Valentine’s Day is a fabulous opportunity for your party plan or direct sales business.
I’ve listed five ideas that you can swipe to maximize your February!
Shower your customers with love
Declare February “The Month Of Love.” This month, pamper your customers and show them how much you appreciate them. Perhaps you can offer a gift with every order, free shipping, or a discount.
The gift doesn’t have to be big or expensive. For example, I recently made an online purchase and received a small heart-shaped soap as a gift. How cute is that for February? Another option is adding chocolates to every order to make your customers feel special.
Declaring February as your “Month of Love” allows you to promote your special deal all month, not just for Valentine’s Day.
I’ve created some tiles you can use to promote your Month of Love on Social Media. Please scroll down to grab them.
Shower your leaders with love
If you have a party plan or direct sales team, you can use Valentine’s Day as the inspiration for a “Share the Love” recruiting incentive.
Encourage your team to focus on promoting the business opportunity during February by sharing their love for their business. For example, leaders can offer heart-shaped jewelry, luxury gift boxes of chocolates, or other Valentine’s Day-appropriate incentives to teamies who recruit.
Bonus tip: wait until after Valentine’s Day to buy your incentive prizes when they’re on sale!
The direct sales opportunity is a gift. Please share it with as many people as possible in February.
Make Buying Easy
Make buying gifts super easy for your customers by creating gift bundles.
Gather a few of your products that make an excellent set, and add a gift that complements your bundle. Think of gift items like a bottle of wine, a tea towel, a candle, etc.
The best way to promote this is to buy some nice boxes or baskets and create a few different bundles at various prices. Use gift wrap, cellophane, and ribbons to make your gift look stunningly attractive.
The benefit of pre-purchasing and preparing your gift bundles is that you can offer last-minute gifts (as you don’t have to wait for the stock to arrive) and have something physical and pretty to promote.
Start taking them to your in-home parties a few weeks before Valentine’s Day to promote your bundles. Also, take some photographs and share your bundles on social media focusing on the men in your customers’ lives.
Depending on your products, you could even take these gifts to workplaces and offer men these gift packs for their loved ones.
Add Valentine’s to your display.
A great way to promote Valentine’s Day and spark the gift-purchasing impulse at your in-home parties or vendor events is to add some Valentine’s Day-themed items to your display.
Just as a window display is designed to entice people to enter the shop, your display attracts people to purchase products or book an event.
In the lead-up to Valentine’s Day, add some lovely heart-themed props to your display to promote gifts.
Don’t forget Self-Love.
I want to expand the meaning of Valentine’s Day to include self-love. At your events and on your social media, encourage your customers to treat themselves to something special.
Self-care is vital for our mental health, so let’s make sure that people treat themselves in February, so they feel fabulous!
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I hope these ideas sparked your creativity to make the most of Valentine’s Day. And I’m curious to hear what you’re doing in February to maximize the special occasion!
Are you an introvert? Do you struggle with recruiting or sponsoring in your direct sales business because you’re shy?
Then I’ve got you covered with a range of ideas and resources.
What is an introvert?
The most significant difference between introverts and extroverts is that introverts ‘recharge’ from being alone, and extroverts gain energy by spending time with others.
There are a few more traits that introverts and extroverts tend to display, but don’t worry if they don’t (all) apply to you – we are all individuals:
Introverts
Extroverts
Gain energy from being by themselves
Gain energy from being with others
Are more introspective
Are more action-oriented
Reflect more before making a decision
Make decisions quickly
Enjoy one-on-one conversations
Enjoy socializing in a group
Like to observe
Enjoy joining in
The most important thing I want you to understand is that you can be confident and outgoing as an introvert. But then you’ll have to make time for yourself to recharge, which is perfectly fine.
Meanwhile, extroverts can be shy or lack confidence, and that’s okay. Confidence and shyness are not set in stone. These things can be changed if you’re willing to work on them.
Now, let’s look at recruiting tips for introverts and shy people.
Visual recruiting ideas
The worst mistake you can make is doing nothing to recruit. So make sure that you do something.
An example of a lightbox and mini shopping trolley.
The best place to start is with your display and drawing visual attention to the business opportunity.
Consider adding this to your display:
A position vacant sign
A lightbox with words like “flexible” or “earn cash.”
A shopping trolley with a sign saying, “Do you want to be able to put more in your trolley? Join…. to make some extra cash!”
