Direct Selling Leaders Experts

Several Direct Selling Leaders have shared with me how a spouse’s presence at the business opportunity meeting was a negative.

She was excited & ready to sign up but he didn’t get it. Because of that, he didn’t want her to get involved and she acquiesced.

Too many women with desire & potential pass on the opportunity that would make their dreams their reality because of their partner’s viewpoint.

Why doesn’t he see what she sees? Why doesn’t he simply trust in her judgment?

I believe this comes down to the fact that they don’t understand the business and thus reject it. As Andrea Lee says: A confused mind always says ‘no’. Next, they may be concerned about how it will impact them. In a negative context of course. If they truly understood the opportunity and the difference it could make in his life & relationship, there would not be a problem.

Whether you are communicating with a spouse at a business presentation, or even communicating with your spouse on your opportunity, it is imperative that you engage them in the conversation.

Nobody enjoys a conversation they cannot contribute to or participate in. Ensuring his specific questions and concerns are considered will assist in engaging him in the process.

Just as you would shift your presentation to connect with your prospect, shifts to connect with the spouse may benefit you.

In coaching, questions are the answer. You cannot possibly know what your prospect’s desires and concerns are. The same is true for the spouse.

When the spouse is present, including him as an equally important participant in the process and engage him with questions also. This may assist you in mitigating his concerns earlier in the process as opposed to concluding your session with a ‘no’ from him.

Be successful – together

Mark Semple CCC
2007 International Coach of the Year

For more information on Success Together visit:
http://www.1automationwiz.com/app/aftrack.asp?afid=656144

She sat on the floor amongst a pile of papers and cried.

Everywhere she looked, something needed to be done.  Bills were stacked, envelopes strewn about, unopened cards and grocery receipts cluttered the room.  All she needed was a good filing system – how hard could that be?

Every day, smart people get caught in the “it should be so easy why can’t I do it” trap.  Spending hours on a task or project that is not in your core strengths can make you feel frustrated, which in turn makes you feel dumb, which in turn blows your self-confidence.  It’s a viscous, never ending, self-defeating cycle that can literally be changed in a moment.

Imagine for a moment that you are now out into the future, in a place where you are using all of your strengths.  You feel happy, joyful and competent.  You are only working on the projects and tasks that suit your skills and strengths.  Self-confidence soars.

Yet many are stuck in jobs and tasks that not only are not right for them, but actually cause lack of self-confidence.  According to Gang & Gang, a research firm in Salem, Massachusetts, as many as 55% of all people are in the wrong career or job.  For entrepreneurs trying to wear multiple hats, this number can be even higher as they attempt to fill multiple roles in their small company, causing not only lack of self-confidence, but lost profits, and lost productivity.

To begin the process of discovering how to become more self confident:

1.       Take inventory.  Take a written inventory of all of the tasks you do in a week.  Everything.  From household chores to email to whatever you do for work, write them all down.

2.       Categorize the tasks.  For each task, write an “H” for household/personal, “A” for administrative, “P” for productive and “SM” for sales/marketing or tasks that make you or your company money.

3.       Offload what you’re doing that is wasting time (or that you’re not good at).  If you are not good at paying the bills on time and you miss a payment, your self confidence will take a hit.  Hiring a good bill paying service is inexpensive and saves your self confidence.  If you don’t like doing the yard work, pay the kid next door to take care of it.  You’ll help the economy and free up your time to do more of what you love.  Play more.  Visit with relatives.  Start a side business. Go to your kids soccer games.  Whatever you want.  With confidence.

Now that you know 3 simple steps to improving your self confidence, all you need to do is put them in action.  There’s nothing wrong with you.  When you find yourself doing the things you love, you’ll find that your self confidence automatically improves.

Stephanie Frank
Founder and President of SuccessIQ University
Best Selling Author, The Accidental Millionaire

Claim your free gift, The 13 Vital Traits of Super Effective People here: http://successiqu.com/gift

How many times has someone left one of your parties “on the fence” about booking. They haven’t exactly said no but they aren’t ready to commit by saying yes. And how many times have you followed up with these leads repeatedly without reaching them until you finally give up out of frustration, feeling rejected and frustrated? If you’re like most direct sellers, this is a common chain of events.

