Work At Home Business Options

Archive for the ‘Recruiting’ Category

A few days ago I got an email from a Direct Sales consultant who is with one of the candle companies and she wanted my advice regarding a problem that she was having with her immediately upline. Today with her permission and the change of names…I am going to share the story with all of you.

Jane tells me in this email how she joined this person named Susan’s team and that Susan recruited her onto the team herself. (so, there is no middle person). Susan promises the moon and stars to Jane who has never done Direct Sales before telling her she would be there for her every step of the way with help, guidance, support and training.

After just 3 short weeks Jane all of a sudden gets the “cold shoulder” from Susan who is no longer replying to her emails, text messages or phone calls. The ONLY time she hears from Susan anymore is when Susan mails out the weekly team e-newsletter. That’s it!

Jane wanted to know my opinion about this and would it be unprofessional for her to contact her upline or corporate headquarters about it as she feels it is just plain wrong. Frankly, I totally agree with Jane!

Shelly’s Response to Jane: Jane, I understand and feel your pain as the same thing happened to me years ago when I joined a Direct Sales company for the first time. I felt totally mislead and abandoned by the consultant who had recruited me.

Jane you have EVERY right to contact your upline and/or corporate headquarters about this. It is the “JOB” of the person who recruited you to help support, guide and train you. It sounds like this particular recruiter aka team leader just cares about numbers and growing her team. She doesn’t care about building relationships with her team members and doing her “JOB” which is to help you and to answer questions when you need the help!

I am sorry that this happened to you but please…don’t give up! If you love the company and the products please contact those higher up to get the help that you need. I personally know that a lot of Direct Sales companies are cracking down on these “recruiting team machines” who don’t work with their personal teams and kudos to those companies for taking a stand on this.

To Those Who Recruit: It is YOUR JOB to answer questions, help to support your personal recruits and to train them! If you are not going to put the time and effort into doing what is considered to be YOUR JOB then you should NOT be recruiting. That is the BOTTOM LINE on this topic.

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Today I am posting a copy of an article I wrote 4-5 years ago about how to recruit new team members into your Direct Sales business. Even after all of this time I still find the information in this article to be relevant so I wanted to post it here today on my blog for all of you.

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11 Essential Direct Sales Recruiting Tips For Team Building Success by Shelly Hill

I have been working in Direct Sales since 1989 and I have learnt a lot over those years as to what it takes to be a successful Direct Sales Recruiter. I have been one of the top 10 in recruiting in our Direct Sales Unit since 2003.

One question I am often asked is, how do you manage to get so many recruits? My reply is simple, I did my homework first on what works and what doesn’t work when it comes to talking to potential recruit leads.

Here are some recruiting tips that I have learnt over the years.

11 Essential Recruiting Tips

1. Never over-hype the business opportunity! Some people are leary of those who over-hype any business opportunity, making it sound too good to be true can scare people off. Always give straightand truthful facts about your companies business opportunity.

2. When talking to a possible recruit via phone or in person, always speak clearly, do not use slang words and make sure you sound like you are excited to be talking to them about your Home Business Opportunity. Try not to have other distractions going on at the same time in the background ie. kids screaming, hubby yelling etc. The new possible recruit deserves your undivided attention.

3. Allow the person you are speaking with to to ask you questions. During the conversation at several points, make sure you say “Do you have any questions for me?” then go on and answer them.

4. Make sure you educate yourself about the current New Consultant Specials that your company is running so you can explain them to the possible new recruit. You should inform your new potential recruit of all costs in starting this home business along with normal ongoing costs such as reordering of catalogs, monthly website fee’s, order form costs, mandatory quota’s and so forth.

5. I like to end my conversations with “I would like for you to think about all of this and you can contact me again if you have any questions for me” and let them know how they can contact you again via email, phone, mail or in person type of contact. Let them know when you are available ie. Your schedule.

6. After a few days or a week if you do not hear back from them, you can initiate contact again to see if they have any questions for you. Never assume they are not interested, sometimes they get busy with other things so always follow up with them atleast one additional time.

