Direct Sales Business » Promoting Your DS Biz

How do I get free stuff at my direct sales party?

Sharon — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 01:03:10 +0000

I know that when I host a party, I get free stuff. But how does that work?

The specifics will depend on the company you are having a party with but here are the basics:

1) Hostess Credit – Every company gives you free items when your sales hit a certain level. Some companies will give you a percentage of sales and others will give you a set amount at different sales levels. You use this credit to purchase those items you want for free.

2) Discounted Items – Most companies will offer the hostess discounted items. You may get these just for hosting, for reaching certain levels in sales or when people book from your party. It is possible to qualify for multiple free items as well depending on the plan.

3) Hostess Only Items – Some companies off items that are only available for the hostess. While these are not usually free, they are discounted and are used to get people to book parties.

4) Hostess Gift – Chances are that the direct sales consultant will give you a gift as a thank you for inviting your friends over and having a party.

Your consultant will likely go through this when you book your party but just in case, you will want to ask your consultant about the rewards. This is especially important if you are aiming to get a certain product for free.

Site Update

Sharon — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 02:40:31 +0000

As you may have noticed, the posts here have been almost non-existent for the month of October. I would like to give you my apologies. I was approached to take over this blog as I had been writing for it for a few months and October was the month of transition. I know that I slacked off on completing posts as I have been working behind the scenes on some items.

You may notice that some pages are gone, some other items have been moved and some general housekeeping items. I am still working on them but you should not see much difference from your end.

I am going to be changing the focus of this blog a bit in the next bit. I have decided that this blog is going to become more of a resource for people who are looking for people involved with direct sales, whether they are looking to become a customer or a consultant. The posts will be focuses on these types of topics. This should end up being complimentary to the listing that you can purchase advertising in. I have changed the rates for now to an introductory special, which will be increasing January 1. I do not have the payment page setup properly yet, so please contact me to purchase. Meanwhile, you can fill out the listing on the Company Advertising page.

As with most blogs, I am always looking for guest posts and other information. If you are interested in writing for me, please contact me for information. I will get up a page with information in the near future as well.. If you find that your company is not listed on this site already, please contact me and let me know so I can list it. I will also be looking for information about a company’s hostess plan and getting started in the business. This post will be available to the first paid advertiser for a company.

Party plan or Independent seller?

Sharon — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:01:20 +0000

While you are an independent consultant within your party plan, for my purposes here, someone who is independent is a person who gets a wholesale account and does their own thing. Which is better? Let us look at both.

Party Plan:

Support – You have support from your upline, other consultants and the company.

Costs – Minimal costs to get started.

Research – The party plan does the research to help you determine what products should sell best. This may not be true in your particular region, but overall, the company feels these are the best products.

Brand – If you stay with your company for any amount of time, and there are other consultants, you will help to develop the company’s brand which will help to increase your business over time.

Technical – You do not have to set up your own website or find suppliers to buy product from.

Independent:

Control – You control everything that you do – from your website, the products you sell and the price you sell them at.

Support – Chances are the wholesalers you are buying your product from will help you to a degree as they want you to keep buying from them, but they are not on the frontlines, you are.

Costs – The cost of getting setup and running varies depending on what you are selling and how much product you want to offer. Expect to spend several hundred at a minimum for product and then you likely will need a website. If you plan to sell like a party plan, you will also have to come up with incentives, etc which will come out of your own pocket.

Research – You will need to figure out what types of product are going to sell where you live and where you are selling as well as a good price point.

Brand – Consider yourself starting from the ground up, as you have no personal store brand to assist you. Your product may have its own brand which will help you to get started, but it may not carry you that far.

If you are looking for simple and easy, a party plan is likely the way to go. But if you prefer to do things yourself, then being totally independent may be your preference.

6 Tips to get Fall Hopping

Sharon — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 03:54:18 +0000

Fall is here and we are entering one of the busiest times of the year for those in direct sales. But yet some people are still facing an empty calendar. If this is you, here are some ideas to help to get people out and booking parties with you.

Product Launch – If you have a new book for the fall, or an insert to go with your main book, make sure people know about it! Have people come to your house to check out the new product or even invite them over to help you open the box of new goodies! If you are going to have people help you unpack, keep it to a select group (maybe hostesses?) and offer them something special if they book a party with you that night.

Hostess Only Party – Have a launch at your house that is exclusive for previous hostesses and give them first pick of the days available in your calendar. Do not forget to set hot dates where they can get an extra incentive if they book that day!

Open House – Already have your fall products? Have an open house where everyone comes over to check out the new goodies. Offer them an incentive if they book a party with you that night or if they bring a guest who books or purchases. Make sure you give them a good reason to attend!

Extra Host Incentives – Offering your past customers and hostesses an extra incentive can be a great way to book. Maybe you have special dates in your book that are only available to them to book. You could also upgrade the hostess gift for anyone who has a party that makes over a certain amount in sales. If you have nothing on the books, offer an extra incentive such as a half off item for booking on one specific day!

