So what in the world do gas prices have to do with profitability in your Direct Selling business?  Everything! 

Gas prices affect production at your Company’s manufacturing; gas prices affect how much it costs to deliver products to you so you can deliver them to your clients.   Gas prices affect how much it costs to pick and deliver food, which means you technically need to be more profitable than ever to just cover the basics.   Can anyone out there relate?    If you think I’m going to join the ranks of those exaggerative media-types, then I’ve got quite a surprise for you.    There has never been a better time to be in Direct Selling, and there’s never been a better time to be a recruiting machine for your Direct Selling company.  Over the next several weeks I’m going to try to bring some reasonable details to the table for you about what’s going on out there so that you can overcome the fear and greed that is gripping your customers and potential recruits.

 The perception that gas prices will “sink us” is gripping our national existence in a deeply rooted fear.   Fear is causing a chain reaction with consumers that is not truly based in reality.   Friends, the media throws the word recession around like it’s the word “and.”    I’d like you to consider these questions:    Do you honestly know what a recession is?  Do you know what a recession would actually mean to your life and your business?  If you’re like most, you probably think of recession as something you know it’s bad, and has historically served as a pre-cursor to things like the Great Depression.    Your perception of what a recession is will affect your activity.  It is my encouragement that over the next few weeks you educate yourself here at the DSL so that you don’t become immobilized by fear and lose the momentum you’ve worked so hard to create.   Businesses are still growing, people are still buying, most of us haven’t lost our homes, and you absolutely can be profitable…even now.  

What people perceive to be true, they believe to be true; what they believe, they act on.  You’re seeing the proof of this as “talking heads” on cable  news (reporters, anchors, etc.) spout off about every nit-picky economic factor in order to make the news.   Last week I was at a conference and had the privilege to hear Tucker Carlson, chief political correspondent for MSNBC speak about the upcoming election.  (he was hilarious by the way)  I stood in line to talk to him and I asked  my question with a very  tongue-in-cheek attitude, “Why do you guys sensationalize everything in the news…you guys are making things worse!”  Equally tongue-in-cheek he replied, “Because, that’s what pays us the big bucks!  That’s what we’re hired to do.”    

You see!  Reporters make the big bucks by taking the smallest detail and making it news; and they take the real news and sensationalize it in so that their new networks will attract viewers to watch the commercials their sponsors purchase.   They profit off of creating fear, hysteria, and skepticism.    Other than encouraging you to lay off the news a bit, what I’m trying to tell you is that by being a bit savvier than most, then you too can be wildly profitable in your Direct Selling business.

  Next Post:  We’ve Been Here Before (a look at Gas Prices)