You can also add sticky notes to your catalog to draw attention to the business opportunity. You can write something like: “Could you sell these products?” or “Is this your opportunity?”
Finally, I recommend adding recruiting information to your order form on a clipboard. That way, people are bound to see it at checkout time.
Play games
Recruiting games are a structured way to discuss business opportunities that aren’t boring.
Games are a fun and relaxed way to introduce career options without being ‘salesy’ or pushy. Guests are likely to be more receptive to the message when it’s shared in a fun way – especially if you add a little prize!
Throughout your party or demonstration, you want to drop hints about how great it is to join your direct sales business. You can make comments such as:
I love that I get paid to party
I joined to support my product addiction – I now get products at a considerable discount.
I love getting recognition.
This is so much fun. I can’t believe this is my job
I love this company because.
The best way to get started with this technique is to pick just one that best fits your style and drop it at your next party. When that becomes natural, add another little hint to your repertoire.
You can find a little more on these little sparks in this article.
Conversation Starters
If you feel more comfortable talking one-on-one than in a group, you can start a conversation at ordering time. Pick one person you feel would be a great direct sales consultant and start the conversation casually without pressure.
Here are some ways to start that conversation:
I think you’d be great at this, have you ever thought about it?
You love the products/company. Have you ever thought about becoming more involved?
You could get all these products at a discount when you join my team…
Follow-up for introverts
If you’re uncomfortable using the phone to follow up, there are other ways of doing this.
But you must do personal follow-up, not generic social media posts.
So you send them private messages, text messages, or even snail mail.
If you’re worried about being pushy or salesy, chances are you’re not! People who consider other people’s time and feelings are rarely the type to be spammy.
Here are a few things to consider:
When you do follow-up, you are not bothering people, but you’re providing a service. Trust that they’ll let you know if they don’t want to receive any further messages from you. And when they opt out from further contact, respect that.
Your business is a gift that you’re sharing. It’s not something you’re pushing onto people who don’t want it. You’re only working with people who’ve shown an interest.
Always strive to be of service. When you adopt an attitude of service towards your customers, team members, and leads, you won’t be spammy or pushy.
Party tips for introverts and shy people
You can do a few things to make a party or demonstration a little easier for yourself. Remember that people generally want you to do well and are understanding of you when you let them know what’s going on.
I recommend addressing the ‘elephant in the room’ by telling people that you’re shy or nervous at the start of the party. Keep it lighthearted, and make a little joke if you can, but by letting them know, they’ll let you off the hook. And once that’s out of the way, you’ll notice you’ll feel calmer.
If you’re a new-ish consultant, use an “I’m in training” sign to let people know you’re still learning. Again, you can joke about it or create a funny little sign. It’s a great way to generate some goodwill towards any small mistakes.
If you worry about forgetting what you want to say due to nerves, create cue cards for yourself. There’s nothing wrong with using some cards to keep yourself on track. You can even draw attention to it by saying something like: “I get so e“cited and want to tell you everything. This helps me to stay on track…“.
This trick has an added benefit: any guests who think they might want to join can see that you don’t need all the information in your head. It lowers the barrier for them if they’re wondering if they can be consultants!
Encourage yourself to grow.
Start small. If you currently do nothing to recruit people, don’t expect yourself to build an empire overnight.
Pick the most minor thing you feel you can do and start there. Then move on to another thing you can add to your routine, and then another. Move forward at your own pace.
It’s essentIt’sto encourage and reward yourself. Stepping out of your comfort zone is a big deal. Celebrate it! Setting goals (no matter how small) and rewarding yourself for achieving them helps you stay motivated and continue towards success.
Read more about the importance of celebrating wins here.
Another essential way to get more comfortable doing things is to focus on the action rather than the result. You set yourself goals in terms of action, not the outcome. For example, your goal could be to play a recruiting game, send follow-up messages, to start a one-on-one conversation at your next party. Then when you’ve achieved the goal – regardless of the outcome – you give yourself a small reward.
Read a little more on why this is so important here.
I hope you realize that you can recruit and be successful in direct sales as an introvert or a shy person.
Using the principles in this book, I built a global 20-million-dollar direct sales business at my daughter’s hospital bedside.
I’ve written the kind of book I would have loved someone to give me when I started out —it’s the HOW-TO OF RECRUITING.
No, we’re not trying to create a wildfire here. Instead, we want to ignite positive business growth in your biz with these sparks.