Theme Parties – A fun idea for a party can be to put a theme to it. For September, it could be something such as a back to school party and everyone could bring school supplies to donate. Another option in October would be an Orange and Black party for Hallowe’en. You could have a Margarita party and have both the alcoholic version and non-alcoholic version. There are a lot of ideas of what you could do!

Use the Phone – If none of these ideas get you parties, it is time to get on the phone. Better yet, use the phone in conjunction with these ideas and get your calendar so that you have a waiting list!

No matter what industry you are in or what you are selling now is the time to get in touch with your customers and get that calendar booked up. With the bookings you get now, you should start filling your calendar and those parties should get your bookings that will take you from now until December.

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Sharon has been working in the direct sales industry since the fall of 2006. In that time, she has worked for three different companies. Since November 2008, she has been with Gold Canyon Candles where she is a Platinum consultant. If you love having your house smell wonderful with or without wicks, check out Gold Canyon at her website http://mygc.com/skcandles

Directory Advertising

Sharon — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 20:24:23 +0000

Everyone is looking for ways to get their name out there and expand their business. One such way is to get listed in directories. Just like everything else, there are advantages and disadvantages to this type of advertising which we will look at below.

Advantages

- One stop shop – easy to find you or a rep in their local area the more reps that list

- Organization – tend to be categorized by area or company so easier to locate a rep

- The more that get listed on the site, the better resource the site is

- Tends to be more information on the site than just consultant listings

- Better advertising – as many sites are paid, they want to get traffic in order to get advertisers

- Depending on the site, you have the opportunity to say something about your business and list various contact information

Disadvantage

- One stop shop – easy to contact several people at once – same company or competitor

- There is a cost – monthly/yearly to be listed

- For your investment, you may not get any results

- The site may only allow a limited amount of vendors for an area (can be an advantage too)

- There are a lot of directories out there and it can be expensive if you start getting listed at multiple ones

Only you can decide if directory advertising is the right method for you. Depending on the investment involved, it is a good idea to do some research. You should be able to email the administrator of the site and ask for the various statistics before you commit to the advertisement. IF they are not willing to share the information, then you likely don’t want to advertise there.

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Managing your Social Media Accounts

Sharon — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 00:34:06 +0000

Chances are you have several different social media accounts that you use for your business or for yourself. But remembering to visit all the different websites, not to mention the passwords, can be a cumbersome duty. Thankfully, there are some programs out there that will help you with this task.

The great thing about these programs is that you login with one ID and password and you have access to your different accounts. They do require you to program in your username and password to start, and then they will request your permission to login to those sites with that information to authenticate, but then you are set and ready to go.

Hootsuite – This is the program I use to manage my accounts. It is a web-based program which is great because you can access it from any computer that you may be on. The free version lets you monitor five different accounts from various social media. I personally use it to monitor Twitter, Facebook and my Fanpage. But you can also add LinkedIn, MySpace and RSS feeds. If you want to link and monitor more than 5 accounts on Hootsuite, you will need to pay for the service.

TweetDeck – I have recently started to use this program as I have more than 5 social media accounts that I monitor. TweetDeck is a download so you do need to install it on your computer. I am not sure if there is a way to set it so that you can use it on a second computer with the settings intact. One benefit I have found to TweetDeck is that with Facebook as I can set it to view status updates and wall posts only so that I do not get all the game notifications like I do on Hootsuite. You can hook up LinkedIn, MySpace and a variety of other social media accounts to this program.

These programs are capable of much more than just having all your social media in one place. You can set them to watch for certain hashtags or words that are tweeted even if these people aren’t in your friends list. You can program updates to be sent when you are going to be away or you know you can’t access your computer. If you poke around in the settings, you can find different statistics about your account and what people are clicking on.

I know that these programs are not the only ones out there but they are the ones I am familiar with. Do you use one of these? How about a different program? Would you recommend it to others?

Using Social Media to Promote your Direct Sales Business

Sharon — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 00:23:57 +0000

Everyone is using some form of social media these days whether it is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or some other forum. Google has recently launched their own version and there are likely to be other competitors to join in the fun. Like anything else, to keep your business growing and moving forward, you need to embrace these trends as well.

Facebook – There is a wide variety of things that you can do on here. You can create a business page (which is preferred) or you can create a personal page for your business. You can use your own personal page with occasional blurbs about your business if you do not want multiple accounts; just make sure it’s a good mix of information. Facebook allows you to share pictures, links and pretty much anything else you want.

Twitter – This site tends to be more about conversation, as it is like constant status updates like you would have on Facebook. You have 140 characters to post a comment, observation, etc and people reply back. You can get some pretty good conversations going on there and I have seen some interesting debates happen – it’s amazing what you can say in 140 characters when you want to. It is still possible to share pictures, links and other information but it is harder to find historical items, like what Jane said yesterday AM if she posts a lot of information.

LinkedIn – Personally, I am not on this site so I cannot tell you much about it. From what I hear, it is more about networking than some of the other sites and there are more professionals on it. I have heard of people making good contacts and it being a good option for them, so it does not hurt to try it out.

Google Plus – This was just recently launched and people are just getting used to it so it is too early to say what effect it may have on your business. One thought though, because it is new, and there aren’t a lot of people on it yet, do you want to spend the time here when you could be using some of the more established social media sites? This site could take over as the leader or it could fizzle out and die like many others.

