Integrity & Your Business

All week long on our daily LIVE over on our business page, we've been talking about integrity in business. How you conducting yourself professionally (and personally!) reflects not only on your business but also on that of your parent company as a whole. Today I wanted to continue that discussion. Here are links to our LIVES if you missed them. 

Don't Be "That Girl" - How to Act in Groups and Pages
Are You Poaching from Your Sister Consultants?
Do What You Say You're Going to Do
Treat Your Business Like a Business

So, have you seen these bad behaviors by someone online? What's your take? Do you agree that it's things like this that contribute to the negative impression some have of our industry?

Your April MAP is here

Need ideas to use for your April interaction posts? Here is a compiled list of different fun holidays for the month - some of these would also make great theme parties inside your group, as well.

Get Successfully Social for March

Hey there direct sellers! With March right around the corner, it's time to formulate your Marketing Action Plan (MAP) if you haven't already. Awhile back in our blog post Top Ten Things to Implement in your Direct Sales Customer Group in 2018, we encouraged you to start some new things in your closed Customer Communities this year, and with that in mind I've created you a "cheat sheet" of a few things happening in March that you can use towards your theme parties and random holiday celebrations. 

Theme Parties Ideas for Direct Sellers

So one of the things that Kelly and I recommend doing inside your closed Customer Community is doing a monthly theme party. Why? Because they are fun! Because they get attention! Because you never know what theme is going to strike a chord with your audience!

So, that said, we wanted to give you a few theme ideas that you can use in your own customer group. Comment below if you have some additional favorites you like to use.

Learners are Earners

Y'all have heard that saying before right? Ask any top CEO and they will tell you that you have to not be too afraid to continue to learn new things. In the spirit of that particular sentiment (because who doesn't want to think like a CEO), I am continually looking for ways to educate myself on new topics, enhance my knowledge of topics important to me, and basically just keep my brainpower growing. Whether it's purchasing online training, attending webinars, reading books, or going to conferences, all of those activities feed not only my brain but my soul.

This past weekend, I attended CinchShare's Cinch Summit in Orlando, FL. This was the second year in a row I have attended, and they did not disappoint. They put on a great conference, with the sole focus of the event being various aspects of social media. We talked about everything from Facebook parties, to online recruiting, to Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Now granted, I probably knew more than the average attendee about these topics, just given the nature of what I do, but nevertheless, I still learned a couple of cool tricks. For example, I've been using CinchShare for years and I wasn't aware they'd added in functionality to schedule to Instagram. Sweet. Totally doing that now. I love anything that lets me work smarter not harder!

Kelly and I have been guest trainers for CinchShare before, and we have another training event coming up with them next week on 2/8 at 9pm eastern. The whole thing will take place on their Facebook page - come check it out - we'll be talking Facebook Customer Communities, which y'all know is a subject near and dear to our hearts. While you're there, check out some of their past trainings, there is a whole slew of useful stuff!!

Retired Inventory = BOOKINGS!

If there is one thing direct sales companies LOVE to do, it's to come out with new products for their line. But to do that, they often need to retire existing product, and then direct sellers all throughout the lands are trying to sell off their retired inventory through flash sales, vendor events, online auction sites, etc. I'm here to tell you to S.T.O.P. (Sort, Take pics, Offer it free, Party). 

Alright, I might have lost some of you on the whole "Offer it free" part. But just stick with me here. Let's just say that you work for a jewelry company and they just came out with their spring line, and have discontinued 15 of the items that you've been displaying at your fall and winter parties (a conservative estimate for many direct sellers who like to have a TON of items on hand to demo to their customers). And let's just say that those items range in retail value from $45-90 each. Now, you could go ahead and offer them up for sale in your customer group, or at a vendor event, but I'm going to guess that if you do that, you're going to discount them at least 25%, because they are retired, they have been displayed (as opposed to brand new in package) and that 25% you're discounting them might just be most if not all of your commission rate. So for simplicity's sake, because I'm no math guru, let's suppose 10 of those 15 items you list were all retail valued at $50 each and you sold them at a discount for $37 each, making a total of $370. Not bad, right? Heck, who doesn't want an extra $370 in their pocket!

