How To Set Up A Direct Sales Business Blog

When it comes to Direct Sales, many consultants these days are chosing to start an online business blog as a way to reach out to their established customers but more importantly…as a way to attract new ones.

Before you make the decision to start a business blog, you need to contact your Direct Sales Company to make sure you are allowed to have one online & to see if they have any company rules regarding online advertising. You also need to make sure you have the time to stick with updating your blog before you even get started.

After you have made the decision, it’s now time to decide where you want to build your blog online. Two of the most popular sites for online blogging is Blogger and Wordpress. You will want to open up an account and get your blog set up. Once you open up an account, you can pick out a design. There are thousands of free online blogger and wordpress templates for you to choose from. Once you select one, you need to install it onto your blog.

Now that you have that completed, it’s time to get busy making some posts onto your blog. When it comes to blogging about your business, it is important to keep your new blog strictly about business and not your personal life. In addition, you don’t want your blog to come off as a big fat spam ad…so make sure you fill it up with informative content about your company, your services, your products and so forth. Once you got some content onto your blog, it will be time to advertise its web address.

You can advertise your blog online by joining a few online blog directories, putting your link in your signature tag, announcing it on your Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In Accounts and so forth. There are many ways to advertise online and you can find additional ways to do that by reading other articles here on our blog.

My best tip about blogging for business is to keep at it. People don’t just magically find your blog…just like they don’t just magically find your business services, so it’s your job to promote your new blog & to keep it fresh & updated with new posts.

Happy Blogging!

Shelly

Business Blogging – Topics That Can Drive Readers Away

When it comes to blogging for your business, you really need to pay attention to the type of posts you are putting up for your readers to read. If you post the wrong topics on your business blog, you will drive your readers away which defeats the purpose of blogging for your business.

I read hundreds of blogs each and every week. Some of these blogs are business blogs, some are personal blogs and some are a mixture of both (which I totally disagree about mixing business & pleasure together on a blog).

There are some topics that should never be discussed on a business blog (unless you have a business blog that is totally geared towards a certain industry) and I would like to touch upon those today.

When a customer or potential customer is reading your business blog, they don’t want to read about the following topics:

Your Love Life
Your Home Life Is A Mess
Your Spouse Left You
Hate Words, Curse Words, etc.
Your Neighbors or Your Boss
etc. etc. etc.

A Business Blog is just that…a place where you can share information with others about your business, the types of products or services you offer and a place for you to give indepth service & product knowledge. It is a place to give your readers more information about your business…it is not a place to gossip about your love life, your family or your neighbors.

Case In Point: Just last week I went to check out a persons business blog…but yet…when I got onto her blog, 90% of the posts were chit chat family and personal stuff. What turned me off even more was when I saw a lot of inappropriate language (including curse words) on what she calls “Her Business Blog”. Geesh, that is one sure fire way to drive your readers away for sure and more importantly, it makes you like UNPROFESSIONAL.

So here is my advice….if you want to post chit chat family stuff, you are better off to make a second blog. Keep one blog for business and one for personal.

You want to draw potential customers to you and not drive them away.

Shelly

Customer Service Tip – Be Nice But Firm About Business Policy

At times you are likely to encounter a stubborn customer or two. It is important to not give into customer demands…especially if those demands go against your Direct Sales Company Policy or Business Policy.

You want to be nice to your customer but firm with issues regarding customer policy. Don’t cave-in just because they threaten to go elsewhere. It is better to stay within your business policy guidelines than to step outside of them and get into trouble.

Shelly

Social Media Business Tip – Be Careful What You Post

I am constantly amazed at what people publicly post on their Twitter pages, Facebook pages and their personal blogs. However, people need to realize that people do read this information and it can shed a very bad light on you and your business if you are not careful about what you are posting. Furthermore, your posts will be archived and indexed by search engines for years to come…even if you delete it.

It is really inappropriate to use abusive language on these types of social media sites and when a potential customer or client stumbles upon your words…trust me, they will move on to the next person who can service their needs.

So our tip for this week deals with watch what you post & say on various social media sites…including your business & personal blogs.

Shelly

Balancing Your Business Budget – Demo Products

When it comes to having a home based Direct Sales business, it is very easy to not balance our business demonstration budget.

We are often times enticed by our home company to buy all of the new demonstration products that are released each season…this can all add up to hundreds of dollars that you spend every year purchasing demo products.

I always like to train my downline consultants to stay ‘within’ their business budget when it comes to purchasing demonstration products. You don’t need every new great product that your company comes out with to show at your home parties and events. I recommend getting just a few items that you feel will be big sellers. Personally, I try to stay away from seasonal items because I don’t want to be stuck with those demo’s after the season ends…so if you do buy seasonal items, keep it limited to just a few.

If you are just getting started, I recommend just getting 3-5 new products every season…if you are a seasoned consultant with a big party line-up, then go ahead and purchase more.

Tax Tip: When purchasing demo’s make sure you keep your receipts for tax time as these items can be applied to your business expenses.

It is important to keep our business in-check when it comes to our spending and one way we can do that is by keeping an eye on how many demo products we buy each season.

Shelly

Don’t Disguise Sales Spam As Newsletters

When it comes to writing and creating an effective newsletter that you email out to your customers & clients, you need to keep the sales ads to a minimum.

