Category Archives: Business Tips

Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly

If you find it hard to complete things because they are “not good enough” yet, then you’re letting ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘good.’

I mean that sometimes we have this idea of what something should be like, the perfect, and we strive to reach it.

But you never will because perfection is impossible.

Right now, I want you to permit yourself not to be perfect. None of us are perfect, and none of us ever achieve perfection. And that’s okay.

And this idea of perfection and reaching perfection is holding people back, it’s incredibly paralyzing, but if something isn’t perfect, then that automatically means you’ll have failed.

You are Good enough

You need to adopt an attitude of “good enough” or even “bad but finished.” That way, there’s so much more scope to be successful, and there’ll be less fear of failure.

If your business Facebook page isn’t perfect, that’s fine, as long as it’s good enough.

If your emails aren’t perfect, that’s okay if they’re good enough and you get your message out.

Your exercise routine probably isn’t perfect, but that doesn’t matter. As long as you get yourself moving regularly, it’s good enough.

Buying a new car is fraught with decisions and, for many people, causes anxiety. But you don’t need to find the perfect vehicle! Instead, you need to find one good enough for your purposes.

Pareto Principle

Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? It’s also known as the 80-20 rule, which usually takes 20 percent of the time to complete 80 percent of a task. However, completing the last 20 percent of the task takes 80 percent of the effort.

So at 80 percent completion, can you perhaps declare it “good enough”? What else do you need to do to finish right now? Knowing that the last 20 percent takes 80 percent of the effort and that perfection is impossible, it makes no sense to continue working away at something already good enough.

Experience the freedom of doing it badly.

Perfection is especially detrimental to creativity. Let me give you a quick experience of this. Grab a piece of paper and a pen. I want you to come up with five great ideas for booking games. They must be new ideas, creative, innovative, and perfect. You have 5 minutes….start now!

Do you have any ideas yet?

Okay. Grab a new piece of paper and write down five bad ideas for sponsoring people in your organization. These are just five terrible recruiting ideas. You have 5 minutes again….go now!

Do you have ideas now?

What happened? If you’re like most people, you had many more ideas in the second activity because you permitted yourself to come up with any ideas. Most people find it easier and more fun than the first activity, where you were looking for great ideas. Trying to be great or perfect stifles creativity. It paralyzes you.

What would happen if you put on a timer for ten minutes and wrote down every terrible idea for sponsoring games, recruiting seeds, conversation starters, etc., that you could think of? Then, of course, you would write down plenty of bad ideas and some good enough ideas that could work.

Letting go of perfection is freeing.

Stop perfectionism from holding you back from direct sales success.

Permitting yourself to do it “badly” lets you get on with the job and get things done. And by getting things done, you keep the momentum going.

So how do you ensure that what you do is good enough? By focusing on the process. Try to improve the process, and don’t focus too much on the result. For example, you will increase sales, bookings, and recruiting leads by making your parties and events more enjoyable for you, the host, and the guests.

By doing the process well, the result will be better. So that’s where you want to focus your improvements, not on the outcome.

Because focusing too much on the result makes you needy, locks you up, takes the joy out of the process, and leads to perfectionism.

And perfection is the enemy of good and the enemy of done.

Work smarter not harder in your direct sales biz

Everyone is busy.

Most direct sellers do it as a side hustle, and they are either working their biz around other work or family commitments. Or both.

Direct sales or party plan business is absolutely ideal as a side hustle because it’s so flexible. It’s one of the reasons I love it so much!

But, because it’s not your main hustle, you don’t have time to waste! So you must ensure you’re investing your time wisely, not just spinning your wheels but moving forward.

This means that how you spend your business time is vital. Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? This principle states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts. This means that 80% of your efforts are not doing much for you!

When I first learned about this, I was excited to work out which 20% of my tasks were producing the results because it would mean I could reduce the amount of time I spent on my business while at the same time growing it!

Things to stop doing in your direct sales biz

  • I stopped investing massive amounts of time studying the products. I decided that if a guest or customer wanted to know more than I could tell them, I learned how to find out. I always got back to them, which became another opportunity to continue that relationship with the customer.
  • I also stopped investing lots of time in team members who were less active or less engaged. Instead, I used my team to focus on my eager ‘rising stars‘ and get new team members off to a great start.
  • I focused my activities on getting parties (online or in-home) rather than chasing individual orders. It’s much more time efficient to see a group of people at once and gather a bunch of orders in one go. I used to feel like I was constantly chasing orders.

