Success Story: A Direct Seller Makes Herself An Expert

I could not be more excited to share this success story with you!

Last month at a live workshop, I talked about a strategy that will set any direct seller apart in a loud, crowded marketplace. That strategy is positioning yourself as an expert. Here are a couple of ways to do that:

1) Put together a 30 minute presentation about what you help your prospects do. For example, you might help them turn their home into a sanctuary (with fabulous decorating products), or you may help them prepare fast and healthy meals that gets the family to the table together (using great cookware).

2) Become an expert columnist for your local community paper – The Beauty Expert or The Scrapbooking Expert for example.

Now it is important to note that you can’t overtly sell your products in either of these scenarios. You talk about your expertise and give tips and tactics that your audience can use no matter what products they have. BUT when you use visuals at your presentation or mention what you do in your author byline – that is the place to mention your company.

So – now to the success story. A member of the audience who heard me mention these strategies, went home and contacted her local paper and they fell all over themselves asking her to be the Beauty Columnist for a paper with a circulation of 9000!!!! Her first column will run today.

This stuff works – so I hope you will try it!

Love & Success
Sarah

The Challenge of Recruiting in Direct Sales

Recruiting is down.  I hear it across the industry. I also hear everyone scrambling to explain why.  They are focusing on the wrong thing.

We can spend lots of time trying to diagnose why OR we can examine our recruiting tactics, sharpen them and move forward.

Which sounds like the bigger help to your business? Right.  I thought so! So let’s look at a 4-step process to re-focus your recruting strategies.

1) Who are you recruiting?  Anyone who breathes?  That might be your first mistake.  Take a look at your team.  Who do you naturally attract?  What kind of person do you work with most easily to build success?  Write out a description of EXACTLY who you are looking for (some of my clients even name their perfect prospect).  Yes I am asking you to be selective – extremely selective.

2) Once you’ve defined your very specific prospect, pull out all the material on your business opportunity.  Now divide a piece of paper into two columns.  On the left side, write down all the challenges you can think of that your specific prospect might experience (lack of time with children, for example, or lack of career growth in current job).  Once you make that list, move to the right-hand column and come up with a specific way your business opportunity might solve that challenge.  Yes, I am again asking you to be specific:)

3) When you are out and about at your shows, classes, networking events, etc., ask my favorite question “So, what’s your biggest challenge these days?” – stop talking and listen, listen, listen to what they tell you.  Do not, I repeat do not, jump in the first time they draw breathe – let them talk and talk and talk.  Your job at this point is to gather important information – that is all.

4) Using your two columns of information and the challenges your conversation partner just laid out, you can help them solve their biggest problems with YOUR products and services.  Now don’t throw up on them.  Ask for permission to share some things that MIGHT help.  Then share just a couple of things from your list.  Stop. Wait and see if they move toward you.  If they do, great, continue the conversation.  If they don’t, change the subject so you don’t seem pushy.

This is by no means a fool-proof formula and I am not guaranteeing that it will rack up recruiting awards for you.

I am promising that you will appear more professional and more interested in the other person’s needs by using this approach.  You will also position yourself as someone who is more interested in others than in “pushing” your business opportunity. 

I can also promise you that this approach will set you apart in the loud crowded marketplace of recruiting in direct sales/network marketing – and that is something you can be proud of!

Love & Success!
Sarah

Go Courting This Valentine’s Day!

I have a special Valentine’s Video Message just for you!  It’s all about setting yourself apart in a loud and crowded marketplace.

Check it out here: http://members2.viditalk.com/view/?id=9S9HMWJIA7DWYDD5POGRH

Love & Success!
Sarah

Are You Carrying A Secret?

Hi Everyone!

I just returned from a week and a half conference with the leaders of one of the top companies I work with – whew!  I love the chance to connect with my clients “live” and put faces with names and voices that I hear and see all throughout the year.

I also love connecting with them in a more intimate way.  Somehow I’ve become not only a coach and strategist, but also part therapist, part confessor. My clients tell me their “secrets”, the things they aren’t supposed to talk about with their upline, downline, crossline – any line. 

These secrets usually follow along the themes of struggle and disappointment.  Unfortunately there is a trend out there in the direct selling world that says “don’t talk about anything negative, don’t admit that you are struggling.  Put on the face of success because no one is attracted to anything less than that.” 

