Direct Selling Values

In the world of direct selling, everyone is always trying to build a better mousetrap: a faster way to recruit, an even better compensation plan, amazing, instant leads, and a "Win" button. In reality, the core values and principles of direct selling have not changed in 100 years. It's the technology and business processes that continue to evolve in order to better support these core values.

Most people simply want to belong to something that is good; something that recognizes and values them for their hard work, will praise them when they do well and will pick them up and encourage them when they are down. And yes, will pay them for their efforts.

Being this support structure has been, and continues to be at the core for all successful direct selling companies.
Technology and business processes continue to evolve in order to make it easier to provide a high level of service to your people. This should be the main goal for a company: making it easier to do business.

How do you make sure you are providing the best service? Build trust with your sales people, especially your leaders, and most importantly, listen to them. The people working the business will usually give you the best ideas of what processes need to be modified or where change needs to be made. If the biggest complaint is late deliveries, fix that problem first. Don't give them another exciting toy that IT or marketing came up with when they are saying the biggest challenge is your shipping process.

When you ask your sales people what you can do to better their selling experience, often times the responses will be along the lines of "Get this tool", "Work like this company", or "Have these bonuses". It is important to work past these replies to get a better understanding of what the real problems are. Otherwise, you run the risk of complicating things by offering the wrong solutions.

The party plan business model is successful because it blends fun activities and social networking with product sales and promotional opportunities. The beginner consultant is faced with numerous challenges when launching their first parties. Here are some examples of challenges you might face and suggestions of how to find efficient solutions.

Challenge:

One of the most common party plan challenges is the failure to invite enough guests to a gathering (party, show, event, etc.). The hostess may only want to invite a small number of people because he/she is concerned about having too many people attend and not being able to seat everyone. The reality is the potential that only two out of the seven people invited are able to attend the event. This results in the party not qualifying for hostess rewards or compensation for the sponsoring consultant. One or two of these "flops" and there is risk of the consultant giving up before he/she has a chance for success.

Potential Solution:

Have a simple training program or process to inform and educate new Consultants. Don't rely on your Consultants to be the teacher. Lend a hand and help coach both the Consultant and hostess by providing advice and suggestions on how to be successful. Pamphlets, brochures, or videos are only a few ways to provide that information to your distributors and hostesses.

Challenge:

Consultants and party hostesses are unhappy with the administration time needed to enter and submit orders from a party. The consultants also feel their hourly earnings are reduced because of the time it takes to enter a party order. This causes a level of disappointment and takes time away from their personal life (and more free time was one of the benefits of being your consultant, right?).

Potential Solution:

Have a simple order entry process that allows the consultant or hostess to enter the information quickly. The emphasis here is on the simplicity of the order entry process and not a solution designed by your marketing department, who are often looking for an opportunity to bring in the latest and greatest complex gadgets. Your consultants may value speed of entry over having a digital barometer available on the order page. The real solution is most likely in the middle of widget-rich and spreadsheet basic. The key is listening to your consultants. If you are trying to establish a $25/hour opportunity for the new consultant, saving them time on the administration part of the business is much less expensive then changing your compensation structure.

These are pretty straight forward resolutions to common problems that you may have.  The reality is life isn't usually as simple, but things are easier to begin once you have a starting point. The key is to understand the core values of the direct selling industry and make sure your company is aligned with them. Once this is done, start to build trust with your field, starting with your leaders. Ask questions and listen to understand, not to confirm what you think you know. Make sure new consultants are factored into your plans, processes and business solutions, prioritize the issues and knock them out!