    If you need some ideas on how to get bookings, check this article so you can get off the individual order treadmill too.
  • I focused more of my time on finding new team members and supporting them in getting their own businesses started. I realized that team growth would significantly impact my long-term income and that the faster I recruited, the faster my business would grow.
  • I started scheduling my social media posts in advance. I would sit down monthly to plan and schedule content for my business page, customer group, and team group. I found those monthly sessions were super productive, and my content became more thought out and better planned. 
    This change stopped me running around through the week madly, trying to think of something to post on Facebook. I love using Cinchshare for my scheduling, but you can use Facebook too.

I found that once I cut out ‘busy work’ – the tasks I used to do that didn’t add to my bottom line – I could do more to grow my business. For example, I spent hours preparing folders with product information or color-coding my customer files. So now, I focus my time on the 20% of tasks that build my business.

Another key to working smarter, not harder, is consistency. Your business won’t progress if you only work on it randomly. Of course, you don’t have to dedicate much time (I hope that much is clear now), but it does help to be consistent for people to trust you with their business.

5 Tips for Direct Sales Leaders

I want you to understand a misconception a lot of people have:

Leadership is not a skill with which we’re born. 

Leadership is a skill you develop.

You learn. You grow.

Direct sales is a business where you can step up to leadership, bringing new challenges and opportunities.

If you’re new to leadership, below are five tips to help you grow into the type of leader that a team likes to follow.

Keep in mind that the number 1 complaint from consultants about their leaders is that they only hear from them when the leader wants to know how many sales they have!

I see that behavior all the time, making the team feel used – as if they’re only a number to help the leader get paid. It leads to resentment and negative team culture.

You don’t want to be that kind of leader. So check these tips to help you become a fabulous leader of a fantastic team.

Help your team members to feel successful

When teamies feel they are successful, it will help them build on their success and keep striving for more. Think about recognition. What are you celebrating in your team, and how are you celebrating it?

What you focus on with recognition will increase.

Do you create certificates? Do you hand out trophies? Do you post a brag in your team group on Facebook? Do you call them or go Live to congratulate them with a personal message? The more you do, the better!

If your team members are excited about their achievement, they are more likely to repeat it and strive for more. It will also inspire others in your team to strive for recognition.

Encourage effort

Not everyone in your team will achieve the standard required for public recognition. But a good leader will make everyone in the team feel valued.

Try to find a reason to congratulate as many team members as possible each week for something. A quick text message can make a big difference in helping someone feel acknowledged and valued.

Always be on the lookout for team members who’ve stepped out of their comfort zone to take action. When they do, consider going the extra mile and post them a personal card in the mail to let them know how proud of them you are.

Even if their actions don’t lead to results this time, they might next time. And in the meantime, you have a loyal team member who feels valued.

Mark significant occasions

I keep a box of cards handy, so I’m ready to send a personal postcard when something noteworthy happens in a team member’s life.

Think of life events such as a new baby, engagement or wedding, passing of a loved one or pet, illness, etc.

It’s essential to show team members that they matter to you and that what happens in their life matters to you.

Talk less and listen more

As a leader, we have to stop trying to fix everything. Realize that your team members often already have the answer! Our job is to coach them and help them find it. (Check this article on coaching.)

It can be hard to stop ourselves from telling our team members what to do. Remember that if you let them choose their action steps, they’re far more likely to take that action!

Be a cheerleader

Be the best cheerleader you can be! When I think of cheerleaders, I think of someone happy, positive, energetic, and smiling. That’s your job!

Always be positive. Acknowledging concerns is okay, but you must continually re-focus on the positives and the next step.

Sometimes you’ll have to remind a team member of their exceptional qualities or how far they’ve come already. Sometimes you’ll need to remind them of how excellent your company is.

Focus on gratitude, focus on what’s in your control and enjoy the process.

Social Capital is Key to Boost Your Biz

Do you want to know the secret to amplifying the success of your direct sales business?