I’m going to offer you a tool which, used properly, can virtually eliminate this scenario from your business. Have I got your attention? A think-about-it packet is really exactly what it sounds like. You have someone who is on the fence and wants a little more time. Instead of just saying, “I’ll follow up with you next week” and then letting them walk out the door, hand them a think-about-it packet.

Now, my think-about-it packets were basically host packets, because it was always my intention to book them when I followed up, and I wanted them to have the packet so they had everything they needed to host a party. So I put the same things in the think-about-it packet as I did in a normal host packet. I just called it a think-about-it packet. (Get it?) If they decided not to book the party, because they already had outside order forms and catalogs, I could often talk them into at least doing a catalog show.

Here’s how the think about it packet works: Before she left, I’d say, “Tell you what, Marilyn. I want to give you some time to think about it. Would you be willing to take one of my think about it packets? All you have to do is take some time in the next few days, look over all the benefits, and think about doing a party. I’ll follow up in a few days by phone.” Here’s the important part. I would say to Marilyn, “Now, I just have three rules for my think about it packets.” (These are crucial to the success of this tool, and I said them pretty much verbatim when I gave out the packets):

1. Rule number one, you have to actually think about it, for at least a few minutes between now and when I call you.
2. Rule number two, you have to take my call when I follow up. When can we talk for about five minutes in the next few days? (Set up this time firmly on both your calendars so she’s expecting your call).
3. Rule number three, if you decide not to book a party, you have to let me down easy. It’s that simple.

Now, I believe that people generally do as they’re told. I swear! It’s a pretty amazing phenomenon. So these rules are key because now she understands how to use the packet. More importantly, she’ll take my call (because it was one of the rules) and I gave her permission to say no. By telling her up front she can decide not to book a party, I take the pressure off of her and she’ll pick up the phone when I call. I’m telling you, this works! I’d say 90% of the time, the people who took my think-about-it packets were there at the time we’d agreed upon and actually answered their phones. And about 75% of the time, they booked a party. And that, after all, is the name of the game! So, what do you think of this idea? I’d love to hear your feedback, especially once you use this tool. Feel free to share below.

Julie Anne Jones is a direct sales coach and trainer and the CEO of Julie Anne Jones, Inc. She is known for her authentic and easy-to-use scripting and specializes in specific language and tools for success in direct sales. As a former direct sales professional, Julie worked a party plan business for several years, consistently holding three parties per week and winning national awards yearly. She also built a National multi level marketing team through internet networking. For the past 6 years, she has focused entirely on coaching and training other leaders within the direct sales industry through live training as well as extensive webinar and tele-course training. To learn more about Julie Anne and her products and services, visit her at www.julieannejones.com or check out her blog at http://julieannejones.com/blog.

A blog can be a powerful tool for the direct seller.  Your “home base” on the web, it is the foundation of a content marketing strategy.

How can a blog benefit a direct sales business?

1. Set Yourself Apart.  There may be many consultants out there that sell the same product that you do.  How do you set yourself apart?  By providing free, actionable content that gives real value to your prospects.  When you connect with people on social networking sites now, where do you send them?  To your company-provided website?  That’s not personal, and it doesn’t give people the chance to understand the benefit they get when they shop with you, specifically.By sending people first to a blog, you have the opportunity to provide value that helps people know, like, and trust you.  You can also use your blog to encourage prospects to sign up for your newsletter, which helps them move down your sales or recruiting funnel. (You can sign up for my newsletter here.) Instead of just a one-time sale, you gain the potential for a life-long customer who connects with you on a personal level.
2. Experts Have a Competitive Advantage.  You establish yourself as a thought leader when your blog, that people want to refer.  Who would you rather purchase from?  Someone who sells stuff they can answer only basic questions about, or someone who is passionate about the type of product that they sell, and can give you excellent guidance as you learn about it yourself?  In person, you can share that passion face to face at a party.  But online, the way you share your passion is through your blog.  People get a real sense of who you are and why it would be great to do business with you.  And if your content is truly valuable without feeling “sales-y”, people are more likely to take advantage of the viral nature of the internet, and share your blog with their friends.  It’s a win-win.
3. Reach a Lot of People.  The internet is vast, and there are potentially millions of people that you can connect with at any given moment.  When you allow people to sign up for more content from you on your blog, then you have the opportunity to market by sending your newsletter.Through your blog you can share ideas, photos, videos, live streaming video…you name it!  Even though you may be far apart from your prospects, you still have the opportunity to personalize the experience of shopping with you.  That’s part of the beauty of the direct sales model.  Rather than a nameless, faceless website, or an uninformed sales clerk, your customers get the benefit of getting to know the real you.  You can meet their needs one on one in a way a faceless corporation can never hope to!  Use your blog as that connecting point, and you’ll gain customers that adore you, even if they’re half a world away!

