Looking back over nearly two decades of building my business online, I cringe when I think about the very first website I built (I designed that crazy logo in “paint” and coded the entire site in “notepad”), the very first show I ever did (one of the guests kept tapping her watch and staring at me, urging me to hurry up), and the early interviews I hosted (everything I said was scripted!). I certainly had a lot of learning to do over the years to improve my performance!

At the time, they weren’t bad, mind you. They were pretty good – especially for the technology of the era, and I certainly practiced my butt off to get them as good as possible in the time I had available.

But comparing that “old me” to the more experienced, confident, and knowledgeable me of today, I can honestly say it was the worst work I’ve ever done.

The same is probably true for you. 

In direct sales, we coach our new consultants to book in close, and get their first shows done before they’ve even been in the business for a month. One coach I know recommended her consultants get in nine shows in the first three weeks of business! The reason? Practice. Even if you have one or two “good” shows right out of the gate, a new consultant won’t have enough experience under her belt to handle some of the more unusual situations that can come up during the first few months of business.

Here are some tips to improve your performance fast:

1. Pick one thing and know it cold. Most direct sales companies have hundreds, if not thousands of products available for purchase. Pick one product, or one product collection, and become an expert on it. If you’re new, people will be impressed with what you know, and will understand that you couldn’t possibly have memorized everything in the catalog in your few short months in business.

2. Rehearse. If a show cancels or reschedules, use that time to practice your demonstration. Even if you’re practicing to an empty room, the more you rehears your demo, the better you’ll be when it’s time to present your wares in front of an audience. If you’re waiting in line at the bank or the grocery store, practice the one-liners that you say during your presentation to encourage bookings and recruiting. Even if you’re only saying them to yourself under your breath, it helps. Besides, if someone is brave enough to ask what you’re doing, you can tell them you’re rehearsing for a big presentation you’ve got coming up. That just may open a conversation that books a new party for you! If you think of your demonstration as a performance – with you as the lead actor – it just might fire you up for an Academy Award-winning performance!

3. Confess. You don’t have to know everything. No one but you expects you to know everything. Let your clients know that, while you don’t have all the answers, you’re committed to finding the answers for them. Then go out and find those answers!

4. Ask. Whether it’s the online training center, the book store, the library, your team leader, or a colleague, it’s smart to ask for help. No man is an island, and it’s foolish to pretend that you’re the sole author of your success. Ask for help when you need it (and show gratitude when you receive it), and you’ll be modeling the traits of a real leader to those you meet.

And what if your first few shows were really spectacular? Maybe it wasn’t beginner’s luck. Maybe you really are that good! If so, congratulations, and don’t rest on your laurels. It’s important to keep learning, keep growing, and keep practicing. New questions crop up every day, and it’s up to you, as a business owner, to be able to find the answers for your clients, hosts, and team members. Just think how much better you will be after twenty years of learning and growing!

Really. Here in the U.S., kids get an extended vacation from school, and many families take at least a portion of that time away from their work to travel, visit with family, or engage in any number of activities that would take them away from home for at least a few days.

At first blush, it can feel like “nobody’s home” all Summer long, making it difficult to book and hold one-on-one meetings or home parties, but that’s simply not true. With more people across the globe staying close to home (they even “staycation” in Scotland), it’s not hard to have a full Summer calendar – if you get started now. Here are three ideas to help prime the pump for a sensational Summer book of direct sales business:

1. Create a campaign for your A-List clients

One of the strategies I teach is about sorting your clients in to three lists and marketing to them according to which list they’re on. Today, just look at your A list clients. Don’t have an A-list yet? Create one today. Your “A-List” represents the cream of the crop, the top 20% of your clientele. These are the folks you most enjoy working with – and wish you could clone.  Then, create a special offer for each of them. If you’ve worked with them recently, reach out and ask for a referral to someone else as awesome as they are. If it’s been a while, invite her to host a show or place an order as a Summer treat for herself (or her friends) using a special offer that’s only available for one week. Begin your conversations by thanking them for being one of your very best clients. Remember, sincere flattery will get you everywhere.

