Guest Post by Roseann “Ro” Shales
Could ‘Facebook Live’ Change The Game?

If you work corporately in a direct sales company today you may wonder, “Where have all the parties gone?” “Where is all the sales activity?” Do you sometimes feel like you have tried everything and nothing works like it used to?

The constant changes we face today makes our jobs as corporate executives harder. We have to be more nimble and view our sales force with “fresh eyes,” without filters or bias from the good old days. We are pioneering a new pathway, utilizing more technology, and working through changes for our current base and future generations of direct sellers.

Success for you and your sales force is STILL about creating relationships, now more than ever. Our people have unlimited opportunities to join other companies at their fingertips 24/7. Today’s sellers and team builders are more demanding, less forgiving, and work fewer hours each week than in the past. Some want to sell at live parties and events, however many others want to work from home in their pajamas. Everyone wants business to be simple and they want to make more money on their own terms. People’s lives are busier and they want faster results with less time commitment – full-time (<25 hours/week), part-time (10 hours/week) and even spare-time (< 5 hours/week).

JIC Nation started with an online presence 3-years ago by giving away free e-Commerce stores before launch. When Christmas 2013 hit, they backordered 35,000 orders, 85,000 products. It took four months to fill them and they survived. Today we provide weekly product graphics for the sales force, in part to prevent reps from taking time away from selling, booking and sharing, to create their own materials.

Many of our reps fall into the make money from home in their pajamas category, and I suspect many of you feel the same about your people. To support all reps, we actively manage Facebook groups and chats for both our sales force and our customer base. We provide weekly corporate training, plus we spotlight tips from our key leaders online daily and in our 5-day a week rep newsletter.

We train on best practices for both in-home and online parties. In-home parties take 3-4 hours for booking, host coaching, presentation, closing and ordering host rewards and average $500-750 in sales. Online parties take longer, 30 minutes a day, over 5-7 days, plus set-up time, with lower sales averages. Over the summer, we observed the advent of Facebook Live for product sales, parties and training. If you are not familiar with this fresh, new way to get visibility for your company offers, click here and here.

Here are general Facebook Live party tips: 

1. Schedule a party time and alert people on your personal and/or business pages 1-3 days before to build initial interest and engagement.

2. Prepare everything you want or need to share and have it within arms reach.

3. Be aware of the view through your camera lens. You don’t want attendees to see things online that could embarrass you or someone else. Limit external distractions.

4. Start on time. As guests arrive, interact immediately as they begin watching. It’s important to ask guests to share the party with their Facebook friends on their own page. This will create a larger viewing audience. Get comfortable talking about products and welcoming people at the same time as they must be acknowledged and encouraged to share the party.

5. Be engaging, interesting and make it fun. Just like a traditional party, keep your presentation to 15-20 minutes.

6. Follow the general flow of an in home party. Welcome everyone, share the benefits of your products, the host opportunity, and the business opportunity. Explain how to order, book, and join.

7. Be sure to answer questions that come up in the comments.

8. End the party making sure everyone knows how to contact you. Thank them for their participation.

We started holding our own Facebook Live parties a few months ago. Our leaders took them one step further and began to combine in-home and Facebook Live parties. This allows hosts to invite their local and non-local connections. During a combined party, reps ask the host to stay close to the computer screen to relay questions from online guests. Reps get to maximize their time and sales opportunities for the best of both worlds. Guests can “attend” a party anywhere from their mobile device. They don’t need to set aside dedicated time to support the host. This is important in today’s busy world. Streaming a Live Party breaks down barriers and transcends traditional sales strategies. It can facilitate new relationships across the country that may have never happened otherwise. It can enhance sales, recruiting and team building. It allows leaders to train their teams easily and efficiently in a live setting by inviting their team members to observe from home.

I think Facebook Live is a game changer! If you and your sales force embrace it, activity and sales can increase quickly. We need to be flexible in the ways we create and enhance our relationships to grow business for the long term. When we seek and implement new ideas, train and communicate effectively, and encourage our sales force to try new things, we are re-creating the “good old days,” in brand new ways. E-Commerce is here to stay and by taking advantage of it, we can engage a new generation of young, eager direct sellers with dreams of their own. We need to fully embrace it, because our future depends on it!

SHARE THIS:

The post Could ‘Facebook Live’ Change The Game? appeared first on The World of Direct Selling.

Guest Post by Roseann “Ro” Shales
Using Incentives to Build Business

Do your distributors love your incentives? Do you get the results you desire from your incentive offers? Has your business grown through effective incentive programs?

