When you first decided to jump into network marketing, no one told you how demanding it would be to lead your own team. The weekly calls, the check-ins, and not to mention onboarding new members and keeping up morale. You only have so much energy to go around, and it can be disheartening to put in so.much.effort, only to feel like you’re wasting your time.
It can be easy to stop showing up when you feel like you’re unappreciated. Or to put off those weekly calls until enough people show up for it to feel ‘worth it.’
Kristen calls this conditional leadership. This week, she talks about how showing up even when no one is watching can be the most powerful skill in your leadership toolbox. Join us as Kristen shares the ultra-inspiring story about her start in coaching (surprise! It didn’t happen overnight!!), and how choosing unconditional leadership led her on the road to building a multi-million dollar business.
Here are a few more takeaways from this week’s episode:
- Kristen defines what conditional leadership looks like
- Why setting boundaries can protect your energy to prevent burnout
- Showing up in a crisis – why it’s the most difficult, but also the most crucial time to be present as a leader
- How to avoid the uphill battle of rebuilding trust with your team
- The transformative change that happens when you believe your time is never wasted
It can be a slippery slope once you decide to set conditions for when to show up as a leader. You may already know what your leadership looks like when you feel ineffective. But what would your leadership look like if you showed up, no matter what?
Thanks for listening! Do you have a question about network marketing? Kristen can help! Drop your question here, and she just might answer it live on the podcast: https://kristenboss.com/question
Connect with Kristen:
Do you have a business full of customers and almost no builders? You’re in need of a reboot! Learn the three skills you can learn that will completely change your recruitment game. Check it out here.
If you’re ready to learn the simple process of running your social selling business online, you have to check out Kristen’s live group coaching program! The Social Selling Academy: www.thesocialsellingacademy.com
Interested in Kristen’s exclusive mastermind for six-figure earners in the network marketing industry? Get all the details and join the waitlist here.
Kristen Boss (00:05):
Welcome to purposeful social selling with Kristen Boss. I’m your host, Kristen Boss. I’m a mindset and business coach with more than 15 years experience in both the product and service based industry. I believe that social selling is the best business model for people wanting to make an impact while they make serious income. This is the podcast for the social seller, who is tired of feeling and authentic in their business and desires to find a more purposeful and profitable way of growing their business. In today’s social media landscape. In this podcast, you will learn what it takes to grow a sustainable business through impactful and social marketing. It’s time to ditch the hustle and lead from the heart. Let me show you the new way. Hello, my friends. Welcome back to another week of the podcast.
Kristen Boss (00:59):
This week, we’re going to be talking about leadership and I don’t care if you have two people signed up under you, nobody’s signed up under you yet. Or if you have a team of thousands of people under you, or maybe you’re in a different type of business model, we get so many types of entrepreneurs listening week after week. But the type of leadership I want to talk about is the type where you have to lead by example, and particularly in the network marketing business model, I’m going to talk about something that I feel is quite common in leadership in this business. And often I feel it comes with burnout and frustration and overall leadership fatigue, and, and really there is such thing as leadership fatigue. I see it a lot, actually, a lot of leaders end up coming to the academy to learn how to find the energy and find love for their business and refresh themselves and learn to work their business from a different place.
Kristen Boss (01:56):
So one of the things I want to talk about that I think is really getting in the way of seeing teams have massive momentum and creating wonderful team culture. Is this idea of conditional leadership and what conditional leadership is. It is this idea that I will show up. I will give my time when I feel like it’s being valued by others. This idea of, I want to feel respected for my time. And I hear this rhetoric a lot of, I don’t want to waste my time. And I understand that because as you start to progress in this business, you learn that in this business, there is a low barrier of entry. Most people, many, many people will join. And then a lot of people, if you haven’t sold them, the work ethic, it takes to hit their goals. Those are the people that end up quitting really early.
Kristen Boss (02:59):
They realize, oh, this is actually going to be work. This is actually a job. And you know, what’s so interesting is I think people really shy away from saying “job.” And when they’re talking about this business model and we haven’t served anybody well, when we shy away from not calling it, what it is, it is work. It is a job and you are employed by yourself and for yourself and you set your own work hours, but it is still a job and your paycheck matches your efforts. And actually in the beginning, I would say your efforts outweigh your paycheck until you have the switch. And that’s very normal in this business model, but most people get in, they get frustrated, they quit. So when you have someone that’s been in this, this business for a certain number of years, I see this energy scarcity that leaders develop where they are almost afraid to recruit or afraid to put their time into a team, because there is this fear that they’re going to waste their time, wasted their energy, and they’d rather be spending time with their families.