Most guests at your parties won’t be thinking about the business opportunity.
They came to a party to have fun, see friends and buy some products. They did not come to start a whole new business!
Well – that’s what they think…
You sprinkle ‘sponsoring sparks’ throughout your presentation to get them thinking about joining your team. And once a spark has ignited, you need to keep adding sparks until it becomes a fire!
Most direct sellers and party plan consultants mention the business opportunity once. (If at all) But it’s easier to start a fire with more sparks.
Sprinkle those sponsoring sparks throughout your party
You want to apply as much focus, time, and energy at your parties to recruiting as you do to sales and bookings.
Do you do that at your parties?
One way to create these sparks of interest is to use compliments. Here are a few you can make your own:
You’re so bubbly and fun! You’d make an excellent consultant…
You’re so passionate about the products! Everyone listened to you.
I’d love to work with you…
I noticed you spoke to everybody here tonight! You’re such a people person…
It would be awesome to have you on my team!
Dedicate Display Space
You want to reserve a third of the space for the business opportunity in your display. For example, you could use a light box, a positions vacant sign, or a storyboard to spark interest visually.
I created this storyboard in a free collage app. Then, I printed it on photo paper and displayed it in a pretty frame.
Always keep the following in mind:
Sales are your income for today, bookings are your income for tomorrow while recruiting is income forever.
At your parties, your audience will follow your focus. So if you focus on the business opportunity, they’ll go along with you.
As long as you make it fun and exciting!
If you want to learn more about the recruiting process from sparks to sign-up, join my FREE Recruiting Mini Course. Sign up by clicking the button below.
How is your direct selling team doing? Is your team growing?
If you are working hard, but your team is not growing, and you feel like you’re not getting ahead, one of these three things might be holding you back.
1) Your team’s focus depends on your focus!
If your goal is to increase the size of your team, but you only mention sponsoring once at the start of the month, you’re not likely to inspire any growth.
To keep the team focused on sponsoring, you can offer regular training on sponsoring. Make sure you use a variety of training options such as Facebook Live, Zoom, webinars, or face-to-face sessions to cater to all your team members.
Another idea is to post regular tips in your team’s Facebook group to remind your team of the techniques that work and to keep them focused on sponsoring.
Also, create exciting recognition for team members that do recruit. You could feature them in a “My Story” section in a newsletter or on Facebook, you can create beautiful awards, can send postcards in the mail for a personal touch, can hold a Facebook Live, and shine a spotlight on all your high achievers.
What you recognize gets repeated, so you want to make a big deal of recruiting.
2)Discipline is a required trait for success! This is not negotiable. If you’re inconsistent, your team will likely be inconsistent too.
For example, if you say you’re going to do a weekly recognition, but you only manage to do it once or twice a month, you won’t inspire your team.
Another example is canceling meetings. It’s understandable that you might want to cancel meetings or training sessions due to low numbers. But don’t do it! If your team expects meetings or training sessions to be canceled, why would they set aside the time to attend?
When I was establishing a team in a new area, I drove nearly 4 hours each way to run meetings and training sessions. I did this for two years. I regularly turned up to fewer than five people. But I ran my meetings and training sessions anyway and did the best I could for my small audience. Over time the numbers increased, and I built a strong team and fabulous leaders.
Whether you’re running face-to-face or online meetings, you might have to live with low attendance for a while. But if you persist and you are consistent, it will pay off.
3)Don’t just build a team. Build a community! Is there a sense of community in your direct sales team? Grab the printable below to assess how your team is doing in terms of community.
If your team members feel connected and made welcome in your team, they’re more likely to stay and more likely to participate in challenges, training, meetings, etc. The more they participate and the happier they are with their direct sales tribe, the better they’ll perform.
Takeaway:
You will attract more team members if you are focused and consistent and build your team into a warm community!
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Part 1 in the “How to Overcome” series delves into how to deal with objections when talking to potential new team members for your direct sales biz.
When people face a big decision, like joining your direct sales biz, they often need a lot of information to overcome the questions or objections that their mind (or their partner) asks.
This series of articles is intended to help you talk to them about their objections. It’s not meant to steamroll over their questions (because an objection is really a request for more information).
These articles are not encouraging you to be pushy! With these articles, I want to help you understand the objections and how you could address people’s questions about starting a direct sales business.
