Keeping Customers Informed Of The Ordering & Shipping Process…

When it comes to shipping products to your customers what is your normal shipping time? When there are delays in shipping a product to a customer/client, do you take the time to notify them of this delay?

To keep your customers happy, you really need to keep them informed of their order status once you have placed the order. Just taking the order and submitting it…is not enough. Here is what you should be doing.

1. Once you have processed the payment and submitted the order, email the customer a copy of the receipt or shipping invoice.

2. Once the product has shipped, email the customer to let them know that their purchase is on its way.

3. Wait 7-10 days and follow up. Send the customer an email or give them a call to make sure their order has arrived and to inquire if everything was perfect with their order. If not, do what you can IMMEDIATELY to rectify any shipping problems that might of occured.

Keeping customers informed of the ordering and shipping process is making for a very happy customer which in turn gets you repeat business and future referrals from that particular customer.

~ Shelly ~

How Product Reviews Can Benefit You and Your Business

When it comes to having a home business, it is very important to market your business and your business products towards your targeted niche. When it comes to Direct Sales, Crafts and other type’s of small home businesses, the majority of time this niche is women and/or moms.

One way to expose your business products to online moms is by participating in a product review. By sending your product to a reviewer, you are giving the reviewer the chance to use and inspect your product. This reviewer will then write up a professionally done product review and post it online for others to read.

However, let me give a caution of warning with this…You will find online reviewer’s who only care about getting free product out of you! You need to do your research before sending any type of product to a reviewer. You want to find one that is going to be actively promoting his/her review on numerous social networking sites such as work at home mom forums, Facebook, Twitter, Linked-in etc. You don’t want a reviewer who just posts a review on their site and that is the end of it. You want that product review to be seen by as many ‘eyes’ as possible.

Furthermore, you want your product reviews to be professionally written and posted by someone who is highly regarded in their niche.

A bonus to participating in a product review is that you will get a quality link back to your web site, Blog and social media profile pages. This quality link back will be a great way for visitors to find you for years to come…plus, it will help you with search engine ranking.

When potential buyers read product reviews they are looking for the review to come from a trusted non-bias source…a truthful opinion about your product will help to entice buyers to buy your product or to visit your web site to check out additional products and/or services that you provide.

Product Reviewers can help you to create an online presence and to help create a positive buzz about your business and the products you are trying to sell.

~ Shelly Hill ~

This information can not be reprinted without my permission. Copyright 2010, All Rights Reserved.

Social Networking – How To Handle Topic Conflicts

The popularity of online business networking on various social networking sites such as twitter, facebook, ning, linked-in and the popular wahm (work at home mom) forums is growing in popularity with home business owners…especially with those who are in Direct Sales.

Often times when networking online, you will find a group of individuals discussing a hot-button topic and you wonder to yourself, should you voice your opinion. My answer to that is…if you feel strongly about the topic, yes…but do so in a professional and respectful manner.

I recently visiting a social networking site and saw a handful of people bashing and discussing a couple of DS companies…discussing is one thing, bashing is another. I will not participate in ‘bashing’ discussions as it makes everyone involved look catty and unprofessional. If the discussion is heated and turning into a bash-fest, you are better to leave it alone and walk away.

If the discussion is a heated topic on business such as how to properly network or advertise online…you can participate and voice your opinion. The thing to remember is to be respectful and diplomatic in your approach. If you are going to ‘correct’ something that someone has posted and you feel it was the ‘incorrect’ information, your best bet is to back it up with some facts…like a reference or link to the correct information.

You don’t have to sit back and keep your opinions to yourself…there is nothing wrong with participating in business hot topics as long as you remember to keep your professionalism in check.

To your networking success,

Shelly

Direct Sales and Business Blogging

I am often asked if its necessary to have a blog if you are in Direct Sales and my answers is this…if you are looking to build a Direct Sales business online…then yes. If you are only looking to market your business offline, well then, you don’t need an online business blog.

Often times a Direct Sales consultant will start a business blog and then shortly after they abandon it or they just copy and paste a lot of corporate information onto it. Seriously…this is the wrong thing to do. It takes a lot of time and hard work to build up a blog following and millions of people will not flock to your blog over night…it takes months to build up a good traffic stream to your blog.

The next thing I would like to discuss is blog content. If you have a Direct Sales blog, then your blog needs to be content rich, meaning…less sales ads and more helpful information that your readers will want to read and to keep them coming back for more.