Kristen Boss (04:09):
Now I have a couple of philosophies on that. I believe if you are thinking I’d much rather be with my family and your getting out of business activities to go be with your family, I would call into question if you’re actually prioritizing your work hours and actually honoring them, are you setting time to spend time with your family, spend time with your children to make memories to rest, or you always working? Because if you don’t have a very carefully constructed work hours that you honor, then yes, you’re going to always feel like, oh, I just give so much to this business. And I’d rather be with my family. And oftentimes you get really protective around your energy and you develop this conditional leadership from a place of exhaustion. And anytime there’s a lot of exhaustion, it’s usually from lack of boundaries around personal work hours and how you spend your time.
Kristen Boss (05:05):
And this, this goes even beyond business. When we don’t have boundaries in place, we can get exhausted by people, by places by events. We have to put boundaries in place so that, and it’s not selfish it’s so that we can serve and love better and have our energy be in the best place so that we can give and love more. The whole goal of boundaries is to create healthy relationships and healthy communication. And so what I noticed is that when a leader, lacks boundaries or lacks work hours and honoring them, they become very protective around their time and their energy. And they eventually can become resentful. And how that looks is there comes a time where they will see that they feel tired. They feel like there’s low engagement on a weekly call, like accountability with the team. And this is when I see leaders start to say, you know what?
Kristen Boss (06:00):
That’s not a big deal. If we don’t meet this week, we’ll meet next week. And they start to view that time as non-negotiable. And eventually what happens is I see people debating whether they want to give time to a team call because they cancel or they negotiate the importance of the call because there’s only going to be three people there. And you know, what if it’s just three people, why am I wasting my time? And what’s sad about that is, is that that is conditional leadership. I will only show up when I have an attendance an attendance number that I like an attendance number that makes me feel like I’m, I’m not wasting my time. I I’ll show up when it feels good to me or I’ll show up when the team is motivated or when it’s exciting or where there’s an incentive or, you know, that is what I call the, the start of conditional leadership.
Kristen Boss (06:55):
I will show up if things look good in my favor, I will show up if it feels like it’s worth my time and my energy. And what happens is, is I see leaders stop showing up, or they become inconsistent in their leadership because they pick and choose the things they want to show up to based on how many people are coming to the call, how much buy-in they feel like their team has. And then they lose belief and it creates really inconsistent leadership. And, you know, I had a couple of clients that I coached a while back that this was happening for them. It got to the point where they hadn’t hosted, you know, a team leadership call or accountability call in months and months and months. And it was because they felt like, you know, nobody cared. People were inconsistent. People didn’t show up.
Kristen Boss (07:45):
People didn’t have their cameras on. No one seemed to prioritize it. But when they say no one, what they meant were lower numbers than what they felt that they that were worthy of their time. You know, they, it’s very easy to show up on a call with a hundred people because it feels like you’re doing something important. Like, oh, there’s so many people on this call. My team is really motivated. It takes a very disciplined leader to show up on the call when only one person shows up. And I remember when I was one of my former clients, she had to rebuild trust with her team. And one of the things I told her, I said, Hey, look, you’ve been absent for a while and we’re going to have a lot of compassion on that. And we’re not going to have judgment around it, but you have to know the first person you need to show up for is yourself.
Kristen Boss (08:32):
You are going to announce a call and you’re going to show up on the call no matter what, if nobody else shows up, you are going to show up. This is about creating self-trust. And this is about creating unconditional leadership that I show up no matter what, no matter how, how many people are there, I show up because this is my leadership, and this is how I serve. Most people only show up when it sounds glamorous when the team’s in momentum and everyone’s crushing it and the sales are high, and everyone’s just writing this, this happy cloud of, of, you know, money and momentum and all these new members. It’s so easy to show up for that. It is a lot harder to show up when morale feels low. And the worst thing you can do as a leader is not show up when morale is low, that actually only makes morale drop even more.
Kristen Boss (09:24):
People need to see their leader in a crisis. They need to see. I mean, I think about, think about our nation and our news, and just thinking whenever there is a national crisis, people want to see the face of a leader during crisis. Can you like that is always why there is a press conference with our president. Any time we have a huge event, a huge crisis, like the people want to see the leader and the leader doesn’t need to have all the answers. Sometimes, you know, our president just gets on and says, you know, we’re doing our best thoughts and prayers. And I know sometimes we want more from them, but just notice that it’s very easy to be the leader that shows up when your approval rating is at 90%. Anybody can show up then, but it’s, it takes bravery and a different type of leadership to show up.
Kristen Boss (10:15):
When you feel like your approval rating is low, when you are showing up in a crisis and it feels like you don’t have the answers, but that is when you are most needed. But when you only show up, when it feels good. And when there are high attendance on the call and you feel like your time is valued, that is conditional leadership. I will only show up and lead when it feels good to me. And the best leaders are the ones that show up when it feels like garbage. When you’re tired, when you feel like your time is thankless, and here’s the thing you can choose, you can choose to believe that your time and your energy, when it comes to your leadership is never wasted. What if you adopted that thought today? What have you actually chose to believe that your leadership and your time and your energy is never wasted?
