 |
Recruiting
Would You Rather Join With an Eeyore or a Tigger Sponsor?
Attitudes are contagious.
If you spend time with someone who is always crabbing and complaining, it too can drag you down. It won’t be long before you also start to adopt nonproductive emotions and attitudes.
Likewise, if you spend time with those who are positive, chipper and generally happy, it’s easy to maintain your own peaceful, joyful attitude.
Some say opposites attract, but I disagree. Like attracts like. I consider myself pretty positive. I embrace living in the moment and appreciating each moment. I don’t sweat the small stuff … and it’s mostly all small.
If you’re a direct sales independent consultant you know that you have a two-fold business, sales and sponsoring. If you’re having a hard time team building, take a look at what type of recruits you may be attracting.
Are You a Tigger?
Tigger is genuinely friendly and bouncy. He likes to sing, “The wonderful thing about Tiggers is I’m the only one!” He is cheery, positive, sweet and energetic. He’s FUN to be around. See for yourself.
Or Are You an Eeyore?
Eeyore is a pessimistic old grey donkey. He lives in the southeast corner of the Hundred Acre Wood, in an area labeled “Eeyore’s Gloomy Place: Rather Boggy and Sad” Have a look.
Like Attracts Like
I see direct sales consultants on forums and Facebook complaining or finding reasons to be upset about one thing or another. It’s no surprise their business isn’t going well. It’s no wonder they’re not building strong teams. They are leading by example, but not a very good example. Continue reading
Garage Sale Recruiting
Will Brake for Garage Sales
Some independent direct sales consultants have a garage sale mentality when it comes to recruiting new team members. See if you are one of them:
- You either target particular garage sales, yard sales, church sales, neighborhood sales or estate sales based on ads you’ve seen on Craig’s List or other advertising platforms – or as you are just headed down the street you stumble upon a sale.
- You evaluate the signage. If it is large and brightly colored, you decide it might be a good sale. If it is small and looks like chicken scratch, you figure it was just thrown together and probably won’t be very good.
- When you see the sign, you slow down to look down the street to see if the sale is visible or if you’ll have to venture down the street to seek out the location.
- When you get to the sale you slow down to look from your car to determine if it looks good enough to get out.
- If you see baby items out front, and you are not in the market for any baby items, you decide it must not contain any good treasures in which you have any interest, so you keep going.
- If the sale is staged well or if you see some big items that catch your eye from the street you decide to park and get your bum out of the car.
- If you do get out only finding there was nothing of interest to you, you silently curse to yourself that it was a waste of your time and energy to go look at that junk.
Do you recognize yourself in any of those descriptions? I sure do. Even though I am well aware that by making such unfounded judgments I am probably missing out on some gem that was available to me, I still repeatedly engage in some of these actions.
Judging Recruits from Afar
Throw Out That List of 100
If one more direct selling company or sponsor encourages new recruits to “Make a List of 100 People You Know” I’m going to stick a fork in my eye! I’m talking about the practice of spamming the snot out of their friends, family and acquaintances. It goes against the entire concept of target marketing and finding a niche. No wonder the direct selling industry still has a bad reputation in some circles.
This archaic and tired practice claims that if you make a list of 100 people to hound, it’ll be your first networking contact list that will supposedly help launch your new direct sales career. Although, whether you’re selling candles, jewelry, kitchenware, makeup, home decor or any other product offering, wouldn’t you have better results if you presented your new product line to the people whom you believe could benefit from and enjoy your goods?
Market to those who have a specific want or need
This concept is ridiculous. What if your dental hygienist started a business selling metal widgets that would help expedite an automobile factory manufacturing process?If this person made a list of 100 people she knows and included you in that list to push her steel vehicle widgets on, you’d think she was totally off her rocker for wasting your time. Yet as direct sellers, we’re supposed to do just that; having no regard to market to those who have a specific want or need. Continue reading
Top 3 Ways to Look Desperate with Scentsy Recruiting
You can find much information on building your direct selling business. There are plenty of books, articles and blogs on what some deem as best practices to recruit.
What you won’t find too much of is what not to do. If you don’t recruit the right way you just come off looking desperate.
If you are already thinking, “But that’s not focusing on the positive, Laurie” let me say that I am positive that if you are currently engaging in any of the actions below; and if after you read this you find yourself with a new awareness that what you’ve been doing isn’t necessarily a best practice, I am positive you will see an increase to your down line.
1. Join My Team and Get:
Bribing people to join your team is numero uno on my list desperate recruiting moves.
- Do you really want team members who are just there for the freebies?
- It looks like your company’s business opportunity and/or starter kit isn’t good enough to stand on its own.
- How is this any different than the little elementary school girl who couldn’t get anyone to play with, so she gave away her cookies at lunch just to have friends?
- It’s sending a message that your mentoring and coaching skills leave much to be desired. Otherwise you wouldn’t devalue what you have to offer.
- Based on the percentage of royalties, commissions, or leadership bonus (whatever you want to call it) you will receive on your new recruit’s sales, have you calculated how much she/he will need to sell before you merely break even on your give away?
2. I Only Need Two More People To Qualify for the Trip Continue reading
Who Cares How Many?
I was recently apart of a conversation where a potential new direct sales consultant wanted to know some good questions she should be asking before she joins to represent a company.
I admire anyone who does research ahead of time and chooses a company and a sponsor wisely. It sets the foundation to a strong business. I’ve offered a number of questions to ask in this article: Selecting a Direct Sales Sponsor and also in More on Selecting a Direct Sales Company and Sponsor.
One of the participants in the discussion responded that she would definitely ask “How may consultants there are in the area, as you’ll want to check for saturation.”
This is not the first time I’ve heard others voice that this should be an important question to get answered. However, my response to this is:
Who cares how many consultants there are in an area?
That number means nothing and tells you nothing about the current situation. In many cases saturation is a myth.
Back to the irrelevance of how many consultants there are in the area. What will that tell you? I know what it won’t tell you:
- It won’t tell you how many of those consultants are kit collectors and aren’t selling anything.
- It won’t tell you how many signed up for personal use.
- It won’t tell you how many sell now and then to a few friends but aren’t actively doing anything to get new customers, hosts or recruits. Continue reading