The Art of the Invitation · Part 7
For leaders: helping your people invite
Get 10. Help them get 10. How leaders teach the invitation so it carries through the whole team.
Encounter's building model is "Get 10. Help them get 10." Personally introduce ten members through personal invitations, then help each of those ten introduce ten of their own. The Compensation Training is careful about one point: 10 × 10 is a building model and an illustration of two levels of enrollment. It isn't a diagram of where everyone sits, and it doesn't promise any result.
Build your ten through personal invitations
Everything in Parts 1 to 6 applies to you first. Find out what matters to each person, keep the introduction relevant to them, use your own experiences, leave room for questions, and give a clear next step.
Help your ten build theirs
Work alongside the members who want to build. Help them make their first introduction, join their conversations, and support their follow-up. Teach them the same process so they can support their own people.
Section 9 of the narration describes the habit: when someone joins and wants to build, you help them identify their own ten and begin supporting their conversations, with an experienced leader involved.
Friendship takes time together
Jeffrey Hall estimated how long it takes adults to turn an acquaintance into a friend: roughly 50 hours together for a casual friend, around 90 hours for a friend, and more than 200 hours for a close friend. Time spent joking, catching up, and doing things together counted more than time spent working side by side.
That's why the community side matters. The 10 × 10 plan includes bringing people together each month so members build real relationships. Shared calls, masterminds, and trips are where those hours add up.
Teach in small steps
The Málaga training found the team absorbs one idea at a time. If you haven't seen it yet, it's available in the Community. Use its 45-minute session when you have a group:
- 10 to 5 minutes: choose three people and explain why each fits Encounter.
- 25 to 15 minutes: practice the one-sentence opening, the pause, and the first question.
- 315 to 25 minutes: write a personal invitation and practice responding to interest.
- 425 to 35 minutes: rehearse bringing a leader into a conversation.
- 535 to 45 minutes: check the invitation and support links, and have each person name one action they'll take next.
Help other people become visible
The training ends on leadership: share knowledge, introduce the right people, and give members room to contribute, so the community grows beyond dependence on one personality. Celebrate effort as well as results, and keep every conversation free of income promises.
Your working plan
Track your personal ten, who wants to build, who they're introducing, and where they need support. Review the quality of the conversations as well as the activity. Who felt understood? What created curiosity? Where did the explanation get too long?
Make it yours
- Who on your team wants to build right now?
- Whose first conversation could you join this week?
- What's one thing you could hand to someone else to lead?
For example: “Hana joined last week and wants to build. I'll sit with her on Thursday to write her first three names, and I'll ask Leo to run the six-minute practice on Sunday's call so the team hears it from someone other than me.”
Sources
- Hall, J. A. (2019). How many hours does it take to make a friend? Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 36(4), 1278–1296. https://doi.org/10.1177/0265407518761225
- Encounter Compensation Training, page 1, "The Encounter building plan: Get 10. Help them get 10."
- Encounter team training in Málaga, "An invitation worth sharing," 9 October 2026. Available in the Community.
- Encounter invitation narration, "ENCOUNTER | A private invitation" (approved wording, sections 1 to 10, 14 September 2026).