Don’t draft up a slew of product sales ads and recruiting business opportunity ads and then disguise it (name it a newsletter) and email it out to your customers. If you do, you will lose subscribers really quickly!

A newsletter should contain helpful and educational information about the products you are trying to market. You can included customer/client testimonials, a blurb about your business opportunity, etc in the newsletter but it certainly should not be full of nothing but sales ads.

Think about newsletters like this: If you signed up to get company X’s newsletter and it arrived in your inbox and you opened it up to find NOTHING but 15 sales ads inside it. Would this turn you off? It would me! I want to know why I need a product, how to use a product, features of the product and how this product can fit into my life. Give me a reason to want to purchase it besides that its on sale for a great price.

Newsletters to me are a tool to reach customers and its a valuable tool if done correctly.

So instead of disgusing your sales ads and naming them as newsletters…put some time & effort into your newsletter and educate your customers about the products you are selling.

Shelly

Beware – Self Professed Home Business Guru’s & Experts

Today I would like to share a home business tip with you that I feel is very important…especially if you are networking and/or doing business online.

When online, you will come across many self-professed work at home experts and guru’s but you need to be careful in who you trust.

I have been networking and working online for 14 years and I can personally tell you that I have run into way too many to count folks who claim to be an expert in home business, business coaching, training, etc. Most of these times, these folks have had NO professional training and ‘think’ that after 1-2 years of running a home business, that it qualifies them to be an expert. As you can see…it is a big problem online.

My tip & advice to you today is this…if you are thinking about buying someone’s ebook, coaching or training services, you really need to check this person out. Ask them for references, educational/training background etc. You can not take their word on it nor can you figure out if they are legit or not.

Anyone can make a name for themself online…good or bad and when it’s bad…it takes some time to come out.

So always proceed with caution & ask for references and check them out before signing up or purchasing anything from home business guru’s or self-proclaimed experts.

Shelly

The Importance Of Explaining Your Warranty, Returns and Exchange Policy To Customers

When it comes to Direct Sales and demonstrating your business products at home parties, it is important to take time out to explain your company’s warranty, returns and exchange policy to all of your home party guests.

Customers who attend your home parties have the right to know your business policy up front before they place an order. There are a few ways you can approach this but I feel its best to do it at the beginning of the ordering process, in other words…before your customer starts filling out the order form.

You can go over your company’s policy several different ways, However, I like to do a combination of ways to ensure that my customers know the policy. Here is how I handle it.

1. After talking about my products and before I have the guests fill out the order forms, I like to spend 5 minutes talking about my particular company’s policy and I do this in a group setting…near the end of my demonstration time period.

2. My company has the policy printed in the catalog so I tab that particular page with tab-type stickers.

3. My company has the policy imprinted on the back of our order forms so when each customer hands me their order form, I like to ask them if they have any questions about my company’s policy.

By spending a few minutes at your home parties explaining your company’s policy to all of your party guests, you will save yourself time, money and a headache down the road. Customers have the right to know your business policy before they give you an order so its in your best business interest to spend time explaining it to them.

What are your thoughts? Do you spend time talking about this at your home parties? If so, is it in a group setting or one on one with your customers?

Shelly

Twitter and Setting Up Your Account To Tweet Later

Twitter is an online popular social media web site that has become the flavor of the day in regards to marketing your home business, communicating with clients and customers and so forth.

A popular trend on Twitter is for home business owners to set up tweet later accounts. If you are not familiar with this, you can set up tweets to go out various times to your twitter followers whether you are online or not. There are several online sites that offer this type of tweet later application.

I believe that setting up tweets to go out when you are not online or too busy to tweet…however, you need to change them frequently. If you are tweeting the same 20 tweets over and over for days on end, it will irritate your twitter followers and many will quit unfollowing you.

Just like your web site and blog, your tweets need to include updated content often. If you are using a tweet later type of application, I suggest changing your content at least every 2-3 days if not more frequently.

Your followers don’t want to waste their valuable time reading and seeing the same handful of tweets from you over and over.

What are your thoughts?

Shelly

It’s Just Not About Selling Your Products

When it comes to having a Direct Sales home business, its just not about selling your products to your customers. Direct Sales and Network Marketing is also about building relationships with your customers, party hosts, team members, etc.

Many times a consultant gets too focused in pushing the product sale that they forget about building a trustworthy business relationship with the customer/client.

One of the ways you can build a relationship with your customer is to keep in contact with them. Let the customer know that you appreciate their business and that you are there for them when then need additional items.

When I work on building a relationship with my customers and clients, I like to talk to them about some generic personal topics…such as: Are they married, have children, hobbies, holidays, vacation plans and so forth. By allowing some personal chit-chat when you are conversing with customers/clients, this opens up the door to some ‘personal’ relationship building.

Studies have shown that customers/clients are more apt to do business with you or refer their friends and family to you…if they feel like they have a good business & personal relationship with you. It reminds me of the old saying “Customers will do business with those they know & trust” so its your job to get to know your customers and to let your customers get to know you.

When you take the time to build relationships with those who you come into contact with…this will lead to future sales, additional party bookings, new team members and so forth. Relationship building is well worth your time & effort and should be done on a consistent basis.

How do you like to build relationships with your customers and clients?

Shelly

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