It's about our mindset

I would like to recommend a book to those of you who have a desire to be a better leader and then develop leaders along the way. The name of this book is Making the First Circle Work by Randy Gage. The following is a quote from this book: "Our mindset may have more to do with success than any other single thing we could have.  Because our mindset creates our attitude and our attitude determines the actions we will take. Or not take."

How is your mindset about your future in this business? Are you totally sold in your mind on the idea that you can build whatever size business you want? I think the word mindset is about our expectations. If we expect people to reject our idea, that is probably what will happen. Do we approach people thinking they will be skeptical? Then we probably won't approach many people. If you expect people to be interested in the idea for building this business you probably will find those people.

Another quote from this book is: "When you have a negative mindset, every minor challenge will turn into a distraction and distractions kill growth. When you have a positive mindset, distractions don't affect you." We've got the company, the products and the marketing plan that's awesome. Growth and success is really more about the person and that is what mindset is about. So that brings us back to the idea about personal development.  I believe that when the person gets better the business gets better.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

 If you go to www.networkmarketing.com, click on Resource Store, scroll down and you'll find the book.

Great example about getting started

In yesterday's message I mentioned this isn't always an easy business and I received a response from Tiffany Collins.  Tiffany is very new in Shaklee and the following is an excerpt of her response to my comments.

"I need the reminder its not about easy its about building a future. This commitment to my new Shaklee business is already growing me in other parts of my life. Is it easy, no. Is it stretching, YES!! Is it good for me? You better believe it!! I am putting what I have learned and am learning into action. I have 2 event dates set. I just registered for Chicago Regional's...."

I'm sure everyone can relate in some way to the idea that it isn't easy but it does stretch a person when they start something that is totally new. This stretching is good for us. When I think back to our beginnings I certainly can relate to what Tiffany said. We get stretched when we are willing to step out and start doing the basic fundamentals for building this business.

Are you willing to step out and start doing things that will challenge and stretch you? Do it. You will be glad you did. Go for it. Have a great day.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

Some ideas for growth

I have some booklets  from Price Pritchett that I've read many times. These booklets are aimed at helping corporations with their strategy for growth. You and I are our own corporation so after reading these again over the weekend I decided to take some excerpts from his booklet "Fast Growth Strategy" for you to think about.

"Growth is a sacrificial act. To pull it off you have to steal time from other areas of your life. Something has to give over here in order for you to grow over there.... You must sharpen your focus, narrow yourself - all this so you can give more time to fewer efforts.... Think few.  Concentrate on the essentials. Figure out what to ignore. To speed our growth we must simplify. What this comes down to is deliberately managing choices out of our lives."

I know people want to grow themselves as well as their businesses and it's all a matter of making choices.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

What's our job?

Commitment doesn't start when someone says "I'm committed."  

Commitment starts when adversity of some kind shows up.

 

Facing adversities are a part of life. Our job is to become an "over-comer." 

 

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

How to get results that will astonish you

From the book The Answer by John Assaraf

The keys to effectiveness are clarity and consistency of effort.

 

You have to be 100% clear on what you want to achieve.

 

If you maintain clarity and consistency, you will get results. It's that simple. And over time, the results will astonish you.

 

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

Simplicity continued

Don't stop working when it seems like it's not working.   

 

It will work for you but you gotta keep at it.

 

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

Simplicity week continues

Yesterday's simple message - When you do more, you'll have more.

A great response from almost 89 year old Doris Johnson: "And besides, when I do more I feel better about me."

Tuesday's message: if you aren't growing, you probably need a new routine.

Start over?

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

It's simplicity week

When you do more, you'll have more.

More what? More sponsoring, more PV...more income, more time for yourself.

Simple and true.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

It's all about repetitions

Today is October 15th, so we are halfway through the month. How's it going for you and your team? Do you feel like you're making progress? Do you have any builders who are bringing in new people every week? Is your PV at the middle of the month better than it was in September? I learned early in my Shaklee career to ask myself questions because I'm the one who has to be accountable for our business. I'm not accountable to the home office or my upline. I'm in charge of me which means I have to look in the mirror to have a talk with my boss.

How many reps (repetitions) will you have in October? I'm referring to calls, appointments, follow-ups, meetings attended/conducted, new people coming into your team. Once in a while I get asked how I keep myself motivated / inspired. I'll make this rather short.  When new people are coming into the business as members or builders, that always makes everything go better. I also like to read as I love success principles and stories.

So maybe the question we all should be asking ourselves is how many reps are we having every week?  The more reps you have in a specific area, the more you will get better in that area of the business. The only way to keep improving yourself in this business is by what you're doing on a regular basis. If there is an area you want to improve, set a goal for that area.  Example: If you want to sponsor more people set a goal to have a minimum of 3 to 5 appointments a week for the next four weeks. Let's say you had 4 per week, that would mean you had 16 appointments in that month. You would be getting better and better at setting appointments and giving presentations.

