So What Do We Do With The N00bs?

Depending on your age and hobbies, right now you're either thinking "What?", "Kill them off quickly!" or "WTF has this got to do with Network Marketing?"

In a previous job, I looked after the European games databases for Lord of The Rings Online (LoTRO). Like World of Warcraft, it's a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. Like real life, there's quite a few n00bs involved.

n00bs, or noobs, are inexperienced and inept beginners, the sort of people who, in real life, have to be told that the reason their computer screen is dark is because they haven't switched it on yet. The ones who, left to their own devices, will make horrible mistakes in a split second that can wipe out 10 weeks of team productivity. They're the ones who type £1005 instead of £10.05 when you pay for something in the supermarket and then appear to have refunded the Nigerian GDP when the poor accountant looks at the till records.

If they survive the first few months of their first job/ MMORPG experience, they become newbs, beginners who are willing to learn from their mistakes - the ones who listen to others. Eventually, some of them will go on to become the better sort of experts. These are the ones who remember what it was like to be a noob, and go out of their way to help others.

We have noobs in network marketing too. But the standard response of the majority of network marketers is to let them feed themselves to the lions. They are the numbers in "the numbers game". The ones who, when they don't do anything spectacularly successful in their first few weeks, are left to die quietly of support malnutrition. The ones who have the usual MLM mantras thrown at them, despite the fact they have no frame of reference to build on.

We are failing our n00bs, and it's about time we stopped doing it. We can't call ourselves leaders if we set our team members loose in the middle of a reservoir with a leaky rowing boat and only one paddle. Yet that's what we're doing with our "Massive Results need Massive Action" and "How Much Effort? Enough!" soundbites.

Leadership is not just about recruiting team members and leaving them to sink or swim. It's about managing them, setting achievable targets with them, nudging them towards being more productive, more organised, more effective, more efficient, until they are capable of doing that on their own. It's about making sure each member of your team does that with their own team members. It's about helping our team understand that, just because we praise the fast track members, we're still determined to help every team member achieve their goals so that they can be proud of themselves, too.

If, after we've done all that, they quit anyway, that's fine. Let's make sure they don't quit before we've done our best by them.

Do You Have A Zombie Invasion Plan?

It appears that Leicester City Council has had to admit a lack of provision for zombie invasions.

Now, the news sites were coy about the identity of the concerned citizen, so I trotted over to a Freedom of Information site for further details. After all, I'm working in Leicestershire and I'd hate my Kleeneze work to be disrupted by the need to decapitate the living dead on the way back home.

It's interesting that the Council decided to go public before Robert Ainsley would have received their official response, although you have to applaud their decision to deal with the request well within the 20 day cutoff.

So what are your zombie invasion plans?

I'm not talking about the obvious (!) zombies - what are your plans to deal with the living dead on your team?

Why aren't they active? Are you doing enough to motivate them? Do they need support and guidance, or do they need pruning?

Would you rather coach and encourage, despite their lack of effort, or do you subscribe to a "shape up or ship out" approach?

What Shape Is Your Safety Net?

One thing all new business owners and entrepreneurs have in common is the fear of the unknown. Despite all their resolve, all their research and skills, that first year in business for themselves is a leap of faith.

So it makes sense to have a safety net, be it a financial reserve that will cover essential outgoings for a year or a series of signed contracts that guarantee business income for the first few months.

When a new team member joins a network marketing organisation, they too are encouraged to have a safety net - usually expressed as "Start part-time". Team leaders are aware that many new recruits to their team will not have the skills or the personal resilience to cope easily with the hard work required to build their own business. Learning those skills whilst under pressure to replace a lost income is a prime cause for newcomers to quit the business building and go back to a 'real job'.

Eventually though, those fledgling business builders will feel the pressure of juggling two 'jobs'. At that point, all sorts of excuses are created to justify slowing down their efforts. Chief amongst those is the need for a pseudo-safety net, be it social (friends and family aren't supportive enough), financial (not enough money to build the business properly) or chronological (need a 48 hour day to do this properly).

We need to be aware of this tendency, in ourselves as well as within our team. A pseudo-safety net is nothing more than a ball and chain shackle, slowing us down and wearing us out. Real safety nets are there to cushion our unexpected descent before allowing us to get back on that tightrope.

We should make sure that we have our own social, financial and chronological safety nets, so that our team members can look, learn and copy.

Social - block out "us time" and "me time", then don't allow your business building efforts to impact on that valuable area.

Financial - tithe for profit and tithe for the future. Tithe your retail profits to cover business building expenses, and put all your bonus payments - that's the income you get from your company as you qualify up the payment plan - in a savings account.

Chronological - get organised, block out business time and stick to it. Don't allow anything else to impede your productivity during that essential worktime. Treat your timekeeping as though your employer was watching you.

Don't let your safety net be the wrong shape - make sure it's there to catch you, not hold you back or imprison you in your comfort zone.