This article will give you a definite guide about the difference between a distributor and a leader in a network marketing business. Network marketing is a real opportunity and not everyone realizes this fact and omits such opportunities. The industry is popular and offers a real opportunity among people who like to make their lives better with financial stability.
Let’s have a look at the difference between distributors and leaders profiles in the network marketing industry.
Who are distributors in network marketing?
Distributors play a vital part of a network marketing team and they contribute about half the revenue of network marketing business.
Being productive is the sign of a good distributor and these people find product selling as an income-driven opportunity either as a part-time job or second income source. With little effort, this sort of business can do wonders and new distributors in the network need to understand or realize this fact. Not every distributor left with the right skills for making others realize this fact and if they do then they are potential leaders and let’s see who they are.
Leaders – who are these people in network marketing?
Everyone who is a part of this MLM business is having ordinary powers and doesn’t have superpowers. It’s their skills that make a difference. They have successful daily routines that help them stay productive. if the distributors have the skills to lead the team by all means then they are the true leaders of the pack.
Many network marketing companies achieved a spot in the top 100 network marketing company list with the help of such leaders. These leaders do have the ability to make a profitable business growth by,
- Motivating the team and making a positive environment
- Provide enough training to mold the distributors as leaders
- Filter out leaders and potential leaders from the pack and much more.
There are many things that a leader can achieve with his/her leadership qualities, and what exactly are they?
- Learn the profession completely and then provide the details to the whole team
- Make everyone realize the opportunity before them and the perks of joining a direct selling company.
- Show them the genuine side of the business
- Efficiently onboarding new distributors by giving all the required information (company details, product details, etc.)
- Provide the team with success tips
- A leader must set goals and track the progress
The power of a leader is thus enormous and very much explosive.
The key differences between a distributor & a leader
In simple words, a good leader is always a good distributor but not every distributor is a good leader. Leadership skills are to be developed and a key set of differences will be
- Distributors don’t stay for a long period of time but a leader does stay for long
- The growth rate will be progressive but not stable every time whereas a leader can create a steady flow in terms of growth rate
- A leader contributes more in terms of income as he/she can make people train and make them self-efficient to become leaders.
- Finding the best among the network and providing enough support to the weak is also the sign of a good leader
- A distributor won’t show any effort to help others to achieve what he/she achieved
- Problem-solving skills are often shown from the leaders but not every distributor open up with any such solutions
- Setting the goals for everyone in the network isn’t a concern of a distributor but a leader does care of these things
- Leaders alone help to provide a balance between product-users from inside and outside of the network
No businesses have ever survived long without such leaders and the contribution always comes from their end.
Well, apart from the distributor and leader profile, there is yet another profile to explore and that will be the customers.
Customers usually never get proceed to the next level i.e. they never like to become distributors and they just use it for their needs and satisfaction. If at all they become distributors, they just refer the product to their friends in case they liked it.
A leader can make them convert into distributors and later on, as good leaders who make the network marketing the best way to earn and mingle with more people. The trust factor can be thus introduced among the customers with a genuine feeling.
The factors that benefit leaders & distributors
Apart from the difference between leaders and distributors, there are many factors that make benefit on the direct selling industry. Let’s see how these factors improve the direct selling business & its advancement.
Technology:
Technology has flourished in times and it does have a great influence in the direct selling industry too. You might know the transformation of technology if you’re a 90’s kid or from the time before that.
Is the technology you have experienced during that period is the same as you are experiencing now?
It obviously has changed and what we’re experiencing now has drastic improvements. Things have become easier and smarter.
Well, technology has also influenced leaders as well as the distributors in a good way. Let’s see the benefits of technology and how is it beneficial in network marketing.
- Automation is the primary aspect of technology growth and it gains complete control over your business.
- As leaders take the entire business into consideration, technology has always assisted to manage the task.
- Direct selling software is one among the popular tool or packages that help leaders to build and manage their team and a distributor manages their sales.
- Blockchain is yet another technology that helps concerned business team leaders or admin to validate the transactions among their network.
- It helps them to eliminate the chances of manipulations in the transactions
- Both leaders and distributors find this technology powerful
However, there is a difference among the leaders and distributors on utilizing the ‘adaptation of technology in business’. A leader change technology to keep business organized and maximize productivity whereas a distributor finds technology best for managing his own business sales.
