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TOP DESK- Servant Leadership: Helping Others Achieve Their Dreams
The Holy Grail: Product Distribution in Europe
Plan “B” — Put the POWER Back in Your PowerPoint Presentations
Trust — The Key to Strong Relationships

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Top Desk—Servant Leadership: Helping Others Achieve
Their Dreams
by John Addison

Servant? Who wants to be a servant? Walk down the business aisle at a major bookstore and you'll realize that almost everyone wants to be a leader. But does anyone want to be a servant?

The answer is "yes." And there are some very good reasons why.

To begin with, as leaders, one of the biggest obstacles to our success is that our egos get in the way of our actions. Learning to put others first is essential to success in our unique brand of business.

It's not an easy business. And the fact is that, for many people in network marketing, time is running out. They can't afford another disappointing year. They need to find a leadership style that works in order to begin changing habits of the past that have limited their success. And they need to do it now.

Time waits for no one. We've all heard that one a million times. But like so many clichés, it's based on truth.

It seems like yesterday I was in front of our field leaders talking about how to "thrive in 2005." Before some people even got started, the year was over and-once again-it wasn't the year they had hoped for or needed.

I think it's time to go back to the basics of leadership. And what's more basic than the concept of service? On the path to being a great leader, it's a vital lesson to learn.

Our company recently lost one of its greatest leaders and a true pioneer in the business. At an event celebrating his life and work, the recollections had a common theme-his dedication to others. He was a true servant. He understood that service makes you stronger, not weaker. He was forceful and dynamic in promoting the causes and resolving the conflicts that pertained to his downline. In our 20-year relationship, he never called me to ask a favor for himself. He often called to seek help or recognition for his people. He knew that, through service, you build bigger, stronger and truer than through any other way.

Servants aren't managers. Managers control, sometimes through intimidation. People don't want to be controlled. They want to be led. Devoting your attention to your people is just the opposite.

Intimidation doesn't work in our business anyway. Leading people in the sales business is like herding cats. They go every which way and the leader is often just trying to keep up. The secret is to attract people to you.

There's no cut-and-dried program for leading people in our business. But if you look at the qualities that can make you a servant leader, you'll see why this path makes sense.

1. Be compassionate. That doesn't mean encouraging self-pity or being a nursemaid. It means understanding that there are challenges in people's lives. Understand that people may be struggling. Practice empathy, not sympathy. People don't want pity. They want understanding. They don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

2. Be impatient for success. But be "patiently" impatient. Say again? You have to be patient. But you can't be slow or lazy or drift from day to day. That's not patience. Nothing positive is going to happen when you wait for it to happen. You must make it happen. That's where the impatience comes in. You can't change the world overnight. But you can't wait for the world to change itself-or for your team to change-without leadership.

If you think this is confusing, it is. It's one of the contradictions of our business, 1. 2. which is a business of contradictions. Your ability to keep those contradictions in context will determine your ability to win!

3. Recognize that everyone's not wired like you. That's a tough one. Did you ever notice how employers tend to hire people like themselves? In the sales business, you have all kinds of people on your team. They're not all going to think like you, act like you or react like you. Most of all, they don't want to be you. Embrace human frailty. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Your job as a leader is to build on the strengths and ignore the weaknesses. Help people improve, be better than they were when they joined your team. Always remember that this business is a self-improvement program with a great compensation system attached. Build people, whatever their personality or background.

4. Be consistent. If you're going to serve others on their path to success, you can't be a weathervane, whipping first this way, then the other. You must be the constant that keeps them focused and inspired. If your office is totally driven by what mood you're in, then your office is in chaos. Your environment needs to be bigger than your mood.

5. Be approachable. People need to know they can come to you if they have a question, a suggestion, or even a complaint. This is a tough one for the controllers out there (you know who you are)! If your goal is to help others win, then you've got to find out what's not working and try to improve it. Re-read Number 4. Being approachable doesn't mean changing systems every day. It just means being open to suggestions that might actually improve your business model.

6. Be focused. Your team needs to know where you're going and where you stand. Try to make everybody happy and nobody will be happy. They'll just be at different levels of dissatisfied. Listen to everyone's opinion, make your best servant leadership decision, and move forward. You must decide on your direction and know what you're trying to accomplish; no one else will.

