Not Back to School, Forward to What’s Next!
Create a "Back to School" plan for your business.
My boys went back to school last week. My 7th grade son Eli (that's him on the right) moved from a small private school to a much larger, public middle school (his choice). He came home from school Monday and proclaimed to me that this is going to be his best school year ever. He's renewed, refreshed, and he has hit the ground running with a fresh start and some big goals.
That got me thinking about this time of year for direct sellers, and how important it is to make the same transition in your business that your kids are making as they head off to a new school year. Since it's only the 2nd day of September, I'd like to invite you to take some time and answer the following questions about your direct sales business and where you're headed as we transition into the final 1/3 of the year:
- What are your goals for the next four months?
- How much income will you earn?
- How many parties will it take to reach your goal?
- How many new team members will you need to bring onto your team?
- What will you commit to daily to reach your goal? Weekly? Monthly?
- Finally, how will you feel once you hit it? (Really define this – it's probably the most important item on this list)
Just like the syllabi your kids are bringing home with outlines of assignments and project for the next semester in each class, this list will help you create your own syllabus for success in your direct sales business.
I'd love to have you share your goals and action steps below.
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Julie Anne Jones is a direct sales corporate consultant, coach, and trainer, and the CEO of Julie Anne Jones, Inc. She is known for her authentic and easy-to-use scripting and specializes in specific language and tools for success in direct sales. To learn more about Julie Anne and her products and services, and to read more blog posts, visit her at www.julieannejones.com.
8 Reasons Every Direct Seller Needs a Facebook Fan Page
August 26, 2010 by Julie
Filed under Relationship Building
By Guest Blogger Karen Clark
Social media is a natural match for direct sellers who want to reach more people in their businesses. After all, the entire business model of direct sales is based on being social! Home party businesses thrive on word of mouth marketing, relationship building, and active participation. Direct sellers love to share their excitement about new products and the benefits of being involved in their company, they love meeting people where they are and inviting friends to join in. And most of all, direct sellers want to have FUN! Besides the traditional methods, all of this can also be accomplished through social media today, and one of the most effective platforms are Facebook Fan Pages.
Facebook Fan Pages are distinctly different than your regular Facebook Profile that you get when you log in. Your Profile is your personal space on the Facebook ‘web’ and you get to pick and choose who you let into your circle, what items people can see, and how much you want to see of theirs. Even though you can have up to 5,000 ‘friends’ it really is a closed network, and is not designed to be used for business purposes. In fact, most people are offended when they receive marketing messages from their Facebook friends, because their primary reason for being there is to keep in touch with people they know, and follow what is happening in their lives.
A Facebook Fan Page on the other hand, is completely public, you have no control over who joins in or not, or which items they see on your Fan Page. Everything is visible to the entire Facebook ‘web’ on a Fan Page. However, when you’re in business, public is a good thing! Public, and being visible to “everyone” on Facebook means exposure to new people you would not normally be exposed to, and aren’t we all trying to create NEW business for ourselves? Fan Pages have this advantage and I believe every direct seller – unless company policy forbids it – should have one. Here are eight reasons why:
- Fan Pages are indexed by the search engines such as Google and Yahoo because they are public. Profiles are not, because they are private. This means that your Fan Page becomes like a mini-website, another doorway into your business that the entire world could have access to with a few clicks. Use some good keywords that people are searching for when you post and you’ll be on your way to establishing an online presence in no time.
- Fan Pages are highly customizable, whereas Profiles are not. With the Static FBML application, you can create custom welcome pages, product pages, a page about your Why story, or about the benefits of hosting a party with you – just about anything is possible! This cannot be done on the Profile.
- People who “Like” Fan Pages are opting in to hear about your business. They are taking an active step to participate in conversations with you as a business person, to hear the occasional marketing message, or to find out your latest specials or new products. This means that those who are on your Fan Page are highly qualified leads – they want to hear from you! They’re looking forward to hearing from you. When someone befriends you on Facebook, they are not necessarily interested in your business.