Technology enables users to work remotely just like a regular work person. A leader can easily analyze how the team works and find their activeness.
Direct selling software is an automated part to regulate and manage your business. However, there are certain things you must take into consideration before choosing a package. Here is an article that might help you while choosing the best direct selling software: 5 things to consider while choosing an MLM Software
Find a package that suits every stage of business from the beginning stage (start-up) to the business grown-up stage (enterprise-level). That’s the best option as the technical support last forever and you never have to switch to any other system.
Now let’s have a look at how the technology going to help in the case of leaders and distributors respectively.
Technology for leaders: Basically, technology holds great value for both leaders as well as the distributor, in fact, distributors who think they are incapable of having leadership skills might change their concerns with the help of these technologies. First of all, let’s see how MLM leadership skills can be sharpened,
- Analytics and insights play an important role among leaders
- Intelligent analytics let leaders analyze the growth of their team and help them out with proper directions
- A software system provides leaders with proper insights like residual income, distributor activities, user-activeness, so-far achieved goals, and much more
- Leaders can use these insights to properly analyze where the business stands now?
- Leaders get opportunities to teach their team regarding how they can achieve the next level and increase their residual income
- Providing distributors the exact career analysis, the bonus & commission structure, check whether they need more training, etc.
There are many other factors that boost leaders confidence and bring in more quality leaders via the above strategies.
Technology for distributors: Obviously, you know the basic fact that a leader is someone who motivates other distributors to improve sales and help others to let them lead the way. So, the technology exercises the best out of distributor and let’s see how it is done,
- If the MLM system (MLM Software) is too tough to handle then the business admin will be having too much headache in answering the queries from the distributors
- Technology can bring this barrier down by providing the distributors with a capsule-model system for easy understanding
- No pressure is exerted upon the sponsors or any other officials
- Genealogy software in MLM businesses helps distributors to get a simple structural view of their downline members and spot them from the viewer itself (MLM genealogy tree/ root explorer/network explorer)
- No more miscalculations, an error-free system is a yet another benefit offered by the introduction of automation tools
- Before the introduction of a proper system, everything was maintained in manual mode and hence the technology kept things organized
- Even the complex and unlimited levels of commission calculations can be now carried out using dedicated MLM calculators
- Customers who want to choose a package and become a potential distributor in the business can now choose the best marketing plan from different MLM or direct selling companies beneficial for their working efforts
- Technology lets them understand the plan better with proper resources as well as to maintain the network built by the distributor themselves
- Distributor get to know what they have achieved until the day using their profile history and can track the activities for better analysis
- Reports can be generated easily on daily, weekly, monthly, or periodically - the best way to analyze business!
- Lifetime goals can be set easily using this analysis
- Increase distributor engagement and retention by adopting innovative ways
Similarly, there are many things involved in MLM business and technology can ease your career navigation as well as enhance the user experience in its best way.
In short, proper insights help distributors to bring the leadership skills in and make the group effort beneficial enough to sustain Multi-level marketing business a long time.
Lure the system with technology is always a blessing and hope it gets better over time.
Target-driven approach:
Yet another factor that helps the leader-distributor network will be a target-driven approach. Usually, this factor belongs to just the leader and not the distributor. Obviously, you know the leader is also a distributor who leads the team and love to expand them with motivation and training.
We’ll discuss the training part in the next section and right now we’ll just stick onto the target-driven approach.
A leader will provide other distributors with a specific target to his/her team with a time criterion. Without immersing any sort of extra pressure leader maintains to provide enough support to the team and let them find the target.
The target is not achieved alone with individual sales in fact, the complete team effort helps every distributor to find the target within the limited timeframe. The target can be reset in accordance with their efforts and capability.
This approach is considered as productive and adds extra spice to the sales responsibilities of every distributor.
Training programs:
Just like we mentioned in the above section, training has a positive impact on direct selling and everyone in the network must have undergone such programs. Only proper training can mold a perfect network marketing professional.
A leader is the one who always goes the extra mile to keep their team performs well with such training programs. The training methods vary among the leaders but they always keep one thing in mind - "Make my team wiser and skilled enough to sustain the business for a longer time."
However, a normal distributor will add new members into their network but no proper training will be provided to the team. That’s one of the major drawbacks and this must be rectified for making the network stronger and more skillful.