But...what if, instead, you gave those away as a booking bonus to people who booked parties with you in the next two months? Suppose your party average is $500 and those same ten $50 retail value items got you ten bookings. At that same 25% commission rate, you've now made $1250 instead of $370, AND you've gotten in front of customers (either live or virtually), AND you've likely booked more additional parties off those initial ten. BAM! Win!!

So, let's break it down: S.T.O.P.

Sort: go through your retired items and decide which ten you're going to offer up. I don't care if you have thirty items to choose from, JUST DO 10. This is exclusivity. There are limited choices, these peeps better hurry up and book if they want in on the action. People who are on the fence will do it, because they do not want to miss out!!

Take pics: don't just use pics from the catalog, take your own. You clearly have the item on hand, so there is no reason you can't stage it nice on a black or white or cork background and snap a pic of it. Each item individually. Once you do this with all ten items, you're going to pull them into Canva or PicMonkey or wherever it is you like to edit graphics, and you're going to make each one all pretty in a cute frame with the item name, a letter A-J, the retail price, and the word FREE underneath that. I've included some frames in various colors below if you want to save out your fave and pull it into your graphics editing software to start creating your images.

Offer it free: take those ten images and write up a little blub about what the heck it is you're doing. Something along the lines of "Hey, the new spring catalog is out and OMG it's amazing!! I have some adorable pieces that are retiring from fall and YOU have the chance to pick your fave for free. First come first served, just reply back with the date you'd like to book a party, and your first, second and third choice of free gift." Then include those 10 pics below your blurb. You can post this in your customer group, message it out to your past hostesses, send it in an email to all of your customers...however it is that you prefer to communicate with your tribe.

Party: go party it up, girl!!! All these bookings will receive their free item AT their party (for home parties) or mailed to them after they hold their show (for online parties).

Look at you, you just made 70% more than you would have just selling those pieces outright. And you're no longer hoarding stuff you don't really need. #soproudofyou

Here are some various colored frames, all ready for you to put your gorgeous inventory items in using your favorite image editor:

Pink Frame

White Frame

Grey Frame

Green Frame

Green Frame

New Catalog Coming Out? Read on!

Most companies come out with a new catalog sometime in the first quarter of the year. If this is you, here are a few quick tips to make sure you’re getting those catalogs in the hands of your customers and potential hostesses for the season, and building the excitement of the new products your company has come out with.

Spread the Excitement – think about going live on your customer group with your new products (if you have them in hand) or with your favorite parts of the actual catalog itself if you don’t. This is going to help let your own excitement for the new stuff shine through. If your company offers amazing hostess exclusive items, these are FABULOUS to highlight, as well.

Share pics – once you get that stuff in hand, create some artful displays around your home with your items, if you sell home décor. Or some cute styles you can pair with the new jewelry, if you sell jewelry. Or some fresh new looks with the make-up if that’s your industry. You get the idea. Show items in use, not just photos straight off your website. Let people envision your items in a real-world scenario, not on a closed set. Life isn’t a catalog!!

Have you done a Google form in the past, whether in your Facebook parties, your closed group, in a customer email, etc? Go back through your previous responses of who wanted a catalog last time around and go ahead and send them a new one along with a short handwritten note to check out what’s new and text you with their favorite item for a chance to be entered in your monthly customer drawing.

Haven’t done a Google form? DO IT NOW!!! Create one and post the link to it in your customer group (super easy, I promise, and one of the things Kelly and I walk you through step-by-step in our Facebook Party Course). Give people the opportunity to fill that out and let you know they would like a catalog, and enter all them in your monthly customer drawing. 

If you get home office leads from your company, go back through those leads and reach out to people who had expressed interest in the past – whether for a catalog, hosting, or the business, and let them know about the new catalog, and of course offer to send them one. 

Newness is exciting, and you need to capitalize on that! Yes, I realize catalogs cost you money, but they are hands-down your best marketing piece to get in people’s hands. I know they can see things online, but there is something about sitting on the couch looking at a catalog and dog-earing those pages that makes people want your stuff even more!

Stay tuned next week when I’ll be giving you guys my absolute favorite idea of what to do with all those products you have that are retired from your display (yeah, hoarder, I’m talking to you – time to get it GONE!!!)