The Ethics of Sending Your Downline to Company Events

I just returned home from my 7th company event, two of those events I hosted myself. Since I joined my company as an independent distributor back in January of 2005, I have been told by countless people that attending these functions is necessary for the success of my own business and that I should "Do whatever I have to do to get there". In turn I have also (in the past) told my own team members to do what they had to do to get to the company event.

Attending this last event for me was not so much about learning new techniques or being educated on how to market my products or my business instead, it was more about confirming several things that I'd been pushing to the back of my mind for quite some time.

Two of the things I needed confirmation on were that I would not learn new techniques or be educated on how to market my products.

I have to question the ethics of telling people who are unfamiliar with network marking or multi level marketing that attending a company function is what they need to do to grow their business. These events can rack up a rather large bill once you factor in your traveling expenses, the fees for the event, hotel costs and the other expenses that are associated with attending a company function.

Because I have made a major shift in how I educate and train my team of distributors, I now have to question whether attending a company function is really beneficial not only for myself, but for my team members.

With 7 events under my belt I can honestly say that with two exceptions attending these events really hasn't help me build my business or grow my retail base. For the most part, what I have seen are recycled topics and a speaker list dominated by the popular group. And then there are the endless testimonials that are better used on a personal website or opportunity call. Remember we are already a part of the organization and if we need to hear a testimonial to validate our decision to be there, it may be time to re-evaluate why we chose the particular business we are in.

Company conventions and events do have a place in todays world, but each individual must evaluate what they want to achieve from these events and decide on their own if attending the event will truly benefit their business or if it will take away from their business. Company functions are a great source for getting first hand information on the history of the company and its founders. They are also great for getting people pumped up about their business and product line. But keep in mind that attending these functions will probably not result in increased sales or a larger organization for yourself.

Keeping the company event in perspective, it's more like a pep rally than a business building seminar. If you need a pep rally experience then attend the events but if you are looking for details on how to build your business or downline, chances are you won't find it at the company event.

The types of people that we recruit are generally people who are looking for an opportunity to bring income into their household. Sending them to an event simply is not the way to help them achieve that. Telling them that they need to do whatever then can to get to these events when we know they still don't have their business in profit in my opinion is irresponsible. Our primary focus needs to be helping these people in our downline to get their business into profit and until their business can afford the additional expense of attending an event, we really should not put pressure on them to attend to boost our own numbers.

It is far more responsible for us as leaders to encourage our downline to use their resources to run an ad for their own business building efforts or put that money toward increasing their customer base.

Once their business is in profit and the revenues from their business can support attending the company convention or function that is when we should be talking about going to the company event.

Here's my bottom line on attending company events. Unless my business is in profit and generating enough income to cover the expense of attending one of these functions, I have no business putting my business or my family finances second in order to attend. Nor is it my place to encourage my downline to attend such an event when they are not in a financial position to support the expense.

I realize that my opinion is not within the accepted norm of my industry, however I believe this is a common sense approach that better serves my downline. I personally would be horrified if one of my team members did what they had to in order to attend an event only to have them drop the next month because they had to dip into their family budget to afford attending the event.

As responsible sponsors our first concern for our downline should be to help them to achieve profit in their business, not to rack up business debt in order to satisfy our ego by having the most distributors at a company function.

With a background in Human Resources and Retail, Cherrie Fishlowitz uses a common sense approach to internet marking and training that comes from her personal experiences both online and offline.

Contact Cherrie directly with your comments or questions, or visit her website at http://www.GVCandles.com