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5 Tips to Rev Up Your Direct Sales Business in January
Many direct sales companies are slower during the J-months (January, June and July). January can be a particularly challenging month especially if you’ve just come off a whirlwind, crazy busy, holiday season.
The biggest mistake you can make in your business is to take January off because you’ve predetermined that your business will be virtually nonexistent. True it will be slower, but that is all the more reason to work even harder; not to go on hiatus. It’s likely that you were extremely busy during November and December. But don’t confuse being busy with working hard.
Before you get insulted at that last statement, I am fully aware of all the hustling and organizing it takes to ensure all holiday orders are placed and delivered timely. It can get pretty chaotic. Though I’m sure you’ll agree that it wasn’t terribly difficult to get orders during the gift giving season. It’s safe to say you didn’t have to work very hard to get parties, vendor events or orders. Continue reading
3 Smart Words: I Don’t Know
Think you’ll look stupid if you respond, “I don’t know”? If you’re of this mindset you’re wrong.
If you want to look smart to your customers and downline use these three words: I don’t know. Then if you really want to dazzle them, follow it up with: But I’ll find out and get back to you.
There’s a quote that says, “If you can’t dazzle them with your intelligence, baffle them with your bullshit.” If you have ever been the recipient of such baffling, I’m sure you’ll agree that the person who is handing you a load of bulllloney, is the one who looks like a buffoon. People can see right through that.
I often see consultants in a state of analysis paralysis. They’re getting ready to get ready. Fear is crippling them; fear of not knowing all the answers. That’s just a bunch of hooey. What would make one think that they have to know all the answers? Do these people really think that they’ll be judged so harshly if they don’t have an accurate, on the spot response to every question that could possibly be thrown their way? Continue reading
Working Smarter – Pt. 3 Complete Tasks in Bulk
In continuing with the Working Smarter, Not Harder series, remember that having more people to manage doesn’t have to mean working more hours. In order to survive being the leader of a large organization you need to eliminate, mitigate and delegate duties that are not the best use of your valuable time.
We all have non-income producing tasks as part of our business. An income producing task would be activities such as facilitating a home party or attending a vendor event – some action where you are directly earning money. Then there are all the other tasks that are required but don’t directly earn you any income at the time of completion. These are tasks such as assembling hostess packets, updating your bookkeeping records, bagging and tagging orders, etc.
Generally the non-income producing tasks are somewhat mundane and not nearly as fun; yet they still must be done. For example, when someone requests a catalog do you go to your shelf, grab an already assembled info packet, address it and pop it in the mail – bada bing, bada boom? Or, do you grab a catalog, then stamp or label it with your contact info, possibly add a business opportunity sticker to the front, add a recruiting DVD or brochure, add your business card and a sample, grab an envelope, stamp your return address, address it to the prospect and then affix a postage stamp? Continue reading
Sponsor Shopping: Communication via Email or Phone
We often hear how wired we are these days and that we’re losing the human interaction element. It’s also not the first time we’ve heard how we should unplug periodically and relate with people more over the telephone or face to face. Those arguments all have merit and few would argue against those statements. Yet even so, many actually prefer to be plugged in. Several team members would rather receive an email or text over a phone call.
When you are shopping to find a direct sales sponsor who is a good fit, I recommend that you find out if the sponsor’s preferred method of communication is telephone or email. It’s not a big secret that I am much easier to get a hold of over email. I already spend a great deal of my day on the phone so odds are favorable you’ll reach my voice mail before you’ll reach me. You’ll get a much quicker response by email.
But what if you prefer telephone? Continue reading
Working Smarter – Pt. 2 Automate the Answers
In continuing with the Working Smarter, Not Harder series, remember that having more people to manage doesn’t have to mean working more hours. In order to survive being the leader of a large organization you need to eliminate, mitigate and delegate duties that are not the best use of your valuable time.
This blog started as a way for me to answer questions before they were asked. While I appreciate the kudos for providing a wealth of information, it’s really here to save me time in answering individual questions on a routine basis.
For example, one FAQ I get is from potential recruits who want to work their direct sales business using Internet Marketing (yet frequently these same people have zero IM knowledge and want me to teach them everything I’ve learned over the decade). It didn’t take me long to figure out I was eating up a large chunk of my time responding to this same question. Thus the post: My Online Direct Sales Business was developed to answer these questions.
Another question that can be time consuming to respond to is How do you make samples? Voila – the answer is right here. Continue reading
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