As a direct sales leader with a team, it’s a good idea to offer your own incentives and challenges for your team. If used well they can be hugely beneficial for your business and your teams’ businesses.

Unfortunately, if you don’t use incentives well, it’s a waste of time, effort and money!

So let’s talk about how to plan and run a great incentive challenge for your direct sales team.

How to plan an incentive challenge for your direct sales team

Make the most of company incentives

If your party plan or direct sales company is already offering an incentive, there is no need to add additional rewards for reaching the same goal. Instead put effort into driving the company offer. Focus on recognition for those who have achieved the company’s incentive and encourage those who are close to reaching it.

Ideas:

• Do a Facebook Live as soon as the incentive starts to spread enthusiasm and tips
• Post tips in your team group and refer to earlier training or posts that are relevant now
• Help your team out by creating some social media images for them to share in their customer groups and on their pages
• Shout-outs to people who’ve reached the incentive (posts / Lives)
• Posts which tag people who are really close to encourage them to get over the line (and hopefully the rest of your team will join in the encouragement and act as cheerleaders)
• Ask people who achieve a company incentive to post in your team group. This adds excitement and motivation for your whole team – it’s social proof that the incentive is exciting and something to work for. You can even offer some small prizes to everybody who’s posted about their achievement (a small easy to post prize or credit on online store, for example).

What behaviors are your targeting with your incentive?

Think about what you want to achieve with your incentive, which direct sales behaviors do you want to drive? You might be looking for more recruiting, more sales, more active team members, etc.

Ideas:

• An incentive for
  • booking X amount of parties (above the average in your company or team)
  • attending markets, vendor events, fetes and fairs
  • recruiting X number of new people in a month
  • selling X amount during a period
  • booking X number of Zoom or Facebook parties (especially in lockdowns)

• Run an incentive for a combination of business behaviors that will help (new) consultants by creating a bingo card. When someone gets a bingo they get a prize. You can include behaviors such as:
  • contacting X people in a week
  • doing a Facebook live on a product
  • scheduling entertaining and informative content for their social for the next month
  • listening to a direct sales podcast for inspiration and motivation
  • finding a business buddy in the team to keep each other motivated and accountable
  • refresh party themes and announce in a Live

Who in your direct sales team are you targeting?

Think about who in your team you are targeting with your incentive. If you offer a prize for the top seller over a certain period and everybody in your team already knows who is most likely to win that prize, that’s a turn off.

Knowing that a certain top seller is probably going to win that sales challenge will not motivate anybody – not even that particular person!

A top seller, top recruiter or top party booker incentive only works if you have a few people at a similar level that will work hard to get the prize and recognition. If you have a few people like that, an incentive only for the number 1 will stimulate a surge of activity.

Ideas:

• Offer prizes for the top 3 instead of just the number 1.
• Offer one or more prizes for people who reached a certain level. For example everybody who reaches $400 in sales will go in the draw for a prize.
• Combine the above two ideas to have an incentive that drives all levels in your team.
• Offer a prize for the winner of the challenge and the next 9 will go in the draw for another prize to encourage people to strive to be in the top 10.

You don’t have to run an incentive for your whole team

Targeting specific segments in your team might be more productive than running a challenge for your whole team.

For example, if your goal is to get inactive team members going again, select a smaller group within your team for a special challenge. Make sure they know you’ve only chosen 5 or 10 team members (or however many you’ve chosen) for this exclusive incentive. Then set a prize for everyone who achieves it.

This works well because if they haven’t been active in a while, they now have a real chance to win a prize while the other incentives mentioned in this article won’t motivate them. When direct sellers have been inactive for a while, they assume they won’t achieve whatever challenge you’ve set and that other team members will get it instead. It’s easier to do nothing than to get into action!

By creating a special incentive for them that’s achievable, they are more likely get motivated and energized to get back into their direct sales business.

Tips:

• Look at your team members who have been inactive for a while in your company’s portal or business hub. Select them based on a metric (haven’t made sales in the last 2 months, for example)
• Or, select people in your team that you know that need a push
• Find some attractive prizes they actually want to strive for, not just products
• Set a challenge that’s achievable perhaps a sales amount that’s 1 average party
• Ask for a few goals to reach the incentive, such as a sales amount plus at least 2 party bookings. This will help them move forward beyond the incentive
• Provide some training for them, perhaps a Zoom coaching call to get them started again

Offer career plan-based incentives

Sometimes you want to push people in your team to move up the career ladder. An extra incentive for people to step up might help them to push a little harder. This incentive works best at the lower levels of the career plan.

