Direct Sales

Direct Sales

Today on the show we talked about direct sales.  This is a booming industry and can be a great way for moms to work from home and make extra money for their households.  We discussed the pros and cons of the direct sales industry.  Here are a few things we discussed:

• Make sure that you research a company before you join as a consultant.  Know their policy and procedures on topics such as internet marketing, commissions, bonuses, etc.  Before you shell out any money to get started, know what you are getting yourself into.
• Direct sales is not for everyone.  In general, you need an outgoing, organized personality to be successful in the industry.
• Keep track of your expenses.  Direct sales is the same as being in business for yourself.  Many of your expenses are tax deductible at the end of the year.  But in addition, tracking your expenses can help you know whether you are making or losing money in the long run.
• Follow your heart.  Don’t invest your time or energy in a company or product that you don’t believe in just because other people are successful with it.  You will be successful at what you are passionate about.  Find a company in line with your interests, values and ethics.

For more information, listen to our archived show for Thursday July 16, 2009 here.

Direct Selling Home Parties 2 Step Marketing: Your Secret Weapon To Boosting Income Even In A Recession!

Direct Selling Home Parties 2 Step Marketing: Your Secret Weapon To Boosting Income Even In A Recession! Would you like to increase your home based business profits by 50% without increasing your marketing budget? Direct sales opportunity, with the current economic and market situations as they are, is fast gaining ground and popularity as an alternative source of income. Any direct sales consultant with a home business, you know that marketing is a fundamental to building any successful direct sales home party business.

Where many a home party plans business owner stumble, struggle and fail is not knowing to whom they are marketing and how to market both online and offline! You see the common urge in the mlm direct marketing industry is to try and crumb something down the throat of a would be customer. When you get a potential customer, many will do an immediate sales pitch. It is unfortunately premature and turns people off! A better method, that any direct sales marketing guru will tell you and a business best practice is the 2 step direct marketing. Simply put, 2 step marketing is based on giving something away for free, or at low cost, with the purpose of getting something back in return. Of course that something is a sale, but beyond that is the relationship.

The idea here is to start small and build. You want to obliterate concerns before you sell them anything – this is what is termed as pre-selling. Step 1: Give away something, time, free samples, free demos, a free report, free session of coaching or consulting. Step 2: Get their contact information and permission to market to them. This is called dripping information. No hard sells please. In this phase you are building rapport and trust. Why? So that you can begin to exert your influence. Ever heard of the phrase Jump! How high? Good, that is the power you will command if your engage in the 2 step process! So here is the ps ychology behind it You get a visitor to your site or meet a potential customer/business builder. What you want to do is get their 1.Attention 2.Permission 3.Interact 4.Trust 5.Influence You want to craft an irresistible offer, to raise the fever pitch if you will.. In doing so you will get their attention and in effect raise anticipation.

If you place and ad in a paper, mail out a postcard or have a website, the best way to get attention is an irresistible headline. For example How To Have “Killer” Sex At Any Age… Even If You Don’t Deserve It! I have a feeling that got your attention and you are headed to google search to figure out if the book exists. At the time of this writing, I have not yet ascertained the validity nor the existence of the book. Your attention getting message must be compelling create a compelling giving just enough information about the product to get the prospect to take some sort of action. Invoke curiosity…. Direct Sales Training Tip : Use the useful but incomplete rule…don’t give it all always. You now what they say, why buy the cow if you can milk it for free? 2. Call to action: There is no point in crafting an irresistible offer only to drop the ball. People like sheep, must be led every step of the way. A call to action is the desired action you would like the potential prospect, client or customer to make.

For example Click Here To Order. Limitted Time Offer. While Supplies Last. Get Your Free Copy Today! The purpose of the call to action is an exchange of information. You are capitalizing on their desire to get their hands on what you have in return for their name, phone number, email address and where possible a physical mailing address! This is called getting people to raise their hand for information. This is the essence of permission marketing, a term that is associated with Seth Godin, Marketing Demi-god! Those who raise their hands for information become very hot direct sales leads.

These are great business opportunity prospects and an exc ellent way to build a list. As every direct sales representative or home party consultant knows, the “fortune is in the follow-up!” Once the information exchange that was initiated by you is done and you have provided them with the requested information don’t stop there. Now you get into the direct sales marketing relational capital area of things! You all know of the dismal statistics “95% OF PEOPLE FAIL WHEN THEY START A BUSINESS WITHOUT A SYSTEM. 95% PERCENT OF PEOPLE ARE SUCCESSFUL WHEN THEY START A BUSINESS WITH A SYSTEM! ” – Entrepreneur Magazine This is a direct result of lack of follow up and follow through! Contrary to popular opinion, the money is not in the list. If you haven’t heard this before “the money is in the follow-up” so continually follow up. Once you have permission to market to people set up an email marketing campaign! If you don’t have an autoresponder, get one, this is the easiest way to follow up.