One of the critical pillars I’ve used to build a $20 million global direct sales business and boost my happiness is positive reach-outs.

Positive reach-outs use kindness to foster stronger relationships and build social capital.

Building your social capital means developing meaningful relationships with your customers, hosts, and teamies, and it doesn’t just help your business. It makes you happier in the process.

How cool is that?

Professor Christopher Peterson was one of the giants in positive psychology, and his pioneering work showed that happiness comes from social relationships and kindness to others. 

Michelle Gielan, the best-selling author of Broadcasting Happiness, says that social capital is your greatest asset. Social capital is the value you receive from having relationships with other people. The great thing about social capital is that it doesn’t lose weight through use. It grows instead.

In my positive reach-outs, I use a lot of praise. Positive Psychologist Shawn Achor reminds us that praise is a virtuous cycle and a renewable resource: “…the more you give, the more you enhance your supply. When done right, praise primes the brain for higher performance, which means that the more we praise, the more success we create. And the more successes there are, the more there is to praise.”

How I reach out to my team and customers in a positive way

There are many ways to reach out and build your social capital. I do various things, from sending emails and private messages to phone calls and in-person catch-ups. I also always have a supply of unique occasion cards for birthdays, births, engagements, etc., ready to go, so it’s easy to put one in the post to someone.

I started doing this 15 years ago and never stopped because I realized the powerful positive impact of sending an engagement card to a customer who called to thank me. She told me she only received three cards – one from her mother, one from her future mother-in-law, and one from me – which meant so much to her. She is still a loyal customer and has referred many people to me.

“The more you help others and spread positivity, the brighter you will all shine.”

On another occasion, I visited a team member’s house and saw an encouraging letter I had sent her framed and placed where she would see it every day. As a result, she is now one of the top performers in my entire organization!

Another lovely way to build social capital is to buy random gifts, which could be as simple as taking muffins into a meeting or training session for no particular reason.
The more you connect with people in your network and your direct sales team, the stronger your relationships will become. The more you help others and spread positivity, the brighter you will all shine.

Are you ready to build social capital in your direct sales business?

A fabulous way to start these reach-outs is with a power lead, another concept coined by Michelle Gielan. A power lead is a cheerful, optimistic, or inspiring start to communications. Gielan found that how you choose to start a conversation influences the behavior of others.

Start with a ‘power lead’

Starting with positivity sets a tone. It primes you and others for positivity and pushes everyone into the high-performance zone. It could be as simple as starting the conversation. “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?” or when someone asks you,” How are you this morning?”

Instead of talking about how you didn’t get enough sleep, you could say that you had a lovely breakfast (if, indeed, you did have a lovely breakfast).

It’s not about making things up to say something positive. Instead, it focuses on authenticity to set that positive tone.

I want to encourage you to spend at least 15 minutes a day focusing on positive reach-outs with your customers, team, or hosts. You will find that it will boost your happiness and positivity while at the same time building your social capital and strengthening relationships – and this will move your direct sales business forward in the long run.

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Tapping into Strength During Adversity

Title: Tapping into Strength during adversity - tips for direct sellers

Knowing that you can stay strong no matter what’s happening in your life inspires a kind of confidence and a feeling of security that’s hard to find any other way.

In this article, I want to share how I’ve stayed strong and the road I took to arrive at that place.

The 3 biggest challenges I faced in my life

When I was 19, my friend from high school was murdered. As you can imagine, that was a massive shock to me with so many emotions and thoughts to process. Fortunately, her murderer was caught and brought to justice, but I had still lost my friend.

The next major challenge happened when my daughter Sophie was 6. One day, out of the blue, she was diagnosed with Leukemia. It’s common for a diagnosis in children to occur at 50 to 500 Leukemia cells per millilitre of blood, but she had 12,000 and a huge fight ahead. Fortunately, she’s in remission now and doing well. She’s a Karate champion raising money for other kids like her.

Then three years ago, I had a series of strokes and pseudoaneurysms on the brain. I had difficulty doing basic things like communicating and walking, and I was told I would never run or play sports again.

“I refused to accept that fate and stayed strong and worked hard. I can now talk your ear off, I’m running a 20 million dollar global business, and I’m the current Australian National Champion in my division for Karate.”