There are so many free blog platforms out there now (my favorite is WordPress), that it costs nothing to start a blog except for time.  By employing a blogging strategy, and direct seller can reap many benefits that capture the beauty and essence of the direct sales model, while taking advantage of the far reach that social media and the internet provides.

What do you think?  How is a blog helping your business?  Would love to hear about your experiences in the comments!

Here’s to your success!

Jennifer Fong helps direct sales companies, direct sales professionals, and other home-based business owners leverage the power of social media to grow their businesses. A former direct sales company CEO and serial entrepreneur, Jennifer is passionate about teaching direct sellers how to use social media tools to enhance their businesses, while remaining true to the basics of a party plan business. She helps business owners put the principles of social media to work in a profitable way, maximizing the return on their social media investment.  Visit Jennifer’s Direct Sales & Social Media blog at http://liajen.wordpress.com

Content marketing is a powerful tool for the direct sales professional.  By providing relevant, useful content in a way that your readers can easily use and share with their friends, you can greatly increase your brand recognition, as well as your chances that your content (and therefore you) will be referred to others.  You also establish yourself as an expert that people want more information from.  As an independent direct selling professional, it is important to understand the content your targeted niche market is looking for, in order to establish your brand and yourself as the solution people are looking for, and want to refer.  This is the first step in the online sales cycle.

The essence of content marketing is providing free, actionable content that people can use right now without spending a dime.  As you share this content with your online social networks, people begin to recognize you as a thought leader that they seek out to help solve their problems. Think about it: when people go online for solutions, one of the first things they do is a Google search.  If the content you provide contains the keywords that they use when searching, you can pop up as the solution.  Note that at the moment they’re not looking for PRODUCTS.  They’re looking for SOLUTIONS, and they want those solutions in the form of content.  When you become the content provider, they will down the line consider you as the product provider.

It’s important that you understand your targeted niche market intimately in order to be successful with this approach…if you want your target market to find your content valuable, it must be the type of information they are searching for.  Be careful that the content never sounds like an ad…this will cause you to lose your audience and all that you’ve worked for.  Instead, be a relevant, useful member of the community, and you will build a reputation that will ultimately benefit your business.

The next step in a content marketing strategy is making your content easy to share.  This is such an essential component to the overall strategy.  If you’re providing content through a blog, be sure to provide a means through which readers can share that content with their friends.  If you’re providing videos, be sure they’re on a site where they can be shared with the click of a button.  By making it easy to spread your content, you will gain referrals.  Chances are, the people in your targeted niche market have friends with the same needs.  And the beauty of online marketing is the fact that people can share easily, which makes your message go further than you could manage if you had to spread the word by yourself.

You can also provide people with the opportunity to sign up for your newsletter in order to get more content.  (Sign up for my newsletter here.)  When people invite you to contact them, then you can provide more content, along with targeted marketing messages that continue to move prospects down your sales funnel.  Your marketing messages will be a lot more successful when people opt-in for them by subscribing to your newsletter.

So what do you think?  How are you using content marketing for your business?  Would love to read your comments below!