Send them an email as often as necessary to create a relationship and remind them of your backend product. Don’t just do hard selling here. I am a strong proponent of direct mail efforts with a combination of email marketing! The 2 step direct sales marketing is a time tested marketing method and will produce targeted prospects for your home based business. The idea here is work smarter not harder!

Guest Author’s Bio:

Party Plan Pat, is the author of 10 Deadly Home Party Plans Business Mistakes. She is also hosts a blog Proven Home Party Plans & Direct Sales Business Marketing Success Tips. http://www.homepartyplansuccesstips.com

Join Wealthy Affiliate Now!

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFO

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Seriously, I’m a big fan of Wealthy Affiliate. I did my research before I signed up. And when I signed up, I paid for a year subscription. Because I believe it in. And I’m not going anywhere.

That said, I’d love for you to check it out yourself. Wealthy Affiliate has so many tools and resources, it’s just plain sick. And I can tell you about them, but then some of that sort of leaves you hanging because how can you use the cool ClickBank research tool, or the Competition Spy Tool, the Site Rubix website builder, or the Link Tracker & Cloaker…need I go on??

If you’re serious about internet marketing, Wealthy Affiliate has it all in one place…the education, the ideas, the tools, the site builder program, the hosting…instead of driving yourself crazy finding information all over the internet (which may or may not be correct)…you have it all in one place at Wealthy Affiliate!

I feel so strongly about this that if you join through me by January 1st, 2009 with a yearly subscription to WA, I will write you a free 10 page e-report that you can sell on one of the sites you build through Wealthy Affiliate! Or, you can choose to use it as a freebie to giveaway to upsell other products! Your choice!! But this is a $200 value in itself! (I am a professional ghostwriter specializing in writing books – both print and electronic – for busy professionals). It’s your report – with all rights going to you!

But that’s not all!!

I will also write you 5 articles (300-500 words each) on your niche with the keywords you need to get the traffic flowing to your site! These articles are yours to use as you wish. They are original, custom work and you have all rights to them! Another $125 value just for joining Wealthy Affiliate with an annual subscription!!

Lastly, I will create a snazzy press release (300-500 words) that you can release at prweb or any other distribution site to announce to the world your very cool e-report! This is a $75 value!

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Join Wealthy Affiliate on a monthly basis and you will get 3 free articles (300-500 words each), a value of $75…and I’ll also come up with 10 other article ideas specifically for your niche!! We’re talking writing and brainstorming time that is worth twice the amount of one month’s membership fee!!

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HOW DIRECT SALES REPs AND HOME PARTY CONSULTANTS IN ARBONNE CAN SUCCEED

Road To Regional Vice President Becoming a 6-Figure income earner Arbonne Consultant is not a difficult thing to do! Yes you maybe finding it a little challenging to find people who are genuinely interested in building a sound Arbonne business, but that is no reason to give up. Following are 5 Proven steps that any Arbonne Ineternational Consultant can employ in order to realize your dream and become one of the many direct sales success stories.

Arbonne Consultant Resources And Tips To Financial Freedom:

1. Understand those you are most likely to buy and do business with you. As with it any business it is important to know your target market. The popular notion that anyone with a pulse, is breathing is your customer is simply not true.

I know you believe the products are great, here are some questions that each arbonne internet consultant must ask themselves:

2. Be remarkable! Stand Up and Above the crowd. I have had many a discussion with well meaning arbonne consultants who are just a cookie cutter template of their upline. Say you were driving down the street and saw a red cow, would you stop? Would you take a picture? Would tell everyone you knew about the red cow? Now stop and think for a moment why would you do this? Simple the red cow was remarking about. To be remarkable is not to be awesome, or great or fabulous or popular. To be remarkable is to cause others to remark about you. To talk about you, to spread the word about you!

What unique qualities to you bring to the table that set you apart from every other arbonne internet consultant out there?

