Affiliate since: 12/18/2011, Power Rank: 63 | Read Manohar's 240 other Ask SC answers

Hi Theodore

In SFI, a stage comes after joining when every new affiliate starts feeling demoralized as the commissions start from a big zero. Then they start coming in pennies in spite of you having a Standing Order of 1500 VPs.

2. In this case, it is important to go to memory lane and remember what you did yourself when you were in such a position. Probably, you would find that you didn’t quit. Continued to have a Standing Order of 1500 for at least 6 months or more.

3. After 6 months or more you had a good downline and now probably you could make $30 or less in commission. So, your investment kept on reducing every month to sustain your rank.

4. You need to narrate your true story to your PSAs to convince them that you too had gone through the similar circumstances. Once upon a time came that you did break even, and then your profits started pouring in.

5. Till that time, you can support, guide and help your down line. You can gift then 10 TCredits for each newly joined PSA or CSA to play EZ games to have fun in SFI.

6. Also you could send the good mover Gift Certificates to buy their Standing Orders initially till they stand on their feet. Once they have become comfortable to score the required Versa Points each month, you can leave them off their own.

Hope it helps
Have a nice day!

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Hi Theodore

In SFI, a stage comes after joining when every new affiliate starts feeling demoralized as the commissions start from a big zero. Then they start coming in pennies in spite of you having a Standing Order of 1500 VPs.

2. In this case, it is important to go to memory lane and remember what you did yourself when you were in such a position. Probably, you would find that you didn’t quit. Continued to have a Standing Order of 1500 for at least 6 months or more.

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Affiliate since: 10/01/2013, Power Rank: 426 | Read Nimo's 381 other Ask SC answers

I take it that you are talking about those who have been reduced in their SFI rank.

When encouraging your affiliates, emphasis to them that this is not a demotion.

They are not employees. They are self employed people - running their own businesses.

To me, rank is an indicator of the level the business is at. I would tell them that.

Business are either loosing money, static with little or no growth, or flourishing and on an upward spiral. Even within those status there is always upwards and downwards movements. Its just the nature of business because there are many external factors that can influence the life of a business. Its not all their doing. A reduction in rank is an indicator of how the business performed last month

We all know that even for example within the EA level, every month they will not earn the same amount of VP as they did the previous month. They may do better or do worse.

At the beginning of each month, we set our monthly goals. This is very important.
What we should also do at the end of each month is to review our performance.

Encourage your affiliates to do that.

They can ask questions such as:

How did we get on?
Where did we do well and how can we capitalize on that?
Where did we do poorly?
What could we have done better?

Remember you can help your affiliates with these. Work with them on these. This would encourage them, keeping them active and engaged.

I would also encourage the affiliates not only to set up their monthly goals but to put a plan in place in order to achieve those goals. Map it out on paper and review it every day.

For example if you want to achieve 1000 AVP by the end of the month, map out how you are going to get them - how many per day / where they come from each day / to-do list earned / auctions / games / sponsoring activities / contests etc.. / target dates (650 AVP by ../../2015)

Its a bit like planning a road trip to reach your destination (your goal)

Having helped them set their monthly goals & helped them put a plan in place, stay in contact with them throughout the month. You can encourage them, monitor their VP Ledger & give them tips. You are their sponsor/mentor/cheer leader/friend - stay with them and help them grow their businesses.





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I take it that you are talking about those who have been reduced in their SFI rank.

When encouraging your affiliates, emphasis to them that this is not a demotion.

They are not employees. They are self employed people - running their own businesses.

To me, rank is an indicator of the level the business is at. I would tell them that.

Business are either loosing money, static with little or no growth, or flourishing and on an upward spiral. Even within
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Affiliate since: 12/31/1969, Power Rank: 99999999

Part our tasks, as sponsors, is to help our team members fully understand our status and the type of business relationship we have with SFI.

An SFI affiliate is a business owner.

Running a business will always have its ups and downs. The shop owner does notice when their monthly "Loss and Profit statement" is positive or negative. They will develop a strategy to improve their results. But they will not feel demoted as they are fully aware they are not anybody's employee.

The first provision of the SFI Affiliate Agreement states: "Affiliate agrees that an SFI Affiliate is an independent contractor and not an employee, agent, partner, legal representative, or franchisee of SFI. Affiliate may not portray him or herself as an employee or owner of SFI corporate, the SFI Affiliate Center, or any other SFI or TripleClicks subsidiary. Affiliate further agrees not to incur any debt, expense, obligation on behalf of, for, or in the name of SFI".

Thus, an affiliate's personal and business motivations as well as psychological emotions are expected to be opposite to those of an employee who may feel demoted if they loose a rank or a title.