Jennifer Fong helps direct sales companies, direct sales professionals, and other home-based business owners leverage the power of social media to grow their businesses. A former direct sales company CEO and serial entrepreneur, Jennifer is passionate about teaching direct sellers how to use social media tools to enhance their businesses, while remaining true to the basics of a party plan business. She helps business owners put the principles of social media to work in a profitable way, maximizing the return on their social media investment.  Visit Jennifer’s Direct Sales & Social Media blog at http://liajen.wordpress.com.

When you think about your physical office space, does it make you feel a little ill? Is your desk a mass of piles? If it makes you feel negative, consider this: everything is energy. So if your desk or your office space is cluttered this items that don’t support you, they’re literally stealing your energy. I want to offer you a tool that just might change your life. It changed mine!Last year, after we introduced our “Office on the Go” organizational product for direct sales professionals, we got lots of testimonials about how the simple “bull’s eye” concept we teach in the program had changed the way our clients looked at the “stuff” in their offices.
Here is this simple concept in a nutshell. To begin with, take a blank piece of paper and draw a large circle, then a smaller circle within the larger circle, and then one final small circle within the 2nd circle. You should be looking at something that looks like a bull’s eye (or dart board).

Now, think of your office as a that bull’s eye, with the center being your “hot” zone; your power center. As the lines of the bull’s eye radiate out, the next space is your warm zone, which you access less often but is still a part of your weekly or monthly experience. The outer most circle is your cold zone, preferably an off-site area used to store those things you need to keep for your records or seldom utilize.

Here are the simple rules:

Your hot zone should contain only things you use on a daily basis. The physical hot zone is your office desk and chair and anything that’s within arm’s reach when you’re sitting there. Anything that’s not needed for your daily experience is stealing your energy if it’s sitting in your hot zone.

Your warm zone should contain things you need to access less frequently, but still need to be able to get to. Things like training manuals, weekly coaching files, host information, etc. This space is outside of arm’s reach of your hot zone, meaning you have to either move your chair or get up to access it.

Your cold zone is ideally in another room or garage, since these items are primarily stored for little if no use. This would be discontinued products, overstock, tax records, etc.

When you begin to define the things in your office into one of these three categories, you’ll start to notice your relationship with all those things change. Now, instead of fretting over whether or not you need it, where you should move it, etc., you’re simply asking yourself, “is it hot, warm, or cold?”

Ask yourself this question: “Does the ’state’ of my office steal my energy or contribute to my energy?”

So, take the challenge. Start thinking of your “stuff” in terms of that simple “hot, warm, or cold” zone question and watch your productivity soar!

Julie Anne Jones is a direct sales coach and trainer and the CEO of Julie Anne Jones, Inc. She is known for her authentic and easy-to-use scripting and specializes in specific language and tools for success in direct sales. As a former direct sales professional, Julie worked a party plan business for several years, consistently holding three parties per week and winning national awards yearly. She also built a National multi level marketing team through internet networking. For the past 6 years, she has focused entirely on coaching and training other leaders within the direct sales industry through live training as well as extensive webinar and tele-course training. To learn more about Julie Anne and her products and services, visit her at www.julieannejones.com or check out her blog at http://julieannejones.com/blog.

These are very interesting times.  The world seems to be polarized - truly feast or famine.  Businesses are going under and the cries of “the economic crisis” ripple through the planet like waves ripple out when you drop a rock in the water.  Fear, failure and the world’s obsession with dramatic events blanket the airwaves.  It’s almost impossible to ignore.But there’s something else going on - something nobody’s talking about. 

On the other side of the fear and failure are people and organizations that are experiencing massive success.  Reality television shows make instant celebrities.  Business owners with “hot” ideas are growing faster than they ever have before.  One in 8 couples are now meeting online. 

And they are getting crushed under the pressure of sudden success.

While most people think they want fame, fortune or something bigger, they are wholly unprepared for the emotional, mental and physical skills they will need to manage newfound success.  Celebrities deal with this all the time.  The late Michael Jackson, undeniably the King of Pop (whether you like him or not) lived a life of emotional trauma, lost youth and low self-esteem.  Shia LaBeouf: “I don’t handle fame well,” LaBeouf says. “Most actors on most days don’t think they’re worthy. I have no idea where this insecurity comes from, but it’s a God-sized hole. If I knew, I’d fill it, and I’d be on my way.”  

