Are you Holiday Ready?

I originally made this video in October 2015. Here are some pointers for capitalizing on holidays with your direct selling business.

1. Share the products your company has to offer for the holidays! Most companies have something for all of the major holidays not just the fall/early winter holidays I mentioned in the video.
2. Think gifts! Who do you know that will need to purchase gifts for these holidays?
3. Think standing out! How can you make yourself stand out as a consultant? What can you offer your customers? Custom gift baskets? Wrapping? Special delivery?
4. Share personal stories! What are you getting your own family and loved ones for the holiday? What are you using personally?
5. Videos and pictures do a great way of sharing these products with potential buyers!
6. What do you have on hand? Focus on selling these products first because you need to make that money back.
7. Take advantage of craft fairs and other shows of that type. High seasons for these fairs is the Fall October-December and the Spring around Easter March-May. Yard sales are great for summer months June-September just remember that people expect cost to be lower at yard sales.

What now?

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Read more about selling at Yard Sales

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Tip Tuesday: Samples Sell

Take note. Samples Sell. People LOVE to try before they buy! Especially with cosmetics, skin care, fragrance, home fragrance, and food products people want to know that they will like the product. Something that sets direct sales consultants apart from other companies and even sometimes representatives apart from other representatives is samples. When people can try before they buy they are more likely to like the product and buy it. If you aren’t doing it with samples, then do it with demonstration products. If you are on the fence about investing in samples and demos then hopefully this video and short post will convince you otherwise. Thanks for watching/reading!

Tip Tuesday: The Power of Follow-Up

In direct sales it is important to follow-up with your leads. Leads can be potential customers or potential business partners. It is important to find a way you can follow-up with these leads and stay in touch so that they come to you should they ever change their mind. There is a difference in following up and pestering the person or following up and spamming the person. One way you can follow-up is to mail brochures to your customer list. Most customers will not buy every campaign, however if they do not have a brochure then they are less likely to buy from you. In Avon, we have new brochures every two weeks. You will have customers that buy every month, every few months, and some that only buy once or twice a year, but bottom line they can’t order from you if they don’t have  a brochure with your information. Customers like to see what items we have to offer at certain times of the year and new items are constantly coming out for our customers to purchase. Not everyone wants to look online, so mailing brochures can be a good way to gain customers and maintain those that you aren’t seeing on a consistent basis. Of course the phone, text, email, and social media can all be used to follow up as well. It is good practice to follow up and contact your leads list every once in awhile to see if you can do anything for them. There are many other videos and articles out there on the importance of following up and I just wanted to put out there that I do agree that follow up is important no matter how you choose to do it or how often you do it.

For more tips like this one you can visit my Tip Tuesday category, Representative center, and New Representative center.

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Tip Tuesday: Start With Who Do You Know

Build Your Who Do You Know List FROGS:

Make a list of these people whether you think they will be interested or not. You may be surprised by how many names you can come up with. Avon recommends challenging yourself to come up with 50 names to start.

• Friends
• Relatives
• Organizations–clubs, school, work, etc.
• Geography–Neighbors–places you go (grocery store, bank, post office, etc)
• Social Media Connections

I bet you if you made a list of your network in all of these points of contact, you’d be surprised how many names you can actually come up with. You can do the list at any point in your business. The key once you’ve made the list is to start contacting people to let them know you are an Avon Rep (or in whatever business you are in). Some will, some won’t, oh well onto the next! Good motto to remember when people tell you they are not interested. Just because they are not interested at first does not mean they will never be interested. Being in business for five years I have come to realize this a few different times.

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How do you spend your weekends? Do you work your business?

How do you spend your weekends? Are you in direct sales? Then, your weekends can be a prime time to work your business. I know for me I spend most weekends working my business, in fact it is the most time that I have to work the business. I usually do vendor shows on the weekends during peak season and then I also use that time to try to grow my online presence. During the week, I do not always have time to write up a blog post or schedule social media posts, so on the weekend is my prime time to do those things.

Tips for working your business on the weekends:

• Hold parties (home or online)
• Meet with clients you can’t reach during the week
• Work on your online marketing
• Vendor Shows
• Yard Sales
• Prospecting time looking for new clients and representatives/consultants

Here is a video that I made talking about this topic on Periscope and the replay is on my YouTube channel. If you are on Periscope (Live Streaming Video App) you can follow me @amandabeautytip.

If It Sounds Too Good To Be True It Probably Is, How To Avoid Scams and Fraud In Your Business

I see new representatives in my business ask all the time about if something sounds fishy or not. Basically, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is and it is best to go with your gut instinct. The most common red flag will be email scammers that will email you to order products and say they are from out of town and must pay with a cashier’s check, certified check, or money order. It is perfectly fine to accept orders from people you know and let them pay with these formats, but from strangers that is usually the biggest red flag. Plus, they always seem to use the same uniform format for the email something about wanting products for a model photo shoot, wedding, etc. and some story about how they cannot order online and pay by credit card. Also, the email used is nine times out of ten a strange email. These scammers will order a bunch of product and then leave you with it if you actually order, plus if they happen to send any form of payment it is usually too much and doesn’t always go through and if it does go through the scammers will take your information and run. The best thing to do if you get a suspicious email is to either ignore it if it is obviously a scam or I know a lot of representatives will refer the person to the eStore or online website through the direct sales company to order just in case it really isn’t a scam but it usually is and you usually never hear from the person again.

AVON offers some great insights and information on avoiding fraud and scams under youravon.com>web office>resources>frauds/scams As well as in the new rep center in the bottom right under Other Things to Read: Avoiding Frauds and Scams. This area of the website has some great information and insights on avoiding these situations and even gives some example emails that you could be sent from such scammers.

From time to time, you may also receive one via text or even a phone call, but usually it will be in email format. Always use caution with people you do not know and be mindful of the situation and use your best judgement.

Direct Sales Tips: Home Parties

Home parties are a wonderful way to get new customers and recruits for any direct selling company that lets you do them. There is a world of resources out there for party planning. I know my company provides resources and then you can find a lot online through a simple Google search. The key to a home party is to have fun! Even if you aren’t good at party planning, have fun with your friends or hostess! In fact that brings me to a good point, start with your friends and then ideally your friends friends will become hostesses and it will become a chain. If you run out of friends to be hostesses then go to your other customers. If there is any way you can host an online party or brochure party, those are great as well since home parties are not always an option. For the home party have some light refreshments and drinks and then get your friends together and play some games. You’re going to need some prizes and giveaways for your games to get people engaged. Plus if they have fun, then they’re more likely to book their own party. Sometimes a themed party is a good idea as well. Basically, take what you can find online or through other resources and make it your own and have fun while making sales and gaining recruits! Good luck with your parties!