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Lifestyle Freedom With Your Direct Selling Business

July 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I loved having my own successful direct selling business for twenty-five years. The parties were fun, my team was awesome and the money was a whole lot better than I would have been earning from my 9 -5 job! I earned 22 trips around the world and more contest prizes than I ever could have imagined when I first began selling in 1978.

Because, direct selling was so good for me I’m often saddened when consultants tell me they aren’t getting what they want from their business. I love the tenacity, ambition, work ethic and creativity displayed by successful direct sellers. It’s Independence Weekend  and I thought it would be fitting to share a few of the success tips that helped use my direct selling business to provide financial independence as well as the “lifestyle freedom” that is so important to many of us:

1. Set your goals! I know, you’ve been told this over and over and over again and you are probably sick and tired of hearing it. Truth is, if you don’t set your goals you’ll be halfheartedly working your business and shouldn’t expect much success. It’s been proven over and over again, those who have goals do better and EARN MORE!
2. Work Weekly! If you aren’t working your business on a weekly basis it’s just a hobby. Don’t plan monthly activity plan for weekly activity. Hold parties every week. Make follow up calls every week. Interview prospects every week. The consistency you’ll develop by doing things weekly will dramatically increase your sales and your paycheck.
3. Attend Trainings & Meetings! Only foolish people would attempt to begin their business with no training. Only non-committed consultants would continue in the business without support and continuing their education. If you want to succeed you’ll be where you are supposed to be when you are supposed to be there. NO EXCUSES…Find a Way!
4. Work harder on yourself than you do on your business. It doesn’t matter how hard you try if your attitude is lousy. Most successful people will tell you they work on their attitude and other success habits on a daily basis. Listen to motivational CDs. Listen to training CDs. Talk positively to yourself. Get away from the quick-sand crowd and start hanging out with winners.
5. Do the RIGHT THINGS, the RIGHT WAY. It’s not how much time you spend in your business it’s whether or not you are doing the right things while you are working. You can be busy doing things that won’t bring in income and in that case, you’ll still be broke. Or you can get smart and start doing things the right way. Got lots of party cancellations? People who mail invites for their hostesses experience less than a 20% cancellation rate. Your recruits lazy? People who have successful recruits know what to do to get them off to the best start. You’ve got to do things the RIGHT WAY!
6. Get healthy NOW! It’s hard to get things done fast when your energy is dragging. If you smoke, STOP! (I know it’s easy to say because I’ve never smoked but the truth is…it’s killing you. If you’re over-weight, LOSE IT! I’ve been a Weight Watchers lifetime member for 20 years and I’ve invested in JJ Virgin’s Fat Loss program last year which helped me take off 18 pounds and get healthier in the process. If you don’t exercise, GET MOVING! Doing the right things for your body won’t guarantee that you won’t get sick but you’ll feel much better all the way around and you will usually have greater energy which is a must when you have your own business. If you are too tired or sick to get it done, it usually won’t get done.
7. Invest in Yourself. People who invest in themselves and their business BELIEVE they will be successful. When I come across a product that I know can help me or my business I get it. Not investing in myself is like telling my subconscious, “who are you fooling, you can’t make money doing this?” I already told you to work harder on yourself than you do on your business so don’t let your negative thoughts influence you when making decisions. If you BELIEVE you will succeed you’ll make decisions with an abundance mentality rather than a lack mentality. I provide some of the best motivational and direct selling tools on the planet. Check them out.

I’ve learned that strategies for growing a successful direct selling business are not unique to certain individuals or companies. Success is determined by the use of predictable, repeatable, simple actions but not just any actions – the right actions. The driving force behind your success is YOU! Are you ready for the challenge?

Filed Under: Getting to know Karen, Motivation, Sales Tagged With: , , , ,

No Excuses Part 2 – Is it a Legitimate Objection or an Excuse?

June 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Last week I went over how to STOP making excuses yourself and this week I thought I’d switch it around and share some insight as to why our prospects give us excuses. Are you like millions of direct sellers who have a long list of people who have indicated they want to do business with you BUT they have not taken any action yet? Worse yet, every time you try to have a conversation with you they either avoid you like the plague or THEY GIVE YOU AN EXCUSE!

An excuse is merely a polite way of telling you they don’t want to do business with you. Yikes, I can’t believe I say that but it’s TRUE!  It could be they are not ready to do business with you YET, or it may mean they don’t want to do business with you ever.