Way too often I see consultants make the mistake of loading up their blogs with sales pitches, sales ads & specials, banners, buttons, graphics of their products and other things that will drive a reader away. When people visit a blog they want to READ content. This content should be in the form of helpful tips, indepth product information, how to use such and such product and things of this nature. They don’t need to see ‘in your face’ spam ads!

If you are considering starting a blog or if you already have a blog, I suggest you visit some other Direct Seller blogs that are successful to see the type of content they are posting on their blogs to help guide you down the correct path to Direct Sales blogging.

Remember…it’s all about good information and helpful content and less about what you have on sale that week.

~ Shelly ~

How To Choose The Right Business For You

When it comes to joining the right Direct Sales business for you, there are many things you need to consider. With my post today, I would like to point out what you should be considering in regards to selecting the ‘right’ company for you.

1. Are you familiar with the products for this particular company? Are you already using them?

To succeed with whatever company you choose, you need to use and love the products that you will be selling to others. You should never join a company who’s products you have never personally used.

2. What is required of you? Will there be weekly or monthly sales meeting that you will be required to attend? If so, do these meetings fit into your schedule?

3. Consultant Compensation Plan – Do you understand the compensation plan? If it’s a legitimate company, you will be selling a product and/or service. Do you feel that you will be paid adequately for the work that you will be doing?

4. Products – Are the products in high demand in your local area? Are the products of high quality? Do the products come with a company backed warranty or does the consultant eat the costs when a customer is unhappy?

5. Placing Orders and Delivering Orders – How are orders placed? Are they mail-in, phone, email, internet, etc. and does this order method suit your needs? Who delivers the orders? If it is you…how many hours a week can you devote to personally delivery orderings? Does the company offer direct to customer shipping?

6. Start up costs – Almost all legit company’s have some sort of start up cost…I have seen them low cost (around $20 and up to $500). If you are paying to start a home business in Direct Sales…can you afford the start up costs? What do you get for these costs?

When you pay for a start up business kit, you want to make sure you get several demonstration products, paper business supplies, a consultant manual/guide book, etc. You don’t want to be sucked in by paying $100 and a few days later find out that you need to dish out another $50 to get everything that you need.

7. Training – Who will be responsible for training you? How will this training be conducted? You will want to make sure that your sponsor’s schedule meets your schedule and that however this person does their training that it suits your needs.

There are a lot of things to consider before joining a Direct Sales company. I suggest you sit down with pen and paper and come up with a list of things that you are looking for in regards to finding a reputable company. Before you sign up on the dotted line, get all of your questions and concerns answered by your potential sponsor…then take a few days to think about it before making your decision.

Shelly

Do You Challenge Yourself In Your Business?

Do you challenage yourself in your home business? If not, you really should!

I like to give myself monthly challenges as this helps to motivate me and helps to keep me on track with my business goals.

I will look over my previous months activities and then come up with a challenge for the following month.

For example:

If I had 4 party bookings in December, I will challenge myself to obtain 5 for January. If I had 7 new customers the previous month, I will challenge myself to obtain 9 in January.

If I spent 10 hours in December networking my business online, I will challenge myself to spend 15 hours in January.

I think it’s very important to keep stats on your month to month activities. Then use these stats to challenge yourself to ‘up’ those states the following month.

Giving yourself monthly challenges can help to motivate you to do even more for your business the following month. If I accomplish the personal challenge that I have given to myself, I like to reward myself with a little something for myself ie. manicure, pedicure, massage, etc. Not only will you end up ‘treating’ yourself with a little something…but you will end up with a business that is growing at a steady pace.

The more you work on your business…the more it grows and the more money you will make.

~Shelly~

The Booster – Things To Help You In Your Business

Are you looking for some products to help you with your Direct Sales business? If so, Please check out The Booster!

I have bought a lot of products aka sales aids from the booster over the years and I feel they are very beneficial for any Direct Sales business.

You can purchase pens, pencils, stickers, postcards, bookmarks and other “paper” type of goods to help assist you with your business. I personally like the stickers that I can stick and use in my product catalogs. I am also a big fan of their preferred customer club cards and ‘new’ catalog is available postcards.

You can also purchase some great books that are geared towards those of us in Direct Sales. I personally own and have used the “Meeting Magic” book which is great for team leaders!

So head on over to The Booster web site and see if they have anything to help assist you with your Direct Sales business.