7. Be honest with people. In any business, honesty is everything. You must be truthful in all things. Now, I'm not saying you can't promote. In our business, we tend to make contests, or awards or whatever sound a little bigger than they are. It's just like TV commercials. You're not really going to lose all that weight or gain all that hair! But people need to know that you're being straight with them. The moment they question your truthfulness or sincerity, you'll no longer be a leader they'll follow.

8. Be a long-term thinker. Your programs and incentives must always be in alignment with your long-term goals. In our company, incentives point toward getting people licensed and growing our sales 6. 7. 8. force. We know this: If we aren't building new leaders, we aren't growing. Short-term thinking leads to short-term results.

9. Be a dreamer, not a schemer. I'm a big dreamer. I want to double the number of $100,000 earners that we have in our field force. I want to double the number of millionaires. I want to double or triple the number of families we serve. It's a big dream, but I believe it's a realistic dream. But don't confuse dreaming with scheming. That's where servant leadership comes in. A dream focuses on the entire team. A scheme focuses only on one individual. I know that if the Primerica team wins, if I serve our representatives, I'll win, too.

At Primerica, we change lives by what we do. So many people are drowning in debt, with no savings and no game plan to do any better. Our whole mission revolves around being a servant, helping families change things for the better.

Many of you feel the same way. You have a mission, a dream. Always do a gut-check to make sure your dreams focus on the team.

10. Be committed to servant leadership. Not for just one day, one month, one year. Anyone can do that. 9. 10. But the true leader is the one who can stay committed for as long as it takes to win.

Recently Fortune magazine ran a great article on how to be a great leader. Several prominent business leaders picked their own favorite leader. In almost every case, the reason behind their choice involved that person's service to others.

One leader chose Abraham Lincoln because "The guy had every card stacked against him, but he persevered and stayed very focused on keeping the country together."

Another chose Martin Luther King for practically the same reason. "With the odds against him, he took a stand for what he believed in."

Another person was chosen because "He made people believe that they could achieve their own destiny."

In other words, all were focused on others. That's what makes someone remarkable. It's what makes remarkable things happen.

Become a servant leader. Help others achieve their dreams. Make a difference in people's lives. You may find that the personal rewards outweigh the business success.

John Addison, Jr. is Co-Chief Executive Officer and President of Primerica Financial Services, North America's largest financial services marketing organization.

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The Holy Grail: Product Distribution in Europe
by Charlie Smith

Europe Is a Continent, Not a Country
Cost-effective distribution of products in Europe has long been the "Holy Grail" of operations executives throughout the direct selling industry. While significant strides have been made with the formation of the European Union, there are still many difficulties in trying to get your product to your customers.

For our purposes in this article, we are going to simplify by dividing the European continent into two sectors: European Union (EU) and non- EU countries. The European Union consists of 25 countries with a basic framework of common rules, regulations, and customs requirements for trade within those countries. You can go to the European Union's informational Web site at (www.europa.eu.int) to get more information on who belongs to the Union and what level of influence and participation each country may have. In general, non-EU countries are those such as Russia, the Ukraine, Armenia, etc. It is an oversimplification to generalize the distribution methods of non-EU countries, but we can surely identify some common constraints.

EU Product Compliance
As of August 1, 2005, the European Union Food Supplement Directive came into effect, which lays down common guidelines of what ingredients the EU, as a whole, will agree to be included in nutritional supplements for trade within the EU. Will Halterman, President of Global Trade Services (www.gtsus.com), says, "While this is great news for direct selling companies who are trying to get a common formula for a particular product in the EU, direct selling companies need to be aware that the labeling requirements must still be language- and country-specific."

Because of the free trade agreement within the borders of the EU, once customs duties are paid in the first country of import, the product will no longer be subject to customs tariffs within the EU for distribution to other countries.

Not-for-resale (NFR) programs are permitted within the EU in general, but please remember that the rules are that the product must be purchased from the United States, and that once it is delivered to the customer for personal use, it cannot cross country boundaries within the EU. Halterman cautions, "The EU countries are the most aggressive product compliance enforcers in the world, and whether the products are sold under NFR rules or as fully registered products, there are huge penalties that await those companies that may want to play games with the rules."

