The "Be Your Own Boss" Dream: Debunking The Work From Home Myth Of Direct Sales

Direct sales companies put a great deal of time and effort into recruiting sales people. The number one lure that most direct marketing companies use is the ability to work from home. The vast majority of new recruits sign on for the promise that you can be your own boss. Is this really true, and is direct marketing all that its cracked up to be?

Direct marketing or direct sales is the selling of products and/or services directly to people. Products/services are not marketed in retail stores. Instead, sellers must push their product(s) by other means. This most often involves home parties, shows, classes or demonstrations.

Typically, a direct marketer is drawn by the enticement of being able to work from home. The idea of being able to be your own boss is alluring, so many sign on with high hopes.

However, an estimated 50 percent of new direct sales recruits drop out within the first six months. A good number of these drop out within the first two months. These dropouts cite two major reasons for their disillusionment:

1. The income they are generating is not as great as they believed it would be.

2. The work from home job turned out to involve more work outside of the home than anticipated.

Unfortunately, direct sales companies exaggerate claims about how much out-of-home work is really required to launch a successful business. They often quote promising and encouraging statistics about people making a livable income from home. Their sales brochures are almost always filled with testimonials from associates who love their work-from-home jobs. They seem to be able to run a business from a desktop while still picking up their kids from school every day. They manage to get dinner on the table every night, and they make a great living too.

The problem with these statistics and testimonials is that they are "top-heavy." They represent only a small percentage of the total number of direct sales people working for the company. Those at the top of the chain usually do make a good living. However, they often make more money off the sales of their recruits than from their own personal sales.

The vast majority of direct marketers wanting to work from home find themselves quickly disappointed. They end up spending far more time out of the house trying to generate sales than they do at home. After all, the key to making sales in this type of company is through home parties or demonstrations in the homes of others. Sales people must spend several hours per week away from home peddling their product(s)/services. The bulk of personal sales do not come from phone or Internet sales, but through live, in-person encounters. Direct selling is really little more than the modern equivalent of door-to-door selling.

Sales people then become disillusioned. They're unable to generate enough income to make it worth the trouble. Neither are they willing or able to spend more time away from home. After all, they signed up because they wanted to work FROM home.

The notion of wanting to be your own boss also tends to fade quickly from reality to fantasy. No direct marketer can truly be his or her own boss because there is always pressure from above. Those at the top of the sales chain cannot make money unless their recruits are making money. The result is that someone at the top is always pressuring those at the bottom. They continually ask them to do more than perhaps they ever wanted to when they signed on.

Is it possible to be your own boss in direct marketing? Yes. One need only to look at those testimonials to see this. However, it isn't always as simple as it sounds in the recruiting brochures. Those who truly want to be their own bosses must be prepared to spend time away from home. The bottom line is that direct marketing may not be the work from home job that you have always dreamed of.