We’ve spent 11 chapters looking at many strategies and techniques you can practice to grow your team and produce better duplication. Now is a good time to look at some of the actions and behaviors you should avoid. These are the “landmines” that actually inhibit or completely stop your growth.

When I conducted my Mega MLM Boot Camps, I created a workbook for that titled The Direct Selling Hall of Shame. The people “inducted” into this Hall were the ones who practiced behavior that would constrain leadership, kill duplication, and prevent achieving exponential growth.

To have some fun, I created personality profiles for each area of bad behavior. (I can assure you that there are thousands of people walking this earth whom these profiles are based on!) I’ve changed the names to protect the guilty. So without further ado, allow me to introduce them to you, in the hope you never appear on this list…

The Martyr

The Disease: The Martyr wants success for everyone so badly, he or she spends countless hours trying to drag people across the finish line. Most of the Martyr’s time is spent trying to change people who don’t want to change and save people who don’t want to be saved. Martyrs operate on people’s potential but ignore their actions.

How to Know If You’re Infected: Ninety percent of your time is spent with your “problem children.” You’re so busy with them that you leave potentially great people to fend for themselves. Your best leaders are afraid to ask you for help, because you always seem so overwhelmed. In fact, you’re so busy counseling, begging, and trying to motivate your problem kids, your own business suffers. You have difficulty keeping yourself motivated. Your group and your bonus check plateau and then start creeping backward.

The Cure: Spend 90 percent of your time with your real builders and do that first. Don’t take talented people for granted and force them to work without your help. Partner with them, and only when their needs are met do you attempt to save the whiners, lost lambs, and charity cases. To help anyone reach success in the business—you must first become successful yourself.

The Tactician

The Disease: The Tactician believes that success in Direct Selling comes from knowing and teaching a method, strategy, or tactic for every conceivable situation.

Examples: “This is how you approach your girlfriend’s boss. This is how you should approach someone in the subway. This is the script you use when someone asks if all of the ingredients are organic.” The reality is that no one can effectively anticipate every possible scenario. And if someone could, no one would be able to duplicate them anyway.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You’re the ultimate grinder, getting hundreds of frantic calls, texts, and emails daily. You publish thick manuals of possible scripts and action steps, or spend hours every week training people to memorize scripts. You have a very high churn percentage in your group. The few people who stay out of loyalty or misplaced confidence (often accountants and engineers) replicate the process and become career grinders as well.

The Cure: You must resist the urge to develop a tactic and training for every conceivable situation and instead develop culture in the critical areas. You must create an environment where proactive people can learn to think for themselves. If you paint the right picture of the desired outcomes, people will figure out more than you might think.

The Messiah

The Disease: The Messiah is the ultimate control freak. He or she believes that growth and motivation are created by developing a cult of personality. And since no one can measure up to the Messiah’s standard of perfection, they must make all presentations, conduct all trainings, and be the all-knowing sage who solves all problems.

How to Know If You’re Infected: Everyone in your group has your phone or email and turns to you first to solve all issues. This leads to overload, and people complain because you take forever to return messages.

You will experience rapid growth through four or five levels initially, where you can personally touch everybody with your magnetic personality. You do runs where you can drive large volume to reach a rank advancement, but you seldom requalify at that rank. If you’re tech savvy, you might have more long distance groups, but you still handle every important presentation or training yourself, using the Internet, conference calls, video conferencing, or other tools.

The Cure: To get out of this mess, you must become the messenger, not the message. It’s critical that you utilize third-party tools. You must delegate training functions and let your people conduct presentations—even when they can’t do them perfect like you. You must limit access to you and your contact information to only personal enrollees and higher pin ranks. Make all issues work their way up through the sponsorship line and advance a level only when the person below cannot handle the issue. Instead of enjoying the satisfaction of solving problems for people, you must direct them where and how to solve their problems themselves.

The Social (Media) Butterfly

The Disease: The Social Media Butterfly has been in 217 different deals in the past five years and assaulted their warm market so often and so obnoxiously, they’re afraid to contact them again. Or they bought a $27 eBook titled How to Become a Millionaire from Home While Watching the SpongeBob SquarePants Show.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You refuse to work your business in the outside world or talk with anyone you personally know. You prospect only strangers on social media or on spam lists you buy. You frequently appear on the top enrollers list, but you don’t make any, you know, actual money.