So let’s get started with the first and most common objection:
“I’m sorry, but I can’t afford to join your direct sales biz….”
You would have heard this sentence if you tried recruiting people for your direct sales business.
It’s such a common objection that if you haven’t heard it, you haven’t been recruiting!
In this article, I’ll investigate why people say this and what you can reply to help you prepare for your recruiting chats.
What are people really saying?
Before looking at how to deal with the objection, let’s have a look at why someone might have said it:
They genuinely can’t afford it. Sometimes people really don’t have the money to join your party plan business even though they would like to.
They have the money but have other things to spend that money on. Your offer isn’t a high enough priority for them. They are really saying: “I can’t afford to spend money on something that I don’t think is very important….”
They have another worry or concern that makes them believe it won’t work for them. In that case, they’re really saying: “I don’t think this will work for me, so it would be a waste of money. And I can’t afford to waste that money….”
How to deal with each reason
1) They genuinely can’t afford it
If someone is genuinely interested but can’t afford your offer, keep them as a lead.
You could ask when a good time is to contact them again and schedule a follow-up that suits them better. In fact, you could still make your offer, saying something like: “That’s okay, you don’t have to join right now. I’d still like to share the business opportunity with you in the future. How about we have a coffee and a chat?”
This will be a low-pressure conversation because you’ve already agreed they don’t need to join now. It could still lead to them joining in the future or referring someone to you.
More importantly, if the real reason was number 2 or 3, you have a second chance to talk to them!
2) They can’t see the value
You haven’t made the value of your offer clear to your leads, and they’ve told you that they ‘can’t afford it.’
When you present your offer, you need to find a way to present the benefits that will appeal to your leads.
For some people, the benefit of a direct sales business is the flexibility, for others, it’s to be with their kids. Some people like the friendships they make, while others are ambitious and like the recognition along the way. I’ve also met people who do very different jobs during the day and like to do their direct sales business as a side hustle to enjoy their evenings with like-minded women.
If you get another chance to speak with your lead, ensure you listen to find out which of the many benefits of a direct sales business will appeal to them.
Once they see the value, spending their money on a new adventure with you becomes more of a priority.
4) They actually have another worry
You need to find out what’s actually worrying them. You could ask something like: “Do you mind if I ask, if it wasn’t for the money, would you go ahead? Or is there something else that might cause you to hesitate?”
You want them to tell you what’s holding them back, so good listening skills come into play here.
Once they tell you their concern or worry, you can address that specifically with examples from yourself or your teammates.
You don’t have to be a sleazy salesperson to be a good seller, in fact, don’t be.
Listening is crucial
As you can see, it’s vital to listen carefully to what people tell you to find out the real reason behind the objection.
Deadlines, finish dates, due dates, have you ever noticed that when something is due or about to end, there’s a mad rush for it?
Most people don’t take real action on something until they have to.
I know that I always leave things until the last day.
Are you sending notes with the kids to school? Last day.
Picking up that essential item while a sale is on—the last day.
I’m writing this blog post before Tuesday—the last day.
I see the same thing happening in my direct sales business. When a special offer is about to end, I get all those last-minute orders (and, of course, I can encourage that a little with some clever texting or emailing.
When there is a joining offer for people to join the business, the day with the most sign-ups is always the last!
So why does this happen? Several theories are related to a general tendency towards procrastination in us humans. But really, we don’t need to know why it happens to take advantageof this phenomenon.
Joining Offers for your direct sales biz
If a potential new team member has an unlimited period to make a decision, they’ll put it off and procrastinate. And the longer they put off making a decision, the less likely they are to join the business.
It’s easier to do nothing than to take action.
So having a joining offer will push people to make that decision by a specific date. That’s why I love joining offers; it puts gentle pressure on people to take the time now to consider the offer and make a decision on it one way or the other.
I’ll create my own when the company doesn’t have a joining offer. Having a joining offer gives people a little push to make a decision sooner and gives me a reason to follow up with them as the deadline approaches.
Just a casual call or message with a reminder of the deadline & the offer, and you can ask how they feel about it. Nothing pushy or complicated, just a chat because the deadline is running out.
I usually set my deadlines for about a week away to prevent procrastination and set a reminder in my diary to follow up.
There’s one more bonus to joining offers: it gives you a reason to talk about joining your biz on your social media. For example, you can do a Facebook Live to announce your offer, post beautiful images of the joining offer, or even organize an online event (more on that here).
