Having gone to success school twice and attended a number of events this is what I've taken away as key to Advocare business growth. (I'm a work in progress on this and have far to go to put into practice what I've learned).
1. You have to treat Advocare like a business - When I asked Bob during our first meeting what separates the successful from the not successful in Advocare that's what he told me. What that means to me:
- Like any business, success won't just happen you have to work hard to build it.
- Presentation matters - I have to look and act professional to sell a professional product
- Advocare needs to make business sense in order to attract business builders
- Without a plan and goals, the business is aimless
2. You have to stay connected - Advocare has a lot of events, phone calls, motivational emails, trainings, etc... They can be overwhelming and at times redundant but... we're fickle humans and when we don't stay connected, we drift. I know this well not just in Advocare but in faith, commitments, etc... I'm not a big fan of motivational gatherings, but there is great intentionality not only to the volume of Advocare related events and notices, but to the exact timing and frequency of them. Since I'm in business for myself and have no boss, motivation has to be internal. Forcing myself to remain in the company of those that are succeeding in Advocare and keeping Advocare in front of me via reminders on my iphone of events or calls, etc... keeps me connected and intentional where left to myself I would not be.
3. You can't be smarter than the success system. Every one of the successful people in Advocare follows the fundamentals daily and swears by them. I've heard almost all of the diamonds in Advocare speak at least once and not one of them has shared a method or trick that got them to the top outside of the same fundamentals they teach to all of us. There aren't any professional sales people amongst the diamonds. It is dominated by regular people that were fueled by their purpose. Teachers, Coaches, IT Professionals, Engineers, Lawyers, Athletic Trainers, Blue Collar laborers, Pastors, and business owners.
- Perfect your 30 second and 2 minute story
- Bring people to 3rd party credibility (magazine, sponsor, event, webinar)
- Correctly sample the products
There's no safe distance or technology that can avoid the inevitable: to grow the business you have to talk to people and follow the success system again and again consistently. It's simple, but not easy. Last, if you want to produce successful distributors and Advisors then everything that you do has to be repeatable. If you build your business on your superior technological prowess or doing booths at trade shows, or things like that that aren't easily reproducible by others than no one will follow you. Your followers will do what you did, and that only if they can. Everybody can talk to someone and share theirs and two other's story. The simplicity is intentional.
4. Honesty is King - Most people have a pre-conditioned response to hearing about a direct sales anything. I do. The immediate wall that comes up is, "what are you hiding?". or "What's in it for you?". When I've presented Advocare to people as a sales guy, I've failed every time. When my sharing Advocare with them results in them asking the above questions, it's obvious to them, because it's true, that I'm not proactively addressing their concerns and disarming the manipulation fears. By not addressing what I can see on their face that they're feeling but don't want to speak out (because of my fears) I am being dishonest. I'm also doing myself and Advocare a disservice. Bob has told me again and again that it's OK to bring up the pyramid scheme worry. It's OK, to say, I would respond the same way but I'm asking you to trust me and hear what this guy has to say....
-- When I was in Ruby boot camp during the fall, one of the challenges was to spark 10 people during the week. I was scared to do it and got into a fight with Lindsey over it on haloween night. We had to go to Safeway so as I got out of the car, (kids and her were going to wait in the car for me), she handed me a spark and a water bottle and gave me the look that spoke, are you going to take this serriously or not? I paced safeway for several minutes trying to find an opportunity to talk to someone. Finally I approached a guy named Ted that was restocking fruit. I asked him if he was going to be up for a while working. He said he didn't get done till 1:00. So I lied. I told him that I had just been out trick or treating with my kids and hadn't taken my energy drink. Since I was going to bed soon, I thought I'd offer it to him since he had to stay up later. He said OK, and I made him the spark and gave it to him (without the cap so he had to drink it). I was very proud of myself and told Lindsey the story. Although impressed at my guts, she wasn't at the fact that I lied about why I had the water bottle and spark in my pocket in the first place. She was right.... There is no virtue in getting a sale or getting to the top using dishonesty of any kind. As Charlie Ragus (Advocare's Founder) would say, the #1 criteria to look for when recruiting a distributor is Moral Integrity.
5. Personal Growth is Key - I can't offer what I don't have. My work on myself and being a person others want to follow is indispensable.
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