2. Offer a Summer incentive booking bonus

Put together a basket of special items – they could be discontinued or clearance merchandise, overstocks from product you have on hand – or they could be totally unrelated to your company product line. When you invite people to book a show, let them know that every Summer host will go into a drawing for the gift basket and only hosts are eligible to win. Hosts that have a $1000+ show get an extra ticket for the drawing. One client of mine is offering up a Kindle fire for every six hosts that book and hold a party for her this Summer. Remember to do what is financially feasible for your business. Don’t go broke giving away prizes.

3. Summer Camp Fundraisers

Got kids going off to summer sports or arts camps? Most non-profit organizations are glad to benefit from your fundraisers. Why not invite the parents to party with you and donate a portion of the proceeds to the camp program? You could also offer up a portion of sales from any bookings you get from the parents. Sports teams are always in need of equipment or uniforms. Why reserve your fundraising for schools? These kinds of activities usually start registering now, so it’s a great time to approach the sponsoring committees to discuss fundraising options.

These are just three ways to get outside the “nobody’s home” box this Summer. What ideas are you thinking about? Share your ideas in the comments below!

1. They need a leader who “gets them”. Every direct seller chooses to join with a leader because they feel at last some alignment with that leader. In the Internet age, this is more important than ever. If my values are diametrically opposed to those of my potential recruiter, you can be sure that I’ll Google the company, find a different leader that matches my values more closely, and sign up with them. In the industry, we’re not supposed to talk about this kind of behavior. After all, there’s an unwritten rule about staying with the recruiter that introduced you to the opportunity. The reality, however,  is that this kind of “leader searching” happens more than we care to admit.

How do we resolve this issue? Take the time to get to know your recruits for who they are, not just what they’ll bring to the team. Is this a recruit who is barely making ends meet, or someone that’s looking to replace a corporate income? Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search For Meaning, talks about meeting people where they are on their journey. The same holds true for the consultants on your team. Each one has different reasons for being involved in direct sales – reasons that go deeper than their “why” that we spend so much time discussing in our training meetings. The why is important, but “the what under the why” as I call it, is far more important and impactful to your consultants. When you know this, you have a connection that is difficult to break, and loyalty that will last for years.

2. They need a leader who can help them when they get stuck. Not every consultant needs hand-holding. But invariably, there will come a point in time when even your most independent consultants need your assistance. When a consultant is deciding about whether or not to join your team, they are sizing you up, and comparing themselves to you. If they feel you can help them achieve their goals, they’ll sign up. If they have doubts, very often they’ll just say no and refuse to join. Sadly, this is how some leaders regularly lose leads to another team or company. Simply put, your leads don’t believe you can help them if they get stuck.

The first step is to be willing to admit that you don’t know everything. The second step is to get incredibly good at finding the resources your team members need. When you can admit to your team that you don’t know everything, but that you’ll do everything in your power to get them the help they need, you establish trust. When your consultants trust you, and you treat them right, they’ll eat nails for you.

3. They need a leader that makes them feel included. Orphaned consultants are an epidemic in the industry, and the leaders that have left them in the cold are entirely to blame. That may sound harsh, but it’s true. It matters not how big your team is, if you can’t take the time to acknowledge every member of your organization (by name) for their contribution at least once a year, you’re doing something wrong. Especially if you’ve inherited new team members on your front line, you have no idea who they are or what their needs are until you take the time to invest your time with them.

Spread responsibilities around in larger organizations, to encourage would-be leaders to take on leadership roles. Provide regular recognition to team members based on activity, not just performance. Otherwise, you’ll have a handful of consultants who are constantly on the list of “top performers” but your consistent performers will never get the recognition they deserve for the very action every leader wants (consistency in their teams). Make an effort to connect with every consultant in your front line organization at least twice a year to make sure you and they are on the same page in terms of their goals and objectives.

If your desire is to build a stronger team, it pays to understand and find ways to support these three core needs in your organization. Unless and until you do, you’ll never realize the full potential of your sales force.

Last time we talked about an overall strategy for tapping into free or low cost resources to connect with your growing team and customers.

Today we will dive in further to the topic of utilizing a website to connect. Like I mentioned before , I recommend Blogger. It’s simple to operate and there is no charge to use it. If your time is limited, I would start with developing a site for your customers.