The process of going through monthly rank re-qualification is meant to help us focused on taking action to build our businesses through sales sponsoring and duplication. On one given month, an affiliate may miss the requirements to regain their previous rank. But, if they properly understand their relationship with SFI, they should not feel demoted.

At present, one can buy his way to higher Team Leader ranks, up to Gold Team Leader (GTL) or even Platinum Team Leader (PTL), by accumulating enough Purchase and Action VersaPoints without having any Executive affiliate (EA), let alone a Bronze team leader (BTL) in their downline. Thus, if they have not made any TripleClicks sales directly or through their ECA/PRMs, they will not earn any commissions.

This is one of the aspects the new Team Leader qualifications that will take effect January 1, 2016 aim at correcting.

A savvy affiliate is the one who pays attention to his team composition, his sales activity, as well as how many ECAs and PRMs he has referred. These are the factors that directly affect his SFI income, not the rank his achieves as such, if he has not build a team.

This is the message sponsors should convey to their PSAs and CSAs: to focus their efforts on sponsoring, duplication and selling. As positive results are achieved in these areas, the ranks will fall into place.
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Part our tasks, as sponsors, is to help our team members fully understand our status and the type of business relationship we have with SFI.

An SFI affiliate is a business owner.

Running a business will always have its ups and downs. The shop owner does notice when their monthly "Loss and Profit statement" is positive or negative. They will develop a strategy to improve their results. But they will not feel demoted as they are fully aware they are not anybody's employee.
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Affiliate since: 05/03/2002, Power Rank: 45 | Read Mar's 582 other Ask SC answers

Before you even start encouraging your affiliates, who are feeling demoted, you need to be clear yourself about the issue behind your affiliates’ disappointment.

You need to find out the root cause of the issue. Let’s discuss for example the recent SFI announcement about the new Team Leader qualification added.

SFI has announced recently about the additional Team Leader (TL) qualification. Duplication has been given less attention by both new and old Team Leaders and in order to reverse this trend, if one has to become a Bronze TL aside from 3000 VP (SVP + AVP), maintaining Leadership page and minimum 3-star sponsor rating from PSAs (not required if you receive less than 5 ratings), he/she should have at least 1 EA2 of his/her first Generation. The additional qualification for STL is to have at least two first-level BTLs and so on.

The current TL qualification system allows one to become BTL by fulfilling the above mentioned requirement with or without a first-level EA2. By the end of January many affiliates who routinely achieve BTL will be just good for EA2, if they can’t produce at least one first-level EA2. This change might have put many affiliates under pressure. Many believe that the rank title is tied with their reputation and credibility before those they’re leading.

From this point, analyze yourself where you stand about this forthcoming change. You can only encourage your affiliates if you are clear about the change and/or accept it.

So how do you encourage an affiliate to remain active when he/she feels he/she has been demoted?

- Humbly offer your clarification.

You need to remind him/her that SFI is a partner for all affiliates. SFI is always looking for new innovations to help all affiliates have the cutting edge and to stand out from the competitive world of entrepreneurs. Ask him/her to recollect his/her thoughts about his/her goals in joining SFI. One way of clarifying the change is by going through The Plan (https://www.sfimg.com/the_plan). SFI wants every affiliate to be a top earner and to have maximum success as revealed in this section.

- Controlling Emotions.

The feeling of demotion can fuel anger and resentment. Here are some steps to deal with someone’s emotion of feeling demoted effectively:

1. Advise him/her to manage his/her bruised ego.

2. Communicate to him/her that anger is natural but he/she should watch what he/she says to those around him/her especially to the SFI community. Letting out his/her anger uncontrolled at the SFI Forum will adversely affect his/her entire organization and could be easily seen as spreading negativism.

3. Let him/her know that he/she needs time to sort out his/her options. It's likely people will come up to him/her and ask him/her for more details about his/her situation and opinion, but it's best to deflect their remarks with a neutral response. For example, "I really don't know what to think right now...I'm going to assess my options before I make any decisions."

- Stick with SFI.

Encourage him/her to focus on his/her goals and control his/her emotions. Generally people resist change. Ask him/her to find a way to motivate himself/herself each day. Recently SFI introduced the CSA reassignment tool. This provides incentive for many members of a group to both become EAs and maintain EA every month. This could motivate him/her, so be sure to send the details: https://www.sfimg.com/Support/Solution?id=215051&referrer=search.

Ask him/her to stand back and re-assess his/her situation. Encourage him/her to try to understand the reason for such a change, to be patient and let him/her be assured of your support as long as he/she sticks with SFI.

- Remember to apply the manner of effective communication.