Non-EU Product Compliance
Halterman offers this advice when registering products in non-EU countries: "Direct selling companies that seek to register their product in countries outside of the European Union must prepare themselves for a long haul," he says. "It takes a tremendous investment in time to work through the bureaucratic red tape that is involved with registration in these countries." Generally speaking, not-for resale programs are considered illegal in non-EU countries, so the traditional method for direct selling companies to establish a beachhead with NFR is simply not possible under current laws.

EU Product Distribution
It is a common misconception among direct selling companies that it should be relatively cost-effective to establish a warehouse and a corporate office within a country such as the Netherlands, then distribute the product from this warehouse because the customs duties are nil as the product travels to other countries within the EU. While customs duties are zero within the EU, the transportation costs are extremely high from one country to another. Remember that the EU agreements are relatively new, and that the extensive interstate system that we enjoy for trucking here in the United States simply does not exist in much of Europe. The price of gas in Europe is another factor that keeps costs very high for transporting your goods from one country to another. Government subsidies within a given country generally keep same-country distribution costs to a minimum, but the EU still has not figured out how to move product between countries cost effectively.

It may make sense to "test the market" in other countries by utilizing your existing warehouse in an EU country to distribute to those countries to see how your product and business plan is received, but significant growth by using a regional distribution point is difficult because of the shipping rates that your customer would need to pay.

For product distribution to your customer from within an EU country, we need to separate the more commercialized countries from the old communist countries that are now part of the EU. You will find that the mail systems within countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, etc., are very efficient and very inexpensive. You need to do your homework on countries such as the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, etc. The transportation systems in the old communist countries were intentionally made to be difficult to use, so please use due diligence in each country so that you can determine the best final delivery method for your products.

Non-EU Product Distribution
Your company may find that the best method of product delivery within a non-EU country is by starting with geographically close, heavily populated areas. It is very difficult to grow your business within these countries because you are bound in sales growth by geographic and operational constraints. These countries tend to be very dicey as far as security is concerned, so it is not a done deal that your product gets to your customer no matter how you ship it to them. While I am typically against distributing your product with numerous will-call centers throughout a country, this may be the method of choice when starting up in non-EU countries.

There are several sources in Eastern Europe who would love to license your product and use your company to form their own MLM company, but of course that is a strategic decision that, once made, is very difficult to extricate your company from. As an alternative to a licensee arrangement, I have seen several companies have success in finding a complete Eastern European solution that provides everything from office space, employees, fulfillment services, payment collection, warehousing, and compensation distribution services. They provide everything your company needs, save the sales and marketing (which your company provides), for a small percentage of the revenues generated. While this option allows you to get into a country quickly and with minimal capital expense, you need to be a larger company in order to take advantage of this type of arrangement.

If you plan on going into a non-EU country with a traditional model, be prepared to invest heavily if you want to be one of the first ones there. You need to decide if the reward is worth the risk. The potential rewards, however, are very great because of the "entrepreneurial" spirit that has been infused in the people of many of these countries.

Country by Country
As you can see, whether you are working with an EU or non- EU country, there is no "magic bullet" solution currently in place to meet all of your operational needs. Like all international business development, you need to take it one country at a time. By giving your company realistic deadlines on when to enter a European country, you can do it the right way the first time. The opportunities for direct selling growth in Europe are extraordinary for those companies that have the marketing and operational savvy-and the patience-to make it happen.

Charlie Smith has been the COO of two large international network marketing companies. Smith is President of Operational Insights (www.opinsights.com), a global operational consulting group to the direct selling industry.

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Plan “B” — Put the POWER Back in Your PowerPoint Presentations
by Darren LaCroix

Have you ever sat through a boring presentation? Ever given one? Do you think the presenter actually planned to be this boring? Did you? If you answered, "Yes!"-and then "No!"-to these questions, it's time to try my Plan "B."

I've given keynote presentations around the world. And whether speaking in Oman, Malaysia, or Taiwan, 99 percent of the time there are speakers before me. So I begin by telling the audience, "Just want you to know, for my presentation, there will be. no slides! So far, I've counted 842!"

