business-plan

One of the things many of us look forward to is the New Year. If only I had a dollar for every time someone has said, “I can’t wait to ring out the end of this year and get started fresh again.” It’s amazing how much hope people invest into a new year.

But what never ceases to amaze me is how quickly all that hope can dissipate. I could give an example about health clubs, but why not use an example even more near and dear to you. Let’s look at what happens to many direct sales consultants.

If their calendar isn’t already full with bookings and appointments the week before Thanksgiving (which is typically the last week of November), they start feeling uneasy about calling prospects for bookings; after all no one will want to be bothered with hosting a show during the holidays! When you break this down (and believe me, that’s not hard to do), you discover that many direct sales consultants shut down their business from the third week of November to the end of the year. YIKES!

I guess that’s why many of them look forward to the start of the New Year, to the opportunity of focusing on their business again, and to the possibility of bringing in some good ol’ MONEY!

So help me understand this scenario: There are all these direct sales consultants out there wanting and needing to make MONEY in January; they’re even glad the holidays are over so that they can get back to work; yet at the end of the month the sales are invariably low. Hmm… It doesn’t seem to add up now does it?

Of course the excuse is that people aren’t ready to host home parties right after the holidays because they don’t have any MONEY. So plenty of direct sales consultants wait until the third week of January to call, unless they remember it might be best to wait until after the Super Bowl has taken place (If you hear my sarcasm here, you either love me or can’t take the heat)!

By now you probably understand why year after year, January and even February sales are low for direct sales consultants. As much as they look forward to working their business after taking a long break, they struggle getting back into the groove. Indeed many don’t seem to get things going again until the company’s new spring product line arrives.

The other day one of my coaching clients said something that hit me between the eyes and really helped me to understand the whole scenario I just described. This client confessed that she used to complain about the way things were going in her business, but NOW she realizes that she was never doing what is truly necessary to succeed in this business.

One of the major reasons that so many direct sales consultants experience low sales just prior to the holiday season and for a month or two afterwards is that they don’t do what is necessary to keep their business moving and/or growing. And on top of that, they don’t realize that they are totally capable of doing what they believe they cannot.

If you just don’t know what to do, RELAX, of course I’m going to tell you.

Step 1: Make a list of 10 acquaintances. (Yes, I said acquaintances – people you just barely know – people who wouldn’t necessarily know who you are when you call and tell them your name. You’d actually have to say something like, “This is Tammy Stanley. I know you from the Tuesday night book club.”)

Step 2: Take a deep breath!

Step 3: Make a phone call to each of those 10 people. If you don’t have someone’s phone number, either get it from someone you know who does have it, or do step 3 in person instead of on the phone.

Step 4: During each phone call or in-person conversation let each person know briefly about your business and give each of them a compelling reason to host a home party during a specific period of time (perhaps a three week span).

Step 5: Invite anyone who doesn’t want to host her own show to a preview that you host in your own home (have some dates already selected – the first and third Monday of every month, for example). Explain that these previews are simply to let them see your products and give you their opinion. Then reiterate that it’s really just for them to come and check out the product line without any pressure to buy.

Step 6: If you’re too nervous to ask anyone you barely know if they want to be a hostess, just do steps 1,2,3 and 5. In other words, invite everyone to a preview in your home where your actual goal is to sell the intangible instead of the tangible – sell the idea of hosting a home party instead of selling your products.

Now you CAN join a networking group, which usually takes a $200 initial investment, and then you can spend an additional $30 to attend that networking luncheon event to come home with a few business cards (I’m almost certain the prerequisite for those events is that you adore chicken salad). But you need to understand something – that won’t make your business grow.

Also, (key point here) you can give yourself a star for networking, but you won’t be able to give yourself any MONEY because networking is not the same as what I suggest! That’s because I like to suggest working over networking. And the most simple way I know to get your business in gear is to work by following the steps I listed above.

Now, don’t tell yourself that you don’t know anyone. Instead, keep asking yourself, “Who do I know? Who do I even barely know?” After a day of frequently asking yourself that question, your brain will start thinking of people.

If you seriously don’t know anyone, for crying out loud, get a life! Go meet three of your neighbors. It could be as simple as this:

“Hello, don’t worry I’m not a door to door sales person, I’m your neighbor. I feel kind of like a heel because I’ve lived here 10 years and haven’t ever introduced myself, but today I just thought enough is enough.” Then just have fun with the conversation wherever it leads. Be more interested in learning about your neighbor than you are in getting your neighbor to learn about you.

If and only if your neighbor asks what you do, do you tell her what you do. If she does ask, be humorous and say something like, “What do I do? Oh, well remember when I told you not to worry because I’m not a door to door sales person? Yeah, start worrying now.”

People love humor, and using humor is one of the most effective ways to get people to love you. Also, when you use humorous self-deprecation like that, you won’t end up sounding like some slick sales person, and your neighbor will most likely be open to hearing about what it is you sell. If you’re neighbor truly acts interested (leave no room for fooling yourself here) after you’ve briefly described what you sell, you could say:

“Well, if you sincerely would like to check it out, I host a preview show in my home on the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of every month, just to let people I meet come and check out the products. My goal that night really is to sell nothing. I want people to feel comfortable coming in and just checking it out, giving me their opinion, and hopefully even offering me a few suggestions. If you really want to get something, I’ll probably talk to you about getting what you want free by hosting a show instead.”

If you’re really keen, you’ve noticed that throughout this entire article I’ve repeated over and over how simple this is. I deliberately refrained from saying it’s easy. The reason why I refrained from saying it’s easy is because it isn’t. That’s why so many direct sales consultants sit around month after month coming up with excuses why now is not a good time to call potential hostesses or potential recruits.

What I’ve just said to do isn’t easy. It’s simple, but as tough as I sound, I actually do have an empathy cord (Okay so it’s short, what of it?), and I do understand that this isn’t easy.

But it isn’t going to get any easier by waiting. There’s only one way to make it easier. Readers of my book, and long time faithful readers of my ezine know what that way is. They can even sum it up in 2 and sometimes 3 words. Do you know what those words are?

Author, Sales Trainer, and Professional Speaker, Tammy Stanley directs The Sales Refinery, a sales training firm that assists direct sales consultants generate more business through powerful marketing, selling, and leadership strategies.
Get her FREE report, 3 Simple Secrets to Building an Empire in Direct Sales at http://www.tammystanley.com