7. I keep a list of possible recruits, sometimes its just not feasible for them to join right now ie. money committments, family committments and so forth. The next time we run a good new consultant special, I pull my list and initiate contact with them again. This has worked several times for me in getting new recruits! Just because they say no now, doesnt mean you will get another no in a few weeks!

8. I try to connect with all recruits on a personal level too. I tell them why I joined and started my own home business, a little about myself and why this company has worked for me. This gives them a personal connection. I also ask if they have children or if they are married and how this business can work for them around their family obligations and so forth.

9. Always be honest when recruiting! Dont lie and say you are making thousands of dollars! Let them know that with any business or job, it does take consistent work. Hard Work does pay off!

10. After I get a new recruit, I always follow up! I like to email them and let them know I am available to answer questions or to help them get started any way I can. I also like to snail mail them a Thank You card with my personal contact info inside it. I always make myself available at any time to answer any of their questions or to offer help when they need it.

11. Consistent Contact with New Recruits is essential for them to stay in it for the long haul. Keep in contact with them via phone, email, postal mail, team meetings etc. This keeps them connected to you and well informed about the business they are now involved in.

Remember, When you recruit…its also your job to help them get started by answering any questions they have. You just don’t sign them up and never contact them again. That makes for bad business relationships! The more help you offer and the more connection you make with them the better recruit they will be for you!

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A few days ago I had a friend email me because she is considering joining one of the direct sales companies and wanted my thoughts and opinions about the company she was considering joining. When I asked her to email me the information that the consultant gave her when she requested the business opportunity information I was really floored at what this consultant DIDN’T give her.

What do I mean? Well…no wonder my friend was “lost” and had to ask me for my opinion because this consultant was so dang vague in the information she gave her that I couldn’t even make “heads” or “tails” with it either. The consultant didn’t give her any type of commission structure numbers, nothing about downline recruiting or the recruiting structure and she didn’t even explain the sign up process. Seriously…what she sent her was 3 very vague paragraphs about what it cost to join and where to sign up. WTH? ugh!

So today I thought I would discuss this topic on my blog. If you are emailing prospects information about your company’s business opportunity program you need to make sure that you are giving factual and detailed information about the cost to join, how to join, quota’s that the company has, recruiting policies, commission structure, recruiting specials, training programs for new consultants, etc. etc. etc.

You can not email people 2-3 vague paragraphs and think they want to join your team and your company when you are not taking the time to thoroughly answer their questions and to provide them detailed information!!! No one wants to join a company blindly and if you are not going to provide that prospect with the information they need up front and quickly that prospect will go elsewhere to get the info and you will lose the prospect to someone else in your company.

That is my 2 cents on this topic so please make sure you are providing enough information to your prospects when they request it via your web site (consultant rep site) or  if they request it via email. If you take the time out to thoroughly deliver the information needed so that they can make a good informed decision you will see your recruiting numbers CLIMB instead of DECLINE.

Do You Need More Bookings? If so, check out this site!

As a Direct Sales team leader, I like to provide a way for my teammates to interact and communicate with one another. One of the ways I like to do this is by having a group message board, but there are certainly other ways you can do this that will suit your team’s needs.

1. Group Blog – You can set up a free blog and give all of your teammates the log-in information. They can read your updates, business tips and post their own.

2. Email Group – One of the most popular sites online that offer a group email loop is Yahoo. You can upload files, photo’s and store archived posts. Your members can get individual postings or a daily digest of postings delivered to their email in-box. You can set it up that you are the only one allowed to post to it or keep it open so that your group can post and respond to messages too.

3. Message Board – Having your own group message board is one of the most efficient ways to communicate with your team online. All posts can be categorized into topics and archived. Your group members can log-in when its convenient for them, read and respond to posts or ask for ideas from other group members. There are a lot of sites online that offer free or low-cost message boards. I recommend setting your message boards to private that way only you and your group have access to them.

4. Group Facebook Page – These days you can set up a private page for you and your group on the popular Facebook website. This is an option, however…I don’t feel it’s the best option for group interaction because your postings are not easily organized into topics.

5. Chat Rooms – If you are not looking for a way to have your discussions and topics archived for future use, you could set up weekly group chats in a free online chat room.