I don’t want to dwell on the challenges I faced. Instead, I want to share how I stayed strong to get through them. I want to share the strategies you can use to learn from my lessons!

Create a vision for the future

During the most challenging times, I always created a vision for the future. When my friend was murdered, I pictured her getting justice. Later, when Sophie was sick and couldn’t walk, we talked about the day she could walk 10 kilometres, and we created this lovely vision of it. And we ticked off that goal in 2021!

The day I was told I’d never play sports again due to the strokes, I decided I would get my black belt in Karate to show them it was possible. I’m not at black yet, but I’m getting very close!

With firm goals and visions in place, I then lived one day at a time, focusing on small, incremental improvements towards that goal. And I celebrated each small achievement along the way to the larger goal.

Find the Glitter

When Sophie was ill, we kept a ‘glitter journal’. It was a notebook with a glittery cover, and each day we would write in there what the one good thing was in that day. We would each find one bit of glitter for that day to keep us going.

I now keep a gratitude journal. I’ve since learned to be grateful for minor things and look for the good every day. I also add quotes and images in my gratitude journal that inspire me to stay positive.

Ask for help

Asking for help is one of those things that we humans find extremely difficult. Yet, through my challenges, I learned that asking for help is essential when we need it.

Not only did I find that a little bit of help from others made my load that much lighter, but I also noticed that asking people for help was like giving them a gift. So many of my friends wanted to help but didn’t know how. Once I asked, my friends happily cooked dinners, picked up our children from school, visited in hospital and did so many other little things that made a big difference at the time!

Don’t think you’ll be a burden, instead put yourself in their shoes. If one of your friends is going through a tough time, wouldn’t you love to help out?

I hope you’re not experiencing major upheaval in your life right now. But if you are, I hope that these activities help you as much as they helped me. My wish is that they help make your path forward faster and easier!

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Secrets to Balance Your Life and Direct Sales Biz

Title: Secrets to Balance Your Life and Direct Sales Business

Do you need more hours in the day? Are you struggling to juggle work and life?

I’m a wife and dedicated mother of three. My daughter is in remission from cancer. I run a $20 million global direct sales business. I’m an Australian National Champion in Karate, I’m an active ambassador for Red Kite, a childhood cancer charity, and I’m an author.

“I get asked all the time how I juggle everything in my life.”

It sounds like a lot when I list it out like that! And yet I manage to balance work, family, sports, leisure, and service to others.

So let me share how I achieve that in 3 steps.

How do you define balance?

First of all, it’s essential to think about how you define balance in the first place. My whole concept of balance was changed after reading a book by best-selling author Laura Vanderkam. She believes that balance should be viewed across a week or a month, not day-to-day as we’ve been conditioned to think.

Too often, we feel pressure to be all things to all people all of the time. But we don’t need to feel guilty.

Sometimes we need to work on our careers and work hard for a time. Other times we need to be with our children and play and learn and parent and take the time to do this.

So I realised that it’s okay to get off the old merry-go-round of feeling guilty when I was working because I wanted to be with my children and would feel guilty when I was with them because, in the back of my mind, I thought I should be working!

I made the quote by David Bader my mantra!

I put it in my office and on my fridge to remind me that focus and quality time are essential.

2. Do more things at once

My second tip is to, wherever possible, tick multiple boxes with the way you’re spending time. For example, when I’m at Karate, it’s exercise time, family time, and social time because we’ve made great friends at the dojo.

So perhaps you can exercise or train with a friend while the kids play? Or instead of meeting a friend for a coffee, why not meet up to go for a walk?

If you have made friends in your direct sales team, you can be each other’s accountability buddy and cheerleader and work on your direct sales business while you get social time as well.

Disclaimer: Yes, quality time is essential and I’m not advocating that you should always be looking to do five things at the same time and never feel like you’re truly present in the moment.

But where you can do multiple things at once, don’t discount the opportunity to do so! 

3. Start delegating as soon as you can

My third tip is that delegation and outsourcing are vital. I do the tasks in my business that only I can do – where I add the most value. But everything else I either delegate or I pay someone else to do.

People often say they can’t afford that or that they’ll do it when they’re making more money, but I started doing this very early in my business. I used to pay my neighbor’s teenage daughter in free products for her help with basic business tasks and housework. 