An incentive is a strategy that creates an opportunity for you, the company, to motivate a distributor or team to perform desired actions. Well-structured incentives encourage your sales force to work together to achieve the goal of moving the company and the individual ahead.

Well thought out and planned incentives can help your sales force to:
• Build business for the long term
• Reach progressively higher goals
• Change the way they feel about their business and even about themselves.

The creation of any incentive is driven by the desire to enhance skills and behaviors in your sales force in a specific time frame and usually include sales, recruiting, and leader development. By including all three, you emphasis to your sales force that all three are important to create a successful business. A Direct Selling incentive must be paired with training to actually work. It is critical to get buy in from your field leaders to provide training to support their team members to go for the incentive and to achieve it.

There are two types of general incentives.
1. Results incentives based on end results/bottom line (actual sales, recruits, leader increases).
2. Activity incentives based on driving desired actions such as getting appointments or parties scheduled in a specified timeframe, finding new customers, conducting business presentations or interviews

Incentive Structures
1. Individual versus Team
2. Top people win
3. Everyone who reaches a specific goal wins
4. Multiple level winners
5. Personal best

Individual versus Team incentives usually come from field leaders to their personal team or entire downline organization. A leader may offer a challenge to their team members to sell more or recruit more than the leader in a defined time period. If a company offers this type of incentive, it might be in the form of a “record breaker” incentive. For example, challenge the entire salesforce to beat the all-time sales or recruiting record for a week or a month.

Top people win incentives are offered for a specified number of achievers. For example, the Top 10 in Personal Sales and the Top 10 Personal Recruiting in the first quarter of the year will be awarded a Spa Weekend or other specific award.

Everyone who reaches a specific goal wins incentives have a specific target and an unlimited amount of winners. Trip incentives generally fall in to this category. For example, the incentive may be based on earning points. The points may be earned for sales, recruiting, promoting leaders and stepping up in rank during the incentive period. Everyone who achieves 10,000 points earns a trip for one person including airfare. Everyone who achieves 18,000 points earns a trip for two people with airfare, and so on.

Multiple level winner incentives build and give bigger awards for higher achievement. Your incentive may have 4 levels of awards in a monthly offer based on personal and/or team sales or recruiting, to earn a collection of awards. For example, a leather wallet at level 1, a matching leather handbag at level, a coordinating rolling bag at level 3 and matching suitcases at level 4. Winners at each level earn all awards from the previous levels so those who do the most receive the greatest rewards.

Personal best incentives are customized to each participant and generally include a minimum achievement target. For example, the target may be to beat your best personal sales month by 10% with a minimum of $2,000 in personal sales or your best team sales month by $5,000 with minimum team sales of $7,500.

Always create specific rules to win an incentive and clearly spell out the details in writing. For a larger incentive, over a long time period, you will want to create an incentive brochure. The same applies to incentives with a wide variety of awards or levels of achievement. It is important to run your incentive offers by your Direct Sales or MLM Attorney to be sure your offer is legal.

How long should an incentive last? It depends on the incentive and what you are trying to accomplish. It could be a week, two weeks, a month, quarter, 6-months or longer. Some companies offer “umbrella incentives” that cover a calendar year and overlay shorter incentives. A “Fast Start incentive,” for new distributors typically lasts 60-90 days from enrollment.

Continue to promote an incentive throughout the entire incentive period. Use your website to recognize people that are on pace and to celebrate your early achievers. Keep your incentive alive in company emails, in your newsletter, on your social media pages, in your catalog, on flyers inserted into orders and on your shipping boxes in the form of custom packing tape.

You’ll want to assess the projected cost vs. projected benefits of every offer. When you do it right, the incentive will pay for itself through increased revenue from increased sales, recruiting and leader count that will continue to build your business long after the incentive period ends. Your distributors, who go for an incentive and do not achieve awards, may ultimately pay for the cost of the winner’s awards. Companies typically experience increased activity that would not have occurred without the incentive offer.

And finally, review the results of each incentive and then use that information to change or enhance your future offers. Our industry is constantly evolving and incentives that worked a few years ago, or even last season, may not be as effective today. Enjoy motivating your distributors to act, to stretch and to work their business smarter and harder to earn awards that don’t exist in the corporate world. And watch you sales, recruiting and leader development results increase while you company grows stronger through effect incentive programs.

SHARE THIS:

The post Using Incentives to Build Business appeared first on The World of Direct Selling.