The Cure: First, if you bought a course that teaches to approach only strangers, throw it away. You will never succeed until you become willing to talk with people you know and care about. And the best way to do this is with complete honesty and authenticity. If you really do relate to the example above, simply put the situation in the open. Say something like, “I know I’ve called you 217 times and thought I had the magic pill, and you have every right to hang up on me if you want to. But I have learned from my mistakes, and this time I honestly believe I have found something special. If you would be willing, just one more time…”

The Mad Genius

The Disease: The Mad Genius believes that he or she has discovered a better way to do the business, one that the sponsorship line was too dim-witted to discover.

How to Know If You’re Infected: Working the warm market is too boring and beneath you. Instead of following the system, you’re always going for the big score. You want a short cut to the big bucks by sponsoring Meryl Streep, selling laundry soap to the Marriott hotel chain, or sponsoring the British Royal Air Force.

You spend months trying to become an approved government vendor, going through the purchasing process of large corporations, or chasing down the guy who mows the lawn for the lady who cuts the hair of the man that went to school with Lady Gaga. Leveraged Sales is not congruent with this business model, and the time you spend chasing the big deals kills any possibility of true duplication. You’re probably frustrated and ready to drop out, because you haven’t gotten any serious duplication for all of your efforts.

The Cure: Repeat this mantra 10 times each morning:

• “The big deal is the small deal… and the small deal is really the big deal.”

The Follower

The Disease: The Follower likes to stay behind the scenes and let someone in the sponsorship line be the face of their organization. They believe by lying low they will be easier to duplicate, or they have low self-esteem and don’t believe they deserve to be on the stage. Unfortunately, this behavior is duplicated by the members of their team, who also decide to lie low and follow.

How to Know If You’re Infected: When company leaders come to town, they can’t remember your name. You shy away from doing presentations and don’t want to be on the platform during training events. You’re a good soldier who always attends all events and takes 17 pages of notes. You’re in awe of bold people and like to be in their orbit.

The Cure: Show the spark and excitement that causes people to want to follow you. This doesn’t mean create a new system but inspire people to follow your lead in the system. The person with the clicker makes the most money, so fight for your chance to be on the platform. Have a rock star photo and testimonial. Make your group proud to be on your team. Spend at least 30 minutes daily in self-development time to help resolve your worthiness and confidence issues.

The Moth

The Disease: Like that nocturnal insect attracted to any bright light, the Moth is elbowing their way into every opportunity for exposure. They want the spotlight so bad they’ll walk over anyone and everyone, even their own people, to bask in the glow.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You’re always begging to be on the platform, angling for more exposure in the online presentations, and wanting to be featured in every tool the company or team develops. You’ve forgotten that the actual objective here is building a sustainable business, not getting more stage time.

The Cure: Humility. Recognize that everything is not all about you. And even in cases where your work and achievements make you deserving of more exposure, sometimes the best course of action is to allow other developing leaders to be featured.

The Ostrich

The Disease: The Ostrich’s highest value is avoiding confrontation. She wants to be liked, so she tells people only what she thinks they want to hear. When problems arise in the group, the Ostrich ignores them and hopes they go away. When her team members come to the Ostrich with ideas that will take them off course, she doesn’t want to hurt their feelings, so she panders to them.

How to Know If You’re Infected: Your sponsorship line or the company is calling you with problems that your group took to them. Small issues snowball into divisive conflicts. Your team does not feel protected by you. You have lots of people off-system who are struggling, and you keep hoping someone up the sponsorship line will swoop down and save them.

The Cure: Confront problems head on immediately. Deal with problem people with kindness, tact and grace—but exercise “tough love” when they exhibit behaviors that will hurt their own business or others. Care for your people enough to tell them the truth, especially when they are in danger of getting off-track.

The Prince(ess) of Darkness

The Disease: This person knows why every new initiative will fail and their career becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead of a healthy skepticism, they bring toxic cynicism to the party.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You’re a professional victim who attracts drama and trauma continuously. If there are isolated cases of missed commissions, late shipments, or back office glitches—you trumpet them as an epidemic and cite as “proof” the business can’t work. This flies in the face of the fact that other people are succeeding under the same circumstances. (Cynics always find a way to prove their limiting beliefs.)

