Lessons from a New Business Endeavor (A Short Blog)

About two months ago, I ventured out on a new journey with a network marketing company called It Works. We sell health and wellness products, but are best known for our "skinny wraps." It has been quite the learning experience for me, but I'm starting to get at least a little momentum at it. (Wanna help with that momentum? Check out our product line at davedrake.myitworks.com.)

For any of you not familiar with the term "network marketing," it is also known as "multi-level marketing" or derisively called a "pyramid scheme." Well-known examples of this type of company are Advocare and Mary Kay. The goal is to sign up people to try your products or to sign up people to sell your products. For you to succeed, you have to have people under you who are successfully growing their business. The better the people do that you sign up, the better you do.

Because of the structure of the business, the most successful people in network marketing are "coaches" -- people who invest in the people below them, ensuring their success. My "coach," Ashley Sinclair is an absolute rockstar, as evidenced by the number of people that are successful on her downline. She has grown her business beyond even HER wildest expectations, and it's because she leads by making those people below her successful.

There's a lesson in here for any of us that manage people. Sure, it might be easier and safer and whatever else to just look out for ourselves, to ensure our own success. The problem is that, even in corporate America, a leader's success is contingent on the success of those beneath them on the organizational chart. Want to be the best leader you can be? Help the people below you on the depth chart to be successful and your success with take care of itself.