Effective communication is not achieved simply by taking turns talking but requires a concerted effort at mutual understanding. A good way to promote understanding about the issue is to take time to restate the other person’s position in your own words then ask him/her to correct or affirm your understanding of his/her thoughts and feelings. If you work on this process of explicit feedback and confirmation until the other person has no doubt that you grasp his/her position, he/she will feel understood, and he/she will then be more open to hearing from you.

The simple failure to acknowledge what the other person says explains much of the friction in our lives. Furthermore, you don’t have to be responsible for someone’s feelings to be aware of them and to acknowledge them. When two people keep restating their own positions without acknowledging what the other is trying to say, the result is dueling points of view.

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Before you even start encouraging your affiliates, who are feeling demoted, you need to be clear yourself about the issue behind your affiliates’ disappointment.

You need to find out the root cause of the issue. Let’s discuss for example the recent SFI announcement about the new Team Leader qualification added.

SFI has announced recently about the additional Team Leader (TL) qualification. Duplication has been given less attention by both new and old Team Leaders and in
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Affiliate since: 08/04/2013, Power Rank: 458 | Read Moira's 74 other Ask SC answers

I am assuming that the demotion is due to loss of rank because of the new requirements to qualify for Team Leader, set to go into effect in January 2016, but my answer can apply to any kind of demotion or setback.

If your affiliates feel that they have been demoted, I would try to help them figure out why this has happened and work with them to find ways to regain their rank. But most of all I would tell them that they should not consider this a failure on their part because it is not; it is just a slight setback.

I would also explain that a demotion is an opportunity to take a small step back in order to take a giant leap forward. A demotion, however unpleasant, takes the pressure off and gives them a chance to rethink their strategy and make the necessary improvements.

Any serious entrepreneur will have to face not one but several setbacks on their road to success, but this should never deter them from achieving their goals. On the contrary, setbacks should energize them and strengthen their resolve to do better than before.
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I am assuming that the demotion is due to loss of rank because of the new requirements to qualify for Team Leader, set to go into effect in January 2016, but my answer can apply to any kind of demotion or setback.

If your affiliates feel that they have been demoted, I would try to help them figure out why this has happened and work with them to find ways to regain their rank. But most of all I would tell them that they should not consider this a failure on their part because it is not;
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Affiliate since: 05/10/2015, Power Rank: 182 | Read Jessie's 16 other Ask SC answers

Should your affiliate feel demoted, firstly tell them this is just an aspect of the business. We all have setbacks. There are many reasons to lose your rank. One is that you are not trying as hard as you should. If that is the case, direct him/her with some of the ways you have achieved and maintained your rank. Another cause is that their down line is not performing at their peak. Advise them to try to inspire them with details you offered in No. one.

Suggest that they keep advertising for referrals and to read the many answers on how to motivate your down line.

Also ensure that they are aggressively promoting sales on Tripleclicks. Once their sales start rolling in, and the sales of their down line, they will be in much better spirits and will gain their confidence back.

Tell them that this is their business and every business has roadblocks. They have just hit a roadblock. They have the power to overcome any obstacle. Just keep their eyes on the prize.
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Should your affiliate feel demoted, firstly tell them this is just an aspect of the business. We all have setbacks. There are many reasons to lose your rank. One is that you are not trying as hard as you should. If that is the case, direct him/her with some of the ways you have achieved and maintained your rank. Another cause is that their down line is not performing at their peak. Advise them to try to inspire them with details you offered in No. one.

Suggest that they keep advertising
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Affiliate since: 10/26/2013, Power Rank: 528 | Read Nafisa's 286 other Ask SC answers

What is encouragement? It is a push you provide to your team members and tell them, you are there to lend a hand if need be.

You may not have all the answers but know what it feels like to go down one level in rank (if that is what you mean by demotion) and it is interesting that when this happened to me, it was probably my lowest moment in SFI. I felt a series of emotions, one main one being wanting to give up SFI.

How did I receive encouragement to stay afloat - it was not my Sponsor but one of my upline members to whom I opened up and let my feelings known. Of course I was feeling terrible and his words at that time left me with no other alternative but to stay on with SFI.

- stay with your affiliates and do not wait for your upline team members to open up the line of communications; you voice out your feelings and your upline team members will respond;

- it is important to focus on what will transpire next rather than what has happened (demotion); perhaps if you take it as a lesson and move forward, it will deepen your experiences later and give you the opportunity to understand why you felt demoted;

- there is a common principle about success and failure which highlights that for one success you might have to fail 10 times and this is okay, to fail is the start to your success;

- if it helps the affiliate, console them by giving away free shares of the Co-Op if you are running this (my upline did this for me and it brought in active affiliates in my team and I forgot about the demotion)

Try to be as positive about this as you can - forget what happened and concentrate on what will happen. That is the best way to deal with this scenario.
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What is encouragement? It is a push you provide to your team members and tell them, you are there to lend a hand if need be.