Inevitably, the audience bursts into applause. Why? Because they are tired of looking at slide after slide after slide after..You get the point.

Most people have forgotten the meaning of "Presentation Aid." An aid should further the message, support it, assist it-it shouldn't be the message.

Slide shows have become the Band-Aid to poor presentation preparation. "I don't have time to prepare my presentation so 'my plan' is to just refer to my slides." These are the people who throw the slides together the night before, and instead of referring to the slides, they read them. Doesn't that make you want to stand up and yell, "I can read! Why not just send me a copy of the slides and save my time!"

And here's my biggest pet peeve: the final slide that says, "Thank you." What? You needed help saying "Thank you?" Shut off the slides and talk to me! Isn't that what a presentation is about?

Slides, actually, are quite helpful if the presenter remembers to do one thing: talk to the audience. A presenter is there to educate, to inspire, to persuade.

Now you're probably thinking, "OK, Darren, point made. So what's this Plan 'B' you mentioned?"

Right! Plan "B."

Do you know what the most powerful key on your keyboard is? The "B" key. During a slide presentation, if you hit the "B" key, the screen goes black. Think about that. In the middle of your presentation, you have the ability to make your screen go black. Do not let the simplicity overshadow its power.

In addition to giving keynote speeches for a living, I also coach CEOs and executives in this skill. One of my corporate clients is a group of account executives from an Internet company. They give sales presentations for six-figure contracts. Presentations are crucial to their bottom line, and their individual careers.

In the coaching sessions, each executive gives a five-minute presentation, which his or her peers and I then critique. During one particular session, I gave an assignment to find one place in which to use the "B" key. They needed to find a logical place to make the screen go black and to just speak directly to the audience. The goal was to make a compelling point or to tell a client success story, and then hit the "B" key again and return to the slides.

When the first person was finished I looked around the room and asked, "Did you notice a difference?" The executives were stunned! Their faces said it all.

Powerful presentations are ones in which presenters connect with the audience through the power of their words, the power of their delivery. You cannot persuade an audience when you are looking at slides and not at the people.

So don't let the slide show get in your way. Next time you are giving a slide presentation, remember Plan "B": Open strong, close strong, and find one place in the middle where you speak directly to your audience with a black screen behind you. It will be powerful!

Darren LaCroix is a nationally known keynote speaker, author and comedian and was the 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking. For more information, call 888-528-4451 or go to www.Presentation411.com.

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Trust — The Key
to Strong Relationships
by Rick Loy

The ability to build trust among distributors can make or break a company in the field.

All enduring, growing relationships are built on trust, and nowhere is that more true than in the direct selling industry. Direct selling companies succeed in proportion to the level of trust their sales forces have in them. If that is true-and it is-then the task of building trust with our distributors merits our very best efforts.

All things being equal, people will do business with those whom they like and trust. Interestingly, when all things are unequal, people still do business with those whom they like and trust. Trust is somewhat intangible, but very definable in its impact on our businesses. If we have the trust of our distributors, they will stay with us through the challenges and changes that inevitably come. If we do not have their trust, we will labor long with little return and we will lose the very people we've worked hard to win.

Here is a working definition for trust in our industry: Trust is the personal confidence a member has that the actions and behaviors of the company warrant continuing the relationship. Trust is confidence, and if our distributors have confidence in us they will continue with us in a winning, mutually rewarding manner.

Building Trust in the Field
There are at least six profoundly simple behaviors we can employ to build trust with our distributors.

First, we build trust by demonstrating genuine care for our distributors as individuals and as the drivers for our economic engines. We value our distributors "just because," not for what they might do for the company. Then, we honor and respect the fact that they are the ones who generate the revenue for the company. Some simple ways we can demonstrate genuine care:

Caring attitudes-Like trust, attitude is visceral but definable. Regularly assess what attitudes your distributors are experiencing from your call center staff, your finance department staff, from your fulfillment department staff, and from anyone else who interacts directly with your distributors. While your personal attitude may be exemplary, it's possible that the attitude of a staff member is not. Take responsibility for the tone and "feel" of attitudes on your staff; they will support or erode trust in the field.

