You’ve probably heard me say this before, but it can’t hurt to say it again:

If you’re not offering themes in your direct sales parties, you’re missing out on a lot of repeat bookings!

Being able to offer new and different themes to your hosts is what will have them coming back again and again (as well as their guests!).

What is Pinktober?

Pinktober is a fundraising theme for the month of October for your direct sales parties and events. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month in many countries and this theme will help you to fundraise for this cause.

Pinktober is suitable for almost every direct seller, regardless of the products you sell (yay!)

Why would I make the effort?

There are several reasons you want to run Pinktober in your direct selling business. The first reason is that you will appeal to different people with a fundraising party – some hosts are not really into party plan parties or your product but will want to raise funds for a cause. Your guests are also likely to be a different network than your usual, so it helps you to get in front of new people and branch out!

Another reason to adopt Pinktober is that you’re ramping up your efforts ahead of peak trade. The busy season with Black Friday and Christmas is coming up so you want to start boosting your efforts now to start organizing bookings for November and December.

How to have an awesome Pinktober

Step 1: Register
Make sure you register with an approved charity for your fundraising activities to ensure it’s legal. Google local breast cancer charities and find out what you need to do to register on their website. In some countries it’s a bit stricter than others, but generally they make it very easy for you to do this.

Step 2: Theme Your Social
For a week or even the whole month, post pink-related posts on your social accounts. You can post facts about breast cancer or share some educational posts from your chosen charity, go Live and showcase all your pink-colored products, and use the color pink liberally in all your images – including cover photos. I’ve got a few special Pinktober images to get you started, just fill out the form below.

Step 3: Go Live To Announce Your Pinktober
Do a Facebook Live, an Instagram story or a TikTok to announce your Pinktober theme. If you’ve set a fundraising goal, announce that too. Also make sure you include how much you are contributing (eg. 20% of sales).

Step 4: Add Fundraising Games to Your Direct Sales Party
In your party you can play some games that help to raise even more money. Here are few of my favorites:

Coin Toss: At an in-home party you can put a prize (a product for example) on the floor. Have everybody stand a few meters away and ask them to grab a coin. Guests can toss their coin at the product and the person whose coin lands the closest wins the prize. All the coins become part of the donation.

Banned Word Jar: Pick a word that people are likely to use at least once during the party. When someone says the banned word they have to put a coin in the coin jar. You can be quite cheeky with this game by asking questions that almost force people to use the word and get lots of laughs. The contents of the jar will be donated of course.

Buy A Square**: Create a sheet with numbered of squares. You could do 100 squares and use the same sheet all month or only do 25 squares or 50. It’s up to you and depends on how many people you expect to be able to sell a square to. This is easy to organize in-home or online.

Set a price for each square. Once someone buys one or more squares you put their name in it. Once all squares are sold you draw a random number and the person with that numbered square has won the lovely prize you prepared (for example a pretty basket with products).

Step 4: Pinkify your parties
You want to make your direct sales parties as pink as possible. This will help the Pinktober parties to stand out and be a different from your other parties. Here are some ways to pinkify your parties:

• Ask guests to wear pink. Best dressed wins a prize (a ticket, a chocolate, or just bragging rights). When doing online parties get people to take photos or pose for the camera in a Zoom party.
• Highlight your pink-colored products.
• Any accessories you use in your parties including the games (eg. Pop the Bloon, try to make them pink)
• Ask the host to serve pink drinks or pink snacks
• Anything you print for this party, print on pink paper
• Use pink sticky notes in your catalog to highlight the business opportunity
• Make your prizes pink

Step 5: Report Back
On your social media report back the amount you’ve raised. Take a screenshot of the ‘thank you’ page or receipt email (as proof) and celebrate and thank everybody who’s contributed. Also send a personal message to your hosts with a thank-you message!

** As this is basically a raffle, make sure you are allowed to run raffles in your state or country. Always abide by your local rules!

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Have you ever had one of your really big, hairy, audacious dreams become reality? One of mine is becoming really real right now!

I’ve literally had the dream of building a global direct sales business for a decade. And now it’s coming true – I can’t begin to describe how excited I am.

I’ve talked before about how much I love my business and how much I love watching others blossom and shine in their own businesses. I’m passionate about the direct sales industry and what it can mean for women and I’m passionate about my particular direct sales company and what it stands for too. And you all know how much I love sharing my passion!

I’ve been with The Body Shop at Home in Australia for nearly 18 years. It hasn’t been possible to recruit internationally…. until now. The company is opening the direct sales option in America and I have the opportunity to share my passion internationally.

Click here to find out more about this ground floor opportunity.

This exciting step for my business has led me to reflect on my amazing career to date:

• I have the #1 organization in Australia with a multi-million turnover
• I was awarded the DSA distributor of the year award in 2019 (chosen from all consultants in Australian direct sales companies)
• I reach thousands and thousands of direct sellers around the globe with this blog
• I co-authored an international best-selling book in the “Pay It Forward” series

What is the secret of my direct sales success?