Ideas:

• Link your incentive to the name of the career title. For example if your company has a silver and a gold level, it’s the perfect opportunity to offer gold or silver prizes (gold sparkly pens, silver drink bottles personalized with their name, gold or silver jewelry, etc.)
• Offer training/coaching (Zoom meeting) for people who want to achieve the incentive
• Ask other leaders in your team to participate by contacting the people in their mini teams that would be in the running for the incentive
• Every time someone achieves the incentive, do massive recognition not just for the new career plan title but also that they’ve won a prize
• Tag people in a post encouraging those who are close to achieving the challenge

Growing your team or encouraging kit-napping?

When offering recruiting or sponsoring incentives, you’ll have to consider whether you offer the incentive for joining or activation of a new team member.

I recommend offering the incentive to people who have new people that activate according to the rules of your direct sales company.

This not just avoids people encouraging others to join just for the kit (kit-nappers) but also neglect of newbies. You don’t want to encourage your team to just recruit for the incentive without any plans to help the new team members get started in their new direct sales biz.

Tips:

• Keep the ‘clauses’ to a minimum, so use your company’s definition of activation to keep things simple
• Run some training for your team on how to get their new team members started

Beware of the incentive pitfall

Although incentives and challenges are excellent tools to motivate your team, there’s one pitfall to beware of: if you over-invest in incentives and prizes, that can turn people off leadership.

Team members thinking about leadership might worry that it looks overwhelming or too expensive. That would demotivate them from striving for leadership.

It’s a fine line to walk, but I’m sure that by putting some thought and planning into your challenges and incentives you can achieve fabulous results in your team!

An ‘elevation pipeline’ is essential if you’re a direct sales leader and you want to grow your organization.

The ‘elevation pipeline’ is the path your team members are on in their journey to leadership.

You want people at all different levels in your team so you want to ‘fill’ that elevation pipeline.

Far too often I see leaders get into trouble when one strong team member elevates to leadership themselves. Then their sales no longer count in the leader’s central team anymore which leaves a sudden gap.

If you have only one strong leg in your team, it puts you at risk of this happening to you. To prevent this you want to work on a healthy elevation pipeline.

How to build an elevation pipeline for your direct sales biz

I recommend dedicating time each day to coaching people with an aim to moving them up to the next career level.

I use a roster and allocate the same day every week to the different levels to keep it all manageable for myself. A coaching roster could look something like this:

• Monday – New consultant coaching
• Tuesday – People who want to start recruiting and grow their biz
• Wednesday – People who already have a couple to team members but now want to find more
• Thursday – People who are close to elevating to leadership
• Friday – Existing leaders in your downline

You might only have one or two people at some of the levels and no one at some others. But your aim is to work towards having people at all these levels – this is your ‘elevation pipeline’ and it ensures you continue to have a strong and thriving business.

Don’t make the mistake many leaders make of concentrating all your energy on only one or two of these levels in your business.

You need to keep pushing people up from the bottom – from brand new party plan consultants to consultants building a team, and finally encouraging them to leadership.

Elevated leaders come out of your ‘pipeline’ at the top, and you keep working with them to strengthen their business and your organization.

Newsflash: not everybody is the same. Okay, it’s not news. You know this already!

But do you know how to use that fact to keep your team motivated and engaged?

To cater to the different personalities in your team, it’s helpful to divide people into three categories: Action, Feeling or Fun. This makes it easier to ensure that you cater to all three categories of people in your team.

So let’s have a look at these categories:

Action People

Action people are often your high achievers. They plan, commit and succeed. However, if you don’t cater to them in your communications and recognition, they will quickly lose interest.

Feeling People

These are the people who need time to reflect. They are considerate of others and often make the most nurturing and welcoming team members.

Fun People

Your Fun People really show their enthusiasm. They’re often very creative and can provide the social ‘glue’ in a team.

How to cater to your Action, Feeling and Fun people

Suggestions for Action People

• They thrive on recognition. The more public you can make it, the better.
• They love compliments.
• They often thrive on challenges with a deadline.
• Delegate tasks to your Action People, they like being thought of as valuable and important.
• Many Action People like to present to a group, so you could let them help you run a meeting or training.

