You can't push someone while leading! Your job is not to "motivate" results. So how do you lead? — With confidence. The network marketing business is loaded with "reluctant leaders"; that is, sincere people that enthusiastically joined a business with a personal drive or goal, intending fully to follow the program to success, but suddenly discovering (after a month or two) that what they really signed on for was a leadership project: Find and build a team of people "just like you".

From outward appearances, most take on this challenge willingly and claim to understand it. But inside, they hear voices — voices of reluctance. Like, "So how do I get people to do this, anyway" or "Why doesn't anyone see what I see in this" or "I got my first guy— how do I motivate him to work the business?"

Your upline may answer with, "Get them to the next Seminar" or "Have them read the literature" or "Make sure they are on the next conference call" or "Build their dream!" The inference is that if you can get your prospects or new distributors to the right information and/or get them around the right people and/or sufficiently excite them about things (success) that they don't now have access to— you will be a great "leader". I call this "leadership by cattle prod". Think about it.

You can't push someone while you are leading.

It's physically impossible. Look at an actual cattle prod for a minute. How can you get a cow to move forward if you hold a prod in front of them? The only way to apply the prod in a way that causes action is from behind the cow. But is that "leading"? Further, let's say you continually apply the prod from behind...over and over again prompting the cow to go where it doesn't want to. What happens? Sooner or later there is resistance or even rebellion. Becoming accustomed to the pain of the prod while both resenting the pain and the direction they are being pushed...well, sooner or later the cow has had enough and both the method and the goal become obsolete. The problem here is not simply that the "prodder" isn't leading but worse, the leader is trying to "motivate" results. Let's apply this to the people business. A fundamental truth that every network marketing leader — reluctant or willing — must embrace in order to be successful is that you can't motivate people.

People motivate themselves.

So that leaves a huge question: how do you lead if you can't motivate? The answer is simple and, if you allow yourself time to practice you can master this critical leadership skill. It's called building confidence. No matter how motivated or skillful a person is, they will never move, get into action or pursue their desires unless they have the confidence to do so. Action — and therefore results — requires confidence.

So — as a leader in network marketing you should be asking, "How do I build confidence in others?"

The first and most important person to work with in building confidence is...you! Are you confident? Confidence is having an unfailing and indomitable belief in yourself, your business, your capabilities and your dreams. Got that? If not — or you think you can improve (and who can't?!) Here is a checklist of 5 powerful methods to build your own confidence so that you can be more effective in building confidence in others...and so you therefore can be an effective leader:

1. Take some simple, measurable action in your business every day (contact a new person, make a sale, offer a sample, etc.)

2. Ask 3 people close to you to tell you the 3 things they like about you. Write those things down and re-read them weekly.

3. Think back to your previous most successful accomplishment and write down what you learned and how you have changed as a result of accomplishing that success. Re-read that once a week.

4. On every Monday morning, write down the first and most important task that you must accomplish in the coming week that will move your business forward. Concentrate on that task until it is achieved.

5. Reward your achievement of the task define in #4 with a celebration (get a massage, have a picnic, buy a new pair of shoes, go out to eat at a special place, etc.)

Here's a guarantee: implement the 5 efforts each week this month and I guarantee you will find a greater confidence than you have today. You will be more able to take action. You will find your dreams showing up in your head in color instead of black and white. And you begin to see yourself as a leader. It's a start but definitely in the right direction.