There are many different social media sites out there that are nowhere near the size of these sites so you do not hear of them. These tend to be more specialized but those that spend their time there tend to stay longer due to more common interests. If you try searching for your industry and social network, you may find some of them.

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Sharon has been involved in direct sales for almost five years and as a manager with Gold Canyon Candles for over 2 years. If you love having your house smell wonderful when using wicks or without wicks, you can buy Gold Canyon products at her website http://mygc.com/skcandles

Your Website – 3 important things to include

Sharon — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:56:41 +0000

When it comes to your direct sales business, your website is one of the few ways that you can communicate with your customers 24/7. For this reason, it is important that your site is professional and clean looking. Most companies provide you with a site for this reason, but these sites are not always the most customizable websites out there. That said, there are some things that need to be included on your site.

Contact Information – You are already putting your contact information everywhere possible, right? Catalogues, business cards, flyers and whatever else you can get your hands on. Your website is no different. If your company does not already put your email address or phone number on it, you want to put that information on it somewhere. Most consultant sites have an area that you are able to customize so use this to your full advantage.

Contact information to include:

Name
Phone Number
Email address
Facebook Site
Twitter Handle
Any other contact information you want them to have

Incentive – Why should they buy your products? People do a lot of web browsing and find a lot of great items they want to buy, but the amount they actually spend is tiny in comparison. How many times have you found products, put them in your online cart and abandoned them? That isn’t even a party; that is just committing to making a purchase! You need to convince them they want to contact you and host an event!

Value – Provide your potential customer with value when they come to your website. If you are just using a consultant site that your company provides, this may be more difficult, but do your best. You want these people to return to your site multiple times until they make a purchase, book a party or even join your team. If your site is just like a million others, there is no reason for them to bookmark it and then return.

These reasons are part of why some consultants feel the need to have their own website to compliment the company’s website. If you decide to create a separate site, make sure that it is within companies regulations.

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Using the Internet to Promote your Business

Sharon — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 00:52:08 +0000

When it comes to the Internet, you could spend days upon days promoting yourself and still not be done. Most methods have a free option as well as a paid option – which you use will depend on your finances and budget.

Classified Ads – Many people these days use sites such as Craigslist or Kijiji (popular in Canada). The advantages to these sites are that they are free but due to this, they can be full of spam. The people I know who use Craigslist have a hard time keeping their ads up as they tend to get pulled as others can report the ads. Kjijii allows you to pay to have your ad highlighted in a variety of methods to get more people to notice.

Social Media – There are a wide variety of different sites that you can use to promote your direct sales business. One of the most popular sites is Facebook simply due to the way that you can communicate with others and get to know them and engage them in conversations. Other popular methods are sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Google is now getting into the game.

Websites/Blogs – Another great option to promote your business is to have a website or a blog. This is separate from the consultant site your company provides as you are 100% responsible for the content. You can use this to highlight different aspects of your business from customer specials, sign up specials, new product or anything else you want.

Paid per Click – Some people prefer to pay for advertising clicks. For instance, you can buy ad space through Google where you pay every time people see your advertisement. I have heard that there is a large learning curve with this type of advertising though so make sure you do your research well before investing in this.

No matter what method you try out, it is important you give them a good try before moving on. This means trying something for at least a month to see what types of results you are getting from it.

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5 Methods of Marketing your Direct Sales Business

Sharon — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:48:47 +0000

One of the biggest obstacles for anyone in business, no matter the type, is marketing yourself and letting people know you exist. If they do not know of you, they cannot support you. If you are lost for ideas of where to look, let this list help you.

Network with Others – Find other direct sellers and let them know you are out there. Offer to swap parties – you hold one for them, they hold one for you. This can be a great way to get your name out there. This can be tricky though if you are not interested in their products but you want them to book with you.

Social Media – These days, sites like Facebook and Twitter are huge. If you are not using these types of media to help you with your advertising efforts, you could be missing out big time. How to use these is another article, but get out there and start using them!

Small Business Groups – Look around where you live and see if there are business groups you can get into. I know in my city there are several different organizations for home based businesses to get together and discuss a variety of topics. Sometimes they also have an evening where you can show case your business. You may want to look to see if there is a chamber of commerce where you live and what type of activities they promote.

Print Advertising – There are many consultants who believe in using print media just as the newspaper or local bulletins to put their ads in. I have not done this personally but have heard from others who have been successful with this. Make sure you do some research before investing as this can be quite a commitment in terms of money and time.

Internet – No article about marketing is complete without some information on using the Internet to promote your business. There are many different places that you can look into, some of these are paid and some of them are free. If you are considering paying, make sure you find out the statistics such as how many unique visits they get a month, how long people are staying on the site and anything else you can find out. Possibly email other vendors to see how much success they have had.

Marketing your business can be very time consuming but it is worth it to try a variety of avenues to see what does and does not work out. If you do not have a large budget, then it is a good idea to stick to free sites as paying for an ad does not guarantee it to work out better than a free advertisement.

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