Remember the incompetent physics class substitute teacher from high school? The one who studied ancient Greek literature in college?
"Here is how the theory of relativity works. There is some energy, some mass, and we mix it with a dash of the speed of light and then ... some magic happens."
We didn't learn anything that day. Our substitute teacher was clueless.
Now, if a substitute teacher didn't know how to teach physics, there is a good chance we learned nothing. We can't teach what we don't know.
The network marketing motivational speakers scream, “Duplicate! It is all about duplication!”
But if we duplicate garbage, and pass on skills that don't work, then we won’t get to the top 1% of network marketing.
When we prepare ourselves to teach, we will improve.
Here are seven reasons why teaching our network marketing skills will make us better.
Reason #1. When we have to explain a skill, we must understand it.
Teaching forces us to be clear. No one has the time to listen to us ramble and not get to the point. Our listeners can identify vague incompetencies, fluff, and filler words. If we don't know or understand what we are doing, teaching exposes our weaknesses. Our students' reactions? A cringing face, or a blank stare into space. Some will start playing games on their cell phones.
These reactions are clues that we are faking it. People react to half-hearted explanations and feel that we don't care, that we didn't respect them enough to prepare a decent explanation.
We have to study and prepare for our lessons? Yes. We can't fake skill.
Reason #2. Teaching helps us break down a skill into easier-to-understand parts.
Skills seem complicated to new people. When we explain a skill, we need to break it down into smaller pieces. For example, imagine we want to teach the skill of creating rapport with prospects.
Where would we start? Why do we have multiple steps? Could we give options for different ways? Do we start with a general explanation and then break down each component? Let's try this for an example outline of how we will teach the skill of rapport.
A. Why rapport is important.
B. What happens when we don't have rapport.
C. Our goal is for prospects to trust us and believe the good things we say.
D. We want our prospects to feel that we understand them.
E. We want our prospects to feel that we view the world from the same perspective.
F. We must remove our prospects’ prejudices and biases.
G. What is the best way to signal we have a similar viewpoint?
H. Pick a common fact to signal agreement.
I. Smile.
J. Learn magic word phrases that connect with their minds.
When we break the skill down into tiny steps, this means we understand it. We won't sound like that clueless substitute physics teacher.
A good exercise is to try to teach this skill to a 7-year-old. A great challenge.
Reason #3. Teaching forces us to organize our thoughts into a logical order.
There is nothing more frustrating for our listeners than a stream of consciousness, crazy, random explanation that leads to nowhere. Listeners won't have patience with us when they realize we didn’t prepare.
In the previous example for the rapport skill, the ten-step outline kept us on track. We helped our listeners learn in bite-sized steps. A well-organized presentation makes us sound credible so others will take our teaching seriously. We want our listeners to believe what we say, and then put it into action.
Breaking in a skill down into bite-sized pieces forces us to have a deeper understanding of every step of the process. This gives us confidence when we use the skill ourselves.
What happens when we are not organized and fake our understanding of a skill? We make up random advice on the rapport skill such as:
- Just be yourself.
- Have personality.
- It is all about your intention.
- Be sincere.
That sounds good, but isn't helpful for someone new. Vague and disorganized advice is a waste of time.
Reason #4. Teaching helps us understand and learn more about our skill.
Teaching points out the information gaps we have. Try explaining something we don't know to listeners. It gets obvious fast that we are missing important steps. We know the feeling. We are explaining and then, “Uh-oh.” An uncomfortable long pause. That is the moment we know we are at loss for what to say next. This embarrassment motivates us to learn the missing gaps in our information about this skill.
Good teachers master their material backward and forwards. If we can't explain the basics of a basic skill, how will we get others to do it?
For example, we are teaching the skill of rapport. We say, “Here are the reasons our prospects don't trust us or believe us.” Brain freeze. Panic. Embarrassment. Whoops. Information gap. We don't know what to say next.
To prevent future embarrassment, we research deeper into our skill and learn everything we can. Our expertise not only makes us feel confident, but also gives our listeners confidence in us. They want to follow the advice of leaders who knows what they are talking about.
The more we teach the skill, the more information gaps we will notice. We need to be able to answer every objection and counter every argument.
Reason #5. Teaching helps us learn from our listeners' feedback.
Do our listeners take notes and politely fade away? Hmmm, this means we are not effective. A bad sign.
Do our listeners feel confused and ask a lot of questions? This shows us where we are unclear and we need to focus more.
Do our listeners ask us questions that we never thought about? Oh, this is good. We might only have understood the skill from our viewpoint. We have different backgrounds and skill set than our listeners. This again helps us expand our knowledge and mastery of this skill. Getting this immediate feedback is invaluable.
Even criticism helps us. Challenging what we know helps us understand deeper. How do we feel when our listeners disagree with one of our key points? Do we defend our position, or do we consider this a learning opportunity? We should ask ourselves, “What did I say to trigger this reaction?”
Teaching can be a giant mastermind where we learn from many different viewpoints and backgrounds. Our best learning moments can come from being challenged. This causes us to rethink and re-evaluate what we thought was true.
Reason #6. Teaching solidifies our skills through the power of repetition.
Repetition is a great way to learn. But, we want to make sure that we are repeating the right things. That is why in Step #4, we learned the skills that actually work. To continue perfecting the wrong mistake is not making progress.
For example, what if this was my closing statement? “Any idiot can see this is a great opportunity. Do you have a problem with that?”
This closing statement would be a mistake. If I practice and repeat this closing statement over and over, this means I memorized the wrong thing. We want to make sure that we practice the power of repetition on skills that work.
Here is why we should love repetition. We don't have to think about what comes next. Instead, we can put our focus on how our prospect reacts. We can be focused listeners when our prospect talks, instead of worrying what are the next words in our presentation.
This is why the pros appear calmer and more confident when talking to prospects. They have muscle memory. So many of their high-level skills are automatic. They don't have to waste precious brain resources on remembering what comes next.
Repetition can help solidify a mental checklist so that we don't leave something out.
Bottom line? The repetition of the skills through teaching takes us to a higher level.
Reason #7. Teaching will help build our team members into leaders.
When our team members start with us, how many solid network marketing skills will they have? Few, if any.
Where will they learn the skills? From us.
Our job is to turn ordinary team members into leaders. That is the fastest way to get to the top 1%. The good news is that we don't have to do this alone. Our team will be a reflection of our growing professionalism and skills. The faster we grow, the faster they will grow too.
Want to get the ultimate leverage? We will want to teach teachers, who teach other teachers, who teach other teachers, to multiply our effect in our business.
The math is simple. We grow faster with the help of others.