You would also be a terrific example for everyone in your downline. You would be excited. That will inspire people in your downline. So, if anyone is wondering how to inspire people in your organization the answer is simple. When the leader is charging forward and new people are coming into the business. That will light a fire under people as they will see your progress. That's leadership in action.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

A powerful statement

We talk a lot about growth - personal growth as well as business growth, and I think the reason is because growth is moving forward and moving forward connects with achievement. In the first few years of building our business, there were many struggles, doubts, some fears, and disappointments. My view is that any time we start something new there is going to be a learning curve and we have to be willing to struggle through whatever it takes. This is a statement I found in the book Resilience by Eric Greitens.

"We all need something to struggle against and to struggle for. The aim in life is not to avoid struggles, but to have the right ones; not to avoid worry, but to care for the right things; not to live without fear, but to confront worthy fears with force and passion."

What a unique statement that is - really makes me think that I wish I knew that when first getting started because everything seemed like a struggle. In reflecting back my struggles were about approaching people, getting appointments, finding the people who wanted to build a business not just to sell something. There were more but I'm sure you have your own list.   

What kind of jumped off the page to me when I read the above statement was the idea that struggles are not to be avoided but struggles in the right areas are to be welcomed. My hope is that you will read this statement slowly and think about what it means to you. This might be worth printing out and save it so you can read it again and again as you face struggles in your life and business.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

Goals and Discipline - from Rocky Pratt

The following is an excellent message written by Master Coordinator Rocky Pratt. This is an excellent message about goals and I'm sure you will enjoy reading this as Rocky always has clarity when he writes.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

EVER HAD A JOB?

You had goals and discipline.

Required as a condition of your employer.
Discipline as in how many hours you'd work.
Goals as in what you were expected to accomplish to earn your pay.

EVER BEEN ON A TEAM?

An athletic team? The debate team? Any endeavor in between?
To win, to score, you had to have discipline. To practice, when to practice and how hard to practice.
Every team effort that desires to succeed, do well and win must have discipline and goals, the DESIRE to win.

WELCOME TO SHAKLEE!

       We have NO requred disicpline
       We have NO required goals.
       As independent contractors we have free rein in how we run our businesses.

GUESS WHAT?

    Therein lies, for most of us in Shaklee, the biggest challenge. The lack of an imposed work ethic.
    The following comments aren't about what tools to use.

          This note is to encourage you to set your goals, organize your time, and to then execute your plan.

          TIME CONTROL is high on the list. Yes, commit time to "working shaklee" several hours every day.

          Commit to how many days a week you'll give to prospecting, contacting, follow-up and more.

     When I hear someone say as they start Shaklee.."I'll see how it goes"... I know that most often, "IT" will go nowhere. 

        In that your time is valuable the committing of time to your business is to put a value on the enterprise. 

        If you put in little time, little work, you can expect little return..and big frustration.

       Goals are achieved by applying discipline to your process.

        "Plan your work and work your plan".  Old expression with huge importance to the entrepreneur.

       Goals should be time sensitive.

            "By every Friday I will have talked to___people.

             I will have sold personally___$ in product"

          The interlocking of weekly goals into a monthly goal keeps you on track. Dont wait til the last week of the month to accomplish your plan. Brinksmanship is deadly. Evaluate progress each Friday and enjoy the weekend.

          Then construct your plan so that your monthly goals bring you to the achievement of your annual goal.

        Monthly Example:  3000 monthly PV your goal? Then 750 attained weekly will get you there. 

       Lastly your long term goal is your" WHY".

   Since no external influence can set your goals, YOU must exert the discipline needed to define your goals.

         YOUR " WHY" is the catalyst, the spark, the engine that will drive YOU to YOUR success.

      AS you build a disciplined approach to attaining your weekly, monthly and annual goals your probabilities of success skyrocket!

DO IT NOW! 

Rocky Pratt   

How to succeed faster

Here we are approaching the middle of October and the question for today is are we doing the things we know we should be doing in order to be making progress?   I want to ask you to read and to consider doing what is being suggested, because if you do, your business and your life will change.

The following is what I found in a magazine a few years ago that I have kept because of it's simplicity and potential power to help people to explode their future.

Thomas J. Watson Sr., the founder of IBM was asked by a writer how he could succeed faster as a writer. Mr. Watson replied with the following profound words. "If you want to be successful faster, you must double your rate of failure.  Success lies on the far side of failures."

What a great and challenging statement.  I have read many stories over the years about various people who became highly successful and the answer always seems to be the same. They all had failures.  Just think about it for a while. All we have to do is to double our failures....go out this week and get as many "No thank you" as you possibly can. Within all those small failures will be people who are waiting for a good idea to change their financial future.  