You become a one-person distraction factory. Your need to commiserate with other victims causes you to send negativity down your team, sabotaging any chance at growth. You have meager bonus checks and growth comes in fits and starts with no duplication. Which just proves what you’ve believed all along.

The Cure: The only cure for this disease is relentless daily self-development. This involves a long-term process of reprogramming your subconscious mind to convert limiting beliefs into empowering ones. To earn more, you must become more.

The Party Animal

The Disease: The Party Animal is an alcoholic and hasn’t accepted the truth. They believe they’re just being social and communing with their team, but in actuality, they’re creating serious impediments to not only their progress but their team’s as well.

How to Know If You’re Infected: Hitting the bar after every event. Losing respect among your team members because you acted foolishly or made inappropriate advances or comments after too much to drink.

The Cure: Alcoholics Anonymous. And for companies (especially health and wellness ones): Stop providing open bars on every cruise or leadership retreat.

The Sales Pro

The Disease: The Sales Pro is usually a grizzled veteran of old school high-pressure sales and closing techniques. They don’t understand the difference between pitching a tourist to buy a timeshare they don’t need versus creating duplication through leverage.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You sponsor large numbers of people, but almost none of them duplicate—except other sales types. You think you’re too talented to use third-party tools. You would much rather conduct one-on-ones to make sure you get the close. You have canned scripts for every possible objection and have constructed a Jeffrey Gitomer shrine in your bedroom.

You appear on the top enrollers list at first, but become so frustrated with your lack of duplication that you consider quitting or “putting the business on the back burner for a little while.” Your initial bonus checks looked great because of the volume from new enrollments, but your residual income wouldn’t feed a church mouse.

The Cure: The secret here is to make sure your sales skills don’t get used against you. Closing techniques work, but they don’t duplicate. The mantra for rehabilitating Sales Pros is:

• “If your lips are moving, you’d better be pointing to a tool.”

The BFF

The Disease: The BFF wants to be Best Friends Forever with everyone they sponsor. Unfortunately, familiarity breeds contempt.

How to Know If You’re Infected: Your team is so familiar with every little detail and problem in your life that they have no respect for you. As a result, they can’t properly edify you, limiting your ability to help them grow. Every opportunity meeting has the same usual suspects attending. What should be business functions become primarily social ones.

The Cure: Keep your professionalism with your team at all times. If you must regale someone with the details of your recent bunion surgery, call your sponsor. A little mystery goes a long way.

The Blind, Hungry Dog in a Butcher Shop

The Disease: The BHDIABS is so excited and they want success so badly, they are always looking for a shortcut to grow faster. They have an attention deficit personality, get bored easily, and have difficulty focusing.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You fall prey to the “flavor of the week” syndrome. You’re always investigating what other lines are doing and trying to infiltrate calls and meetings from other companies to learn their “secret.” You want to buy leads, build online only, skip meetings, or take a commercial spot during the Oscars. You have fits of quick growth, followed by sharp volume dips when the hot new recruiting burst ends. Eventually, your team becomes disillusioned with lack of focus and consistency and they lose faith in you.

The Cure: Follow the formula for creating wealth in our profession: Empower a large group of people to perform a few simple actions on an ongoing basis. System, system, system.

The Renegade

The Disease: Renegades always want to prove that they are so special that they don’t need the system. Or that they are so smart they can think of a better system. Often they wrongly believe those techniques that worked in the corporate world or to sell used cars will work in Leveraged Sales. Even though they’re only earning $800 a month, they’re convinced they have discovered something that the people earning $40,000 a month haven’t figured out.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You don’t have time to participate on team webcasts and events. You’re not plugged into the system, so your sponsorship line can’t really help you. You hold their own team calls and functions, or you’re always in the hallway during group events. You create fast rank advancement for yourself at first, causing other lines to wonder if they are missing out on something. But ultimately you have a hard time staying qualified at rank and don’t have many people on your team breaking ranks either.

The Cure: There is no known cure for this disease. But researchers have seen promising results with humility and a willingness to be coached.

The Hometown Prophet

The Disease: Hometown Prophet Syndrome occurs when someone stays exclusively in their hometown too long, and the business stagnates.

