Soliciting Your Team for Another Business is Unethical

In other words, the direct seller in question was working two businesses, and was soliciting people in one business to join the other. The leader who had been approached was annoyed. She was very dedicated to her business. She also didn’t want to lose the effort and attention of her existing team by having them pulled in another direction.

And I completely agree with her. After all, this leader has put a lot of time and effort into building and training her team. And now she has someone who is effectively acting like a cancer within her organization, siphoning the efforts of people off and into another direction. It’s unfair and completely unethical, in my opinion.

There are a couple of issues here:

• Most direct sellers find that they make more money when focusing on one business. When you split your time between multiple businesses, it’s harder to have the focus necessary to really build strong. It also sends the message to anyone you recruit that you’re not completely dedicated to the company, and so why should they be?
• If you want to grow a second business, your first business is not the place to do it. Grow it the way it’s intended to be grown…doing parties, networking, etc. But tapping into another downline is lame and downright unethical. How do you think your company would feel about it if they find out? How do you think your upline would feel? (probably betrayed). This is not just about what you technically can and cannot do. It’s about people’s level of trust in you. It’s about ethics. It’s about doing the right thing always. Because relationships are on the line in this business.

It’s up to you whether or not you want to run more than one business (although I never recommend it.) But if you do run another business, the team in your first business should be off limits. At the very least, you should never approach them about your 2nd business. It sends the wrong message. It demotivates your team and affects their productivity. And it can make a lot of people really mad at you.

Jennifer Fong » JENNIFER FONG CONSULTING – Web 2.0 Marketing

Jennifer Fong is a speaker, consultant, and trainer, who teaches direct selling companies and individual direct sellers how to use social media effectively as a business building tool.  A former direct sales company CEO, Jennifer built her company from the ground up, and understands what it takes to build, lead, and train a team, as well as the 3 major principles of any direct sales party plan business: book, sell, and recruit.

Jennifer is available for corporate consulting, convention speaking, and training.  For more information, contact her by clicking here.

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