“When the student is ready – the teacher appears…”

Coaching is absolutely one of the most important, fundamental concepts that is both can help you reach new heights of success in your business and life, and can help you crack the ’secret code’ to unbelievable, massive growth and duplication in your team. Funny enough, it’s probably the most ignored strategy in Network Marketing, both as a distributor trying to find that ’secret sauce’, and a leader who’s wondering why he’s got a bunch of frustrated downline who don’t know how to build a business.

Absolutely, without question, this is the most important concept that you can ever learn in business: If you want to be at the TOP of your game, you MUST be willing to be coached, and find the best person possible, who can help you clean up your game and take it to the next level. I like to use Michael Jordan as an example, because even though he was arguably one of the top basketball players of all time, at the height of his success, when every move he made seemed magical, he was still a team player – and willing and ready to receive guidance and feedback.

Now, keep in mind that Jordan was BETTER at basketball, and had more success in his life than any of his basketball coaches, at any point in their life experienced – but still he was willing to take critical feedback, guidance, and correction at skills that he was arguably the best in the world at performing.

Now why is that? I’ve heard people say things like ‘only listen to people who are getting better results than you in the area you’re seeking’, but then why did a $100,000,000 per year earner take advice from people that earned dramatically smaller incomes, played basketball less well, and were never as influential as he was?

Because a great coach isn’t there to be better at everything, he is there to always help keep you on track. A great coach is good at identifying the strength of the players, and at helping people improve skill sets that they don’t even have themselves. The most important thing that a coach can do, however, is to help you focus and keep on the right track, and hold you accountable to the things that you agree that you’ll do together.

I had a major breakthrough a few weeks back, when I had a guy come on one of my coaching calls who’s been one of the largest distributors in the Amway corporation for the last 20 years. He shared some concepts that have totally transformed the way that I thought about life and business, and it put into perspective something that was missing in my business, and was one of the most important changes I’ve made to the way I approach building a team – and here’s what it was:

Putting in place a structured accountability and coaching program for anyone in my team who is willing to be accountable and follow instructions. Now, keep in mind, I couldn’t possibly have the time in a week to coach every person in my organization, and that’s ok – because I don’t need to – because only people that are willing to be accountable will track their results, activity, and follow instructions – which is about 15% of my team, and I have my leaders coach their leaders, and so on.

One of the things that I realized after coaching back to back team members for 10 hours straight, the first day I implemented the program, was that the biggest roadblock that team members have is that they don’t know what to do next. This is something that shocked me – because I intuitively seem to understand what comes next, and see Network Marketing as a simple, relationship recruiting based business model, and it seems natural what should always come next in building a group.

However, what I found is that most of my team, even after having great training, tools to buy, a great fast-start system, online marketing funnels, a warm market prospecting system, even if everything is in place – most people haven’t had my experience base in network marketing, and they have absolutely, no idea what to do next, AND, I found that by guiding them in one direction, not only were they more productive – but they are happier, work harder, understand better, and prospect more. Plus, my organizational recruiting is more than a third higher, and I’m only 2 weeks in to the program.

Fascinating looking at it. What I want to talk about now, though, is how to attract a good coach and keep them in your life. I have a famous quote up at the top of this article that I’ve heard 1000 times and have no idea where it came from, and it still holds just as true. If you want the attention of a great coach, be willing and ready to learn, be a sponge, and be willing to take action and be accountable.

Sometimes, as a coach to others, I start giving feedback and advice, only to be interrupted by a student who has absolutely no idea how to do something, giving me their opinions on ‘the way it is’. If you want to attract and keep a great mentor – be willing to listen and correct your direction, even if you don’t completely agree – because chances are a great mentor can see things in you that you don’t yet see.

For example, I pay a few professional coaches, and one of them made a couple of suggestions to me over the course of the last couple of weeks that were right ‘in my face’ suggestions about my personal life. Funny enough, though, just one of those suggestions has now made me more money than I’ll pay for 2 months of coaching, just 2 weeks after hearing it.

Had I been an amateur, and had a huge ego, I’d be short about $2,000 short in the last 2 weeks, from no additional effort or energy than I would have expended otherwise.

You and I are simple beings, and we can be compared to a rocket headed to the moon – off course 98% of the time. Just like NASA gives constant nudging, feedback, and guidance to a rocket, a coach will help you, off track 98% of the time still reach your destination on schedule. So here are some ideas to help you:

1. Track everything you actually do – for example, if you’re marketing, you could track how many articles you’re writing – how much you’re spending on PPC, how many leads your generating, your landing page conversions, etc. If you’re warm market prospecting, you could track how many one on one presentations you’re doing, how many 3 way calls you’re doing, etc. Always remember – WHATEVER you track you can improve, and whatever you don’t track, you can’t improve.

2. Have a clear intention with your coaching sessions, of a specific, tangible, measurable goal that you would like to achieve in your life. It’s easier to steer a moving ship – and if you know exactly where you’re headed, your coach will be more able to guide you.

3. Don’t whine to your mentor – they don’t need to hear your whining to guide you, they need to see what you’re doing, not doing, and the result that you either got or didn’t get, so they can help create specific course corrections in your business.

4. Be willing to follow through and complete ALL of the assignments that your mentor gives you, no matter what it takes.

If you’re open, ready, and willing, sometimes a great coach that will transform your life is just a phone call away – sometimes you need to pay, and you should be open and willing to doing so. Here’s my final thought for you, though:

When someone shows up in your life who is willing to take their time, knowledge, energy, and effort and POUR their heart and soul into you – thank your lucky stars, God, or whoever it is for you and be willing to go to the ends of the earth – because NOTHING will help you more in your business life than someone who is willing to take the time, no matter what it takes – to help you reach your goals. And if you want to transform your results in your business – be willing to coach your team, and take things to a whole new level…