In the delightful “Idea book” Fredrik Haren has a page called:
Find the bug:
Identify what irritates you.
He describes how the inventor of Linux, the world class computer operating system, came to develop it.
This gent named Linus Torvald was completely bugged one day that an operating system he had bought, wouldn’t work. Even after he wrote some code. He was so sure his code was right, he decided the system he bought MUST be wrong, and set about to disassemble it and put it back together – and that is how the Linux operating system was born.
In our business, network marketing, I hear hundreds of complaints every week – things that bug people in the thick of it. Both major players who are having trouble getting their people to do more, and new people who don’t want to do the things they’re told to do. And that’s pretty much where it stops.
Almost no one seems to think they can change it. Some people are of course not yet committed enough to want to take the time and energy to change it. But if it matters enough to you to do something about it, start.
Do not underestimate yourself: If you are really frustrated by certain experiences, it might be something YOU can make better – and if it helps you, like what happened for Linus, it might help thousands of others.
Why you? Well, you are doing the business, aren’t you? You don’t need to be an expert to start a revolution or join one: Just committed to change with a vision of what can be better. And a willingness to experiment. To tinker without being attached to the results of each experiment. Whining’s easy. Anyone can do that. 🙂
We all know that the best revolutions start from the inside out – it’s those who are experiencing the irritating things that drive them to come up with an improvement that solves it, the way Linus Torvald (and countless others) did. Look how many people are happier now just because HE did something about a problem that irritated him.
If you, like me, have a longing to see network marketing be practiced so that it will not be seen as “low rent” and so that there is not so much frustration with bossy upline pushing systems and methods on people who don’t want to do those particular things, if you’re tired of the push to recruit only, with no focus on regular customers, and if you’re tired of no training on how to “talk to people” when that’s the one thing they tell you to do, and if you want to do something about it because you believe, like I do, that an average person with the right tools and commitment can in fact make it work, then try this (adapted from the Idea book):
Write down ten things that bug you about the business.
Try to come up with an improvement, another way to do it, or something else entirely to do or not do, which not only solves the situation irritating you, but which also makes your experience in the business a little bit better. If it helps you, might it not help others, too?
Post your irritations and proposed improvements below. We can discuss here, and in a future seminar.
Maybe we need to dial it down?
This from GK.
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Localize the pain.
No matter how revolutionary your product, don’t describe it using lofty, flowery terms like ‘revolutionary’, ‘paradigm shifting’, and ‘curve jumping’.
Macintosh wasn’t positioned as ‘the third paradigm in personal computing’; instead, it increased the productivity and creativity of one person with one computer.
People don’t buy revolutions. They buy aspirins to fix the pain or vitamins to supplement their lives.
——–
So, maybe I’m wrong to have penned ‘A revolution is on. This book starts it.’
‘You cannot shrink you way to greatness’… we’ll see.
😉
Kim,
I’ve experienced different spectrums of networking in my adult life but never got involved until now. My hope is to fullfill your ambitions of creating a better model of networking – I like the phrase I have a “Network Practice” and ask if I can coin that phrase since it was yours to begin with. My irritation lies within me mostly, but after your class I realize it’s not all my fault – I just became a product of the product and one side of it isn’t working. Example: If you are going to open a Taco Stand you better know how to make a good Taco. If your gonna enroll a new person you better know how to get them started. And help them get to the first level. Just an opinion.
while we’re writing down things we don’t like, why do we buy names of people who mostly aren’t interested in actually doing anything related to their own “thing”- are we in the NWM business or leads business?
there has GOT to be a better way to find interested people than to wade thru phone lists of people who are mostly NOT interested.
Nature girl said >there has GOT to be a better way to find interested people.
There is. It’s called ‘marketing’ – the ‘trick’ of which is positioning ourselves to generate and receive genuine enquiries.
It’s a subject beyond a weblog comment, and begins with approaching the enterprise appropriately and developing ‘professional’ techniques… rather than the sadly too common ‘bumble-or-hare around making a damn nuisance of ourselves and alienating many through business practices which are at best amateur and perhaps unethical’.
And, having ‘found’ interested people, let’s try this:
‘Be honest. And kind. Treat folk intelligently. Operate with respect.’