We Have a Situation… What Should I Do?

“Houston, we have a problem.”  In the military, we used to call it a “situation,” and that’s what I’m going to cover today. 

When situations arise in your organization or with your company, how do you plan in a narrow focus? 

You’re going to have to have a one-off plan on how to deal with that.  

Let me give you a couple of examples here: 

• A leader joins your team.  You’re going to have to do a lot of work with that person in order to bring them up to speed, get the right customer service rep with them, and walk them through the back office. 
• A leader leaves your team. 
• The media attacks your company. 
• You see lots of sales reps making product or income claims. 
• Your team is scattered. They’re not focused. They’re all doing their own stuff. 
• You need to evaluate a new product or marketing materials for, or from your company. 

I’m going break this last one down because it recently happened to me.

Goal: Divide into Your Plan

In past videos of this series, Non Fluff Goal Training 2.0, I have been covering creating a vision, why I want it, guiding principles, and then the plan. 

The plan is then broken down to specific daily actions. For example, if I want to earn $100,000 a year within the coming year, I will need to get four qualified leads per day. 

I broke it down into categories of one-year goals, why I want them, the guiding principles, and the plan. Then I broke the plan down into projects, which is basically doing the Pipeline. 

The Pipeline is the SOP. These are the standard operating procedures that we’re always doing. 

On the other hand, a one-off occurs when a situation arises and you say, “Man, we’ve got to solve this.” That’s what we’re diving into today. 

Standard operating procedure is what we always do. That is what SOP stands for. And that’s what we always do. It’s proven. 

A situation is something that requires a one-off plan and/or something that causes change to the SOP. 

I’ll give you a scenario:

Let’s say that somebody creates a different presentation for the primary core product that you sell, and you see it. You think it looks good, so you try it and it gets better conversion than the video that’s in the SOP.

The next step is to test it and have other people test it. If it then proves to have a higher conversion, then you’ll swap out presentations. The old one is going to be archived and the new one comes in and is now the new SOP. 

The above is an example of a situation that comes up from something positive and how it will change your SOP. 

The Protocol for Handling Situations 

These are the procedures that you go through: 

• Bullet point the situation. What happened, or what’s happening?
• Write it in a short story, like you would tell the situation to your spouse or a business partner.
• Bullet point a solution to the situation. 
• Break the solution down into projects. 

Make a copy of these steps, because you’ll want to know how to do these one-offs. They’re very important. 

Situation Example:

“[Company], though continuing to grow year over year through their existing representatives, products, marketing tools, and training, the growth is less than it could be. In addition, the sales reps have a difficult time explaining and selling the products and business opportunity, explaining the compensation plan and the network marketing industry as a whole. 

“[Company] cannot grow to its full potential if their sales reps do not have the necessary marketing tools and training to present the products and business. Furthermore, sales reps (existing and new), do not know what to do when they join, thus do little to nothing and quit. This must be remedied immediately.”

There’s a situation, and it can happen. Not because all of a sudden something rains down from the clouds. No, it’s just that you suddenly become aware of it. You’re at a meeting and someone says something, and you think, “How can they not know that?” This is how it happened to me. 

Solution Example: 

Project 1 – Create several lead magnets. 

A lead magnet is something that causes a person to look at and desire. When you create a lead magnet, you’re basically showing what your result is. If you have a product and let’s say it’s a weight-loss product, the end result is weight loss. So weight loss is the lead magnet. How to generate a lead? You need a lead magnet, something that’s going to attract them. 

Project 2 – Test lead magnets, choose top performing.

Project 3 – Write several sales videos based on the lead magnet. 

The sales presentation that you’re using has to be in alignment with the lead magnet. I want to make sure that you understand that. If I have a lead magnet about weight loss, I’m going to continue this conversation in the sales video. 

If the lead magnet is weight loss, the presentation has to promote this weight loss, and continue that conversation. I don’t want any confusion, because I want you guys to be thinking with all of this and using it. I’m going to take where the lead magnet ended and I’m going to lead right into this with the sales video.

Project 4 – Test sales videos, choose top performing.

Project 5 – Promote campaign to the team. 

Project 6 – Train team how to use. 

Project 7 – Apprentice team leaders. 

Training them would be in a Zoom, apprenticing them would be doing it together with them. 

Those are the seven projects as an example of a one-off. 

Advice to Leaders 

If you’re a leader, here’s a key detail… 

Don’t forget the current SOP. The projects to handle the situation are all part of a test operating procedure. You do not ever stop the SOP. 

You don’t ever stop the SOP for a test operating procedure. You will misguide and mislead your team by constantly changing procedures, and they will lose trust in your leadership.

Don’t throw out TOPs, as we call them in the military (test operating procedures).

Whatever the current presentation is, whatever the current lead magnet is, however it’s being done, is the SOP. You do not change that until the test operating procedure is proven to do better. 

Keep doing the SOP while solving the situation. Don’t put up a barrier that prevents you from building. 

A lot of people go into, “I need to do something else because of this situation,” and then that ends up being a distraction to them. There are always situations going on, and people can use them as excuses for not doing the SOP, which is the Pipeline.

Do you have a situation that needs to be solved? What I’m really trying to do is teach you the difference between SOP and a one-off. When you have a situation, how do you work that into your business? 

Let me know. 

Also, join our Telegram group. That’s where you can ask questions to further get knowledge and converse with me, because I go in there and I reply to all those. 
Need help with your message? Here’s my training for what to say and how to say it. If you don’t have a team or haven’t recruited anyone (or less than 10 people), this is THE course you should get – Network Marketing Training Course