The Basic Networking SkillsThat must be developed to build a Big XanGo Business.(Transcript of 3 1/2 minute video clip of Bob Schmidt)

This is a skill business and there are a number of skills, and we need to work on all of them if we are going to be truly effective and valuable to our downline.   We have to be able to handle pretty much any dynamic or any situation...not just one or two things. So…it’s like a golfer. They have lots of clubs, and I’m sure they have a favorite, but they need to master all the clubs.

Prospecting, being a great presenter, great story teller, great at follow up, great at working at depth, strong at getting people started, and being a great promoter and a great encourager, and a great coach and mentor. Those are just the main ones.

The skills have to be worked at... They have to be developed... They have to be practiced. The coaching and the tools accelerate the learning curve, but there is no substitute for being out there in the field, being on the phone... being out there   and doing it. There’s head knowledge and there’s life experience. So, we learn things, and certainly we need to learn things first, the proper ways to do things. But, there is no substitute for just getting out there and just doing a lot, day in and day out. 

You’re going to have to sharpen your skills. But I also think it’s important for people to know that just doing a lot of something doesn’t make you good at it. There are people that have been golfing for thirty or forty years and don’t golf any better than thirty or forty years ago. There are people that drive cars for fifty years that don’t drive any better than fifty years ago.

Just doing a lot of presentations or a lot of follow ups doesn’t mean you’re going to get good at it unless you’re focusing on the right thing…always how to do it better...how to do it different...and always improving...because you can go backwards too. So it’s important to be around people who are good at things but   who also practice the right   and the best ways and always have a vent on how to do things better and how to do things different. Becoming very highly skilled doesn’t happen by accident. Tiger Woods is arguably the best golfer in the history of the game and he still has a swing coach and there are so many people in this business that don’t really have a coach to hold them accountable...(and so many who don't want to be held accountable.)

I learned years ago that discouragement is a luxury I can’t afford because we affect everyone we come into contact with, and I don’t have the luxury to be discouraged, because it affects other people. Now, looking at the other side of it... I don’t mind paying for my own mistakes but I don’t like paying for somebody else’s, and I don’t want to ever do damage to one of my distributors or the situation they're in because I’m discouraged. So, discouragement is a luxury you can’t afford. So we need to learn how to discipline disappointment...because that’s real life. There are good days and bad days, ups and downs, and that brings maturity...which brings stability.

Coach Johnny Wooden said, "My goal for my athletes is, if there is a stranger in the locker room after the game, they couldn’t tell if we won or lost." It’s about stability. Stability and maturity are the same thing.

I could do real estate, I could do insurance, I could do the restaurant business, but I could never affect the number of people in the dynamic way that we can because of the nature of our product, and the nature of our business. It’s about the skills and the confidence you develop, and the people that you touch. Those are the biggest rewards. It’s not about what you get, it’s about what you become in the process.