ISSUE SIX
26. September 2007
Subscriber Numbers -
This ezine has three purposes; one is to show that promotion is more than advertising in certain places.
Another purpose is to give pointers on how to keep your downline members.
And finally, it is also about sharing my personal journey of building a team.
When a person subscribes to this ezine they get the latest edition every Wednesday.
Please enjoy this issue.
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PROMOTION
Ideas for Walls
Part One - Ezines
I know it is all good and well rattling out articles, giving pointers and leading the horse to water and all that jazz. But many people need concrete ideas.
I have mentioned this before, but it is always fun saying it again.
I will encourage, point and push people into the right direction, but the doing is up to you. If you decide on the path of doing an ezine, of course I will stand by you and give you pointers, I am sure we will even feed off each other, but the results will come from your action.
If this is a path you want to take, I will find the next few weeks useful reading.
EZINES
What appeals most to me is that anyone can do this. It does require effort and persistent work, but not a huge amount and if you want to reduce the work load just publish less often.
Perceived blocks
The common blocks to writing an ezine are normally
- I can’t write
- I don’t know how to send the ezine out
- no hosting
- no website skills
First up is “I can’t write”.
Ok, this could be true. So how do we move past this?
Many people are not good writers. But this is, as always, not a reason to stop action. There are so many places you can borrow articles from it is dumbfounding. The only requirement for most of the sites that provide the articles is for you to publish the name of the author with a link attached.
This is more than fair enough. You win by having well written articles and people will return to your ezine to read them. The writer wins by having traffic sent to their site. But the interesting part about this is you sort of borrow the writer’s reputation as well. You look better for having been associated with a good article.
It actually pays in to have the name there.
One great example of an article site is ________To set you on course, look at the article site and look around
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RETENTION
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My Personal Journey
THE HIGHER GROUND.
It was with cynicism that the “senior” staff told me that I was only working on the shop floor to get people on my side rather than “theirs”.
Well, they were wrong, I was doing it to capture the higher ground. Even though the politics was awful, even though I felt mostly isolated, I had a goal to achieve, which was to save the store and make a team which worked. But it was as if I was trying to save the store in spite of itself.
To make matters worse, my Area Manager was coming in two or three times a week and criticized my every move. It was in the third or fourth week that I ended up saying to him “Will you piss off for a few weeks, please” in front of some staff members.
This comment came back to bite me later on, but to the staff, it seemed to be a turning point in their view of what I was doing. I had stuck my neck out for them.
Again, I did not tell my boss to piss off as some grand plan to win the staff over, in hindsight I feel it was a big mistake, but from that day, some of the staff began to back me up in small ways. Over the three or four weeks leading up to that point I had remained consistent in my actions. I was predictable. And it was noticed in small degrees that I was exactly what I said I was. Now I was standing up for them even though they were treating me poorly.
The fourth week saw about four staff resign. The feedback was that I was changing what was a good store they liked working in to a bad one. I had serious doubts about my plan and my perceptions at this point.
What if I was wrong?
I was not wrong, gossip ruled over fact, politics was strongly against me, even though the wind of change was starting, and I still needed to do a lot of follow up to get things done, even to the low standards the staff members were aiming for.
From that week onwards, I began a section in the staff meetings called “rumor control”. I would tell them the rumors, then give them the facts.
This was a great exercise that resulted in many discussions and debates. An exercise I would start from week one should I return to management.
The point of finding a taking the higher ground is this. If you do it, people will follow you. People want good strong leadership, regardless of who they are. We NEED it.
So give it to your team.
Do as you want your team to do. Follow up and push your team. Get them to find the standard they can work to at first, them raise the bar bit by bit.
Support them.
But most of all, back them up all the way, regardless of what they do.
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