Building leadership skills may not have been at the forefront of your mind when you started your network marketing business. However, as your network and team grow, so does the need to build strong leadership skills. After all, you are a leader, whether you realize it or not. Your network and your team both look to you for motivation, expertise, and to tap into your knowledge of the industry. Here’s how to develop and hone your leadership skills.

Develop your leadership skills

Walk the talk

Leaders walk their talk. If they say they value their relationships with their networks and teams, they act like they value those relationships. This means they keep in touch with the people in their networks, making sure to spend the most time with their top advocates. They follow up with customers and prospective customers to see if they have any questions about the products or services or see if there are any needs they can help with. 

Additionally, they stay in touch with their teams as well. Leaders check in with their distributors and prospective distributors regularly. They aim to keep their distributors motivated and on track to achieve their goals because when distributors win, the leader wins as well. Additionally, they keep in touch with their prospective distributors and see if they can answer any questions and alleviate concerns. Most importantly, leaders often “get caught” checking in and following up with their networks by the people on their teams. If you want your team to replicate your business style, the best way to do so is to let them see and experience you using relationship marketing. That way they can model your style and use it when reaching out and building relationships with their own networks and distributors.

Connect with your team

In addition to checking in with each of them individually, also be sure to check in with them as a group as well. If there’s one thing we all learned from the challenges of the last year, it’s that it’s still possible to connect online with a number of apps, including Zoom. Schedule time once a month to connect with your team. During this time, remind them how much you appreciate them and that you’re always there to help. Then address any challenges or pain points you heard during your one-on-one time with them. Often, what one person is experiencing is similar to something others may be dealing with as well. By addressing these pain points with everyone, you can brainstorm potential solutions. Even team members who aren’t experiencing those particular issues right now can learn from it for the future.

Take the time to also celebrate successes. If someone is having a banner month, give them a shout in your meeting. Then have them share a tip that helped them get there. It’ll help others on the team get motivated to succeed and may help them move past any challenges they’re facing. It also helps them know that success is possible if they’re feeling unmotivated or like they’re not achieving their goals or success fast enough. While you’re expanding your leadership skills, you’re also building trust.

Continue to learn 

Building a business is a continuous process. In order to continue to meet your network’s needs and increase your business, you have to grow your mind. It’s more than increasing your knowledge of your industry and business, it’s also about improving your sales skills as well. Although in relationship marketing, you don’t want to sound salesy, you’re still trying to make sales. However, in this sense, making sales comes from offering your network the best version of you. That is, you can answer their questions, address their concerns, and make recommendations based on what you hear they need. Sales come from the service you provide. So it only makes sense that the more sales you want to have, the better the service you will provide. 

How to improve your sales and leadership skills

Read: There are many books available that can help you improve your sales skills, including how-to books to help you improve your sales, business, and soft skills. They include tips and tactics to help you serve your network and team better.

As humans, we learn from experiences, both our own and the experiences of others. One of the best ways to do the latter is to read books by and about successful business people. Who’s a business person that you look up to? If they have a book, read it to see where they came from and what they’ve learned over the course of their careers. Then, find out who they look up to and learn all you can about them as well. Also, find out books they recommend and add them to your to-read list. If you want to achieve the success of your heroes, learn all you can about them. 

Enroll in courses: The structure of taking a class to improve your sales skills will help ensure you get it done. Classes give you tasks to accomplish to put what you’ve learned to use. Additionally, you can learn from your instructor as well as others in the class. Discussion also provides an opportunity to consider things you hadn’t thought of. Then you can prepare for potential challenges you may face along your own journey to success.

Get a coach: A coach not only keeps you on track to reaching your goals; they can also offer ideas to help you connect with your network. They can offer insight and another perspective when you feel as if you’re not breaking through. Additionally, they also offer perspective when you’re having difficulty connecting with your network and team. 

Practice: They say practice makes perfect. This is true of your sales skills as well. The more you practice them, the more natural you’ll sound and feel in the process. Use the skills you’ve learned whenever you can, whether it’s with people in your network, your team, or even your family. These skills – listening, offering help and solutions, etc. – are all things that can help to improve your relationships with everyone in your life. 

Share with your team

One of the best ways to keep your sales skills sharp, while honing your leadership skills, is to share it with your team. During your monthly meetings, or when you speak with your team members, share with them something you’ve learned. Or share a skill you’ve been working on improving. There are many benefits to this approach.

1. Your team can see that you’re always improving your own skills. This may inspire them to improve their skills as well. 
2. You’ll get to practice what you’ve learned. And practice is always beneficial.
3. Your team may offer suggestions to help become even more effective, or may discover ways that they can use it and make it their own. 

We’re dedicating this month to improving leadership skills

Whether you’ve been in the business for years or you’re just starting, it’s always the right time to develop and hone your leadership skills. Many business owners focus so much on their sales skills that they neglect to hone their leadership skills. When you’re leading a team, these skills are so important, especially since their success is intertwined with yours, as it is in network marketing. 

That’s why the August blogs will center on leadership and building your leadership skills. If you want to succeed in business – any business – it’s imperative to continue to improve your leadership acumen. This month, we’ll provide the tips and advice to get you motivated to get it done. It all leads up to our latest training course, Teamzy Lead™ – have you signed up yet? Take your business to the next level with our latest training!

Hone your leadership skills with Teamzy Lead Leadership Development Course

We created our Teamzy Lead 4-week leadership development course to help network marketers develop and improve their leadership skills so they can take their businesses to the next level. Click here for more information.