3. Ditch the company website ASAP. In addition to knowing your target marketing, being unique, it is important that you learn to brand yourself. WHY? People ike to buy not to be sold. People love to buy from those who they know, like and trust. Are you trustworthy? If so prove it! Where is your personal website? The company websi te does well to brand Arbonne International, but it doesn’t do a single thing for you. Remember how I said stand up and above the crowd? A personal website allows you to do so. NB: UNLESS YOU HAVE WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM LEGAL NEVER MENTION YOUR COMPANY ON YOUR WEBSITE. Besides the website is about you, we all know about Arbonne we want to know about yout!

4. Be an Expert. The best way to do so as is to know your Arbonne Products very well. Know the benefits of the products and how they will help those whom you are targetingGet into the habit of thinking like your potential customer which is, “what’s in it for me?” Then your job as consultant is easy because all you have to do is make me feel special and more. This is very easy to do when you know to whome you are selling, why you are selling to them and there reasons for doing or not doing business with you.

5. The fifth tip is to have a system. You need to have an effective system in place for you downline. When you have your system set up, you will attract people into your downline, that are literally handing you their credit cards, ready and willing to grow a business with you. That’s just how powerful a system works. There are thousands of people who would love to buy Arbonne products from you. But you have to meet them halfway, luck is when opportunity meet preparation. Are you prepared? Party Plan Pat

Author’s Biography:

Hi, I am Party Plan Pat! I am the author of Proven Direct Sales And Home Party Plan Success Tips & 10 Deadly Home Party Plans Business Mistakes The Little Black Book Of Home Party Plans Success Secrets

We Want Your VOTE Please

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Your Staff of Frugal WAHMs Talk Radio

How to Achieve Direct Sales Success

Your Easy-to-Follow, Step-by-Step Guide Shows You:
How to Achieve Direct Sales Success

Direct Sales continues to be an amazing industry that offers everyone the opportunity to create a business from scratch with minimal up front expenses.  Direct Sales companies offer a business in a box with training and ongoing support.  This makes Direct Sales a very attractive business for many who want to be self employed but who do not wish to design their own business model or come up with their own products.  With a carefully chosen Direct Sales product line you can build a business around what you love and have nearly limitless income potential.

In This Exclusive Mom’s Talk Biz Guide, You’ll Discover:

Length: 41 pages Format: Ebook in PDF format System Requirements: Free PDF reader, such as Adobe Acrobat

What IS Direct Sales exactly? Why recent growth in the Direct Sales Industry requires additional caution in making decisions. The benefits of owning a Direct Sales Business. What skills do you need to have or need to develop to succeed as a Direct Seller. The tools and materials that will make your business run smoothly. The crucial steps to take to choose the Direct Sales Company that suits you. How to compare commission rates the right way. The power of a positive attitude in Direct Sales. The awesome profit potential of a focused Direct Sales business. Why juggling multiple Direct Sales product lines is a dead end proposition no matter what anyone tells you. Why one woman realized that Direct Sales wasn’t a good fit for her and what you can learn from her story. The importance of developing party themes to build your business. Why networking will have a profound impact on your profits.

And We Wouldn’t Leave You without the Nitty-Gritty Details of Promoting Your Direct Sales Business…You’ll Also Learn: Strategies and tips for advertising your business online. And we haven’t forgotten you strategies and tips for advertising your business offline. Ideas for creating profitable joint ventures with other Direct Selling professionals. Ideas for more exposure for your direct sales business. Tips for setting up your website. Having a web presence is crucial for a home-based business. We show you how easy it is and provide you with tips to make the most of your web presence. As a Mom…We Know You’re Busy. These Additional Tips Are Going to Come in Handy: Business time management: Learn how to create an efficient schedule to ensure you continue to provide the best service to your customers as possible. Time management around the home: While your customers expect good service and an excellent product, your family needs to be attended to as well. Use these tips to keep hot meals on the dinner table without losing your sanity. Tax deductions and tips. Extra tax deductions are one of the perks of having your own full-fledged business. Find out what you can deduct. You might be surprised. …and plenty of additional resources to help you create a successful direct sales business. BONUS - this guide comes with a special bonus package with a related freebie and a great money saving coupon.  The freebie is worth more than you’ll pay for the guide and the coupon will save you $75.00 on the cost of setting up a new website for your Direct Sales business – how’s that for making your purchase a no-brainer? Ready to Start Profiting With Direct Sales? CLICK HERE TO ORDER

Blogging For Your Direct Sales Business

I am seeing more and more direct sales distributors start blogs in the hopes of attracting new customers and new team members.

I can’t stress enough that if your blog is about business only, people will come, scan the contents and leave.