Everyone wants to build their Shaklee business faster. Here is a simple suggestion that I hope you will accept as your challenge for the rest of October.  How many failures can you have from today to the last day of this month?

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

It works when the people do

It's happening folks. I feel compelled to let everyone know that growth is taking place wherever people are working at the basic fundamentals of this business.  Renee van Heel has been working this business really hard and the fruit has arrived as it always does when the effort has been made. 

Our sincere CONGRATULATIONS to Renee and her team and my bet is this is just the beginning for Renee's business.    Thanks Renee for being a wonderful example for many people who have a desire to grow.

Enthusiaistically,

Gary Burke

We had the great pleasure of recognizing Renee van Heel and her team at our area meeting Wednesday night. New senior executive coordinator!!

She has 8 new directors and two who are already senior directors!! Renee is first generation to Kathi Minsky and second generation to Rod and Danette.

New directors: Shawn Marshall, Darla Fox, Chrystie Dawn Babcock, Robert Magur, Leslie Wang, Andi VanHeel, Suzi Lieber, Richard Fox.

Darla and Dawn are now Senior directors!

Renee and her team are lighting up our southern California meetings with lots of energy and enthusiasm!

Barb

TERRIFIC in-home success!

This is a little longer message but this will show you what happened when a couple of leaders got together and decided to do something. This is another excellent example of of the power of making a decision and following through.

Gary Burke

 

Hi Team-- Just a quick note to let everyone know where these 2 leaders fit in on our Triple Success Team. Stacy and Chris are both 1st generation Directors on Jane Pederson's team, 2nd generation to Kathi Minsky, 3rd genration to Danette & I, 8th generation to Barb Hill Behar. This event Stacy shares about generated new PV that helped give Stacy her best PV month in nearly 2 years!  This is a great example of the power having in-home events, especially when you decide to team up with another leader like Chris and Stacy have.

Pay close attention to the numbers Stacy shares about the number of prospects that were invited, how many said they would come, how many showed up-- and then the results that took place. This in-home event process is as predictable as the sun setting in the west-- it's going to happen!

I have an accountability call with Stacy every Tuesday and I asked her to share with me the results from the event that Chris and Stacy were doing that same night.  Here is her terrific report!

Rod

Hi Rod,

Just wanted to share with you what we have started in the Phoenix area and the results from our most recent event this week on Tuesday evening.

Chris Kelly and I have teamed up to re-energize our businesses. We did our 2nd in-home of the month this week at Chris's home. We created the presentation based on the one you did on the Triple Success Team, and did the 2nd half on products after we covered the company and the business opportunity.  There was a lot of sitting and some interaction during the “presentation” portion of the meeting, but we knew we needed to mix it up, so we moved the group into the kitchen and conducted a tasting of Life Shakes, a look at the Enfuselle skin care, and some Get Clean demos.  That was quite a bit more interactive!

One of the unique things we did was to show our checks and total earnings (easy to do by printing out our last month’s bonus recap) - I think this shocked some people that we were willing to be that transparent. I remembered from one of your stories, Rod,  that people showed checks when you started with Shaklee. It seemed like a good idea, given the average network marketer makes about $250 a month, I believe. While our income isn't massive, it certainly is respectable - particularly given that we both are extremely busy individuals and have other jobs and obligations.

Here’s how the attendance and the ACTION went for the event:

As it always goes, we had more "maybe's" than confirmed out of about 40 prospects, so we have a good list to go to for the next one. We had 16 confirmed - 10 actually showed up (1 came late and left early - but showed up nonetheless). 

Of the 10 that showed, we already have:

> 1 new member (Life Plan plus Nutriferon) - and he is considering becoming Gold down the road. Of note, this is a person that has been "looking" for over a year but was fearful of the "network marketing" reputation. He is in the healthcare field and was very impressed by the Shaklee quality and what he said was a very comfortable and informative evening with no pushing.

> 2 existing members purchased retail products that evening from Chris' stock on hand, products they haven’t purchased before

> 1 who is already a member buying Get Clean and some nutritional items here and there was introduced to new products that she wants to try - starting with MindWorks.

> 1 who has been a DoTerra Rep for several years, who was very impressed with Shaklee and admitted she "made a huge mistake" dedicating her time to that company: she has not made her money back yet, has $2000 in inventory, and only has 2 repeat customers. Given the number of people she has signed up in that company, she would have made a substantial profit with Shaklee. She is interested inthe business, and learned a lot more about Enfuselle that Chris hadn’t the opportunity to go over in the past – Chris really loves that parties and in-homes are great for existing members as well as new people! 

> 1 scheduled a follow up meeting next week to put together a plan for him to start his own Shaklee business (Gold).