Suggestions for Feeling People

• Ask them how they feel about doing a task or setting a goal. They typically don’t like to be pushed out of their comfort zone, so respect this.
• When coaching them, keep in mind they need time to reflect.
• Recognize Feeling People for the small things they might think you haven’t noticed.
• They value people so you can help them feel like a valued member of the team by emphasizing their value in helping to welcome and develop new team members.
• Recognize their efforts, not just achievements. For example when you know they’ve stepped out of their comfort zone.

Suggestions for Fun People

• Your Fun People make fabulous ‘social directors’ for the team. Make use of this when organizing special events.
• Fun people are often very creative with their displays, the team will appreciate their ideas.
• Seek help from Fun People in your team to organize food or music at meetings.
• These teamies respond well to a positivity award.
• When working with Fun People, focus on the fun they’ll have as a result of achieving a goal or moving up the career ladder.

With a little thought and attention, you’ll be able to cater to all the different types in your team. It will help you to create an upbeat, positive and inclusive culture in your team where everybody feels valued for who they are. This in turn will help to keep them engaged and motivated in their direct sales biz.

What actions do you take to inspire your team members to want to become leaders of their own team?

Below you find four tips you can implement to inspire your teamies to go for leadership. These four tips are part of my own leadership strategy and have worked well for me.

Attraction Marketing

Perhaps unsurprisingly, one of the methods you can use is ‘attraction marketing‘. You don’t only use attraction marketing to attract people to join your direct sales business, but you can also use it to attract people in your team to leadership!

Show your team the benefits of being a leader in your team’s Facebook Group. You can post about training or meetings you’re attending as a leader. With videos or photos show how much fun you’re having running training, attending events, etc.

You want to be that magnet that attracts people to want to be you and have fun, rise to challenges, and have that interesting life as a direct sales leader.

Encourage attendance at company events

Company events are a massive booster for anybody in the direct selling industry. It makes people more excited to be part of the brand, it builds your team as they get to know each other better and seeds the desire to grow in their business.

Part of why events are such a booster is the recognition. Being recognized at a regional or national event is super powerful – not just for the person being recognized but also for their peers. Seeing someone they know being recognized in a huge and public way will increase their desire to also be recognized.

Company events can turn an average consultant into someone who’s excited to build her business and move forward!

Check this article for tips on how to encourage your team to go to the next company event.

Personal Invitations to Leadership

Sometimes leaders forget how powerful they can be. It can mean so much to someone if you phone them up and tell them that you think they’d make a great team leader!

Look at your team and identify people who you believe are ready to strive for leadership (even if they don’t believe it themselves yet). Check this article for some tips on how to identify those teamies that are ready to move up.

Then make personal contact with them. When you tell them that you’ve noticed that they’ve been doing a great job, they know that their efforts matter and have been noticed. You give them recognition and then you encourage them towards leadership.

If they agree to start on the path to become a leader, you can work with them to get there. Check this article on coaching for some tips on how to do that!

Create a cohesive team

Part of leadership is creating a motivated and engaged team. And part of that is make everybody feel like their part of your community. In turn, your new leaders will want to create their own community!

Here are some quick tips:

• Choose a team name
• Choose a team color
• Create a logo or team mascot

Use your team name and color in your team groups (like your Facebook Group). Use the logo or mascot occasionally and creatively.

Even if your team is small, do these things. It’s like dressing for the job you want rather than the job you have!

And of course, once a team member elevates to leadership they can choose their team name, their team color and mascot.

For most direct sellers this is immensely exciting and you can help to motivate your leadership candidates by encouraging them to choose a team name already and think about a team color.

Now over to you: what thing do you do to inspire your team members to strive for leadership?

Creating a team that’s engaged and motivated takes time and effort on the leader’s part. But it’s so worth it!

Your motivated leaders will in turn motivate their own team members better. Your engaged team will want to strive for goals together to grow as a team and as individual businesses.

And it’s more fun and satisfying for you and for your team too!

Below I’ve got a a few things you can do to create an engaged and motivated direct sales team.

Challenges

When you set challenges, you’ll also need a reward. Think about what your team members would love and what is convenient for you to post (not too heavy) or get to them digitally (vouchers, gift cards, etc.).

When setting your challenges you want to target something you want them to do more of in their direct sales business. For example you might want to set a recruiting challenge, a Facebook party challenge, booking challenges, or sales challenges.

Besides the different aspects you can focus on, you also want to have challenges for all ‘levels’ in your team. For example, I have a challenge that’s for people to keep their account open but I currently also run a challenge for people striving for the next international trip. More about challenges here.

Every now and then when I see that one of my team members is coasting and could do better I might set them a personal challenge. Some of my teamies want extending and really appreciate being set a big goal. I work with them individually and reward them when they meet the challenge.

