What Your Distributors Won’t Tell You – (Direct Selling Industry Insights) Part 2

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In part 1, we shared two important points with you:

Distributors want their compensation plan to be easy to explain and fair for everybody.
They want instant deposits, not physical checks.

In both cases, we provided you potential solutions to implement.

Today, we’ll continue to part 2,

What You Distributors Won’t Tell (Direct Selling Industry Insights)…

REPORTS REPORTS REPORTS

How can I improve my business if I don’t know where I am?

“We don’t have good reports.”
“I have to keep a manual count for my business.”
“It’s hard to improve when you don’t where you stand”

This is a critical concern amongst distributors. Most of them feel their reporting suite is not giving them the full picture of how to take their business to the next level.

Some of the reports they expect are:

Current volumes.
Active distributors vs inactive.
Current rank requirements.
Missing requirements to achieve the next rank.
Distributors vs Customers ratio.
Autoship volume vs regular sales
Marketing activity metrics

In direct selling, your day to day numbers matter. When you provide the correct tools to your distributors, you’re preparing them to hit exponential growth.

Possible Solutions

Solution #1 Redesign your current Dashboard


It’s possible that you already provide all the reports your distributors need but more than likely, your distributors have to visit multiples pages and spreadsheets to get everything they really need.

To solve this issue, redesign your current dashboard to maximize your distributor’s time and efficiency. Give them an easy way to download the data from this view so they have the flexibility to sort.

What are the reports they need?
How can you provide it in a simple view?

Solution #2 Charge a monthly fee for an advanced back office.

If your direct selling software provider charges an additional fee to add more reports to your distributors backoffice, you can charge a monthly or annual fee to offset your costs. You field will be more than happy to fund a tool that will grow their business.

We’ve noticed time and time again that distributors are willing to pay for solutions that fulfills their needs.

Not Recognizing New Ranks In The Moment

“I achieved a new position but I have not received any pin or letter”
“My team is growing but my sponsor and the company doesn’t seem to notice, it’s like we are too small for them”
“I love my company, I only wish we got the proper credit”

Recognition is one of the most important things you have to master if you want to achieve exponential growth in direct selling. Surprisingly, it’s often overlooked by corporate.

Everybody loves the feeling of a little pat on the back when they’ve done good work. When you don’t recognize people for their efforts (even if it’s reaching the easiest rank in your company) most of them will get discouraged.

When you reward good behavior you’re giving them positive reinforcement to continue doing the same things – this is what we want.

If you celebrate when they make their contact list, they will feel great, which will prompt them to advance to the next task and so forth.

Possible Solutions

Solution #1 Automate Recognition

Automating recognition is simple, you just have to put in the time to do it.

Create a list of the things you can automate, for example:

If distributor reaches [new position] > send a congratulations email.
If distributor re qualifies for [current position] > send a congratulations email + send an additional notification (maybe an app notification to go higher, you don’t have an app? contact https://krato.com/)
If distributor reaches a top position > send a congratulations email + a personal call from the corporate team.
If they sold “X” amount of product this month > send an email recognizing it.

Solution #2 Company Wide Recognition

Create a page that updates daily where users can see who’s achieving new ranks, who’s sponsoring new people, who’s increasing sales, etc. When you do this, you create friendly competition amongst distributors. Most of them will give a little extra effort just to appear on that page.

If you have a direct sales app, you can send push notifications to everybody in the field, that way they instantly know about the team’s new achievements. We live in a social era, when they get notifications, they will instantly start sharing it on social media or with prospects who are on the fence to join your company.

The correct recognition can change your business forever.