Find out from our customers how our solutions give MLM businesses an edge and exceed customer expectations
Read on Top 7 network marketing recruiting tools to build a successful network.
Let us help you with an example, John, a distributor in XXXX direct selling company is skilled but not exposed to the marketing industry before. After joining the company he got proper training and found it very useful. The training also helped John to become a successful marketer with a high sales rate. He also managed to help his colleagues in every stage of their business journey and they say - “A perfect man, a brilliant leader, and a nice human being”. Being a direct seller helped John self-enhance and transform both personally and professionally.
Not everyone gets such honor and the privilege to become a successful direct selling leader.
On the contrary, Gray is yet another newbie who joined in YYYY direct selling company and poor Gray hasn’t got any training session. He managed to meet the target on the first by introducing products to friends and family. But on the next month onwards things began to turn on the darker side and sales rate started to drop and reach the bottom side. He never became a leader as he can’t even help himself out for meeting the sales volume or adding new members. Gray failed to become a successful network marketing professional and left the industry.
There lies the importance of training and is a perfect way to be a leader among the pack.
Read our Top 5 Network Marketing Training Tools for molding a perfect network marketing professional.
Proper communication:
“We have to do it but..err...things aren’t pleasant..huh...meet the target without fail or you lose jobbb…..”
Is this the best way to communicate with your team?
What if the sponsor who was pretty much on the active and convincing side switched himself to an entirely new version of irresponsibility? What if the distributors are not available and hang up on your team?
What is missing in all the above instances is ‘communication’. Without proper communication, a business won’t survive for a longer period of time especially, network marketing!
Proper communication has to be maintained and treat this as a habit! The leader plays a vital role in developing business with perfect communication channels.
Lively conversation helps a leader to find the status of distributors and to attain such feedback, the leader needs to spend some time with them. A leader thus understands what difficulties they are facing and then taking the necessary steps to resolve it.
A distributor must also develop communication skills to bring in more members as well as improve the sales ratio. As there exist lots and lots of channels to communicate, more opportunities keep knocking on the door. Proper training can be provided to the distributors to improve the skills as well as find the proper communication channels, both online and offline.
Personal blogging:
As everyone says - Content is the King and nothing can replace this context. Personal blogging is a perfect content marketing technique and everyone loves to get new information.
It’s not different in the case of the direct selling industry and you have seen many network marketing blogs who guide the world with insights and training/motivating lessons. Ray Higdon is one among them who helps out network marketing individuals with an easy writing style.
Personal blogs and similar articles is a good method to establish your presence and a leader regularly updates this section.
“Dig deep with hours of research and you get a perfect thread to complete the blog. However, instead of writing a marketing blog that highlights just the product information, always keep one thing in mind - do write for your readers, provide them proper input, promotion is not the proper intent!.’
This is the success mantra followed by many of the great leaders in the industry. Yes, you have to plot the marketing pitch within your blog to drive-in more traffic but make sure the readers get useful and informative content (something like this piece of article (wink)).
Power of connecting people:
The strength or foundation of a network marketing business comes from its roots where the unity spreads around the people. One may call getting connected to the people in and out of the network is the key to find success.
The power of connecting people together builds not just relationships, in fact, it does provide opportunities.
As a leader, the first lesson to teach the distributors will be - “get connected to more and more people, every contact matters and it's best to gain affection from them. Progressively, introduce them to the product and follow-up. Provide them with genuine offers and update them with new products if they become your customer. If your product is perfect then they will obviously show interest to become a distributor and the network grows on and on….”
Get connected and share the world of products!
Both the leaders and distributors need to understand the power of connecting!
What we personally recommend for you?
We have been there in the industry for more than ten years and we have some personal recommendations for you.
- Try to become a good leader no matter what package you choose to join
- Always trust your instincts and give everyone the priority they deserve to get
- Give enough motivation orally as well as in terms of compensations
- Choose the best marketing plan that gives profit to both teams as well as the organization
- Try to face challenges and stay strong
- Have problem-solving skills and try to upgrade the communication skills for a better future
There are many things you can perform to become the best leader who performs pretty well in terms of product selling. So, in short, be a good leader and thereby show the organization how much valuable you are!
Hope you understood the difference between a leader and a distributor!
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