When I started out in my party plan career I wasn’t even aware that it was something you could do as a career.
For 2 years I had been meandering along, doing parties and making a bit of spare cash, a bit of extra on top of what I earned in my “real” job. Then I attended a company event.
And everything changed.
I became incredibly motivated and I decided that next time I would be on stage because I would be the one receiving recognition.
Why company events are so important for direct sellers
An event is a massive booster for anybody in the direct selling industry because it makes people more excited to be part of the brand and this particular group of people.
It builds your team as they get to know each other better, cheer for each other, and support each other.
Then there’s the recognition.
Most direct selling companies provide recognition at events that’s super powerful. Powerful not just for the person being recognized but also for their peers.
Seeing someone you know recognized in very public way will increase your desire to also be recognized as well. And once you get that public recognition and feel that appreciation and sense of accomplishment, you’ll want more!
Company events can turn an average consultant into someone who’s excited to build her business, someone who spends more time and effort on her business, someone who’s excited to set goals and achieve them.
Company events are such a great way to increase people’s motivation that you want as many of your team as possible to attend the next company event.
So here are 5 tips to help you do just that.
Tips to get your direct sales team to the next company event
Tip 1: Go old school. As soon as the event is announced, send out personalized invites via snail mail to your teamies or alternatively just to the leaders.
In this era of Facebook messenger and emails, handwritten and mailed material stands out. It feels personal, it feels like someone cares, it makes the recipient feel special.
A nice snail mail invite will really add to the excitement and boost the chance that your team members will attend the event.
Tip 2: Facebook is your friend. You also want to post regular reminders on your team Facebook page or whatever other platform you are using to communicate with your team. But a reminder alone is not enough. To make Facebook reminders actually work, you need to include the registration link to the event. Every. Single. Time.
You want to make it easy for your team members to commit to the event the moment it pops up in their feed and they’ve got a spare minute. If your company does not require registration, set-up registration yourself for your team.
By registering, someone commits.
And if they’ve committed they will attend. And if they attend they get motivated to work harder on their business.
To set-up your own registration you can use Trybooking.com , Eventbrite or even a Google Form
Tip 3: Eye candy. Put together a slideshow or video to inspire your team to attend. Photos from your company will work, but your own photos from previous events are even better. You can use iMovie to make “movie trailers”, Ripl to create social media videos, or you can Facebook’s carousel option for a slide show.
Tip 4: Use the power of peers. Seek testimonials from team members who have attended this event before. A video testimonial from a team member who’s enthusiastic, who talks about what they got out of it and why they recommend attending is incredibly powerful.
Peer recommendations work really well in both written and video form. Some team members will be comfortable recording a video, others might prefer a written testimonial and that is perfect. This way you can post a nice variety of recommendations to your team.
Tip 5: Get in their phone. Use SMS to send a personal text message. In the message you can include an inspiring image, a quick encouragement to attend and a direct link to the registration page.
Make the message a personal message from you, not a “corporate-y” message.
As you can see, I use a combination of ways to reach out to my team and I try to make it as personal as possible while still managing my time.
By letting other, enthusiastic team members help you with their testimonials and by using systems such as Facebook and group text I can still manage my time effectively.