Kristen Boss (11:11):
I see so much fear from people thinking what if I pour into this person and they leave. I just wasted time. And then what happens is it creates, they become guarded with their time. And this is when I see leaders stop prioritizing recruitment, because they’re afraid of putting out energy and thinking I’m just going to waste my time. So why bother? And they conserve and they, they move into management mode because then they’re not afraid of like, well, these my time, wouldn’t be wasted, pouring into somebody else. But you have to decide now and in advance that you are never wasting your time. You’re never wasting your energy and everything. If you pour in your sweat, blood and tears into a team member and they leave, you have to decide in that moment, it was not wasted. I became a better leader. I have amazing lessons.
Kristen Boss (12:04):
I’m going to be able to coach someone else better when they have the same thoughts and the same feelings, none of it is wasted. And when you believe that it’s impossible to waste your time and energy. You actually become a leader who shows up unconditionally. And when you show up unconditionally, you create massive self-trust with yourself. And when your team knows that you show up, no matter what it recreates, trust that one, that one client I was telling you about where I told her, you know what? You’re going to have to show up to that call no matter what, if there’s two people, you run the call. If there’s one person, you run the call. If you, if it’s just you, you’re going to turn it into your own personal power hour, but you have to honor your word. You have to show up. And I told her it could be three to six months before you see consistent turnout on your calls.
Kristen Boss (12:57):
And I felt it was really important to tell her that because it takes time to build trust, to establish culture, to create to create the expectation and consistency. It takes time. So I wanted to know her thoughts. I said, you know what, what if only two people show up once a week for six months, would you still do it? And if the answer was going to be no, then she still had not moved into unconditional leadership. She had not moved into serving whoever needed it on, on the calls. Like if it was one person that she would show up for that one person. And thankfully she did, she’s like, I will do it. And you know, I said, Hey, you know, partner with your sideline or whatever you do. So that every week you show up, no matter what it is, non-negotiable your team needs to see the leader. Your team needs to see those things. And, and now they have rebuilt their team culture. They see momentum. They’ve seen actually a lot of growth in their team in the last year, but it required her to create the sense of unconditional leadership. And I’m going to show up no matter what, for a painful season. And there were times where two people showed up, eight people showed up and I’m going to say eight people showed up when they were used to having an organization of like 75 to a hundred people showing up on a call.
Kristen Boss (14:17):
Imagine the thoughts that she had to overcome when she got on the call and saw only two people were there. You know, you can choose to think, oh my gosh, I’m a terrible leader. I feel bad. I’m unworthy. Or you can decide, I show up no matter what, I’m rebuilding my leadership. I’m rebuilding trust with myself and it’s going to take time and it’s okay. And I never waste my time. I never waste my energy. I always get the lesson I need. I want you to really think about ways you show up conditionally in your business, all show up. If I have the outcome, think about opportunity calls. I think this happens with opportunity calls. If you have only 10 people registered and you were anticipating 200, you would, you still run the call. Would you still run the call? And if the answer is no, that tells me that you don’t believe fully in the process, or you don’t believe there is a lesson to be learned.
Kristen Boss (15:14):
How can you be trusted as a leader with an opportunity call of 10 people? What makes you think that you could be trusted with a call of 200 people? You know, I love this idea of like a two hump to whom much is given much is required. But this idea of like, if I can trust you with a little responsibility, then you can earn a lot of responsibility. So it’s, it’s almost like why, why, why should you have a better team if you won’t show up for five? Why do you, why do you feel deserving of 500? If you won’t show up show up for the few, why do you feel deserving of the many? Again, it’s this idea of like, I will show up conditionally if it feels good, if it looks flashy, if I feel important, if feel like people value and respect my time, anybody can show up.
Kristen Boss (16:04):
But the true measure of a leader is someone who’s willing to show up for one person show up for five people when they were expecting a hundred. I think it was, I think of a good lesson in this. I think of when I launched my first course as a coach, it was, you know, I had anticipated, you know, at least 30 people joining and it was going to be this eight week bootcamp where I was going to go live with the teaching once a week and then live coaching the other day of the week. So I was going to go live twice a week and I created a book and I created this coaching and I was like, this is going to be amazing. It’s going to be only, I think it was only $299, $299. And I thought, okay, I’m going to run this live event.
Kristen Boss (16:50):
And I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was hoping for big numbers and 160 people registered for the live event. And it’s so interesting because now when I run a three-day event, we get, you know, four to 5,000 registrants. It’s, it’s insane. It’s absolutely insane. But then it was like, okay, I have 160 people. I’m going to treat this as if there are 5,000 people here, I’m going to take it that seriously. And I created this huge, beautiful workbook for the live five day event. And I got up every morning at 7:00 AM, no matter what it was. And it was a free event. I was like, no matter what I was, that was it. 7:00 AM. Maybe, actually I was going live in that group at 6:00 AM my time. And I am not a morning person, but it was the time that worked for me. I was like, not a problem.