“The time and energy that freed me to move forward and push on with tasks made a significant difference in my business and income. In addition, as my direct sales business grew, my network of helpers increased.”

Your time and energy are the most critical assets of your business and life. So think carefully about how you use it and what your priorities are.

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How to Improve your focus

Title: How to improve your focus and concentration

It almost feels like the ability to concentrate is a lost art in today’s digital world. Constant interruptions by notifications from our multitude of apps can be catastrophic for productivity and focus.

A recent study reported that we experience around 60 interruptions in an average 8-hour workday. And a study at London’s Institute of Psychiatry found that constant interruptions can have the same effect as losing a night’s sleep.

No wonder so many people feel tired all the time!

But the good news is that focus is a mental muscle. The more you work on building it up, the stronger it gets! If you feel – like so many of us – that you can’t concentrate as much as you used to when you were younger, you can build it back up!

So let’s look at some strategies to improve focus so you can sit down and get some work done in your direct sales business!

Use notifications sparingly

First of all, if you haven’t done so yet, make sure you turn off as many notifications as possible to reduce the number of distractions you experience in your day.

Think of your focus as a spotlight; you want to turn it to the important things and not scatter the light uselessly on every notification your phone throws at you.

You can also think of notifications as the privilege to interrupt you. Who or which apps get to have that privilege?

Retraining your brain

I found it helpful to retrain my brain to focus with this exercise from neuropsychologist Kim Willment. She suggests reading for thirty minutes with a timer set to go off every 5 minutes. When it goes off, ask yourself if your mind has wandered. If it has, just re-focus on your reading and continue to the next alarm. Rinse and repeat.

Doing this exercise helps to retrain your brain to monitor if your mind is wandering and then return to focusing on a single task. This is a huge part of concentrating and focusing during your day!

After I’d had a series of strokes 3 years ago, I found this exercise helpful to retrain my brain, and perhaps it’ll help you too! 

Learn to re-focus quickly after an interruption

Box breathing

The next strategy is to improve your mindfulness and to re-focus quickly at the moment. As it turns out, focusing attention on the present moment and practicing mindfulness rewires the brain so that your ability to focus is stronger in everyday life!

You can use numerous mindfulness apps, but one quick strategy I use is ‘box breathing’. It’s a great stress reliever and helps you to develop yourself quickly.

When I notice that my focus has slipped off, if I need to get my concentration back after an interruption, I use this technique. US Navy Seals use box breathing and can certainly be calm and focused under extreme circumstances!

So here’s how you do it: Sit upright and inhale slowly while you count to 4 in your head. Then hold your breath for a count of four, exhale through your mouth to a count of four, and then hold your breath for four seconds. Repeat this a few times. 

I find picturing the box or square in my mind with each step helps me to focus on the activity. I used this technique as a stress reliever when my daughter was critically ill fighting leukemia, but I also noticed a huge improvement in my concentration and ability to focus, so I use it regularly now as a way to quickly recentre and refocus.

I encourage you to try these strategies this week. It’ll be easier to get work in your direct sales business done when you can concentrate and focus for blocks at a time!

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Keep going until you get a yes

Title: Keep going until you get a yes

Far too many people are afraid of hearing the word “no”.

And I get it. I used to be afraid of rejection too. For the first 2 years in my business I hardly achieved anything. I was afraid to ask and by avoiding the ask I rejected myself in advance. I was saying “No” to myself before anyone else had a chance to.

In this article I share how I got over that fear and build a multimillion dollar direct sales business.

The art of asking

There’s an art…or maybe a science to asking and getting what you want. I found the book “The Aladdin Factor” by Marc Victor Hansen and Jack Canfield very helpful. They recommend asking as if you’re expecting to get a “yes”. You also want to assume that you can get a “yes” in general – don’t just hope. You also need to ask more than once.

I recommend you grab yourself a copy of this book to improve the way you ask!

Persistence does pay off

Persistence has been key to my success. You want to keep asking because they might say “yes” when they’re in a better mood, when their circumstances have changed, when you have a better offer that suits their needs, or when you’ve learned to ask better!

Early on in my business I was too afraid of hearing “no” to follow-up and ask. To help encourage myself to take action, I gamified the process.

