To grow your direct sales or party plan business you need to nurture people in your team to leadership.

But how do you know who to invest your time in? How do you know who the next leader is?

I have a fabulous download below that will help you with that!

In my experience from promoting dozens and dozens of team members to leadership ranks within my business, I’ve found that there are a few critical things to keep in mind.

So let me share what I’ve observed over the years in the direct sales industry.

Always work on nurturing a few team members at a time to wards leadership.
Don’t put all of your eggs in one basket! Sometimes things change in people’s lives and they step back from their party plan business or become less active. You don’t want to feel like you have to start all over with a new potential leader when they do. And by you not putting all your investment and hope in one person, you also put less pressure (or neediness) on your potential leaders. It’s a better situation for you and them.

Be careful with who you invest your valuable time in. 
If they’re not matching your efforts and actively showing you with their actions (not just their words) that they are working towards leadership, don’t continue to invest your time in them. Sometimes people ‘talk the talk’ but don’t ‘walk the walk’.  In that case, just give them your ‘normal’ support for team members but stop your careful nurturing towards leadership.

Before you invest your time in someone, complete the leadership assessment to ensure their attitude, actions, and results are aligned. I’ve adapted an assessment form for you from the ‘Build it Big Workbook’ produced by the DSWA. Download the assessment form below.  Go through the form for your potential leaders. If the score is below 7, I don’t consider them ready for my focused attention towards leadership.

However, the assessment should have given you a good idea on the areas they most need to improve. If you help them to build up in those areas, they might quickly become ready to work towards leadership with you!

You can also encourage your potential leaders to fill out the form themselves as a self-assessment to help them identify areas they want to improve. I suggest though, that you keep your personal assessment of each potential leader private. Sometimes these things can hurt people’s feelings and that’s not what it’s for!

I’d love to hear how you identify potential leaders in your team and if you have any tips to share with us. Let us know in the comments!