Times are changing quickly for many network marketing and other traditionally sales force driven companies (real estate, insurance sales, etc.) and for many it might seem as if there are no solutions that will work with their business models. Not true.

Many companies are doing really great and are innovating intelligently. But many more this year are seeing changes that are wrecking their financial models before their eyes. Fortunately this does not have to be a permanent situation.

Today, I’ll give you 3 Steps you can begin this week to start improve business traction before 2022 is too far gone.

Situational Analysis:

What is happening?

Many companies are not getting the traction they hoped for in 2022 despite improving supply chain situations.

Fortunately, it is highly unlikely that you:

• you need a brand new compensation plan,

• you need an extra incentive trip, or that

• you need a complete product line re-vamp.

As people have become more and more time constrained and as customer’s have become more discount driven, we have seen two macro forces shifting the business environment—shifting models of consumer shopping and a greater dependence upon technology. Each of these following “things you can do” are affected by these shifts and you’ll have to adjust to them—if you are not already doing so.

Step 1: Skip Omni-channel and Embrace Multi-Channel Marketing

So what is the difference? Omni-channel is powerful and per Hubspot it is:

“is a lead nurturing and user engagement approach in which a company gives access to their products, offers, and support services to customers or prospects on all channels, platforms, and devices.

With a network marketing “volunteer" sales force, there is a responsibility for network marketing companies to not offer products on all channels and platforms.

If you try and use all of the channels and tools, you will be actively taking commissions from your own sales force.

The solution is to embrace multi-channel marketing avenues like pop-up shops, social media marketing, specialist marketers (like trainers, make up stylists, fashion influencers, and other professional conduits) to build your brand, outreach and revenues in your current or new markets.

Don’t try everything or you will confuse and create dissatisfaction within your sales force, but if they see you growing the brand and honoring your relationship to them they will see greater retention and more brand interest when they tell people what they do.

Try This:

Pick five of your best customers this week who have a strong instagram following and work out a content creation deal with them. They don’t need to have a million followers, but a few thousand to 20 thousand would be great. Offer them products in exchange for content and provide them recognition and possible commissions is warranted. You are building your brand and reach for the products and that’s a great place to begin. And if you do it right you will be putting money in the sales rep who introduced them to the product’s pocket.

Step 2: Stop Counting on the Field Leaders to Train and Do it Yourself

Many field leaders are fantastic trainers. Often better than anyone in on the corporate team at presenting and inspiring. They are leaders for a reason.

But once your leaders build their own leader groups under them, these leaders, “your best trainers,” will stop spending much time with their newest team members—and will stop spending any time at all with other new members on other teams. There are exceptions to this, but they are few and far between.

Your fielding their customers assume that your business, like all of the other companies they shop with and support, are managing all of the on-boarding and customer retention processes electronically. Today, onboarding is no longer a big part of their ongoing responsibilities.

One solution here is to use short videos (no longer than 3 minutes) to train new people on what they need to know. And don’t just email them 15 videos to “Get Started”. Give them 1 or 2 videos and embed the rest in the website or in an app that predicts and offers up the training or insights they need when they get to that point in your process.

Also, never stop trying to simplify the process to where you will need fewer and fewer training videos, calls, webinars by anyone to help someone. This is the Rosetta Stone for today.

TRY THIS:

First, hire a Virtual Assistant on Fiverr or UpWork this week and have them first buy a product from your company and have them record it on Loom. They should have zero knowledge of your company and no one in the company should know or be able to influence them.
Then have your new VA email the recording to you and then instruct your heads of customer service, marketing, sales, and IT to each watch it separately with recommendations that same day for improving the purchasing process and increasing the cart—those are the only two feedbacks we want. But we want them tonight and in writing.

Secondly, have your new Virtual Assistant sign up for your email messaging. These should include two types:

1: Transactional emails (receipt, order status, etc.)

2: Merchandising emails where they are entered into your email system for messaging about upcoming specials, how to get involved with the brand, etc.

Ask her put them all in an electronic folder and forward them to you in 10 days. Not before. What you are going to be looking for are two things.

1. Are the transactional emails accurate, clear, and helpful.

2. Are the Merchandising emails even happening? No new customer should go 10 days without a marketing email, but in the direct sales space this happens every day. If your team has sent out marketing emails or not, look at building a customer onboarding email series and make sure each new customer who accepts the messaging offer gets signed up for that and your special offers emails.

Note: Don’t be surprised if you hate your marketing emails. Many people do, and there is a reason….Direct Sales companies have traditionally counted on their field to contact their customers with all special offers, versus doing it ourselves. They are not doing it consistently for their own customers, and they are doing it almost never for orphaned customers who have been assigned to them.

Thirdly: The next week, have your new Virtual Assistant (who by now is likely very popular with your team….joking), join your company as an independent sales rep and have her use her trusty Loom account to record them going through the

1) Join process for your Sales Representatives

2) Opening all the Welcome and Getting started Emails they received in their first 10 days

3) Them following each of the links they are sent.

Now try and read and watch all of these that they received in their first 10 days. If you get through all of your emails, messages and link watching, write me a letter and I’ll send you $20. (Note this offer is limited to the first 1 million employees who complete this task in 2022.—I’ve set aside $50 for this. $40 for 2 winners and $10 for a G&T at my local when I decide that I need it.)

The point of taking these steps is to make a project plan to:

1) Simplify your website and shopping process

2) Cut your instructional videos and training content by 50% in the next 45 days.

3) Make it easier for all new reps to do the business.

4) Assure your top Leaders know you are proactively helping with making it easier to learn about the products, to buy, to join, and to activate in your business.

By the way, I suggest strongly that you make your management team own this project and not just the sales department! It’s critical that they not pass it down stream…unless someone downstream should have their job and they should be able to complete the whole exercise in 2 months.

Step 3: Make and Use a Promotional Calendar with Emails and SMS/Text for Every Shopping Event

The direct selling tradeoff for decades has been as follows:

Hello independent contractor if you:

1. introduce the products to new customers,

2. demonstrate the products,

3. sell the products to people,

4. encourage new people to join the business, and

5. train them,

… then the Company will recognize your achievements, and pay you sales commissions and bonuses through a rewards program—be it a unilevel, binary, matrix or other type of commissions based plan.

With fewer people in the today’s sales force performing each of the 5 roles for a variety of reasons. The company needs to simply take over more of the communications responsibilities to the sales force at all levels and directly to the customers.

You can do this any number of ways and still provide rewards to the sales force when their customers buy using an embedded link or accepted cookies on their computer.

The key is that they are not going to call all of their friends and tell them that you have free shipping until midnight. You have to do it and do it within the construct of a marketing campaign, not just because you are 10% behind goal and its the 28th.

Try This:

Make sure you have good marketing email campaigns planned. I wrote a blog detailing a 4 Step Marketing Campaign approach for Mother’s Day earlier this year that can be modified to support any holiday or launch, but if you want to learn from a master, check out Joel Widmer’s article 9 Best Practices for Creating your Welcome Email Series and use what applies to you starting with the next upcoming marketing event you are planning to have.

This will have three positive effects:

• It will help break the cycle of “Flash Sales” and “End of Month” pushes that so many sales forces and customers are now addicted to in this post-Covid era (well at least the post Covid lockdown era).

• It will provide your team a chance to segment your audience between frequent and infrequent buyers and tune the messaging

• It will help clarify which people and messages deserve SMS/Text treatment. These cost more than email, but do more…just watch you budget and these can add up fast.

Please let me know what you think we love new challenges, ideas, and solutions that work.

Also, please schedule a time to talk about your business and what GDP can do to help you have the break out year you are wanting.