While I understand the “attraction” theory behind this trend (you attract what you put out), I find that it can produce some alarming results.  For example, one of my clients got shunned by her roommates at this event (I mean literally – she had to find another room to stay in!) because she dared admit she was struggling in her business.  I wish this kind of stuff were exceptional, but my experience tells me it is not.

Women lined up after my workshop to tell me – often with accompanying tears – that they ARE struggling and that something must be wrong with them because their business isn’t flourishing like everyone else’s.  That just made my heart hurt.  I assured them that, at times, everyone struggles in their business – I mean isn’t that true?  And that they are not flawed in some way because they admit to it.

Please hear me – this trend is not confined to this one company.  I hear about it every single week from people from many different companies who call me or email me for help.

So, if you are a direct seller who is carrying the secret of struggle and/or disappointment, I want you to hear my words of support and encouragement.

Anyone who operates her own business struggles at sometime or another.  Heck, even I entertain fantasies of quiting sometimes.  This does not make you or me weak or unsuccessful.  It makes us real and authentic and human.  And to me, those are the ingredients for success I am after.  I don’t want anything less in my life. 

Find someone you trust (even if they are outside of your company) to talk to about what is going on.  Sharing your burden will make it all the lighter, I promise.

If you know someone in your organization who is secretly struggling, I encourage you to find a way to lift her up and support her through the hard times.  Encourage her to share her burdens so she does not feel alone. 

Isn’t Direct Selling based on achieving success through teamwork?  In my experience, painful secrets and looking down on those who struggle are not part of any teamwork model that I know of. True teamwork cannot exist without open, honest, authentic communication.  Initiate it. Encourage it. Foster it.  Then you can watch your success soar.

I’ll get off my soapbox now:)

Love & Success!
Sarah

Doing Something Differently

We’ve had an artic blast here in Alabama which mean temperatures have dropped well below freezing for the first time this year.  One of my favorite things to enjoy when it is super cold is a fire in our fireplace – so warmy and toasty!

Every morning my husband builds a fire before the rest of us get up so that we can enjoy breakfast in front of a fire – a great way to start the day!  After everyone gets out the door, I usually look over my shoulder wistfully at the cheerful flames and head off to my office which is far far away from the cozy warmth.  I’ve got calls to make and emails to read and “stuff” to do – and it’s got to be done in my office!  —-or does it?

Yesterday, I decided that I would work in the living room in front of the fire for a little while.  No calls were scheduled – I just had some writing to do.  My husband had the laptop with him so I had to go completely unelectronic – a tad scary!  I got a pen and a piece of paper and snuggled into the couch and wrote out my work long hand.

 What a treat!  I was more creative and less stressed – actually I was in a whole different mental place in that environment and did some of my very best writing. 

Now I realize I can’t always work outside of my office, but…..here’s the question.  Are there things that I CAN do in a different environment – an environment I enjoy – that will give me a mental shift?

I believe the answer is a resounding YES!  I may have to get creative and let the answering machine catch a few calls and let my email go unanswered for a few hours (heaven forbid!).  But the payoff is worth it!

When I had to return to my office, I didn’t mind it so much because I had given myself a break, recharged my creativity and my spirits – and still gotten work done that needed to get done.

So, do you have some business tasks you can do in an environment that you just love?  I bet there are.  I bet you could write out lists of names and phone numbers – heck you could even make the calls from some wonderful place.  I challenge you to try this just one hour this week and see if it lifts your spirits.

Love & Success!
Sarah

Stop the Month-End Insanity!

Today is January 9.  You have 22 days until the end of the month.  Plenty of time, right? 

Well, let me ask you this: during the last few days of your month, are you calm, cool and collected, wrapping up the loose ends of all the production you and your team created this month? 

Or, are you frantic, frazzled and stressed, trying to figure out how you are going to get anything on the books that will get you anywhere near your goal – and if your team members could just get their acts together – then you wouldn’t be having this problem in the first place?

If you are anything like many direct sellers I hear from every day, my bet it on the later.  I’m also betting that the end of every month is usually like this for you, in spite of the fact that you always promise yourself it won’t be.  The end of the month doesn’t have to be this way.  It really, really doesn’t.  And I’m going to give you three strategies you can put in place right now, this minute, so that this month will be a truly different experience for you.