> 2 committed to increasing their usage to include the Life Plan instead of just Vitalizer, and will be bringing their neighbor to the next in-home. 

> 1 couple signed up as members today because they were impressed with what they learned about VIVIX. Husband is a weight lifter, wife is fit and focused on natural products since working to overcome pre cancer issues in the past 2 years. 

> 1 the guest that came late and had to leave early due to a business emergency, inquired the next day about the details of the LIFE PLAN for he and his wife…said it sounded like a real solid plan! 

Yes!  Almost every single person that came either expanded their use of Shaklee products, or became members if they were not already!  Quite a HARD-TO-BEAT efficiency score if you’re into statistics! 

The follow-up comments have been very good. I personally am excited to be excited again, and happy to have some partnership. For Chris and I, this is not a business to be done alone.  We like teaming up and are careful to complement each others’ styles and not create confusion with our guests in our joint events.   I am grateful for our accountability calls each week, and to have someone locally to team up with to build.   Chris feels the same and we’re focused on our individual business growth goals.  We have others in the Phoenix area we are including in various events.  Phoenix is waking up!

Our plan is to have consistent meetings and create a place for new people to come and build their own groups and get support. We haven't really had that, and you planted the seed and encouraged us to do that...so we did. I just ran out of excuses!   Chris had started some activities along with some of Carlos Blanco and Mannes Group activities around town – we’ll be continuing on there with SUPER SATURDAYS-- our combined groups are doing together.   

So-- we are taking action, working our plan, and setting a high bar!

Thanks again for all your support, encouragement, and realistic advice. It is the difference between “wanting” and “doing” that will make our goals realities!

Best Regards, 

Stacy Wilde

Here is a great story.

I like stories. Eric Murray grew up in a tough neighborhood in Milwaukee, WI in a single parent home. The only way he would be able to get to college would be through a athletic scholarship. The U of Minnesota finally offered him the last scholarship they had. He was considered the lowest-rated recruit in the 2012 recruiting class. Simply being on the team of a Big Ten program wasn't enough for Eric. "A relentless attitude and hard work helped Eric achieve more than was ever expected." The following is a quote from Eric.

"I knew if I kept working hard, people would start to recognize that. If you work with a group of people and you're pushing yourself as hard as you can and they see that, it lights a fire under them.  Instead of just talking about stuff, I do it."

Here is how this story relates to our business. Would you like to light a fire under the people in your organization?  Our business is what Eric is describing because when a leader works hard, sponsoring new people, having PV growth every month, hearing about the new people and how great they are doing, and hearing about the monthly earnings going up and up, those things will light a fire under people. Not all people but believe me a good percentage of people are just waiting to see examples in their upline. 

I know this is accurate because we experienced it and here is our example.  Faye an I were getting close to becoming a Key Coordinator a number of years ago. We had a discussion and we decided it was important we get there because we felt it would be a good example for our organization. What happened was amazing because in a matter of months after we qualified as Key Coordinators there were many sales leaders in our downline who made great progress and it was exciting seeing and hearing about the progress that was taking place. We believe that the two strongest things in the world are prayer and example.

So now you know how to light a fire under people in your organization. When you work hard they will see it and they will hear about the new people you have sponsored, they will get excited. They will start to have stronger belief and many people will follow your lead.

By the way, three years after  enrolling in college "[Eric] Murray is an All-Big Ten performer at cornerback and has NFL scouts watching him closely." I think it pays off to work hard.

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke

How far do you want to take your business?

Have you ever wondered if you can really build this business? When you think about the kind of Shaklee business you want to have, what do you come up with? How about to be debt free? To always have money to do some fun things such as travel? To pay for the education of kids or grandkids? To live stress free? Maybe it's about a title, like Key or Master Coordinator? It's fun to dream about the kind of future we want but the key is getting started, and then to finish what you start. 

I found a very thought provoking comment by T.S. Eliot that I suggest you give some serious thought to: "Only those who risk going far can possibly find out how far one can go." Read that a few times and ask yourself some questions.  What kind of future do I really want in this business? Am I willing to step up to a line in the sand and really do it? How far do I want to go?

I remember talking to myself all the time about what kind of future I would like to have. I also recall the times when I had doubt. Fighting doubt was a big factor for me in those early years and I'm sure that many of you reading this right now have experienced the same thing. Doubt has a way of stopping people in their tracks and some even give up.   

Why not sit down and look at your goals? If you can't find your goals it just means you haven't put them on paper yet. So your first step is to etch your goals in concrete by putting them on paper. You never want to get to the point where you find yourself saying, "I really wish I had ...." Don't be afraid to dream. Yes we do face many risks in this business but that is what it takes. How far can you go?

Enthusiastically,

Gary Burke