You may not have all the answers but know what it feels like to go down one level in rank (if that is what you mean by demotion) and it is interesting that when this happened to me, it was probably my lowest moment in SFI. I felt a series of emotions, one main one being wanting to give up SFI.

How did I receive encouragement to stay afloat - it was not
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Affiliate since: 12/25/2001, Power Rank: 99999999 | Read Ken's 60 other Ask SC answers

When I am contacted with a disappointing message about rank, I always reply in this manner.

I truly understand how you feel. That has happened to me, too. Someone helped me, and I would like to help you, too. Nothing has really happened to you or your business. Your rank was showing you a level you had reached for a period of one month. Until we have established a growing business, it is quite common to have ups and down.

If we truly desire earning and keeping SFI Ranks, it is very important to keep going, determine what is not working, and work on building the business in different ways. Since SFI has great training, it is a good idea to point the person to the training tab on the SFI Affiliate page. Let the person know that you will be glad to answer questions and even offer advice if desired.
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When I am contacted with a disappointing message about rank, I always reply in this manner.

I truly understand how you feel. That has happened to me, too. Someone helped me, and I would like to help you, too. Nothing has really happened to you or your business. Your rank was showing you a level you had reached for a period of one month. Until we have established a growing business, it is quite common to have ups and down.

If we truly desire earning and keeping SFI Ranks, it
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Affiliate since: 07/08/2018, Power Rank: 99999999 | Read Ufuomaoghene's 238 other Ask SC answers

Good day Theodore,

This indeed is an interesting question as we have affiliate who join and within a month or 2, feel they have not benefited at all joining SFI. Regarding this question, the affilate in question might have been in the E365 competition and is now out of the competition or the affiliate must have been an EA or team leader before he became an affilate and stripped off of all the benefits.

As a good sponsor, we need to encourage them so that they don't loose forcus and de-rail. In terms of them loosing out in the E365 challenge, I would encourage them and tell them that they can still be in the competition if they become a Bronze team Lead and remain that to the end of the competition or encourage them to recruit affiliates for them to enjoy the benefits if they are team leaders or inform them on the 6 different ways of earning in SFI.

Also, another time an affiliate can be dejected is if his rank dropped from a Team Leader to an EA or Affiliate.

To encourage such affiliate, we need to:-

1. Give them places where they can advertise their affiliate.

2. Give them gift certificate when they have reached certain parameters

3. Assigning PSA to active psa to assist them build their team.

4. Organising team competitions and rewarding hard working affiliates.

These are some of the ways to encourage our downlines and for them to duplicate our actions with their teams.

All the best.
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Good day Theodore,

This indeed is an interesting question as we have affiliate who join and within a month or 2, feel they have not benefited at all joining SFI. Regarding this question, the affilate in question might have been in the E365 competition and is now out of the competition or the affiliate must have been an EA or team leader before he became an affilate and stripped off of all the benefits.

As a good sponsor, we need to encourage them so that they don't loose forcus
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Affiliate since: 07/26/2007, Power Rank: 99999999 | Read Williams's 638 other Ask SC answers

"How do I encourage an affiliate to remain active when they feel they've been demoted?"

Losing rank is disheartening. So empathize with your team members as I believe we've all experienced this in one form or another. Then let them know that milestone achievement is just a matter of having the right combination of SVP and AVP. SVP comes from sales/purchases. AVP comes from actions taken from the ToDo list.

One of the great things about SFI is that it is so flexible and the compensation plan actually rewards ingenuity. There are many ways to accrue AVP. Just take a look at your ToDo list. With every set back there is an equal opportunity to excel. Teach your affiliates to learn from their mistakes. Whether it was due to poor planning or a lackluster effort losing rank can serve to motivate one to do better.

Thus, a better plan is needed and more effort required. Work closely with your team so that they have a clear picture of the goal in mind. This gives everyone a better sense of direction and certainty that milestone achievements can be sustained over the long haul. Remind them that if they did it once they can do it again and when they do show them a bit of appreciation.

On the contrary, I don't totally agree that you should reward lackluster performance but when you understand the extenuating circumstance perhaps you can still provide some merit just for encouragement. We understand fully that we all need to have a boost up. Pass criticism up and praise down. Don't ever 'beat up' on your PSAs or make them feel less important because of such demotion. Always let them know that you are there to help.
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"How do I encourage an affiliate to remain active when they feel they've been demoted?"

Losing rank is disheartening. So empathize with your team members as I believe we've all experienced this in one form or another. Then let them know that milestone achievement is just a matter of having the right combination of SVP and AVP. SVP comes from sales/purchases. AVP comes from actions taken from the ToDo list.

One of the great things about SFI is that it is so
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