Can You Be and Effective Direct Sales Leader?

Most natural born leaders know they are leaders and have what it takes to be a successful leader in a direct sales company. It’s already in their personality. But if you’re not a natural born leader how do you know if you have what it takes to be that good leader? Leadership can be taught and it can be learned, thankfully. Many effective and highly successful leaders have learned how lead and make money and so can you.

Here are some of the things that you can examine and do to increase leadership ability. These things do take time, effort and even some money. Remember, there is no better investment than helping others grow as well as helping yourself at the same time.

The first thing you should do is examine yourself. Ask yourself some questions like:

• What areas am I strong in? Am I naturally social or am I more reserved and shy? If you are naturally social, then you won’t have a problem talking to people. However if you are naturally shy, then you will need to work on this. I recommend you take some classes or read some books on growing your self-confidence. Toastmasters is a fabulous organization that helps people get over the fear of speaking and it helps in learning to be comfortable in social situations.

• Am I organized and do I know how to prioritize my time? If you are not a naturally organized person, you are going to have to set up some type of structure on your team so you can be organized. Your team will require your assistance on this so you have to learn some effective methods. Also if you’re horrible at prioritizing your time, you can learn that too. Take some time management classes and start writing everything down in a calendar and schedule it.

• Am I an available leader? Will I make time for my clients and recruits? Do I get annoyed if they call at an unscheduled time with an urgent matter or emergency? How will you handle that? You will need patience and understanding. Setting office hours will help cut down on the emergencies, but you need to be available when your team needs you as well.

• How’s my attitude? Do I know that I make mistakes and own up to them? Do I quickly learn from my mistakes or do I let them get me down? If you allow your mistakes or the mistakes of others for that matter, bring you down and you have a defeatist attitude all the time, you won’t be a successful leader. Knowing how to learn from your mistakes and improve is a plus.

Good leadership takes patience, strength, perseverance and a good attitude. When you have all of those traits combined you have what it takes to be a good leader. These tips, coupled with the continued training on your part will teach you to be a good leader and take your direct sales team to the top.