If your blog offers information that is helpful, people will continue to come back and continue to read. Your goal should be to get regular visitors to your blog.

People do business with those they tend to know. If someone is visiting your blog on a regular basis, they begin to feel like they know you.

Once you have a blog, how can you attract others to come to your blog?

1. Write some articles and use the blog URL in your bio. Write the articles on the topic of your blog. For example, one of my blogs is a parenting blog. I write articles about parenting and in the bio, I include the URL of my blog. Submit these articles to a few popular directories.

2. Run a contest on your blog. Give away one of your company’s products. This allows you to introduce your product to readers and to bring in many new potential customers. Submit your contest to any of the contest websites out there. I can get up to 1000 visitors from one contest. I ask them to please look at my site and tell me something, either a favorite product or something they’ve learned.

3. Join a blog carnival that is the topic/theme of your blog. If you do a web search for “blog carnival” you’ll find many. I’ve seen some carnivals attract over 1000 participants. That’s a lot of potential traffic for your blog.

4. Make sure you have links to your direct sales business on your sidebars. I use both text links and a button link on my blogs.

5. Offer link exchanges with other blogs that are the same theme as your blog. Remember you’re not just selling on your blog, you’re offering valuable information. By exchanging links you’ll attract even more visitors to your blog.

6. Make it a point to comment on at least 10 new blogs every day. Very often when you comment on someone’s blog, they’ll comment on yours too.

Blogging is a wonderful way to build your direct sales business if done correctly. Try the above suggestions and see if your team begins to grow.

Audrey Okaneko has been in direct sales since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or you can Become a Tupperware Consultant

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

How Can Women Become Work At Home Moms In Direct Sales?

I quite often read ads that are very misleading. They say something like, “spend more time with your children when you join me.”

In business, money is made when a product or service is sold. In direct sales, money is made either through personal sales or through team sales.

To create sales, customers must be found. To find customers, a marketing system needs to be in place.

Can you run a direct sales business if you’re a mom? You bet you can. I’d like to offer some suggestions on how you can make being a mom and being a business owner work:

1. Create business hours and stick to them. Your family needs to know when you are available for them. Create a realistic schedule, allowing time each day for your new business and time each day for your family. Remember, this is a business; it can’t be run in only 30 minutes per day.

2. Create a weekly schedule that takes into account carpools, bedtime and household tasks. Be very clear what time you have that you can devote to your new business. When my kids were young, I did laundry only once per week. I did all of it, but only once per week. Time management is crucial if you want to run a business and be a mom.

3. When you shop for a sponsor, look for someone who understands being a mom. Men can be great mentors but they are not moms. If you sign on with a man, make sure that somewhere in his group is a woman who understands being a mom.

4. Have a talk with your spouse. While spousal support is not mandatory, it’s quite nice to have the support. A supportive spouse will help you work out a schedule that allows you to find time each and every day to build your new business. A supportive spouse will offer to cook meals or do take out a few nights a week so you can use that time to work. A supportive spouse will help bathe the kids and put them to bed, again allowing you that extra time to work. Let your spouse know exactly what your plan is, what your goals are and how he can help.

Women can and do build wonderful direct sales businesses. By following the above ideas, you’ll find the time you need to make a business a reality.

Audrey Okaneko has been in direct sales since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or you can Become a Tupperware Consultant

ABC’s For Direct Sales

I love vision boards, affirmation boards and favorite quotes boards. Have you ever considered an ABC board? I’ll share my thoughts for an ABC board. Then have fun creating your own board. Write things that can help you in business.

Each day of the month choose one letter and concentrate on just that letter for the day. What you’ll find after several months is that your ABC’s have now become habit.

A is for Attitude. Be very aware of the attitude you have. How are you sharing yourself with others? Are others seeing you with a positive attitude?

B is for Books. Are you reading just a little bit each and every day? Part of being a leader in direct sales is learning and sharing that knowledge with others.

C is for Catalogs. Make sure you always have a catalog available for anyone who requests one. Don’t get caught off guard when someone says, “Do you have a catalog?”

D is for Devotion. Give your business your undivided attention as often as possible.

E is for Effort. Money is made when time and effort are put into your business.

F is for Family. Always remember your family. Take time each day to show your appreciation for your family and for their support in your business.

G is for Goals. Set short term and long term goals both for your business and also for your own personal growth.

H is for Help. Make sure that when you need help you ask for it. When you are asked for help by others take the time to make sure they understand your answers.

I is for Imagination. Use your imagination when marketing.