The bad news about that is my strategies may seem so simple or so different that you won’t be willing to try them.  The good news is, “if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you are going to keep getting what you’ve always gotten”.  Trying something new and different may be just the thing to turn your business around.  So, read through them and pick one you’d be willing to try.  Just one.  But try it with your whole heart before you declare it just won’t work for you.

Suggestion #1.  Finish up what sales you can for this month by the 25th and shift your focus to next month.  You can’t get blood from a turnip in those last few days.  So do what you can in terms of personal and team sales and recruiting to make the most of the next two weeks.  Then carve out just a little time this very week to book classes for NEXT month.  Tell your team members to do the same. 

Suggestion #2.  Set selling and recruiting goals for the 15th of every month.  This will help you stay focused on the first half of the month.  If you work diligently and hit your mid-month goals, good for you – keep going.  If you don’t hit it, seriously re-access the goal.  One of two things is true.  Either the goal was unrealistic and needs to be changed or sales aren’t happening the way you projected and you need to employ a different strategy.  Either way, isn’t it nice to find this out on the 15th when you still have time to correct your course?

Suggestion #3  Get a hold of you calendar!  In my free audio “5 Key Strategies for a Wildly Successful Business”, you will find a lesson on designing your Success Calendar.  You do this by choosing now what days you will work and exactly what hours you will work.  Then you will structure each work day so that you know exactly what you will be focused on the minute you walk into your office.  You must also decide when you are not going to work, so that you can re-charge your batteries.  More profit.  Less stress.  Isn’t that what you’ve hoped for all along?

So there you are: three relatively simple ideas that could change the course of your business in the very next month.  Would you like the month to end in a different way – easily, predictably and calmly?  Then step up to the challenge of implementing one, two or all three of these suggestions in your business right now.  You (and your unit and your family!) will be so glad you did!

Love & Success!
Sarah

New Year’s NOT Resolutions!

Happy New Year Everyone!

I don’t know about you, but I sure loved the laid back part of the holidays that come AFTER Christmas.  That week between the 25th and the 1st is just so relaxing!  In fact, I got so into it that I told my assistant I could get very used to not working – if I did not have to earn money that is:)

Since that isn’t an option for me, I’ve decided to focus on creating what I want for my life in 2008.  This is different from writing down New Year’s Resolutions.  I am not a big fan of those.  They don’t work for me and I’ve really never seen them work for my client’s either.  Just the word RESOLUTIONS makes it feel big and difficult and full of effort.  Yuck!

Instead of going through that exercise at the beginning of each year, I think about what I want to create in the 12 months that are in front of me.  It is an exercise most of my clients have now adopted and really love. 

Here are some questions that will help you design a plan for Creating What You Want in 2008 for your direct selling business:

1.  When you think about December 2008 – what would you most like to have happen?  What you would you like to celebrate?  For the purposes of this exercise, pick one very specific thing.

2.  Not to be a buzz-kill, but check this against a little reality.  Based on what you’ve accomplished in the past, is it a realistic stretch for you to actually create this thing?  There is nothing more disheartening to me than to see someone choose something that is so far out of reach that they set themselves up for disappointment.

3.  If The Thing You Want to Create passes the reality test, what stands between you and creating it in the next year? Be speicific and write down the hurdles you’ve got to overcome.

4.  Got your Hurdles list?  Great, now plot out your strategies for getting over them.  And remember, hoping they will go away or magically disappear does not count as a strategy (despite the high number of people I’ve seen who keep trying to make hope a strategy!).

5. Write down a Vision for Creating The Thing You Want – including the journey to getting it.  Make it compelling and fill it with details.  Think of it like a map.  Where is your starting place, what towns will you go through, what happens if you encounter construction and have to take an unexpected detour?  How faboulously amazing is the place you are going?

6.  This is the last, and most crucial step.  Plot out daily, weekly and monthly steps that will take you there.  You’ve got to get these specific steps down because they will give you guidance every single day. 

You will also rely on them as a compass when the inevitable distractions come along.  Will pursuing the distraction take you toward or away from your Creation?  If the answer is “towards” then by all means pursue it!  If the answer is “away” you’ve got a decision to make – change where you are going or leave the distraction alone.

The exercise of Creating What I Want In The Year Ahead is worth the effort and has much stronger staying power than Resolutions (ugh – there is that word again!) because it is all about compelling action that is heart-centered.