~ Shelly ~

Online Marketing Spam and Direct Sales

When it comes to Direct Sales and trying to build a Direct Sales Home Business, I often see consultants/reps make numerous mistakes in what is considered to be ’spam marketing’.

What is spam marketing you might ask? Well, it is many things so we will go over a few of them in this post.

If you are running online and joining social networks and work at home forum boards and only joining them to spam your business information…guess what? You are a spam marketer.

If you are building a blog but taking the email address of those who follow or comment on your blog and adding them to your newsletter list…you are a spam marketer.

If you are sending customer newsletters, sales ads and other information via email to people who did not specifically sign up to receive your sales information…you are a spam marketer.

If you are running around and visiting various Direct Sales Consultants Web Sites and snagging their telephone number off their web sites and calling them up and giving them your sales pitch on why they should leave their company and join yours…guess what? You are a spam marketer.

Spam is many things and often times…Direct Sales consultants are not properly trained on how they should be building their customer lists or how they should be marketing themselves online.

If you are marketing your home business in any of the ways I described above…you are a spam marketer and it’s NOT the proper way you should be doing business.

If you want to market yourself and your business the right way, I suggest you read through several of the posts on this blog. Check out our business tips, business articles and direct sales articles that will help guide you down the correct path to marketing a Direct Sales business online.

~ Shelly ~

Adding Re-order Stickers to DS Products

When it comes to selling consumable Direct Sales products, you will often see direct sales reps who add ‘Re-order’ stickers to the products and to the products packaging. They are told to do this usually by their trainers or home offices.

I personally do not like re-order stickers all over the products that I purchase from various Direct Sales Reps. I find that it degrades the appearance of some of the products that I use. I look at it this way…companies put great thought and design talents into making a product packaging look pretty…some are so pretty that we let them sit out on our countertop or vanity…when you slap re-order stickers all over the product, I think it degrades the pretty appearance.

Now some of you might say…well, just peel them off. Often times…they don’t come off easily or they leave an icky sticky residue.

I was tweeting about this very topic over on twitter and several DS reps came forward and agreed with me in regards to the tackiness of slapping reorder stickers all over the products that you sell.

In my personal opinion (yes my personal opinion), I don’t like having them on the products I purchase. However, if you insist on putting the stickers onto your products, it should go on the packaging (box, bag, whatever) and not on the product itself. I think having the stickers on the product…degrades its pretty appearance.

I really don’t think slapping these stickers all over your products helps with repeat sales…after all, your customer purchased it from you once…so they usually know how to find you to purchase it again.

I find that imprinting your business information onto a pretty refrigerator magnet and including that magnet in with the order is a much better way to get your repeat orders.

~ Shelly ~

Professionalism On The Telephone

When it comes to making or receiving business phone calls, are you putting your best foot forward? Are you being a real professional when making your business calls or when receiving business related phone calls?

As a home business owner since 1989, I can’t tell you how many times I have encountered bad professionalism when it comes to phone calls. Just because you are working from home, doesn’t give you the right to be rude to those who call you or be rude to those who you call.

Just last month, I called a local consultant who sells cosmetics as I needed to place an order for some products. I make it a habit to purchase as much as I can from fellow Direct Sales consultants. Well, I call her at 11am and she answers the phone “Hello, who is this? Before I could even get a word out of my mouth, those 4 words were out of hers. Not only that, she was hasty and rude as she said them. If you are a home business professional, you can not be answering the phone like that as you never know when a potential recruit lead or customer will be calling you.

The proper way should of been, “Hello” and then pause and wait for the person calling you to speak and let them identify themselves. If after they speak they don’t identify themselves, then it’s okay to ask them who they are. I was really turned off by how this consultant answered the phone and trust me, the rest of our conversation was not in the lines of being professional.

She took my order but she was hasty as I asked questions about a particular product I wanted to order. I did order it but for repeat orders, I will find someone else.

The point of my blog post today is to remind you that if you are working from home and using a particular phone number for your business calls…you need to ALWAYS answer the phone in a professional manner, you never know who is calling you. Furthermore, when making phone calls to leads or customers, we deserve your full attention without background noise.

I do not call my customers, hosts or leads while I am out doing my daily errands. I wait until I am home, the house is quiet and when I can give them my full attention and you should be doing the same.

Using your telephone for business is very important and it should be treated as a business tool…not a nuisance.

Shelly

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