Here are some considerations:

Client considerations

Who is your ideal client? Sketch out their profile. What age group? What gender? Know the demographics of what Lisa calls your Perfect-Fit Customer. Are they going to find you via a Google search or just word of mouth?

What is your most wanted response? Do you want them to call you, email you, visit another website? Is your site for customers after you have met them in person so you can build your relationship with them?

These two sets of answers should guide your decisions with everything you put on your new site.

You also need to know the online policies of the company you represent. You need to know if you can mention their name or not. If you cannot, that is ok. Just know ahead of time.

Lets use an example. Lets say I’m a distributor of popular kitchen supply products and they won’t allow me to mention their name or list products for sale on my site. No problem. This is what I would do.

First, find your ideal customer. Typically in the direct sales world, you are most relate-able to those like yourself. This isn’t always the case, but I’ve been there. The easiest market is people like yourself.

So my “typical” customer (which might not be my ideal customer) is:

• a mom in their 30′s
• likes to cook sometimes
• has kids in school
• household income ranges between 50,000-150,000 per year
• online (especially Facebook)

My ideal customer for followup is:

• likes to cook & try new things
• household income: 50,000+
• online (especially Facebook)
• likes gadgets
• mom 30-50

The most wanted response is to have them email me back, share on Facebook, or signup for my updates/eNewsletter email list.

With this information, I can focus on the goals for my website.

Goals for the site are to:

• create a relationship (so they’ll like/friend me on Facebook)
• build credibility (so they’ll sign up for my email list)
• build trust (if they trust you and you rave about a new product, they are more likely to believe they will also love the product)

Note: A secondary goal for the website would be to protect your client list if you were to ever break ties with your company. This way, if your company goes out of business (it happens) or you leave, your followers will still listen to you because they have created a relationship with you on your website. Granted, there are those clients that will remain loyal to a product/company (unless it dissolves), but because they’re building a relationship with you, they are more likely to remain loyal to you if you ever need/want to jump ship.

Design considerations

Continuing on with our example, I would use a header, fonts and colors that appeal to my audience. I would not choose a “black grunge” look for a cooking website targeted to 30-50 year old women. I would select something that gives you the feel of cooking… think daytime cooking show colors. Find some sites that you are attracted to and model their color schemes.

Make your most wanted response very dominant at the top or top right of your screen. If you want folks to sign up for your mailing list first and foremost, then make sure your opt-in box is prominently displayed near the top of the page. Don’t bury it half way down a side bar. People may never get that far.

Use Blogger’s “gadget” to hold the code for your MailChimp eNewsletter signup box as well as links to your Facebook business page (be sure to create a business page and link to that, not your personal Facebook page).

After your site is designed, consider hosting it on a custom domain (your own website address). It only costs about $10 per year and you can do it right from Blogger. Something like www.ElianCooks.com would work for our example, if it’s available.

Then, with your new URL in hand, go over to Google Apps and get a matching email address like elian@eliancooks.com. Then I’d go over to Facebook and set up my Facebook page and title it something like Elian Cooks. Then claim your custom Facebook URL as soon as possible (for example, facebook.com/eliancooks)

Next, go to MailChimp and set up an “RSS Campaign.” This is where after you post it will automatically go out to your list (or a segment of your list).You can select if you want the message to go out daily, weekly or monthly (after you’ve posted). I’d select daily unless you post on your website more than once a week. Pretty up your template and add some sort of monthly or quarterly promotion. Be sure to add yourself as a subscriber so you can see what your followers are seeing.

Using my example, here are somethings you can post to be top of mind to your customers:

• recipes
• tips on how to use a certain product
• party tips (displaying with your products or using products to make the party food)
• gift giving ideas around the holidays
• time saving tips
• focus on an ingredient and share different ways to use and/or maximize (ie a whole chicken)
• resources for local food (ie farmer’s markets and stores)

Be sure to not copy from other websites as it will violate copyright laws.

Don’t like to write?

If you dislike or don’t want to take the time to write your own posts, here are a few ideas on what you can do.