A quote by Anita Roddick (the founder of The Body Shop) comes to mind:

There is no scientific answer for success. You can’t define it. You’ve simply got to live it and do it.

I believe we all have that capacity to find our individual and unique way to be successful and I see this played out in my organization.

I have hugely successful leaders in my business who only operate their business online. I also have extremely successful leaders who only party in-home. They have each forged their own path to direct sales success using their particular strengths.

However, there are some tools that will help each and every one of us to find that path to success.

Success Tools

Vision
The most important piece of the puzzle. Without a clear vision and a clear goal it’s very easy to get distracted and lose track of where you’re headed and why. Click here to read about how to create your ultimate, actionable vision board.

Resilience
I often liken the direct sales industry to a roller coaster ride. The highs are amazing but if you don’t have some strategies for riding the lows, it can be hard to keep on track for your vision. I’ve seen too many direct sellers give up far to easily when they hit the first speed-bump.

Some things that have helped me move past the bumps are:

• A glitter journal. All I do is write at least 3 words about the ‘glitter’ in my day. When I’m having a tough time I’m forced to focus on finding that glitter in each and every day. I started this with our daughter when she was battling leukemia back in 2016. That was a very difficult time but she taught me how important it is to find something to be grateful for each day.
• Meditation. Even though it’s not really my thing I found that using the Headspace app I can actually take a few minutes to sit and be still. It’s especially helpful when I’m in a rut or facing something challenging.
• Trusted friends. I have a handful of trusted, loyal friends. I can tell them what’s really going on in my head and I can turn to them when I’m feeling down or in a rut. We all go through phases like that, but what’s important is how quickly you can pick yourself up and keep moving forward.

Time
Knowing how and where to spend your time is very important. In this article about a study conducted with successful direct sellers, we learn that success isn’t about the number of hours you work. It’s about how many of those hours you spend on income producing activities. It’s useful to sit down and look at how you spend the time on your business and how much of that time is spent on something that will lead to growth in your business.

Planning
I can’t stress enough how important this is to your success. Have you heard the saying “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail?” It’s so true. If you haven’t already read the article Plan like a Pro, click through now! If you have anything else going on in your life (work, study, children, sport, etc.) you cannot achieve success without planning.

Celebrate Success
If you take the time to celebrate your wins – big and small – along the way, you’re far more likely to achieve your goals. The enjoyment of the achievement will last longer and embed in your subconscious, which then helps you to achieve more of that success. Read more about how to make that work for you here.

Balance
I love Laura Vanderkam’s philosophy on work/life balance. She believes, after conducting a lot of research, that it’s not actually possible or realistic to aim for balance on a daily basis. She recommends looking at balance over a longer time-frame than each day.

There are seasons within the party plan / direct sales industry. Sometimes you’ve got to ‘make hay while the sun shines’ and you work hard and earn lots. There are also quieter times when you have less to do and during those times you can spend more time on other priorities in your life.

Plan ahead as much as possible and make time in your planner for key priorities like exercise and family. But don’t obsess if you’re too busy sometimes. It’s okay to drop the ball occasionally, just don’t kick it away.

I feel so blessed to have found a business I’m passionate about. It’s become more than a business or a career to me – it’s a calling. I genuinely believe that I get to change lives for a living.

If you’re in North America and you want to find out more about the new ground floor opportunity with The Body Shop At Home, click here. Maybe I’ll get to change your life too!

All my love,
Christine

It’s that time of the year to look back over the past 12 months and do a stock-take. I had a look at Google Analytics to see which articles you loved the most this year. The results are not surprising: you are interested in chocolate, recruiting and social media!

So, let’s look at the Top 5 most popular articles of 2019 to make sure you haven’t missed the best bits of Direct Sales Inspiration:

Number 5: Chocolate Game

Coming at number five: The Chocolate Game is a universal party game. It doesn’t matter which direct sales company you are with or what products you sell, you can play this game. It’s an easy game to play so it’s great for beginners and shy people too. Everybody likes chocolate so you can’t go wrong with this game! Grab the clue sheet here and start playing!

Number 4: Recruiting with Games

It makes sense that this is the fourth most popular article. Talking about your business opportunity can be a bit daunting and doing it with a game makes it so much easier! This article gives you 2 games to play that relate to recruiting and a free printable. Grab them over here.

Number 3: Plan Like a Pro

This article was a favorite from the moment it was published because I explain how I plan my direct sales business. The system helps to maintain focus on all aspects of your business (host coaching, bookings, customer care, etc.) and helps you to maintain your work-life balance. As a bonus, it helps you to make your business portable so you can work from your car when you need to! Grab the printables and read the explanation here.

Number 2: 50 Social Media Post Ideas

Not sure what to post on your Facebook page that isn’t just an endless stream of products or begging for a party booking? I’ve got you with this free printable with 50 ideas for posts that you can use as a direct seller or party plan consultant. No wonder this is the second most popular post this year! You can grab your own copy here.

