Business Advice I Learned From My Dog

We just got a new dog. Not a young puppy though. She’s about 8 months old – a rescue dog – and appears to be a husky/shepherd cross.

We got her as a companion to our other dog, a lab/boxer cross. You see, we just moved into our new home on a large acreage and felt that “Jed” needed a companion.

Not being interested in all the work and possible damage that can come with a very young puppy, we searched for and found a dog that was almost full-grown.

So “Tasha” joined our “pack”.

For any readers of this who are dog lovers, you might be familiar with Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan.

His mantra is to be calm and assertive. You must be the leader of your pack in order for your dog(s) to respect and follow you.

And this is where my dogs have taught me some very valuable business advice!

Just like Cesar says, you must assert your leadership to your pack. So it is in business, you must demonstrate your leadership to your team, and those around you!

This is a simple concept, but not always an easy one.

This article is not about dog training, it’s about being a business leader. And so it is vital that you begin to establish yourself as a leader. But what exactly does that mean?

Here are some considerations.

First and foremost, decide what it is you’re trying to achieve. If you are going to be a leader, you must have a clearly defined set of goals and objectives that you are aiming for in order to lead others who are on a similar quest.

The other critical aspect of leadership is you must add value to those you want to lead.

Let’s briefly explore these two items.

Where are you going?

If you ask a lot of people who have a network marketing business to tell you their specific goals and objectives, you’ll find that the vast majority of them have only a vague idea of what they want to achieve. It goes something like this: “I want to be rich.”

This is not a goal, it’s a wish.

A goal is a specific target, within a given time period with measurable action steps laid out as to how this goal will be achieved.

This could be along the lines of, “In six months I have a monthly income of $____. To reach this goal I will generate X leads per week, and sponsor X new distributors per month. To do this I will spend X hours per day working on my business in the following activities: X% of time on marketing, X% on calling new leads, X% on training and X% on follow-up calls.”

There are actionable steps with success indicators along the way to gauge progress.

That’s quite a different scenario than the lottery mentality of “I want to be rich!”

The other critical factor I mentioned is adding value to those around you.

This one stumps a lot of people, especially people who are new in an opportunity.

They don’t feel they have knowledge to impart, or that they are too new and therefore come across as weak and indecisive.

Mike Dillard talks about “Demonstrations of Higher Value” (DOHV) and the opposite, “Demonstrations of Lower Value” (DOLV).

The only way you can establish yourself as a leader in the eyes of someone else is if you consistently demonstrate to that person the higher value they will find through their relationship to you.

The fact that you are reading this article is an example that you are acquiring knowledge. And this knowledge can be imparted to others as part of your DOHV.

One of the most important things you will do as a leader is to continually learn. Make a point of exposing your mind to new training material and self-improvement on a daily basis. That way you’ll not only keep yourself motivated, you will have new and exciting things to share with others, which will go a long way to establishing you as a leader.

The other part of this value is simply the ability to provide positive support to those around you, particularly those on your team. Giving encouragement, which can be in the form of challenging people in a positive way to do better, is another great aspect of leadership.

Of course leadership is a massive topic, one that many volumes have been and continue to be written about.

But the business advice from my dogs holds true! By being calm and assertive, and in the case of business leadership, assuming a posture of confidence, you will attract others to you simply because these are qualities people want to associate with and be close to.

One of the best books on this topic as it relates to network marketing is Mike Dillard’s influential work, Magnetic Sponsoring.

But even before you get the book, you’ll have access to 7 information packed videos that will reveal some startling facts about this industry.

If you’re serious about success in network marketing, the best business advice I can give you today is to check it out!