothing but offer a $7.95 free trial of our product that converts to a $35.25 customer.
I have created a 7/14/28 day follow up call by the distributor to the customer to see if they got the product, open it up, take the product, watch the DVD and put the product in refrigerator where they have 42 chances a day to see it and consume it.
Day 7 is the quick 2 minute call.
Day 14 is to get referrals.
Day 28 is to convert to distributor or stay a customer.
Randy, after PUSHING the opportunity online for 7 years now and watching the fallout on the back end this is the only way I believe the Internet can be used. I will come back and post every 90 days my results so I can “show you and not snow you” about this reality.
Remember, single focus websites outpull corporate sites that have 99 links on them. That single focus is the webs only way to survive in MLM, in my opinion.
Of course, I can outsell the pants off the internet in person at meetings because of the buzz of the crowd and the face to face contact.
But, what about Mary in Des Moines who has no downline?
Sure, make the list of 50 people, call and mail them and do one-on-ones and hold home meetings until you get enough for a hotel meeting.
Yes, you follow leadership wherever it goes.
UNLESS, you flood a particular market with advertsing, but no single distributor has that kind of money unless corporate or the upline funds it to kick-start an area like I live in, here in Dallas where we have 8 million people.
I’ve also purhcased 40,000 names of folks here in Dallas to email and voice broadcast to do a two-step method with folks.
I’ve met one gal at Starbucks, she had no money to join.
She went out and retailed 7 bottles and put those checks in her account and signed up 3 days later.
She came from a cold list.
She is now my new friend and I am teaching her the business.
She doesn’t have a website yet.
I want her to exhaust her warm list first, see the difference?
I stage this to my group.
I never throw them to the cold market first as it will turn them cold to you and your opportunity unless they have previous business and sales experience and have a thick skin. I’m now meeting with her group of 10 suspects next week at starbucks and will take that where it goes…either customers or distributors.
So, there is no one SILVER BULLET it today’s age, in my opinion. I just moved to Dallas and I know NOBODY here.
So, I forked over some money and am turning cold leads into warm leads. Warm leads work best. Meetings work best.
But, I’m savvy enough to know that there are many other ways to lead suspects to my duplicatable and unified system. It’s just common sense. I’m keeping good stats and will let you know of my “Retail to Recruit” online system and how it goes for the Internet portion of my business. Sincerely, Robert Blackman
Read more: http://www.networkmarketingtimes.com/blog/will-the-internet-kill-your-duplication-pt-2/#ixzz0NhUBKaE3
U R RIGHT BUT SOME ACTIVITY DONE BY LEADER SUCH AS MAKING VERY SHORT PRESENTATION NOTINGS FOR PRODUCT DEMOS W/O DISTORTING THE COMPANY `S TRAINING MODULES AND SO HELPING THE DISTRIBUTORSTO CONDUCT DEMOS BY THEMSELVES AND TRAIN THEIR GROUPS ACCORDINGLY.DOES THIS ACTIVITY COME UNDER ‘HELICOPTER SPONSOR’ TYPE?
Right on point…follow the biz plan to the T….that your upline has written…
Tony
I have such a sponsor. Honestly, it makes me resist doing the business because every step I make causes my sponsor to hover more. Just get out of my way and let me do this. I know what to do and how to do it (thanks to Randy Gage). I don’t need a “helicopter” looking over my every move and analyzing whether I did it “right” in their opinion.
Oh gosh, I think I am a helicopter sponsor!!!!!
I believe that at the begining it is good but not for ever. One must make mistakes in order to learn.
Randy:
Could you write about the ideal sponsor? What qualities should he or she have to created a group that trust him or her?