How to Know If You’re Infected: Because the people in your local group recognize that they are 90 percent of your group and your income—they start to lose respect for you. Then they can’t edify you properly, so you can no longer create excitement and inspire the team to action. The opportunity meetings become monotonous and team members outnumber guests 25 to 1. Because there are no fresh success stories, eventually your group begins to decline.

The Cure: Protect your financial security and diversify your business by building long distance. Start by developing a beachhead locally, then expand your range as you see sparks of leadership developing in other areas.

Check your back office each month looking for pockets of growth. When you see a potential leader, go down in the group and taproot the excitement and activity back up the line. Never let one person’s line account for more than 60 percent of your volume.

The Shrewd Investor

The Disease: The Shrewd Investor thinks there is a communist conspiracy to get all their money by forcing them to buy marketing tools and tickets to functions. They believe they can outsmart the Commies and save their way to becoming a millionaire.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You refuse to attend functions because you think you have a better use for the money they require. If you do buy recruiting tools, you’re saving them for a better candidate. Or you knock off marketing materials and use cheap copies instead. This culture has duplicated through your team, and any growth you see is incremental. Then you see the slow growth and small bonus checks as more proof that you should be saving your money instead of investing in your business.

The Cure: Businesses grow in direct proportion to what is invested in them—mentally, time-wise, and financially. Meetings make money and create rank advancements. Attend all major functions and develop that culture in your team. Stop buying stories—your own and others’—and exercise the discipline and tough love to get people to events until they get over the line.

The Helicopter Sponsor

The Disease: The Helicopter Sponsor is always hovering over their enrollees, trying to protect them from any mistakes or adversity. They are well meaning, but they actually hurt their people by making them codependent. They solve problems for their people instead of teaching them how to figure things out.

How to Know If You’re Infected: Your people call you constantly to ask you questions like where the meeting is, what time it starts, what’s the CV of a product, or whether you have extra marketing materials they can borrow. When they have a problem with an order or payment, they contact you first. You have people still asking you to stream into their one-on-one presentation even though they joined the business in 2008. You get messages asking you why you haven’t put anyone in their group this month. Your team members use your house as the satellite warehouse. You’re the only person in your town who can conduct presentations or training. You’re a grinder.

The Cure: Never do anything for a team member they are capable of doing themselves. When your people encounter a problem, instead of solving it for them—teach them the skills and give them the information they need to solve their own problems. Remember: Your job is to work yourself out of a job.

Teach people how to fish. If they demand the all-you-can-eat fish fry, direct them to another restaurant.

The Hollywood Director

The Disease: The Hollywood Director starts off strong and brings in some people quickly. Then they go into Spielberg mode, thinking their job is to just direct the action.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You never have any candidates at presentations yourself, because you are too busy messaging your group to ask how many candidates they are going to have. The last time you personally sponsored someone was during the Bush Administration.

The Cure: Even at the highest pin levels, the best leadership and training you can provide is to model the behavior you want your people to emulate. That means staying active in the sponsoring process yourself.

The Con Man (Woman)

The Disease: The Con Man believes that the end justifies the means. They may compete with their team for recruits, frontload people, lie to their team, or manipulate them in ways that are not in the best interests of their business.

How to Know If You’re Infected: You have high churn rates, low volume, and your team members don’t trust you. Other lines may ostracize your group or bar them from functions.

The Cure: Nothing is more important in our profession than good character. Make and keep the following two promises to your group:

1. I will never knowingly lie to you.
2. I will never knowingly tell you anything that isn’t in the best interest of your business.

* * *

Note: There are other case studies that were not explored here but could have been. They include the Liar, the Addict, and the Cheat. If you develop a reputation for getting stoned at events, sleeping with someone else’s spouse, borrowing money without repaying it, breaking promises, or displaying other character defects, you will quickly lose all respect and credibility with your team.

If you have a substance abuse problem, get professional help. If your actions won’t stand up in the light of day, don’t do them. Even if it costs you initially, always do the right thing. Ultimately, you will prosper.

All right, now that you’ve seen many of the habits and behaviors that prevent you from becoming a leader—let’s switch the perspective and look at how you build your personal leadership brand…