Do you have leads on the fence?
So what do I offer? Sometimes I offer additional free products to build their kit; other times, I’ve offered company stationery or other company items to help them with their new business. I’ve even done a cash-back offer.
If you have a few people who have indicated they might be interested in joining but are sitting on the fence, get them off the fence with your joining offer.
And if you don’t have any leads now, think about your joining offer so that you’re ready when you find a possible new team member.
Key Takeaways
A deadline puts gentle pressure on people to take action
If your company doesn’t have a joining offer, you can create your own
Put your deadlines about seven days away to prevent procrastination
Always follow up just before the deadline expires
Use your joining offer to promote your biz on social media.
Imagine this: you in your pajamas, having a lovely cuppa while you chat online with potential recruits for just an hour.
Sound good? That’s what a Facebook Recruiting event is like, and it’s super easy to organize.
You can use these recruiting events alone or as a leader to support team members who struggle with recruiting.
You can also band together with a couple of fellow teammates and all work together, with a few more people and excitement in the event it does work better!
Online recruiting events are easy and cheap, and you get to grow your business. I love them! The only thing it doesn’t do is fold the laundry and make you a nice cuppa.
Despite the lack of laundry folding, I run “Golden Ticket Events” bi-monthly. I call them Golden Ticket Events because I’m offering leads a “golden ticket” to a great opportunity.
And I truly believe that: the direct selling industry has no glass ceiling and can be life-changing for women. To give you some numbers, only 2 percent of women in the USA earn over $100,000. But 80 percent of those are in direct sales. So it’s the place to be!
So here’s how to run a successful Facebook recruiting event in 6 steps.
How to Run a Facebook Recruiting Event for Your Direct Sales Biz
Step 1: Set up a closed Facebook group. You want a closed group to control membership and see who has viewed each post. Furthermore, you’ll be able to leave the people you invited in the group after the event, so they automatically join the next event you run.
All you have to do is delete the old posts and re-schedule the new posts.
You want to leave leads in the group because sometimes people want to see it again before joining, or perhaps they have new questions, or the timing is better for them in a second event.
Step 2:Create some images. You will need:
A great-looking cover graphic for the Facebook group (I’ve got you covered, see below).
Tiles (square images that you can use in your Facebook posts) for your team so they can promote the upcoming event.
Tiles for all your scheduled posts in Step 5.
Tiles for your posts in the lead-up to the event (1 per day)
Optional: a quick invitation image you can send to your invites
Step 3:Create a short (no more than 2 minutes) welcome video for the invitees. I have the video posted in the group already, waiting for invitees as they join the group.
You can use the webcam on your laptop, computer, or phone camera to create the video. Just talk to the camera as if you’re talking to someone, be bright, happy, and welcoming. It doesn’t have to be long or super fancy. Make it warm and fun.
By the way, I don’t pin the video to the top of the Facebook group. It’s only there for a quick welcome ahead of the event.
Step 4:Invite consultants with leads in your team to your Facebook group. They then invite their leads to the group. Build some excitement in your team and encourage them to contact all their leads for this event.
If you’re doing the event yourself, invite your leads, the people who said maybe, and the fence-sitters.
Step 5:Schedule your tiles and posts in ~ 5-minute intervals. By scheduling all your posts you don’t have to stress throughout the event to keep posting and writing. This leaves you free to comment, answer questions, and help your team.
Here are some post ideas:
Your direct sales company’s values or social campaigns
Videos or images that your company creates about the direct sales business opportunity
Information on what precisely recruits will receive when they join (the kit)
Your company’s incentives
A question to prompt invitees to think about what they would do with the extra cash (“What could you do with an extra $50 per week?”)
The type of training recruits will be offered
The available support
FAQs
Posts that target some of the common objections (lack of time, network, or confidence)
A link to the registration site (some people are happy to go off and do it by themselves)
As an incentive, a Google form for their details with a ‘lucky door prize.’ Ensure you ask them on a scale from 1 to 10 how close they are to joining. This will help you to follow up.
Step 6: Sign-up recruits and celebrate every win with your team!
Timing of your event
Timing is everything, as they say.
You don’t want your leads to go cold, so don’t plan too much time between announcing and running the event. I allow six days.
The event runs for an hour between 8 and 9 pm on a weekday night.