J is for Judgment. Never assume someone does or does not wish to do business with you. Always ask.

K is for Kudos. Always offer your thanks to those who make a purchase from you.

L is for Leadership. Invest time each week to learn new skills and improve existing skills.

M is for Mentoring. Choose an assortment of mentors for your business. When you find someone who is new to the business, offer to mentor there. Invest some time sharing what others have shared with you.

N is for Neat. I like a really organized work space. Then I know where everything is and everything has its place.

O is for Opportunity. Direct sales provides incredible opportunity. You’ll meet others. You’ll learn new skills. You’ll build a business all your own. Take advantage of each opportunity that comes your way.

P is for Prospecting. Make sure that some of your time each week is devoted to prospecting. Prospecting does not have to be aggressive. Find ways that work for you to get out there and prospect.

Q is for Quiet. Each of us needs some quiet time in our lives. Take a few minutes each day just for yourself.

R is for Recruits. Make sure that your team is happy they’ve joined you. Send them company updates. Send them congratulatory letters when they’ve achieved a company incentive. Remember that those you recruit are your business.

S is for Success. The word success means something different to everyone. Spend some time evaluating what success means to you and what steps you’ll need to take to achieve that success.

T is for Time. Keep calendars so that you know where you need to spend time and how much time you’ve spent there. Remember your family and yourself and invest time into both.

U is for Understanding. Show others your understanding when their priorities don’t match yours. We are all different. Make it a point to understand what is happening in the lives of your team members.

V is for Vision. Create a vision board. Write a goal sheet to help you meet your visions. Share your visions with others.

W is for Writing. Spend time each week writing. Write articles. Write in your blog. Write posts on message boards. Share yourself through your words.

X is for Xenophobia. If speaking with strangers is tough for you, invest time daily working on this fear. Make it a point to talk to one new person every single day.

Y is for Yesterday. Remember yesterday, but don’t dwell on it. Today is a new day that you get to mold into the day you want it to be. When you think of yesterday, use it as a tool to learn what you want today.

Z is for Zipper. Remember that a direct sales business can be like a zipper. You’ll have your ups and you’ll have your downs.

When you create your ABC board, think of your own company and make a list that is really specific to you, your company and your products. Then work each day on just one letter until all 26 have become habit.

Audrey Okaneko has been in direct sales since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or you can Become a Tupperware Consultant

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Direct Sales – Creating Gift Baskets For the Holidays and Other Occasions

Gift baskets have always been a huge business. One of my old school teachers ran a gift basket business on the side and this was over 30 years ago. Gift baskets are unique and make wonderful gifts.

If you are in direct sales, create your own gift baskets with your products and cash in on this huge market.

Here are several ideas of ways to market these baskets:

1. For wedding showers – What products do you have that would make a wonderful gift for a new bride?

2. For baby showers – If you sell anything child related put together baskets as baby shower gifts and use keywords to market these products that will attract those looking for baby gifts.

3. Teacher gifts – If you have a child in school consider giving the teachers a personally made basket of a few of your products. I’ve always given gifts twice a year, in December and again at the end of the year.

4. Birthday gifts – Consider marketing some of your baskets as birthday gifts. Add extras such as a small happy birthday balloon to the package to really make it unique to a birthday.

5. Retirement gifts – Many direct sales companies makes products that are wonderful for those who are retiring. What can you put together to say “happy retirement?”

6. Anniversary gifts – Over the years I’ve discovered that often men are stumped when it comes to what to buy their wives for a wedding anniversary. Consider marketing a few gift baskets that would make wonderful anniversary gifts with the products from your company.

7. House warming gifts – I have moved so many times that I know the many things a new house needs. If your company makes products for the home create a few baskets that just scream out “welcome to your new home.”

8. Winter holidays – This is the biggest gift time of the year. Put together a wide assortment of baskets in different price ranges. Market to companies giving their employees gifts and to anyone else who is looking for a unique gift to give.

9. Direct sales incentives – Often those in direct sales like to buy from other direct sales distributors. Put something together that can be given for high sales. This is a wonderful place to barter. Maybe you have a team you wish to recognize. Offer to trade products with another distributor.

10. Gift exchanges – I have found it’s always so difficult to buy something unique for gift exchanges. Do a bit of marketing for gift exchange baskets that can be bought inexpensively.

These are just ten ideas on how you can use gift baskets to increase your business, especially during the winter holidays.

Audrey Okaneko has been in direct sales since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or you can Become a Tupperware Consultant

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com