Now you don’t have to be a celebrity to experience the demands of sudden success.  Take the business owner who suddenly finds himself or herself leading an organization for which they are ill-equipped to run.  They lack the people skills, the leadership skills and emotional intelligence to make things work smoothly.  Working hours increase.  Productivity decreases.  Frustration and overwhelm take over.  Anxiety becomes normal.  Then personal criticism starts, which begins a never ending cycle of self-doubt and lowered self-confidence.

It doesn’t have to be that way.   Here are 5 things you must know if you are experiencing sudden success in any area of your life.

1.  Sudden Success Brings out the Weirdos.  When you become more visible in your company, publicly or even in your family, weird things can happen.  It’s like the old story of the crabs in the pot - whenever one crab almost reaches the top of the pot and newfound freedom, the other crabs pull him back in to die.  Expect opportunities to arise, communications to increase and watch out for people who want to use you or ride your coattails.  You will need some trusted advisors to put together a system to discern your good opportunities and weed out the dream stealers. 

2.  You will need to learn emotional intelligence.  When success demands more of you, it will demand more of your emotional energy as well.  You will have days where you wonder if it’s all worth it, and begin the cycle of self-defeat.  Don’t go there.  Likewise, you will need to learn to manage your emotional state in every situation to be able to think clearly and react appropriately to things coming at you fast.  People will begin to judge you, have opinions about you, and that can make you feel bad if they are negative.  With a high level of emotional intelligence, you will understand that people’s opinions of you have nothing to do with you, and everything to do with whatever they are experiencing at the time (if you don’t understand this now, you will.  I’ll explain in another post about perception).

3.  People skills become VERY important.  Most people aren’t trained in understanding others’ personal style, filters, values and perspective.  Therefore, communication breakdown occurs more often as teams grow and you need more people around you to handle daily activities.  It is imperative that you become a student of people and behavior to be able to hire the right staff, understand their needs and get people to their most productive level.  Once of the biggest mistakes people make when hiring people to work for them is the “warm body” approach.  They take a person with a certain skillset and try to make them do a job they aren’t good at, and then wonder why it isn’t working.  Proactive understanding of people matching to skillsets is a must.

4.  You MUST become a better leader.  When more demands are placed on you as you grow, the general tendency is to be like a rat in a cage, trying to run faster and faster on the wheel. Worry that things won’t get done, anxiety over whether people are actually doing the work, when will it get done cause many sleepless nights for fast-growing business owners. 

Recently, I was hired by a small business owner to help with this exact issue.  She was working almost 20 hour days, losing sleep over details and she had people she wanted to work with to build a team but didn’t know how.  We restructured her time, I taught her communication and people skills, but most of all, I taught her how to let go without losing control.  As a result, we engaged a team of 5 amazing people to help her.  She reclaimed 47 hours per month.  Doing things right, she hit ALL of her revenue goals within 30 days. 

I tell you this because as a small business owner, you don’t always get to see what the big companies do to develop their people.  Big companies spend millions on leadership training, communication training and the like just to help people get along and be more productive and have better performance overall.  Small business owners struggle, not knowing that a different way is so close.

5.  You will learn to say “No”.  Decision-making skills are imperative in helping you deal with success.  Information, requests, communication will all increase, and your ability to say no to time-wasters, distraction, guilt, frustration and overwhelm will become a skill you’ll wish you had a long time ago.  Your goals will become more clear, and so your ability to weed out potentially unproductive opportunities will be heightened as you truly go to that next level.

While there are many other things that go along with sudden success, these are some of the most important.  When your focus turns inward to making yourself a better leader, communicator, influencer and visionary, your entire world will change.  Your success will be sweet, exciting and manageable.

To get started, download the free audio program called The 13 Vital Traits of Super Effective People.   It will open your eyes to getting started on the calm road of success.

Stephanie Frank is today’s voice of peak performance, productivity and personal success.  A true entrepreneur, she has distilled 20 years of personal experience into four simple steps to help established business owners and professionals create a blueprint for predictable success.  She is the personal growth authority for business owners who want to run a thriving business and maintain life balance.