Go on- give it a try! I would love to hear how it works for you!

Love & Success!
Sarah

Last Minute Holiday Biz Tip from NPR

I was listening to NPR this morning after I dropped my son at school.  Actually it was their Business Report called Marketplace.

They were dong a re-cap of holiday retail sales.  What was doing well, what wasn’t, what consumers/customers were thinking etc.  Most of it was pretty dull and pretty predictable UNTIL……

They said that Retail Gift Cards will account for 20% of all retail holiday sales – 20%!!!  That is a huge number.  There is no other single product pulling in that kind of percentage.

So, if you are looking for a quick and easy way to generate last minute business this holiday season, crank out some gift cards and offer them to your customers and prospects.

Some companies have those cute, premade plastic cards to use.  If your company is not one of those, don’t fret.  You can print out business card size Gift Cards using these tips:

1.  At the top ion Big Letters put “ABC Company Gift Card”

2.  Leave the denomination blank so you can fill it in

3.  Be sure to put “Redeemable ONLY through Jane Smith, Consultant” and include your website, email and phone. number.

Once you have them ready to go, take them with you wherever you go so you can offer them to last minute shoppers who just don’t know what to get Aunt Bertha or Uncle Simon!

Love & Success!
Sarah
www.directsellingleaders.com

5 Ways to Get In Front of Influential Leaders

This is part 2 of last week’s post – 20 Leaders Who Need to Know You.

So, you’ve gathered their contact information – address, phone number, etc., right?  Here are 5 ways to begin your relationship with these influential leaders.

 1. Pick up your local paper or business journal.  Scan the stories for any of the names on your list.  Find a positive story that mentions one of them.  PAYDIRT!  Send a warm note complimenting them on something specific from the story. 

To the mayor, you could say “Thank you for standing up for (fill in the blank) I so appreciate you as a leader.  If I can ever be of service to you, please let me know.”

Do not, I repeat, do not, try to sell them anything at this point.  You are simply establishing a relationship. Though you may include your business card if you want to.

Do this as often as you can.

2.  Help them solve a problem.  You’ve heard this one before.  If you read or hear about a particular challenge they are having and you can connect them with a solution, write or call to offer it.  You will engrave yourself in their memory.

3. Go where they are.  If there is a networking opportunity where any of these leaders will be present, GO!  Again, this is not the time to sell.  Educate yourself so that when you get to speak with your leader, you can pay a sincere compliment or offer assistance with something you know will matter to them.

If you don’t get to speak them, follow up with a note. “Mr. Football Coach, I am so sorry I missed the opportunity to speak with you at XYZ Function.  I had hoped to tell you in person how impressed I am with the academic performance you insist upon from your team.  If I can ever assist you….”

4. Stop by with treats (not your product – not yet anyway) for the Police or Fire Department and leave a special note of appreciation for the Chief.  Theirs is a thankless job much of the time.  If you can, meet them in person and say thank you.

5. If you are face to face with any of these leaders and don’t know what to say, here is a question that will distinguish you from the pack:

“What is the biggest challenge you are experiencing right now?”

One of my clients did this at a high muckity-muck networking event and had people literally lined up to talk to her.

Once you have established a connection with these leaders, then you can SLOWLY introduce your business to them.  Even very influential leaders like to do business with people the know, like and trust.  By taking the above actions, you will become one of those people!

Love & Success!
Sarah

12 Days of Christmas – For YOU!

I just love the Holiday Season!

As you know, after spending any amount of time with me, I am a big believer in the spirit of generosity, so this time of year is one of my very favorites.  To kick off my Giving Season, I would like to give you 12 free gifts as part of my 12 Day of Christmas Celebration.

Each day beginning December 12, I will send you a business-building gift.  It might be an audio program, a pdf checklist, an ebook – there’s just no telling because I will be pulling things from my personal business stash to share with you. (I know I’ve got a movie you will love and an entire best-selling business book in the que!)

If this sounds like fun, please click on the link below to join the celebration (I only want to send these gifts to those who want to receive them!). 

http://www.directsellingleaders.com/12days.html

Please feel free to forward this email to anyone who would like to Celebrate the Season with The 12 Days of Christmas!

Love & Success!
Sarah

P.S.  Just so you know, there are no strings attached, no selling, no nothing behind any of the gifts I will be sending you.  They are just gifts from me to you:)

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