- Fan Pages can be personalized so that you have your own home on the web even if you do not have your own website or blog. With company replicated sites, our options for expressing ourselves are limited – sometimes the only thing we can edit is our contact information, with a few exceptions. Through your Fan Page, you can share your stories, give advice, share helpful information or articles about related topics, and be of service to your Fans in ways that can’t be done through a shopping site.
- Fan Pages give you a chance to engage and interact with your customers and potential customers. As you share information with them, they comment or “like” your posts and you are able to respond and have two-way or even group communication about the topic. This leads to rich interaction which builds trust and rapport with your visitors. On a Fan Page you all share something in common to start with – the love of your product or business opportunity. There’s lots to talk about, and your Fans enjoy interacting with you.
- Fan Pages breed advocates for your business. When you share a video, a link or a photo, clicking the Share link is so easy to do! Your Fans will then share your information with their friends, which exposes your business to even more people. On a Profile your friends will share to their friends as well, but you will only receive exposure for your personal profile that way, and if their friends are not your friends already, the only way for them to find out more about you is to request friendship. With a Fan Page, your Fans’ friends can easily click your Fan Page name, and click Like to get involved.
- Fan Pages are measurable. When you manage a Fan Page, Facebook installs “Insights” which are statistics about your Fan Page. Facebook will tell you how many times your posts received comments or “likes” as well as how many Fans came on or left, and where they came from. It will give you a chart over the last month that shows interesting facts about the success of your Fan Page, and you can easily monitor and adjust your activities. There is no such thing on a Profile so there is no way to measure your success other than watching the number of friends go up and down, which is a very poor judge.
- It’s free! There is no better value for your time or money as a direct seller marketing online than creating a Facebook Fan Page. Go to any Fan Page, and on the bottom left is a link for “Create a Fan Page for Your Business.” Click that link and follow the instructions. A basic Fan Page can be created in under 10 minutes. You can find tutorials online to teach yourself how to customize it even further or if you are pressed for time, there are social media consultants like myself who will walk you through it or set it up for you.
Take advantage of the opportunity we have within Facebook. It is not going away any time soon, and creating a Fan Page presents a fun, free, and fabulous additional doorway into your business. For more information and training about Facebook Fan Pages for direct sellers, visit my website at http://www.mybusinesspresence.com. Click Products to download a Fan Page audio recording, and enter your email address for a free Do’s and Don’ts of Facebook report. Do you have a specific question about Facebook Fan Pages? Feel free to ask the question in the comments below and we can all learn together!
Taking her own business as a direct seller to the highest level of the compensation in less than seven years was just the start for Karen Clark. As the Director of Consultant Development for the corporation, she created training programs for the entire field before founding My Business Presence. Now a popular speaker and author, Karen is dedicated to helping all independent distributors master the world of social media, including effective blogging, web design, netiquette and search engine optimization. Karen has co-authored two books – Incredible Business and Direct Selling Power, and is the Northern California Chapter Coordinator for the Direct Selling Women’s Alliance. Karen has been honored with two awards from the DSWA, the Spirit Award in 2008 and the Ambassador of the Year Award in 2010. She lives with her husband and 3 children in Sonoma County, CA. Find out more about My Business Presence and connect with Karen on Facebook at http://www.mybusinesspresence.com.
Time Saving Tips For Your Direct Sales Business
August 24, 2010 by Julie
Filed under Time Management
By Guest Blogger Heather Price
You’re booking! You’re selling! You’re recruiting! But you also have laundry to do, a husband who needs attention, bills that are overdue, kids carpools to drive, dinner to make….the list goes on and on. Your life is great and you wouldn’t have it any other way, but if you’re a wife and/or a mother, and/or you have a job outside of your direct sales business, your life is already super full even without your business. But because of financial need or because you want a hobby or because you just love what you do, your direct sales business needs to be a priority. How do you sell $200.00 worth of products on a day that you are driving four carpools? How do you book a party when your kids are home from school? How do you spend two hours at Walmart meeting new people when you don’t have ten minutes to spare? You need time saving tips!