I started by rewarding myself with $1 for every follow-up call, regardless of the outcome. My goal was to get myself moving and to overcome my fear of rejection. When I’d made enough calls, I treated myself and my husband to a night out at the movies. As I got better at making the follow-up calls, I moved on from $1 coins and made myself a star chart. I gave myself a gold star every time I made a call! 

The reward you choose doesn’t matter, the process of rewarding yourself for taking action gives you a boost of dopamine in the brain, which reinforces the action.

As you’re training your brain to love taking action you will notice it gets easier and easier to follow-up! And of course the more you do it, the better you’ll get at it and you’ll start hearing that ‘yes’ more and more!

Keep a Leads Book to Help your Follow-Up

The statistics that have most inspired me to keep going with follow-ups came from a marketing specialist at Notre Dame University. They found that 94% of all sales people quit after the 4th call. However 60% of all sales were made after the 4th call.

I didn’t want to keep missing out on 60% of potential business because I wasn’t following up enough!

So I started keeping all my follow-up information in a leads book (but you could also use a spreadsheet, I happen to be old school). I allocate 1 page per lead and I keep track of my follow-ups with dates and notes. I try to add personal information so contact from me feels personal and friendly. 

I also make sure I vary the method of follow-up. Sometimes it’s a phone call, then a text message, other times I send something in the mail. This keeps me in their thoughts but it doesn’t feel repetitive.

I have some leads that I’d been following up with for five years before they finally joined my direct sales team – persistence paid off eventually!

Don’t be a bulldozer

At this point I want to make sure you understand that I’m not a bulldozer when it comes to follow-up.

I not only vary the means of follow-up so I don’t hound them with phone calls or spam them with texts, but I also always offer them an “opt out”. I literally say something like: “if you’d like to stop hearing from me, just let me know” or something similar.

I don’t want to be pushy or spammy so I’m keeping it light and friendly and respect their boundaries!

How to think of follow-ups

How to keep going until you get a 'yes'

I was told by a mentor long ago to think of follow-up like offering everyone cake at your wedding.

Some people love wedding cake and eagerly say yes … others say no. Maybe they’re on a diet, maybe they’re allergic to gluten, or maybe they just don’t like cake!

The bride doesn’t take it personally, she just offers it to the next person. I like to think of everyone I follow up as wedding guests – I have something wonderful to offer them and it may or may not be for them.

My job is to find the ones who do want it and not get discouraged if someone doesn’t like cake.

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Tools for Direct Sellers

Title: Tools for Direct Sellers

There are so many great tools and online services available that it’s hard to know which ones to invest your time (and sometimes) money in.

This list represents all my favorite tools that I use in my direct sales business all the time. Many of them are free, which is even better!

Canva

It’s important to use images on your social media that are unique and not already used by thousands of other consultants. The Facebook algorithm likes unique images and videos more than reposts.

Canva is a free tool that you can use to create images, animated gifs and just about anything that needs designing. They’ve got beautiful templates, graphics and photos that you can use to quickly and easily make those perfect images to go with your posts.

There is an upgrade you can subscribe to but you won’t need to for your direct sales biz. The free version is already so awesome it’ll do you just fine!

QR Code Generators

You can use QR codes in a number of different ways to support your direct sales biz. You can use it at events to direct people to your ordering page, you can link to an awesome recruiting video from your company, you could link to a Google Form and collect entries for a raffle or lucky door prize, or perhaps you can link to a joining special. For more ideas check this article.

Here are three free QR code generators to get you started:

Jigsaw Puzzles

I love using jigsaw puzzles as an online game in either a Facebook party, a recruiting event or in my customer group. I tend to use an image related to recruiting, sometimes a company recruiting poster or a picture of the starter kit.

Make sure you choose a photo that doesn’t have too much empty space (too frustrating to solve) or too much text (hard to solve, hard to read).

You can find more information on how to use jigsaw puzzles in this article.

Here are some free jigsaw generators:

Cinchshare

I absolutely love Cinchshare! They are a fabulous social media scheduling service specifically for direct sellers. It’s not a free service but it’s very affordable and worth every cent!