Kristen Boss (17:42):
I will get online and I will give these people so much more than what they expect. And I showed up for those people and I really thought, okay, I’m going assign 30 people to this bootcamp. That’s my goal. And I pitched it. And my goodness, my selling has really, really grown in the years, but only eight people purchased my eight week bootcamp and of those eight, three of them were my close friends and I think it was a pity purchase. So I want you to just think, and I had that moment where, when I thought about starting the bootcamp, I thought, oh my gosh, I’m going to spend all this time for five people. And the thought creeped up. I’m like, I could just push this out. I could refund them. I could tell them, you know, we’ll start again in another month and take another month of selling that I could have done that.
Kristen Boss (18:40):
But that again is showing up conditionally. Like I’ll only show up when I liked the results, but I decided to show up knowing that there was a lesson to be learned and I gave everything. And I even think I offered bonus calls and I gifted to everyone with a one-on-one call afterwards. And it ended up being a 10 week program. And I just, I gave so much really believing that I was going to learn all the lessons I needed for the future. And it was, and I kept that Facebook group open that where I hosted my first pop-up event. And I turned it into an ongoing open Facebook group and there was 160 people in there. And I just thought, you know, and I knew I wanted a community of 2000 and I just thought, you know, what? If I were to show up as if there were 2000 people in this group, what would I do?
Kristen Boss (19:29):
And I showed up every month, I did a free live training. I went live. I think once a week I was offering so much value in there. It was insane. And my mindset at the time was I’m going to make this feel like it’s a paid community for free. And the Facebook group kept growing. And in six months time, maybe a little longer, maybe it was like nine months. It grew to 2,500 members. It exploded. And that is what catapulted my coaching business. But I really just believed that my time has never wasted. The value I give is never wasted. There’s always a lesson for me. I’m going to learn to be a better coach in this. So you have to make the same decisions with your team. Are you going to show up with, if you have a team of just three people, are you willing to run a weekly call?
Kristen Boss (20:15):
Are you willing to check in accountability wise? Or are you telling yourself when the team is bigger than I’ll start doing those things? When the numbers look more robust, then I’ll step in and prioritize those things. What story are you telling yourself about how you’ll show up? And when you will show up, when the numbers look more flashy like, oh, I’ll show up. When my key, imagine if my thought was all show up. When my Facebook group has 2000 members, then I’ll start running really robust workshops. That’s not the way it worked. I showed up as if the had 2000 members in it, when there was only a hundred, I’m like, Nope, I’m going to keep showing up. And I’m going to keep adding value. And my time is never wasted. And I was totally okay knowing that some people were never going to buy coaching from me.
Kristen Boss (21:01):
And I learned to delight in just giving value and serving. And as a leader, you have to get there finding delight in mentoring and, and lifting people up and speaking life over them and empowering them to take action in their life. You have to get to that place. Otherwise you’re going to very quickly, maybe not quickly, but slowly slip into conditional leadership. I’ll show up. When, if people on the call show up, I’ll show up. If there’s a lot of numbers, I’ll show up when there’s hype, I’ll show up may and maybe I’ll show up tonight. You know, I got something going on, but have you made your leadership? Non-Negotiable have you made it unconditional? I will show up no matter what, no matter what, what is going on with my team, no matter what is going on with me, whatever’s going on in the company and with sales, I’m going to show up, have you done that?
Kristen Boss (21:56):
Because I guarantee you will see yourself differently as a leader. If you do that one client, I told you about she, she, she had imposter syndrome. She’s like, I, I feel unworthy of my team. I feel I’m worthy of my paycheck, but when she started showing up, no matter what, and she built that self trust with herself, everything started to change. And eventually more people started showing up on every call. And now there’s consistency with herself and consistency with her team, right?
Kristen Boss (22:26):
She had to be willing to start with just showing up on a call and no one else being there just to honor that for herself. So ask yourself this week, where am I operating conditionally in my business? And what must I change? We’ll see you next week. Friends, that wraps up today’s episode. Hey, if you love today’s show, I would love for you to take a minute and give a rating with the review. If you desire to elevate the social selling industry, that means we need more people listening to this message so that they can know it can be done at different way. And if you’re ready to join me, it’s time for you to step into the Social Selling Academy, where I give you all the tools, training, and support to help you realize your goals in the academy. You get weekly live coaching so that you are never lost or stuck in confusion. Whether you are a new in the business or been in the industry for awhile. This is the premier coaching program for the modern network marketer go to www.thesocialsellingacademy.com to learn more.
