Hey, it’s Marie Forleo and you are watching MarieTV, the place to be to create a business
and life you love.
And this is Q&A Tuesday and today’s question comes from Kelli, and Kelli writes,
Hi Marie!
One of the best parts of being in a community of like-minded go-getters is all the support
and enthusiasm that's so generously shared.
But here is the problem, I value my word as powerful, personal currency, and I’m often
asked to make a referral or help a fledgling entrepreneur with finding prospects, or to
tweet someone's new program.
While I love supporting others, I don't know how to navigate this when I haven't experienced
someone's work, or worse, I think they're not quite up to snuff yet.
How can I stand in integrity AND support the success of another?
Thank you so much!
Excellent question Kellie.
I love it, it’s so good and I especially loved what you said here, you said: your word
is “powerful personal currency.”
Your word is EVERYTHING in this life, both in business and in your personal life and
you have to protect it like gold.
The best way to handle situations like this is to be honest and straightforward.
Now I’m gonna give you a script in a minute that you’re gonna love, but the real big
lesson here is this.
Never recommend any product based on guilt or you feel like you should or it’s loyalty
or anything like that.
The ONLY reason you should ever recommend or promote anything is because you genuinely
believe in it and it’s based on your first hand experience.
Trust takes a long time to build - with your audience and your customers.
And you can destroy that trust with just one email or one tweet or one Facebook update.
As Benjamin Franklin said, and yes, it’s a Tweetable.
“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it.”
When you have the privilege of other people’s attention - meaning other people are listening
to what you say and they care about it - you have to protect that attention with everything
you’ve got.
Plus you’ve gotta protect your own reputation as well.
In my business you’ll notice I rarely promote or recommend things, unless I’ve PERSONALLY
experienced it and I’ve received tremendous benefit firsthand.
The last thing that you wanna see happen is for someone to say “Man, that is the last
time I’m gonna take a recommendation from her...”
So this applies even outside of business situations.
Let’s say that someone says they need a new hairdresser and you say, “Oh my God,
you should go to my friend.
She’s a great hairdresser.”
If you don’t really know that that’s true.
You don’t wanna go recommending things just based out of loyalty.
You really have to have proof of the quality of the thing that you are recommending.
The last thing that you want is to be responsible for somebody else’s bum haircut.
So to help you out even more, I created a script that you can adapt and use to support
someone without promoting their work.
“Thanks for thinking of me.
It sounds like a fantastic program, and I’ll be cheering you on, but I’m not able to
promote.
I have a policy not to promote things unless I seek them out, because I’ve seen results
first hand.
Congratulations again and I wish you tremendous success with the program!”
There you have it Kelli - a simple script to help you be supportive and protect your
reputation while being true to yourself.
So now I’d love to hear from YOU.
What do you do when someone asks you to promote something and you don't wanna promote it?
Do you have a go-to script that you use?
And on the other hand, have you ever asked someone to promote something for you and they
you down in a way that was classy and honest?
I want to hear about your experience.
As always, the best stuff happens after the episode over at MarieForleo.com, so go there
now and leave a comment.
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Thank you so much for watching and I will catch you next time on MarieTV!