• use video blogs (vblogs)
• outsource your content (you only need 200-400 words per post)
• buy private label rights content
• line up guest bloggers (either one time or ongoing)

Need more help? Be sure to check out my training room and resources at www.elianevans.com.

Elian Evans is a social media marketing specialist for small business, groups and organizations (for and non-profit). She provides consulting (and some services) with regards to websites, Facebook, Twitter, QR codes, mobile and traditional marketing. Learn more at www.ElianEvans.com.

You just have to keep your eyes open.

This is what I’ve coined the “Sales Cycle” – and it’s where you can find customers at any point in your business. Some people you are just meeting, others, you have been doing business with for a long time, while others still have known you, but never done business with you.

It works kind of like a wheel. You are at the hub, and each “spoke” represents a public-facing point in your business where you could potentially meet new customers. The right half of the image is where most people think of meeting new clients (Meet, Lead, Client), but customers are also found on the left half of the Cycle.

But like Thomas Edison once said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work“. The left side of the Cycle takes a little more work, but produces far better customers as a result.

We dig in deep on this concept in Direct Sales 104, and as part of the updated, expanded Direct Sales 101, I’ll be sharing specific examples of each. For now, let’s give you an overview of what each spoke represents in your business. That just may give you all the fuel you need to make fast progress at attracting new customers to your direct sales business.

1. Meet People – this is something you do every day of your life. You’re online or off, you’re connecting with strangers, and adding them to your circle. Some of these people will pretty much stay strangers in your life – you may never encounter them again. Many of them, however, have the potential of becoming…

2. Leads – these are the folks that have at least a remote interest in who you are and what you’re doing. Over time, if they have a need, and know you, like you, and trust you to their satisfaction, they’ll cross a threshold into…

3. Clients – people that pay you money for what you do! Too often, we think these people are the only people that exist. While it’s true that you’ll spend less money to keep current clients than you will to attract new ones, that is only helpful if you actually have clients in the first place – and enough of them to keep you in business. For most of direct sales professionals, with a re-order rate of 1.1 (meaning for every eleven people that buy from you, ONE of them will make a repeat purchase – and only once), this group won’t be helpful on their own, unless you move them into…

4. Delivery – this is where the client relationship is fortified. Typically, it begins at the time of product delivery, which is why I call this spoke delivery. But it could just as easily begin as soon as you take the order – before they’ve received anything more than your good will and gratitude.  How you deliver to the client is far more important than what you deliver or when. All of them are necessary, but it’s the how that often determines repeat business. When it’s done right, it’s a…

5. Bonus – this is where the client relationship is intensified. When you go out of your way to surprise and delight your clients with occasional bonuses, they are oft wont to talk you up, referring to you favorably with their friends and colleagues. Positive referrals beget more business, more customers, and the opportunity to build deeper, richer client relationships. This ultimately gives you the opportunity to…

6. Reciprocate (giving back) – call it charity, tithing, or donating your time or money, the name doesn’t matter. Reciprocity is when you give of your blessings to bless others. You might think it strange to include this as part of the Sales Cycle, since it can often be such an intangible thing to measure. However, my experience, and that of my clients has proven time and again that some of the best business (and positive public exposure) comes from giving back to the community – and often it’s better to give of your time than your money, so there’s very little cost involved to make it happen. People talk about you when you’re going out of your way to make a positive impact in the world. Your direct sales business can be a vehicle for great things, if you remember to include giving back in your Sales Cycle. The best part? Getting involved and giving back often puts you in a position to…

7. Meet People – oh! here we are at the top of the Cycle again. See how that works?

You could easily find yourself on different spokes of the Sales Cycle at the same time with different people. Unlike a “funnel” where you’re trying to “push” clients through it to your desired end result, this Sales Cycle gives you an at-a-glance approach to dealing with each person uniquely. You can see quickly where they fall in the Cycle, and what your best approach is to working with them.

Over time, the Sales Cycle becomes a powerful tool to help you track the opportunities in your business, by making it clear where to focus your business development. Not generating enough leads? Take a look at what you’re doing to meet the right people for your business. Surprising and delighting your customers, but not seeing referrals? How are you handling delivery? If you keep an eye on each of the spokes of the Sales Cycle, your business will continue to roll along nicely.