Number 1: Facebook Parties: How To Increase Interaction And Get Better Results

Although this article was first published in 2018, I’ve kept it up-to-date with new seasonal downloadables this year. It’s consistently the most read article and the most downloaded freebie on the blog.

In the article I share some of the background on why you need more interaction in your Facebook parties and how to get more engagement. You’ll also be able to grab all the Facebook party games mentioned in the article in multiple versions. Get it here now.

So there you have it, the 5 articles you loved the most in 2019. If you haven’t already grabbed those freebies, be sure to download them now 🙂

My business would not be possible without Carrie Green’s Female Entrepreneur Association.

I started thinking about launching Direct Sales Inspiration when I was in hospital with my youngest daughter through her Leukemia journey. She’s in remission now and doing well but I spent so much time in hospital with her that I had plenty of time to think. And that’s when the idea for Direct Sales Inspiration was born.

I was then in the situation that I wanted to share my knowledge and experience but I had no idea how to go about it. I had a vision but I didn’t know how to make it into a reality.

The Female Entrepreneur Association helped me with that. Through their membership site I educated myself on all the things to spark my idea into an actual business. I learned about blogging, branding, Pinterest, creating printables, mailinglists and more.

And now I have the honor of being featured in the very first edition of the She Means Business magazine published by the Female Entrepreneur Association.

It’s so amazing to meet your heroes! I had the most delightful interview with Carrie, she’s so inspirational and positive. I was buzzing for hours afterwards!

If you want to read the magazine, it’s freely available here.

Update: The podcast version is now also live. Listen to it here.

Last month I received the biggest honor of my career: I was chosen by the Australia’s direct sales association as the Distributor of the Year. And I received a gorgeous “abundance bowl” by Georg Jensen. But it’s of course more than just a bowl…

I was simultaneously proud and humbled by the award, which I received for sharing my passion in my personal business and through Direct Sales Inspiration and because I’ve become an advocate for several charities supporting families going through a cancer journey.

Direct Selling Australia said I “embody principles of the DSA Code of Practice”. This Code of Practice matters a lot to me – it’s this very Code of Practice that makes direct sales associations worldwide essential to the direct sales industry.

Companies that join a direct sales association promise to abide by certain ethical principals. It’s one way that direct sales companies can show they are ethical, that they want the industry as a whole to succeed and that they treat consumers and consultants in the best way possible.

So this bowl is so meaningful to me. It’s currently sitting next to me as I’m writing this and I find myself looking over several times a day to gaze at it and feel pretty darn good. It reminds me of how amazing the direct sales industry is. When I got started over 16 years ago I never imagined it would be this awesome!

Did you know that 70% of people have a natural preference for absorbing information visually?

This statistic presents us with a powerful way to spark interest in joining your team. Below I have some suggestions on how to maximize your display to promote the business opportunity.

Display Space

First and foremost, it’s very important to ensure you allocate a good amount of space to promoting the business opportunity.

The #1 mistake most direct sellers make when it comes to their display at parties or showings, is that they dedicate it completely to products and maybe some party bookings.

The rule I work by is the rule of thirds: A third of your display space should be dedicated to the business opportunity, another third should be dedicated to party bookings and the final third is used to showcase products.

Making this relatively small shift in your display will have a big impact in your business!

What to display

Although I encourage you to be creative with your display, keep in mind that you don’t want it to be cluttered! The key message needs to be clear. Here are some display ideas:

• Use a big bow on a ‘position vacant’ sign. I like to use a ridiculously over-sized bow because it sends the message that the business opportunity is a gift and at the same time it attracts people’s attention.
• Attach cash to your opportunity display. If you can afford to use real bank notes, it will have a stronger psychological impact, but you can use fake cash too. I like to display the amount of cash that a consultant earns at a typical party. Make sure you mention that the amount is the typical amount earned! I like to ask guests to think of what they’d do with that extra cash and I usually mention how wonderful it is that you can earn that money for a couple of hours of fun. Fill out the form below to grab some display cash for US, UK, Canadian and Australian bank notes.
• Pop a storyboard on your opportunity display. A storyboard is a collage that you display to show the benefits of the business, the lifestyle it can support. Your images can include the friendships you’ve made, the family holiday you could afford from the business, incentive trips you’ve qualified for, prizes you’ve won, recognition, etc. During the party you can share the story behind some of the images to bring the storyboard to life. A storyboard also acts as powerful social proof!

These ideas are just a starting point. Your business displays are limited only to your imagination and creativity.

My bonus tip: change your recruiting displays often – you never know if a different display showing a different angle of the business opportunity will spark interest in a repeat guest.

If your display is always the same, it will stop having an impact on repeat guests – it’ll become ‘background noise’ for them.

So make sure you have a few different things you can display and talk about.

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