| The purpose of all training is to change behavior, pure and simple. A trainingsession is not to provide a leader with the opportunity to shine, or a comic with a chance to entertain a crowd (although an entertaining trainer is dramatically more effective.) At the end of the day, your company provides training to the field with the hope that the field will do something better afterwards. A trainer is a change agent. Training changes mental pictures, provides new insights, and challenges the status quo. The participant listens, writes, thinks, and hopefully has a few "ah-hah" experiences during the workshop. After the training, the distributors leave charged up, ready to go out and make a difference in their business, their income, and in their life,. The fire stays for a few days, and then, horribly and silently, it dies. Why? What happened? The training was so good! The feedback was phenomenal. Everybody had a great time. People were charged up. What happened? The fallacy of all training programs is they don't work. The truth of the matter is this: training doesn't change anything. The only thing that causes long-term change is repetition over time. For a number of years I had the pleasure of teaching values and time management to thousands of network marketers throughout the world. Very often people attended the training multiple times. Invariably, they said the material was more profound each time they took the class. From 15 years in the personal development business, I learned the truth of what John Gray says, "The process of learning requires not only hearing and applying, but also forgetting, and then remembering again." (I was also interested in how many times people who heard me speak had heard me earlier when they were building with a different network marketing company!) People need to hear it, try it, forget it, rehear it, and try it again... and again and again. Eventually, perhaps even over years, the principles begin to stick. Changes happen. And happily, they begin to see the fruits of the training they first attended so long ago. I am certain we don't need more self help books. The principles of success have been around for many millennia. In fact the same principles that drive long-term success in network marketing today, are the ones that will work three thousand years from now. What we need is the patience to let the learning process work. What is the process? Teach correct principles and let them try. They forget. They fail. Repeat the process again, and again, and again. There's no need to change the curriculum if it's built upon truth. People simply need to hear the message multiple times - over a course of years, if necessary. I am certain network marketing companies need two things to make their training programs more effective: 1. Constancy in the message 2. A regular time when the message is taught. That's the task of every company, and every downline leader. May successbe yours. |