Caring atmosphere-When distributors breathe in an atmosphere of esteem and celebration their confidence is going to grow, as is their trust.

Caring actions-Think through your "routine" decisions on incentives, promotions and programs to be sure you are not impinging on the earning potential for distributors. For example, it may seem logical to discount product or give it as incentive, but if that action affects earnings for the distributors it will do more harm than good.

Second, trust is built when we demonstrate competence in normal business activities. While that seems obvious, it is easy to slip into a semiconscious state when it comes to assessing our companies the way our distributors do. Inconveniences to the company can become major stumbling blocks to the distributors. Inventory management, Web site maintenance and management, and the efficiency of fulfillment services are critical concerns to our distributors. Quite simply, these kinds of competencies will make us or break us in the field.

A Failure to Communicate?
Third, trust is built when we demonstrate clear, consistent communications. It's still true that more people leave our companies because of poor communication than for any other reason. Interestingly, it's also true that we would each consider our companies to be doing a good job in communicating, and therein lies "the disconnect." The issue in communication is never what we are saying or how frequently we are saying it; the issue is what the field is hearing. What we intend to say and what they actually hear can be vastly different messages. Thus, we must be vigilant in our words, phrasing and strategies. A good portion of that vigilance must be given to considering how the message may be interpreted-or misinterpreted-by our audience.

Two areas of communication deserve extra attention each day because of their trust implications: formal channels and informal channels.

We use formal channels of communication with our distributors. Whether it's voice mail, e-mail, phone calls or something else, wisdom demands we route it all through a central content management mechanism to ensure that our message is clear, complementary to other communications, and conveyed frequently enough to achieve the desired impact.

Informal channels of communication are those between our corporate offices and our distributors, and they also demand attention. We want our home-office staffs to develop great relationships with our distributors, but we also want to establish specific, appropriate parameters for those relationships. Take the initiative to train your staff to refrain from sharing "inside" information or personal opinion. A company's credibility is often in the hands of someone engaged in an "off the record" conversation, but as we all know there is no such thing as "off the record" in a volunteer army of relationships. Our Founder, Charles E. Ragus, always said, "Pay attention to detail, leave nothing to chance." That wisdom surely applies here if we are to build and maintain trust with distributors.

The Good of the Many
A fourth way we build trust with our distributors is to demonstrate appropriate corrective measures if a member violates company policy. Our distributors will never take our business more seriously than do we. If we are unwilling to confront and correct problems in the field, we forfeit our right to complain about them, we lose the respect and trust of other distributors, and our voices grow ineffective in other matters of consequence. If our policies are clearly stated and published, they set an objective standard that we then support. In one of the "Star Trek" movies Mr. Spock said, "The good of the many outweighs the good of the one," and that must be the driving mindset when corrective action is required. By the way, in case you have any doubts, the field already knows what you are-or are not-doing about a problem, and in that regard their confidence in you is growing or dying.

Fifth, we build trust when we demonstrate consistency in our programs. By that I simply mean that we plan and execute programs, incentives, promotions, etc., in a strategic sequence. These programs can help us build business and good will, and can be fun for our distributors if we do them well. However, if we appear to be shooting from the hip or following the latest impulse, we run the risk of confusing or exhausting our distributors-detrimental to building trust.

The sixth way we build trust with our distributors is by demonstrating a collaborative mindset in working with them. If the company dictates everything and the distributors are told to execute, outcomes will be less than stellar. If distributors are genuinely included in strategic discussions, planning sessions and feedback groups, outcomes will not only improve but distributors will develop greater pride in their work and higher trust in their company. When the company clearly defines the roles and expectations for these collaborative efforts and maintains orderly communication channels, distributors will respond with creativity and energy that may surpass anything the company could generate.

No doubt there are many other nuances of trust deserving attention. Suffice it to say when all is said and done, our relationships with our volunteer distributors rise or fall on trust. If we pay attention to continually earning and preserving trust with our distributors, they will come, stay and grow with us.

Rick Loy is Senior Vice President for Field Operations for AdvoCare International, LP, a Carrollton, Texas, based direct seller of nutritional and skin-care solutions. Rick is considered an expert in the dynamics of personal presentation sales and is an accomplished public speaker/trainer in the realm of leadership development.

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