6. Teleconference Phone Calls – You can set up teleconference phone calls for your group and these calls can be recorded for the team members who couldn’t attend so that they can listen to the call when it’s convenient for them.

Why should you provide a way for your team to interact with one another? There are many benefits such as:

a. They can partner up to do parties or business events together.
b. As a group, they can hold brainstorming sessions to generate new ideas.
c. If you are using one of the first 4 options listed above, members can post questions and get timely responses when you are unavailable, from other members.

As your group grows and membership spreads out of your local area, you should provide a way for all members on your team to interact with one another as it helps to ‘instill’ the feeling of belonging to a team, we are all in this together.

This article is copyright 2009 by Shelly L. Hill, all rights reserved. This article can not be reprinted without Shelly’s official author’s bio attached to it. Please contact Shelly to obtain a copy.

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Many consultants jump into Direct Sales and don’t know anything about it and they don’t take the time out to educate themselves on it and this is a big mistake!  Just like any “job” or any “business” you need to know what you are doing and if you don’t know…well, you need to take the time out and educate yourself on it!

One good source of business education when it comes to Direct Sales is education that is provided to you from your corporate offices. This can be training seminars, company sponsored conferences, online webinars, phone teleseminars, etc. Whatever your company offers in business training it is YOUR job to take it! Many consultants “blow it off” and make “excuses” as to why they don’t participate in company sponsored training. Like I said, that is a big mistake!

Many Direct Sales companies already know what works and doesn’t work in regards to having a DS business and they tailor their training programs around what they know to be a successful system. They want to teach this system to you so that you can have a successful business. So…whatever training that is offered to you by the home office, make sure you take it!

Another good source of business education comes from your immediate and distant upline managers and team leaders. As someone who worked in Direct Sales for over 23 years…I can personally tell you that over the years only about 40-45% of my downline team ever attended my meetings and/or rallies. Many said they were too busy, had kids, too tired, blah blah blah and let me tell you…those who did attend my meetings and those who did attend company sponsored training sessions were more successful than those who did not. Now grant ya…this doesn’t apply to everyone but it does apply to those who have NEVER done Direct Sales before and just jump in with no intentions on getting officially trained!

Now…do you need to attend all of the training opportunities that are offered to you? No…we all have real lives and we all are busy people but you should participate in as many of them that you can so that you are constantly learning new business skills and staying on top of what works in Direct Sales and what doesn’t.

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I know I am probably going to catch some “heat” for this blog post but I have been in direct sales for over 25 years so I feel my opinion is important and I know of hundreds of other direct sales consultants who feel exactly the same way that I do when I see consultants running around “touting” that their company is the best, their team is the best, they have best compensation plan, the best blog, the best consultant web site and on and on and on it goes!

Well…let me tell you…when you throw around the word “BEST” in all of your advertising and social media postings it does nothing but “irk off” those who are in the same industry as you. Just because you feel you have the “best” web site, the “best” compensation plan and/or the “best” products doesn’t mean that others feel the same way. If that was the case…everyone would all be with ONE direct sales company and there wouldn’t be thousands of direct sales companies to choose from. What is “BEST” for you and to you…most likely is not “BEST” to others.

When consultants see you constantly throwing the word “BEST” around in all of your advertising and social media postings it does indeed “irk them off” and “irritate” them to no end! You can advertise your company, it’s products, it’s compensation plan, your team, your site, etc. without constantly shoving it down other peoples throats that you feel it’s the “BEST”! Know what I mean?

My gripe today is solely that…I really wish folks would “lay off” the “BEST” in all of their advertising and social media postings. What is “RIGHT” and “BEST” to you doesn’t mean it is the same for the people reading your ads, facebook postings, tweets, etc. etc. etc. I find that it gets on my nerves and I know it gets on other consultants nerves too.

Now let’s say you have the “BIGGEST” site online or you are involved with the “BIGGEST” direct sales company…that still doesn’t mean it is the “BEST” site online or the “BEST” company to join. Everyone has different tastes, needs, wants, expectations, goals, etc.

So the next time you are drafting up some advertising, facebook posts, tweets, blog posts, flyers, etc. How about you try leaving the word “BEST” out of it?

That’s my gripe today and my 2 cents on the matter.

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