This is the first article of an ongoing series by Rick Loy, titled “Your Personal Leadership Philosophy Anchors You and Your Team.” Ever found yourself looking for a new, different, exciting idea to re-ignite your team’s best creative energy and efforts? Virtually everyone in leadership has been right there; you’re in good company! Nothing wrong with it at all; maximizing all the ideas you can create and all you can “borrow” is part of the role, it definitely has its place. Yet, … [Read more...]
Why Reputation Management Must Be in Your 2020 Budget
Direct selling companies by their very nature are all about marketing. Beyond the internal marketing department, there are thousands of associates each trying to market the business in their own unique way. And each one of these efforts builds “the reputation” of the business. But there are a number of factors that can easily erode a company’s good reputation. Here are issues to watch out for this year and what you should be doing to insure your company retains its good name. FTC … [Read more...]
3 Fundamental Transitions for Direct Selling
Being driven by what people can sell versus what people will buy may sound similar, but they’re actually very different concepts. Direct selling is changing. We’re in the middle of a shift from point A to point B. We may not be exactly clear on what point B is, but we definitely know that point A is in the rearview mirror. The three transitions below encompass the most important areas for a direct selling company to address as quickly as possible. These aren’t meant to be new concepts, but … [Read more...]
Communication: The Overlooked Key to an Event’s Success
Communication is always the key to success for any event. I’ve always told my teams, “If I’m calling you, I need to tell you something important!" It’s when communication is limited that the disaster will happen. Texting is Not the Same And let’s be clear—by “communication,” I mean either face-to-face or voice-to-voice contact. Texting is okay if there’s no urgency to the message, or maybe as a follow-up. But when you’re in the middle of a live event, getting timely information to … [Read more...]
It’s 2020 … Who’s in Your Office?
No matter which way we turn, “disruption is in play” … including in the traditional “gold watch” business workplace. Human resources knows it. Bosses stress over it, and employees feel it! Early in direct selling history, the new direct selling company (armed with its product/service) opportunity opened its doors with a handful of passionate people supplying all of the internal “labor” and support—the founder(s), maybe a family member or two plus an outside influencer, also known as the … [Read more...]
Are You Doing the Math for Your Distributors?
Today’s direct seller has more access to data and numbers than any generation of direct seller ever had before. Backoffices are packed with beautiful reports, dashboards are dotted with wonderful widgets and notifications, and promotions and programs are launched every day to accelerate sales and income. And yet, my experience tells me that Distributors don’t always appreciate all this stuff like I think they should. Some of the obvious perks of a new promotion often get overlooked. The … [Read more...]
4 Fundamentals of Reversing a Sales Decline in Direct Sales
Here’s a familiar story: Your business has entered a period of decline in sales and recruiting. After a period of years of solid growth in sales and sales force numbers, the momentum has not only stopped but appears to be working in reverse. The management team pulls out all the stops using various promotions and incentives that have worked in the past to stimulate sales and/or recruiting. These tried and true “get back to basics” promotional techniques mean that the company is spending more … [Read more...]
Our Story Is Better Than Their Story. Are You Telling It?
From company announcements to proclamations from the investing world to regulatory agency decisions to even a TV series, there is no shortage of hot opinions and big news in the world of direct selling. As the old saying goes, “any news is good news.” But is that really true here? It seems the only news we’re getting falls in the “bad news” category. Further, the only opinions those of us in the industry are giving are just opinions and pontifications on that bad news. Maybe the reason it … [Read more...]
AdvoCare, Neora, an Ever More Aggressive FTC! What Now?
In recent weeks, the direct selling industry has been shocked by one revelation after another involving the Federal Trade Commission’s actions against direct selling companies. The stunning transformation of AdvoCare from a marketer with an MLM compensation plan to a single level plan due to an FTC enforcement action was still being absorbed when, BANG!, along comes the FTC action against Neora (formerly “Nerium”) and Jeff Olson and the counter civil suit by Olson and Neora challenging the FTC’s … [Read more...]
7 Clear Signals That Today’s Direct Sales Company Must Embrace
Since 2015, three prominent direct sales companies have publicly faced regulatory scrutiny in the United States. While there were similarities in the issues addressed—such as multi-level compensation systems—each company faced a different journey and a different outcome. Yet, there is a commonality that we are wise to acknowledge and embrace now: Change is here; it’s our challenge and our opportunity to understand it, respond to it and embrace it. So, what do we do? What merits attention … [Read more...]
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