The best thing is that you can save your Facebook parties and reschedule them again and again. It’s so easy to save all your previous posts (images and text), change them up as needed and schedule them in a new party. I also use it to schedule things in my team groups and customer group and on my Instagram. I can’t live without Cinchshare in my biz!

They also run regular training on direct sales topics that’s super useful! (In fact, I’ve run training for them a while back which was so much fun). Even if you don’t subscribe, I recommend checking out their blog for all the useful freebies and tips.

Positive Prime

Positive Prime is a visionboard on steroids. It’s the best service to keep you motivated, positive and engaged. This is what I use to keep me fueled to achieve my business and personal goals.

Positive Prime offers different sessions to train your brain, and create powerful, self-fulfilling prophesies around your goals.

You can get started for free but I highly recommend you upgrade to a paid plan as soon as you can because you can then significantly amplify the effect of each session by personalizing it to you with images and personal statements for your specific goals.

Not feeling confident recruiting? There’s a session to help you develop more confidence. Need to be more positive in your outlook? Yep, there’s a session for that too! Motivation low? Hop over to Positive Prime for 3 minutes and you’ll be brimming with motivation.

Mailchimp

Starting a mailing list is a good idea so you don’t just rely on social media. Remember that you don’t own Facebook or Instagram. With an email list, you own the list – regardless of which service you use.

Tools for direct sellers

I love Mailchimp, it’s what I use for my own newsletters, and they have a free service available to get you started. You can create newsletters, forms, landing pages and more without needing to know how to code!

Create yourself a fun, interesting and useful monthly newsletter and encourage people to sign-up at parties and events. Hey, you can even use a QR Code to link to the sign-up page for your newsletter! Then offer everybody who signs up a chocolate and before you know it you have decent mailing list!

You can find Mailchimp here

Do you have any tools to add to the list? What service or website do you use all the time in your direct sales biz?

Using Samples to Boost Your Direct Sales Biz

Title: Make the most of samples in you direct sales biz

If you sell a consumable product in your direct sales business, sampling is a fantastic way to grow your direct sales business.

According to GCI Magazine, the objective of sampling is to enhance your customers’ experience and increase loyalty. Providing product samples allows your customers to try different products and create an opportunity for customer care calls to gain feedback and stay in touch.

Pyschologists have shown that people who receive free samples are more likely to buy the products and become loyal customers. Giving out samples helps you to:

  • Raise awareness: 60% of customers were not aware of a product before receiving a sample.
  • Increase purchase intent: 92% of people say they will buy a product if they like it after receiving a sample.

How to Maximize the Sample Opportunity as a Direct Seller

Whenever you give a sample, always ask permission to follow-up with the customer in a few days to find out how they found the product. Make sure you jot down their details and book a follow-up call when you give them the sample. At the very least, give them your details and ask them to provide feedback.

Sampling is a great opportunity for follow-up contact, so don’t squander it! (If you find following-up difficult, check out this article for some tips)

Avoid offering a sample too early in the conversation. You want to make sure they don’t already have the intention to purchase the product you want to encourage them to try. Making a sale on the spot is always the first preference.

Try to offer a sample that complements the other products they have where possible, they might just love the entire range!

Sampling also works well when an entirely new product or range is released. Remember that figure above? 92% Of people say they’ll buy a product if they liked the sample!

What to say when giving a sample

If you find it hard to find the words to secure that follow-up, here are some ideas to get you started:

  • Let’s chat briefly in a few days so you can give me feedback on this product.
  • Let’s book in a follow-up consultation to see how you’re going with this neproduct….is an evening or weekend better for you?
  • The sample I’ll leave you with today compliments your purchase wonderfully. I’ll touch base in a few days to see how you’re finding using the these together and to see if you have any questions.
  • I’d like to give you a super quick call in a few days about the product. It’s brand new so I’m so curious to know what you think of it!

Top Sampling Tips

How to make the most of sampling in your direct sales biz

If your direct sales company doesn’t offer samples, it’s easy to create your own. Jump online and do a quick search for sample pots or sample sachets. There are a lot of affordable options out there.

If you want to fancy it up, you can even order your own stickers and labels to make it look professional. Remember to put your contact details on them!

Keep a log of who you’ve given samples to. It’ll help you when it comes to follow-up too!

Always keep some samples with you so you can make new connections and create new leads when an opportunity arises.