What you do After the Event
Follow up with the leads who have indicated (a number above 6) that they are close to joining the Google Form. These are warm leads; they have seen you in the video and chatted with you during the event. So they’ll feel like they know you already!
Review your event. Which posts got a lot of engagement? Which question kept popping up? Are there more posts or FAQ questions you want to add? Are there posts you wish to change or delete? Was your video viewed to the end by most people? You always want to make the next event better than the previous one.
Finally, delete all your posts and prepare to run a new event! Wash, rinse, repeat.
To help you get started, I’ve created a Facebook event cover and a social media tile that you can use for your Golden Ticket Events. Grab it below (your privacy is guaranteed!)
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Number 5 is crucial when recruiting or sponsoring in your direct sales or party plan business.
Why? There are two reasons:
5 Sponsoring Messages
How many times do you mention the career opportunity at your parties?
Research into learning and human behavior has found that people need to hear something five times before it sinks in!
Do you know what that means? If you only mention the business opportunity once in your direct selling party, the same guests would have to attend 5 of your parties before your recruiting message truly sinks in. Think about that for a moment.
You want to aim for at least 5 mentions (in different ways, you don’t want to sound like a broken record) throughout a party. Read this article on how to do that.
There’s another reason why the number five is essential: there are five fundamentals that you need to have in place so you can become an effective recruiter or sponsor.
5 Sponsoring Fundamentals
If you’re worried about not getting enough party bookings, you’ll probably feel anxious about another consultant in your area. On the flip side, when you’re confident that you can always fill your diary with parties, you’ll be happy to sponsor a new team member!
I’ve got some tips on how to keep your party bookings ticking over here and here.
You’ll attract more people to your team if they see how much fun the parties are to attend and how much fun you’re having running them.
This means mixing it up with different themes and games to keep yourself and your guests entertained and wanting to try new things.
The more passionate you are about what you sell, the company values, and the difference you can make in people’s lives, the easier it will be to attract new team members.
Likewise, people might be interested in joining your team for other reasons than yours. So, discuss the various benefits of being a direct sales consultant. That way, you can appeal to a range of people.
The most common reasons people join a party plan or direct sales company are: to earn extra money, to make new friends, to learn new skills, to have fun, to qualify for discounted products, or to have the flexibility to work around family or other commitments.
Then, find the ways your business can add value to their life. For example, they might not want to build an empire but rather have a paying hobby. Or they might want to run their business differently than you do – and you need to recognize this.
Direct sales and party plan businesses are incredibly flexible and can be run in various ways. The important thing is that you can help them make it the best side hustle for them!
A tacky little catchphrase I kept in mind when I was working to make recruiting a habit in my business was: “Do the 5 to keep recruiting alive”. Feel free to steal it
If you want to dive deeper into recruiting or sponsoring, check out my free Recruiting Mini Course. Hit the button below to sign up (no credit card required).
When I started my direct sales business, I didn’t play games at my parties.
At the beginning of my career, I thought that my guests would find games childish or just not fun.
I had been to party plan events with other companies, and I had been asked to walk like a chicken or sing a line from my favorite song – and I wouldn’t say I liked it. I was out of my comfort zone and didn’t want to do that with my guests.
So I avoided all games for quite some time.
But after playing some games that respected people’s comfort zones and focused on having fun, my results were excellent!
Guests were more relaxed, and I got more bookings and leads for potential new team members. So that’s why I am now encouraging you to try games.
Why do you want to use recruiting games in your direct sales biz?
Recruiting games benefit anyone who is not yet confident talking about the business opportunity more directly.
When you’re planning to play a recruiting game at your parties, this also ensures you don’t forget to bring up the business opportunity (which we’ve all done, I’m sure).
Games are a fun and relaxed way to introduce career options, without being “salesy” or pushy.
Guests are likely to be more receptive to the message when it’s shared in a fun way.
There are two essential things to remember when playing games at your direct selling event:
Have a little fun with it. That means you have to keep up a good pace, don’t slog through it slowly but don’t rush. Make some jokes and be a bit silly.
Make the game yours, so it fits your style, personality (and company and products).
Today I have 2 recruiting games for you that have worked well for me, so give them a try.
Game 1
To play this game, give each guest a piece of paper to keep track of their score as they listen to you recite the following poem. Anyone who adds the 25 points at the end should be followed up about the business opportunity.
You can also add small prizes (small incentives, chocolates, etc.) for high scores.