Here are my top five time saving tips for your direct sales business:
- Be prepared while you’re out and about. In a day you hadn’t even been planning to book, sell, or recruit, you’re taking your kids to school or you’re going grocery shopping, or you’re stopping at the bank. If you look your best and you have business cards, pens, catalogs, and samples with you, you’re much more likely to open your mouth to the friendly checkout clerk about your business. If you don’t have anything with you, and you’re not wearing makeup, you might not even mention your business. You never know where you might meet your next wonderful client or team member.
- I like to call this the "call, mail, call" method. When you have a list of leads you haven’t yet contacted (perhaps you did a bridal show recently, or your upline passed some leads to you, or you’ve been letting website hits collect), it’s a good idea to group call them once with a friendly message (use www.postcalls.com) letting them know that a special offer is in the mail for them and they should watch their mailbox. Then group mail the offer either by card or postcard (I use sendoutcards.com), and finally THEN follow up with individual phone calls. The reason this is a time saver is because by the time you call them individually they’ve already decided whether they’re interested in further contact from you. They’ve received a call and card already—you won’t need to spend time explaining your offer individually to each person. You’ll simply be calling to say “remember the postcard I sent you? I’m calling to see when we can schedule our appointment so you can get….” At that point, if they’re not interested, you’re not spending time explaining. If they are interested, they book immediately.
- Partner with local businesses. You’re sure to have many small businesses in your area with a checkout counter and a reason for people to wait for a few minutes. Chinese take out, ice cream stores, dry cleaners, etc. Ask the owners if you can leave a cute little bag on their counter for a couple of weeks as an added service to their customers. Put a sticker on the bag that says “drop in your business card to win a free skin care pampering session and makeover” (if you’re with a skin care company) or “a free session with a kitchen organizer” (if you’re with a cooking tool company) or “a free appointment with a jewelry specialist who can show you the right jewelry for your clothing” (if you’re with a jewelry company). You get the idea— you want people to put in their name and phone number because they’re interested in what you have to offer. Instead of spending the time warm chatting and doing surveys, it’s a huge time saver to place the bags (use sticky stuff on the bottom so the bags don’t fall!) – and then come back and check on them, thanking your contacts at each location with free samples or products. You know what to do— with each phone call, turn each session into a party when possible, letting your client know of the benefits of holding their session as a party.
- Email autoresponders are not yet widely popular with direct sales team leaders, and I’m not sure why. In my opinion, it’s a handy way to communicate with your team because you can set the messages up in advance and you can queue them to go out whenever you’d like. If you’d like your team to hear from you daily, you can spend an hour one day a week queueing up daily messages to be sent throughout the week. Furthermore, you can set up follow up messages so that when a new team member joins your list, she’s getting pre-set messages from you. You can set up autoresponder lists for your hostesses, your clients, your team, your potential clients, and your potential team members. You can have unlimited autoresponder lists for $19 a month with a service such as aweber.com.
- Take advantage of social media! For me, social media is a huge timesaver because often times I find wonderful customers online without having to be dressed, clean my house for a client to come to me, or even pack a bag to go to my client. I send samples to my out of town potential client, I follow up, and voila. Be friendly online— get to know people who have something in common with you. Don’t attack them immediately with your sales pitch. Simply get to know people, join in the conversation, and at an appropriate time, ask them if they’d like to join your email list and/or your snail mail list. Ask them if they’d like product samples. Become an expert in your field so that people online gravitate towards you.
Do you have other time saving tips? Please add them in the comments below!
If you happen to be with a skin care or cosmetics company and would like additional timesaving tips, I’m launching a new program at http://busymomskincarebiz.com/ – it’s an e-course for direct sales skin care business owners who need specific ideas to get the most “bang for their buck” and have the most efficient use of their time with income producing activity. For a small investment, you’ll be enrolled in the e-course which you can take whenever you’d like and you get the e-course in e-book format as well.
Have a great, productive summer everyone!
Heather Price is a mom of AWESOME three year old twins, both with various special needs. While they’re in preschool or sleeping, she is a sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics and a distributor for Send Out Cards. Heather has ten years of experience in direct sales. You can learn more about Heather at her website: http://heatheramyprice.com/ or on her facebook page: http://facebook.com/heatheramyprice.com
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