Recognition

I recognize people who achieve a certain standard (for example the different commission levels in my company) or recruit or have a certain number of parties. Some teams have a monthly Top 10 for recruiters or sellers and that can be very motivating!

But I also sometimes recognize an individual who’s put in a lot of effort or stepped out of their comfort zone. They may not have achieved the goal they’re aiming for just yet but I want them to know I see the hard work they’re putting in and I want to cheer them on.

When you do recognition, it’s important to do it in lots of different ways. You can do a team Facebook post, a fun Facebook Live, send certificates or trophies, post cards via the mail, or call someone personally to congratulate them.

I use all those methods!

Another fun thing to do is to start a ‘brag thread’ in your team group. And you allow them to brag about their achievements or stepping out of their comfort zone. It’s a great way for members to inspire each other and to celebrate together – not just from you as a leader.

Loyalty

Loyalty is about recognizing not just what your team members do in their business but also what’s happening in their lives.

I send cards and messages for significant moments like weddings, birth of a child, graduating from studies, etc.

I want my team members to know how much I appreciate them and that each and every one of them contributes to the team.

Goal Setting

Encourage your team to set their own goals. You can set up a Facebook poll to find out what their goals are and you can keep track of that.

You can follow-up with a text message or Facebook message to see how they’re going and how close they are to meeting their goal.

When they meet their goal I congratulate them and recognize them for that!

I have created two printables for my team to use to track their own goals. It’s a ‘savings jar’ and a rocket ship that they can color in as they make progress towards their goal. If you’re interested in providing these to your team, grab the printables below.

Spend your time wisely

You are probably just as busy as I am so you want to spend your time wisely. The best way to do this with your team is to spend only a little bit of time on your small players. Then invest more time in your ‘rising stars’ (people striving for the next level in the career plan) and your leaders.

It’s a bit of a tightrope: you want to create an engaged and motivated team but you also need to guard your time.

Are you thinking about building up a team in your direct sales or party plan business?

Or do you feel that’s something for the distant future?

Here’s something to think about:

• Increased income
• The opportunity to change more lives and have a bigger positive impact with your business
• A sense of team pride
• Creating your own team name and team identity
• Attending leadership meetings, training, and other opportunities

For these reasons I encourage everyone in the direct sales or party plan industry to recruit and build a team.

And you don’t have to wait until you know everything – jump into recruiting as quickly as possible and learn together as you go!

It’s not rocket science and you can be honest with your new team member when you don’t know the answer…you can find out together.

I’ve created an assessment form for you that helps you to see how ready you are for leadership. It’ll tell you where you still want some improvement where you are strong already.

What are you waiting for? Grab the assessment below.

Have you decided to strive for leadership in your direct sales or party plan business this year?

Maybe, you are a leader already and you want to help others become leaders?

Excellent. I have 4 key steps towards leadership for you.

1. Have a clear vision

Make sure you know exactly what recruitment and sales are required to achieve your goal. Put it on paper and keep it in a place where you’ll see it often.

Set a review date for your goals to keep yourself accountable and keep yourself motivated.

Also have a clear vision of what it means to achieve that goal. How will your life be different?

2. Get good at the basics

Have you ever heard the saying “The speed of the leader is the speed of the team” ? As a leader you’ll need to be a role model for your team.

You don’t have be the top seller or top recruiter in your team, but you do need to show that you’re consistent in all aspects of your business!

3. Don’t wait until you have the title

Leadership is very much about who your are and what you do. You don’t need to have the title to behave like a leader. The sooner you start to act like a leader, the faster you’ll get there.

Some key leadership tasks you can start immediately:

• recognize effort and achievements in your team;
• regularly touch base with your teamies and support them in achieving their own goals;
• aim to be their number 1 cheerleader and they’ll be proud to be in your team!

4. Ensure you have balance

A great work/life balance is critical. Not just for your own mental and physical wellbeing, but for your business too!

Start thinking about your entire life as one big magnet – an attraction marketing magnet. That way, current and new team members can see your awesome life and want that for themselves.

You need to find a balance between work and income and living your life with plenty of time for your family. That’s not just best for you, but it’s super attractive to others who will want to strive for leadership.

I’d love to hear what step you think is vital on the road to leadership? Leave a comment below!

If you want to learn more about ‘attraction marketing’ and how to draw people to you without being spammy, I’ve got just the thing for you: the Attraction Marketing Course for Direct Sellers. Check it out below!