Game 2: Ask me about my job
This is a game that I play at the end of the party when people have well and truly ‘warmed up’.
I set a timer for 2 minutes to ensure it doesn’t drag on.
You encourage guests to ask you about your job as a party plan consultant. Then, you reward a question about being a consultant with a (chocolate) prize or a raffle ticket (with a raffle prize draw at the end).
Sometimes nobody wants to be first, and nobody asks you a question. The way to get the ball rolling is to act like an auctioneer and ask yourself a question like an opening bid. Make it funny, and guests will pretty quickly join in.
Keep your answers short and succinct, don’t overwhelm people with too much information at one time.
I usually throw (gently!) the chocolate prizes to the guests to keep the momentum going and add a bit of activity.
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Sponsoring or recruiting new members to your direct sales team is the way to grow your business.
But many consultants find it hard to follow up with people who’ve shown an interest.
I certainly found it hard in the beginning!
I struggled with this for a while. I wanted to build my team and expand my business. I tried to make progress fast but procrastinated when I had leads. I found it hard to get a “no.” I didn’t make many follow-up calls and didn’t grow my team very much.
Sound familiar?
At some point, I decided I had to get better at following up. The way I did, it was to ‘gamify’ the process. I turned following up into a game with prizes. Who doesn’t like prizes?
How you can learn to enjoy follow-ups in your direct sales biz
First, I switched my focus from worrying about the results to my actions instead.
I started by rewarding myself with $2 in a spending jar for each follow-up phone call, regardless of the outcome. My goal was to get myself moving, overcome procrastination, and reward myself for the doing, not the result.
Once I made enough calls and earned a nice amount of $2 coins, I treated myself and my husband to a night out at the movies. We enjoyed a fabulous night at the Gold Class cinema because I had finally started making regular follow-up calls.
This first step, focusing on the actions and rewarding these actions, massively changed my attitude toward making these follow-up phone calls.
As a result, I started to make lots of calls. So when I happened to reward myself two weeks in a row with a cinema evening, my husband suggested I think of a cheaper reward.
I then moved on to jelly beans as I love jelly beans. I had a jar sitting on my desk, but I could only have one when I made a follow-up phone call.
I had to end that reward when I decided to clean up my eating habits.
So then, my teaching background came in handy, and I made myself a star chart. I put stars on a chart for every call I made, and I promised myself a nice treat when I filled up the chart! And that worked very well for me.
As you can see, I tried a few different reward systems, and they all worked.
I quickly overcame my fear of follow-up calls, overcame that procrastination, and learned to enjoy every call for its own sake.
Don’t get me wrong. I still got lots of “no’s,” but I also started to recruit more than I had before just because I made the calls!
Of course, now that I was making more calls, I was getting more practice. And just by making more follow-up calls, I got better at it. So my success rate improved, and I noticed that I was getting fewer “no’s” to get each “yes.”
And all I did to achieve this was to gamify my follow-up process. As a result, I enjoyed my rewards and learned to enjoy the process. This is why I want to encourage you to gamify your recruiting actions.
To help you with this, I’ve created a handy printable worksheet that you can use to encourage yourself to make those follow-up calls, which will lead to more practice and, eventually, a higher success rate.
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Worksheet notes
Set yourself mini rewards for every ten calls you make. When you’ve earned five mini rewards, you have filled the sheet and can treat yourself to a bigger reward. Remember, the results do not matter – you get a reward for doing so you learn to love the process!
However, it’s still helpful to track your numbers. You’ll see that as you make more calls, you’ll get fewer “no’s” for each “yes.” Seeing such improvement is incredibly motivating.
Not to mention, once you know what your average number of “no’s” is per “yes,” you will become more motivated to make the next call to get closer to that “yes”!
Mini rewards could include indulging in a sumptuous bubble bath, watching a movie, or catching up with friends. Those things that you don’t usually take time to do but that you enjoy doing.
Once you fill out the worksheet, you can treat yourself to something bigger. Perhaps a dinner out, new clothes or shoes, champagne and chocolate, something for your home office, whatever motivates you.
It’s important to celebrate your efforts and your growth in your business. We tend to make it all about results, but to get the results, we need to put in the work, develop, and get better. Then the results will come.
I’d like to hear what you’re rewarding yourself with and how you’re going with the worksheet. Leave a comment below. Let’s build a stockpile of reward ideas!
