evening, and she may believe her house isn’t large enough to do a live party – that’s a great time to utilize an online party. You don’t have to leave your house, you can put the kids in bed and sit down and do your virtual party. She doesn’t have to rush around cleaning – she simply grabs her laptop and helps you engage her friends.
Fundraising is a $19 billion market. The great part of fundraising programs is that people want to support their community. Fundraising can introduce you and your products to an entirely different crowd. Many companies offer a fundraising program that divides your normal profit so that the bulk of it goes to the school or organization. But if not, you can develop your own program. Focus on offering about a dozen top items on a flyer rather than using the entire catalog. Make sure the receipt offers an opt-out option for future contact and that the products are delivered with your contact information included. People who come from a long-term corporate background find this model of doing business very successful and appealing.
This is a piece of the business that many people leave out, and that’s a huge amount of cash to leave on the table. Re-servicing is more than simply posting on Facebook “I’m putting in an order, does anyone want anything?” Re-servicing is true customer care, meaning it involves contacting customers by phone with a simple, short conversation to ensure that they’re doing well and like the products, and to determine whether they need more or would like to try the monthly special.
For more details on re-servicing, see Chapter 13.
Personal shopping may not be something you can base your entire business on, but it is one more layer you can add to it. Though you may have time to do just one party a week, perhaps during the middle of the day you can do a couple of personal shopping experiences.
A Brief History of the Direct Sales Model
Nearly every culture shares a heritage of direct selling. What they sold direct to consumers varies from era to era, continent to continent, and community to community, but around the globe, as far back as history is recorded, individuals have sold goods to their neighbors and countrymen. These networks of commerce were direct-selling distribution channels, much like the direct sales companies of today.
Salesmen, hawking their wares, would gather in the center of the village or town, and the community would come to listen to the presentations and then purchase the items they needed. Some would work only in their own town, whereas others traveled from town to town, seeking new markets and new customers.
Later, as the practice evolved to match the changes in the ways communities and families lived, door-to-door selling developed. With home parties showing up on the scene in the 1950s, the image of the traveling salesman was expanded to include another image: the career woman venturing out to build a different kind of career for herself (with Mary Kay or Avon) and the stay-at-home mother (with Tupperware) earning income either for her own fun, for extras, or to supplement the family budget.
These days with the Internet and smartphones, the demographics of who is earning money with direct sales has shifted again. The common denominators are a desire on the part of individuals for more income on their own terms, for more flexibility, and to promote products and/or a business opportunity they feel passionate about.
Just as direct-to-consumer salesmen adapted over the years to the changes in communities, direct sellers are a resilient bunch. Over the years, the methods of sales have evolved to reflect the trends of the time, as well as demographic shifts.
From the door-to-door sales practices of companies like Fuller Brush and Avon, which enabled people to shop from home, to the emergence of home parties, which allowed guests to socialize while shopping and catered to a burgeoning population of women eager to get out of the house and earn their own money, one thing is clear: As the times change, the methods of commerce do, too.
Nowadays, the home party is going strong due to its effectiveness, but people can also work their businesses completely online (more in Chapter 11). Many representatives can operate successful businesses and build networks and connections through the Internet and their social media channels.
Besides making it so much easier to place orders, ship direct to the customers, run sales reports, and track your income with company-hosted software, the digital age has opened up new horizons for staying connected, creating buzz, and sharing valuable information (I discuss this more in Chapter 11). There has never been a more exciting or more efficient time to be involved in direct selling.
New technologies, mobile apps, and social media channels are constantly emerging and are changing the way we grow our brands. Social networks, especially Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, are changing the way we socialize, buy, sell, make money, do business, bank, and do all kinds of other stuff. I really could go on forever, because in reality, social media is changing the way we do everything.
So, if the business landscape is changing, we have to change. It’s as simple as that. Social media is becoming an integral part of the direct sales industry, even down to the way we communicate with our company’s corporate office, our teams, and our customers.
Much like Groupon, LivingSocial, Uber, Fabletics, Airbnb, and a number of other e-commerce ventures, direct sales is a form of referral marketing. The difference is a lot of these high-tech companies are new to the game in comparison to direct selling, which has been relying on referral marketing for decades. Over the past several years, a new term