Guest Post by Roseann “Ro” Shales
The Changing Face of Party Plan

Party Plan as a business model is constantly evolving. When I started my Tupperware business 25+ years ago, top sellers typically held five in-home parties and talked with five to ten prospective recruits every week. We learned there was a formula for success: Recruit one person a week personally and one for your team, for eight recruits a month compounding to about 100 new recruits per year. Every connection was face to face or by telephone. Invitations were mailed and parties were held in the host’s home. Consultants attended weekly meetings, mostly on Monday mornings, with one each month in the evening. Party orders were delivered to the host who distributed them to her guests. Consultants received commission checks paid monthly by mail.

Today, the business world has changed dramatically and so has the way party plan companies conduct their business.

We still have in-home parties, but the average consultant holds two to four a month (including in-home, online and virtual parties, plus direct orders through customer accounts). Direct shipping to the customer is the norm. We see a wider variety of products sold at parties with added benefits, including consumable products that may be re-ordered by auto-ship.

Training today comes in many forms. While there are still some local team meetings, many companies now live-stream regional and national conferences so more consultants can join in remotely. We utilize group calls, webinars, Skype, Google+, online chat groups and daily training posts on corporate Facebook pages, YouTube channels, Twitter and Pinterest.

We understand far better the benefits of creating a coaching and mentorship culture. We are all connected, all the time, via computer and mobile devices. Companies push e-blasts, releases and announcements on social media daily. Events and incentive trips are seen instantly on Snap Chat, Vine, Instagram and Periscope. These tools have also allowed companies, consultants and leaders to grow their business with virtual parties and expanded virtual training, to reach people across the country and around the world. You can run your entire business on a smart phone or tablet from anywhere you have an Internet connection.

Today companies pay commissions by direct deposit weekly or twice a month on personal sales, with team commissions paid at month-end. Most provide direct deposit to an e-wallet, on a company branded debit card or into a bank account for instant access and maximum convenience.

We still have print materials — catalogs, recruiting and host brochures, business cards and more. And everything is also online. The sales or recruiting process may include a text, email with a link, a call, short video, a verbal close or immediate online direction to a website to order or sign up. The consultant and upline get an email or text, confirming a sale or a new recruit enrollment. It has become cost effective to do business anywhere 24/7.

25 years ago, my Tupperware compensation plan was single level. We had true breakaways (in reality a “takeaway”) and top-performing Leaders could be offered a franchise (which cost significant dollars). That model doesn’t work in our world now.

Today our most successful companies have married party plan selling with MLM compensation strategies sometimes producing $100,000 to $1,000,000 annual earners. A good plan eliminates “takeaways” for promoting leaders by increasing income for the right behaviors. The most powerful plans directly reward personal sales, recruiting and team building, leader development and senior level mentorship. The leaders who work all the available profit centers earn the biggest paychecks.

Consultants used to communicate and follow up with their personal customers (Or did they?). Hosts delivered orders. Companies usually had no idea who their end- users were. They treated the consultants as their customers. Today, successful companies work in the spirit of true partnership with their sales force. They provide technology to generate post-party sales and direct re-orders on behalf of their consultants. This approach builds true residual income for consultants, and increased retention of both customers and consultants, while creating stronger teams and leaders.

Improved technology allows companies to direct-market to customers and alerts them to new products, special offers and business opportunities. We support our sales force’s efforts and we know our end-users well. The asset value of a company is not based on the number of sales consultants you have. Rather the sales volume or net profits tied to a relationship with the end-customer create the company’s true business value — which is significant if you ever intend to become an acquisition candidate or go public. The most important metric for a party plan company today may be the number of customers that buy monthly. This is what defines the company’s book of business.

When companies are proactively marketing directly to their customers, while preserving the integrity of the customer-consultant relationship, they grow faster. Retention increases significantly. Although consultants still come and go, companies can frequently keep a customer far longer by rewarding them with loyalty points, monthly promotions or special discounts. Today’s companies recognize that inactive consultants can still be loyal customers using the product even when they stop doing the business. They are an important part of the overall business base.

If you’re a company owner or corporate executive, the changing face of party plan requires you to implement new ways to stay competitive in today’s marketplace. Keep in mind you don’t only compete for product sales; you compete for your consultants’ and leaders’ time, energy, focus and commitment. When you provide methods of doing business that combine high tech with high touch outreach, along with high product visibility, you leverage your sales force efforts and activities. Then your consultants can truly earn a full-time income with part-time effort. That’s the dream we still sell and the opportunity that will grow the next generation of direct sellers.

The post The Changing Face of Party Plan appeared first on The World of Direct Selling.