For most of us in Direct Sales, 10 new recruits equals a promotion – either for someone in our organization, or for ourselves. Sometimes it equals qualifications for a special incentive – perhaps a trip to some exotic locale, or maybe some designer jewelry.

Most of us, who follow the out-dated ideas that our upline offers have been spinning our wheels watching THEM earn trips and recognition, while we sit scratching our heads, wondering why we aren’t getting in on the action. I mean, after all, we’re doing exactly what they told us, exactly the way they told us to do it.

Is this happening to you?

Our upline said make a list of 100 people. Check.

Our upline said contact them all and ask them to “help” you get started. Check.

Our upline said it’s a numbers game, talk to everyone. Check.

Our upline said to stay away from running ads in the paper. Check.

Our upline said to do 3 way calls. Check

Our upline said bring our recruits to the opportunity meetings. Check.

Our upline said pass out 500 business cards each month. Check.

Is your team growing by leaps and bounds?

Our upline never told us to be an authority on our company’s best product (that would be YOU!).

Our upline never told us to market ourselves first, and the company second.

Our upline never presents us as the authority. They become the “guru” instead of us!

Our upline never told us we could use the Internet to build our businesses on autopilot.

It means you need to position yourself as the expert. Set yourself apart and start thinking and acting like a leader NOW. Change your mindset – even if you’ve been in the business for years, start thinking like a leader at the next pay level. Already at the top of your game? Great. Start thinking like the owner of your company.

By the way, YOU are the owner of your company. You have the best product to offer anyone – and that is YOU. You can’t get that product from any other company.

Christie Northrup, the Lemonaid Lady, is a champion of ditching the FRANK list. She talks about using “WILMA” instead:

“Who

Is a

Likely

Marketing

Audience?”

Target marketing is the best way to see desirable results. The Shotgun methods still work, but the amount of time and energy you put into growing a business that way is, to me, excessive.

Let’s break down the numbers. ASSUMING you can buy 500 business cards for just the cost of shipping (there are online companies that run specials periodically), You’ve got a $10 investment in materials, plus the time it takes to deliver all of them. From here, we have to make a lot of assumptions:

• Assume you give away 30 at every party (3 to each guest – who needs 3 business cards?)
• Assume you have 8 parties per month (that’s pretty standard in Direct Sales)
• Assume you give away 1 to every person you meet outside a party (that’s another 260 people each month)
• Assume it takes 1 minutes to deliver each card outside a party (and really, you’re not building a relationship, you’re just shoving a card into their hand)
• Assume a 1% conversion rate

You’re spending 4 hours each month just giving away cards, plus the additional 24 hours you’ve spent preparing and doing your parties. And I must reiterate – who really needs 3 of your business cards? More to the point, who’s going to TAKE 3 of your business cards?

And if you give away 6,000 cards each year, you’ve got 60 new leads (about 5 per month) that may book, buy or recruit. Most of those will probably come from your shows anyway, to be honest. For $120 in business card expenses (plus other show and travels costs) and 336 hours of your life. Each POTENTIAL lead costs you $2 and 5.6 hours of your life!

Is your head spinning yet?

Now if you really, truly have no other method of building your business, it’s a start. But I hope you realize that there are other, better options to growing your business. You could definitely be putting that time (and money) to better use elsewhere.

Find a niche and fill it.

In direct sales, there are targeted groups of prospects for every product line available. All you have to do is ASK your home office what the target demographic is for your direct selling company. If they can’t tell you, you’ve got bigger problems. If you sell kitchen tools, who it your target market? Men? Women? What about age, income, ethnic origin? The more you focus, the smaller your market will be.

Smaller market=bigger return on investment

If you invest your time and money wisely in your target market, you can easily bring your time and money cost to less than half of what you would have paid for the shotgun business card method.

Think of it this way, would it be wise for a retailer to send advertisements to everyone in an entire city, when all they sell is children’s clothing? Absolutely not! A better use of their advertising dollars would be to focus on places where there are mothers of children who want/need their kind of clothing. Moms buy the clothes, not the kids (in most cases), so it’s wise to find out where they buyers are.

Think about your product? Who are the most likely buyers? Yes, contrary to what your upline has told you, it IS okay to pre-judge. At least for now. Focus in on that market. You know where they are most likely to spend their money (with you!), now figure out where they are most likely to spend their time. Go there. Market yourself THERE.

You’ve heard it said before that parties/demos are the life blood of a direct sales business. Your most targeted market is right in front of you – in a semi-captive group. This is a place where you would NOT want to pre-judge. Everyone is there for a reason. That reason may be you.

Source by Lisa Young