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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Because I say things in email that I just don't say in video, and I think you should

hear them because they’re good.

Stay on your game and keeping going for your dreams. The world needs that special gift

that only YOU have.  Thank you so much for watching and I will catch you next time on

MarieTV!