SECRETS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE

President's Message By
Frank L. VanderSloot
President & CEO

September 2005

So you've decided to build a successful Melaleuca business! Congratulations! Deciding is the first step! The next several steps are just as simple, but, quite frankly, take a lot more work. I have seen literally thousands of people achieve their goal of building a great Melaleuca business. They all have a few things in common that I think would be helpful for you to know in order to help assure your success. I will try to tell you about a few of the things I have learned over the past 20 years.

The Decision

First let's take a look at your decision to build a business. How firm is your decision? What is it based on? How much resolve is there behind your decision? How much time and energy are you willing to invest? What kind of success are you thinking about? Have you decided to just dabble or to really get to work? Assuming your decision is that you are really going to get to work (that's the only decision that will produce any significant results) let's move to the next step.

The Product

The key to Melaleuca's long-term track record of success over the years has been our superior products. Those who purchase our products month-after-month desire healthier, more vibrant lives and want not only to live longer, but also want to enjoy life and good health even in their old age. They become lifelong customers and they refer other customers. They are the lifeblood of our company!

Those who are serious about building a Melaleuca business should convert their homes to Melaleuca products. A fun way of doing that is to go through the house and box up all your non-Melaleuca products and then take the box over to a neighbor's house and announce that you are getting all the harmful chemicals out of your house and that the neighbors can have them if they would like them. Many great stories have come from that process. It quickly opens up a dialogue with the neighbors about the value of Melaleuca products.

Regardless of whether you give your old products to your neighbor, converting your own home to Melaleuca products is an essential step to building a healthy Melaleuca Business. Converting your home may mean you have to give a product presentation to other family members in order to include them in the decision. Teenage daughters who have their own favorite brands are often the most difficult to convince. You might hear, “Who made Dad an expert in cosmetics, or Mom either, for that matter?” One successful strategy that some parents use with teenagers is that if they insist on using your competitor's products, they must pay for them themselves. Even with that policy you will have to be able to explain to them the advantages of using Melaleuca products as compared to what they are currently using. Your best and most convincing product presentation may need to be to your own family. Without question, converting your own household is essential.

Your “Why”

As you envision your future, what do you see? Ask yourself how a long-term Melaleuca business will impact your life. What would life be like with and without that business? Establish your “why!” What is it that will continue to drive you forward even when things get tough? It might be the concept of being totally without debt and having all your credit cards, the car and even the mortgage paid off. It might be your determination to help your kids get a college education or that you have had the wisdom to find out what you will eventually receive from Social Security and that you cannot imagine trying to scrape by on that amount. Or it could be because you have always wanted the financial freedom to go places and do things. Whatever your why is, remembering it is essential to your success. We have all heard the statement, “When you are up to your 'fanny' in alligators it's hard to remember that your primary objective was to drain the swamp.”

There are times in our lives when the trials of life itself get in the way of our goals. It's important to not only have our life goals written down, but also to write down the reasons why it is important to us to reach those goals. If we don't write them down, when the alligators show up it is all too easy to rationalize that the original goal was not all that important to us after all. Those who do not have their “why's” written down often spend their entire life fighting alligators.

It's Time to “Ride!”

Converting your home, and writing down your why is like saddling up. It is essential for the trip, but you don’t really get anywhere until you decide to ride. “Riding” is where the action is. Riding is the day in and day out business activities that bring us success in our business. In our business, “riding” is implementing the Seven Critical Activities. Focusing on these activities is critical to our day-to-day business success. When I travel and speak at various Melaleuca events I often ask how many people in the group can name the Seven Critical Business activities. I am often amazed to learn how few have taken the time to learn them. It's critical for every business builder to know and understand the Seven Activities because they make up a simple system that, implemented consistently, guarantees success.

Your CONTACT LIST

The first critical activity is of course to create a contact list of potential Melaleuca customers or business builders. Without the list, you cannot do any of the other activities. The goal would be to have from 50 to 100 names of prospects that you would like to someday have either as a customer or business builder. Your own circle of friends and acquaintances are your most promising contacts.

Approaching Your Friends

The most important thing to remember is that as you contact these people, their response is not a test of their loyalty or friendship to you. If they turn down the opportunity to learn about your business or your products, it should not reflect on your relationship. Nothing is lost. You are still friends and you can approach them again at a later time. “No” is not a reflection of you. It simply means, “Not yet, I need more information.” When approaching someone, we need not become a pest. When someone turns us down, we need to simply understand that we can always approach them again later when we have something more to tell them. We should never make people uncomfortable in our approach. We have an exciting message and an exciting story. Contacting people and sharing our story should be an exciting adventure for us as well as for them.

The Other Five Activities

The other five activities should be just as fun and rewarding as the first two: making presentations, doing 48-hour follow-ups, Celebrating Success, holding Fast Tracks, and leading by example can be very enjoyable. They build relationships as well as create financial success for those who will implement them.

Learn them well. They pay tremendous dividends!

Teaming Up

It's twice as much fun and more effective to team up with someone else in the building process. It's interesting to note how many of our Executive Directors have teamed up with someone else in their business in their journey to success. The concept is one of doing meetings together, calling each other daily to give moral support, goal setting and brain storming together, and holding each other accountable for implementing the “Seven Critical Activities.” These business building teams have become life-long friendships and relationships which not only excel from a business perspective but add meaning to life itself. The secret here is to find someone who is as passionate as you are about building a business.

Teams need to be “equally yoked.” That is to say, each team member must be equally as passionate as the other about meeting their goals. One team member consistently dragging the other just does not work.

So how do you create such a team? You commit to each other often and build it together. But what if there is no one in your business who wants to make such a commitment? You keep looking! Perhaps it will be your next enrollment. Many Executive Directors had been building a business for several years before they found someone who was as passionate as they were in creating a better future.

Having a great team is the ultimate business scenario, but if you don't yet have such a team member, know that success really starts with you! Don't think you have to wait for someone to join you. But it’s powerful when it happens, and if it does, make sure you hold up your end of the bargain.

Tenacity

Realize that nothing worth having in life comes easy. There will be hurdles and challenges and ups and downs. The one thing that is common to all successful business builders and to those who actively achieve their Melaleuca goals is that they have the tenacity to stick it out. Tenacity is clearly the most important trait of the successful business builder. Those who never lose this focus have a definite advantage over those who get distracted and do not stick to their plan. Review your “why” often. Develop faith and confidence in yourself and in your people. When things get tough remember tenacity will always bring you through. Among all other traits, tenacity will be the most important factor in determining the winner.

Sincerely,

Frank L. VanderSloot

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