Work At Home Business Options

Posts Tagged ‘team building’

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.

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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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I have been working from home in Direct Sales since 1989 and I have a lot of personal experience in managing a large Direct Sales downline team. Today I thought I would share my opinions with all of you regarding FREE start-up kits vs. Paid start-up kits when it comes to joining a Direct Sales home business.

Yes folks…this is my personal opinion but I do draw my opinion from being in the business for over 20+ years.

I was with one particular company for 8 1/2 years and during that time we had a few times that the company offered free or heavily discounted (almost free) business start-up kits. Over those years…that same company would also offer regular priced start-up kits.

During the FREE start-up kit/enrollment periods we all would get a lot of new recruits/consultants joining our teams and I really mean…a lot! During one of these big recruting pushes, I actually brought in 34 new team members (myself) in one month. Within 3 months only 3 of those 34 team members actually stayed with the business and wanted to work it as a business. The other 31 told me after 3 months…that they only joined to get in on the free deal or they only joined to purchase products for themselves at a discount. Well, that might be acceptable to some of you…that is not acceptable to me.

I wasted a lot of time and effort trying to train, educate, motivate and communicate with 31 people who had NO desire and NO interest in working it as a business. It would of been nice for those 31 people to tell me upfront that it was their intentions to not do anything with the business so that I could of solely focused my time on those who did.

In my personal experience…when recruits joined my team and had to INVEST some money in their kits they at least TRIED to earn back what they spent on their kits and most tried to work it as a business to turn a profit. When there is MONEY involved people are more apt to work hard to get that investment back.

So…I am not a BIG FAN of no-investment start-up kits because I believe there is NO motivation behind folks trying to work the business to earn their money back. With that said, there will be a handful of people who join direct sales companies when there are FREE promotion periods who will stick in it and work it hard like a business…most will not.

Again…this is my personal opinion and from personal experience. What do you think about this topic?

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If you are with any of the Direct Sales companies, I am sure that you are aware that if you want to make the big money, you need to be out there recruiting and adding new team members to your team. However, the real question is, Is Team Building Right For You?

When you are considering building a team with your Direct Sales business, there are several things that you need to consider. When you build a team, you are responsible for training, supporting, motivating and communicating with your team on a consistent basis. Before you start adding new consultants to your business, there are a few things you need to consider.

1. Experience: How long have you been with your particular company? Do you know everything you need to know about your company, their business policies and their products? If not, then you should not be recruiting. When a new member joins your team, you are responsible for training them and supporting them. If you don’t know what you need to know about the business, there is no way you can effectively help them. I suggest you work on learning everything that you need to know and get some experience before adding new consultants to your team.

2. Time Commitment: When you start training and managing your own downline team, you will need to be committed to giving up several hours a week of your time to just lead and train your team. You can not just sign people up and push them off to others. As their recruiter, it is your job to help them and that can be very time consuming. If you don’t have several hours a week to spare on just leading your team, you should not be recruiting.

3. Money: Managing your own team, especially a large one, can get expensive. There will be meeting and rallies to pay for, training materials to buy, refreshments to be made and served, phone calls to be made, etc. The company you represent normally does not pay for these costs and most times, this responsibility falls on the leader of the team. Before you start adding team members, it is important to figure out your financial situation and make sure you can afford the extra costs involved.

These 3 questions are the big ones that you need to consider before you leap into the world of recruiting. When you build a Direct Sales team, it is your responsibility to make time for your team, so before you add that first new member…make sure this is really what you want.

This article is copyright 2011 By Shelly Hill, All Rights Reserved.

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Today I thought I would share with all of you my top 5 tips for when you are speaking to a potential new recruit or potential new team member. These tips have worked well for me over the years and they are the same 5 tips I have given to my own team members when they go out recruiting and building their own teams. So here are my top recruiting tips!

1. Before you even begin recruiting others to join your direct sales team you need to know everything there is to know about your company’s business plan, compensation plan and your company’s policy on recruiting. Once you have learned all of this information (and know it well), then you can go out and start talking to prospects.

2. Once you start talking to prospects about your home business opportunity you want to spend some time building a rapport with the person you are speaking with. There is nothing wrong with trying to connect with a prospect on a more personal level as this helps to build the rapport between the two of you. Your prospect is more likely to listen to your sales pitch once you have spent time building a rapport with them.

3. When speaking to prospects you never want to over-hype or mislead them with untrue or unsubstantiated statistics. Everything you tell your prospect needs to be truthful and factual. Misleading a prospect can get you into legal trouble (at worst) and/or get you dismissed from the company you represent.

4. While speaking to your prospect make sure you take frequent breaks to allow your prospect to ask you questions about the information you are presenting to them. Remember…this is a two-way conversation so let them have time to speak to you.

5. Most recruiters will tell you to really pressure the prospect into signing up that very same moment that you are speaking to them. However, I disagree with that approach. As I am speaking with a prospect I can usually tell when they need more time to “think” about the information I have just given to them and when I “sense” that…I like to tell them that I want them to go home and think about it and I will call them/contact them the following day to see if they have more questions about the information I gave them. Trust me…I find that most prospects appreciate it when we don’t pressure them for an answer that very same minute.

Shelly Hill is the author of this article/blog post. Information on this blog is copyright 2009-2011 and can not be reproduced without Shelly’s permission.

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If you are with one of the Direct Sales companies, I am sure you know all about how important it is to add new team members to your home business. When you build a successful downline team, you will make a certain percentage of your team’s sales, which adds to your income stream.

As someone who has worked in Direct Sales since 1989, I thought I would share some of my best tips on where I find my newly recruited team members.

1. At The Party: My number one source of adding new members to my business has been when I have recruited them from a home party. During the party presentation, I drop numerous hints about how fabulous it is to work from home with ABC company. At the end of my presentation, I always spend a few in depth minutes talking about the home business opportunity with the attendees.

2. At Offline Networking Events: My number two source for adding new members to my home business has been when I have attended local home business networking events. When you attend these events, you are meeting and greeting with other like-minded home business professionals who are interested in you and the type of business that you represent.

3. On Online Social Media Networks: My number three source for adding new members to my home business has been when I have ran advertisements on various online social media networking sites. These advertisements can be text ads or graphic ads and both have been effective for me. When I run ads on these networking sites, I try to target people who I think would be interested in my business. For the most part, I target stay at home moms.

4. On Online Work At Home Web Sites: My number four source for finding new members to add to my team has been through text ads or graphic ads that I have placed on various online work at home mom or stay at home mom web sites. These type of web sites attract the type of people who are most likely to join a Direct Sales business.

5. In Print Offline Media Publications: My number five source for finding new members to add to my team has been from classified advertisements that I have ran in various local print publications. To be honest, I don’t get much of a response from newspaper ads. However, when I place print ads in regional magazines, I have gotten a great response.

Well…there you have it! These are the top 5 places where I find new members to recruit into my home business opportunity. No matter where you decide to advertise your business, you always need to make sure that you are targeting the type of people who are most likely to be interested in the type of business that you represent.

This article was written by Shelly Hill, copyright 2011, All Rights Reserved. This article can not be reprinted without attaching Shelly’s resource box. Please contact her directly to obtain it.

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