If you joined me for the Monthly Booking Bonanza Teleseminar in June then you heard me talk about a new program I invested in this past Spring that I am absolutely loving. It is by Ari Galper,”Unlock the Game” and the concept is about creating trust between you and your prospects. It doesn’t matter what you are selling the principles are the same. People will do business with people they know, like and trust.

One of the reasons your prospects could be giving you and excuse is they don’t trust that what you say is really going to happen If this is a factor you need to working on building trust in the relationship. An easy way to build trust is to make the prospect feel comfortable and you can do this as easily as asking, “Would you be open to…?” and then insert whatever you want. Example: “Would you be open to getting together for a cup of coffee and I’ll share a few ways having your own business could be an advantage for you?” OR “Would you be open to exploring the possibility of having a (company name) party to earn some free products for yourself?”  You can easily see these examples are about creating a relationship with the prospect before deciding which way to go. ( Make sure you join me for next month’s booking teleseminar where you get the rest of the script as well as some more to help you fill your calendar with bookings!)

Another reason your prospect may give you an excuse is they aren’t sure they need what you are offering. In our never-ending pursuit of getting a booking, making a sale and getting a recruit we often overlook the fact that maybe it’s NOT RIGHT for them! Instead of going into pursuit mode you can ask more questions to get to the bottom of it. Asking questions like, “does it make sense to?” or “I understand you love our products and I know you want a lot of them, but on a scale of 1 -10 how interested are you in booking a party to get some for free?”

When you are overcoming excuses most of us have been trained to use the “feel, felt, found method” of overcoming objections and that can work but it often doesn’t help us to know if it’s a legitimate objection or just an excuse. Much like an onion you need to ask questions until you get to the real issue. Saying things like, “are you open to hearing more?”,  “does it make sense to set a date?”, or “where do you think we should go from here?” will help your prospects feel more comfortable with the process and will help you uncover the truth behind their excuse.

So, if you are open to trying some new language and you feel comfortable with asking more questions in order to get better answers you just might discover your prospects more willing to answer you honestly. You’ve got nothing to lose by trying!

Let Karen show you  how to get what you want from your direct selling business and life go to www.karenphelps.com/promo.html for specials or to www.karenphelps.com/shop.html

Want to know how you can bring Karen in to motivate and inspire your audience call our office (248) 625-4897or contact support@karenphelps.com.

Filed Under: Bookings, Sales, Sponsoring Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Direct Sales – Use the Law of Averages to Increase Your Income

May 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

How many prospects do you need to talk to before you get one booking?
How many people do you need in attendance to have a $1000 party?
How many parties do you average per week? Per month?
What’s your average party and how can you increase that amount?
How many bookings do you average per party? How can you increase this?
How many prospects do you need to interview before you get a recruit?
How many recruits do you need to sign before you get one new leader?
How many new leaders do you need before you get one great leader?

Many salespeople do no fully understand the importance of finding out their averages in order to improve in certain areas of their business. Tracking yourself in your business can help you find areas that you need to improve and then work on ways to improve your stats. Simple little techniques can have dramatic increases in your business, often with no increase in time or effort. As Jim Rohn says, “When you are new you make up in numbers what you lack in skill.” Once you discover what you need to do you can work to improve each skill to increase your productivity. Here are some simple ways to track yourself that won’t take much time or effort but can go a long way to making you more money!

1. Begin today tracking how many parties you hold each week, each month and each year. During coaching with consultants and leaders most are amazed to discover the difference in the amount of parties they believe they have held and the amount they have actually held.   For example, during one call the person I was coaching said she held about 8 – 10 parties each month. I asked her to get her company stats and lets go over them. She went back for 8 months and discovered she actually held an average of 4 -5 parties per month and the most parties she had ever held in a month was 7. After the initial shock she said to me, “I feel like I’m working all the time.” Come to find out she was spending lots of time on things that did nothing to put money in her bank account. A few changes in the way she did things at her parties and she was soon reaching the  8 – 10 parties per month goal she had  set for herself.

2. Create a tracking system for your parties on excel or a spreadsheet where you list the number of invitations sent, how many guests attended, how many guests purchased, total sales, how many people booked, how many leads you interviewed for the business opportunity.      (These are many of the questions I teach leaders to ask their new recruits in the Blueprint for Mastering Direct Selling Leadership for 6-Figure Income Virtual Bootcamp.) www.karenphelps.com/leadership.html
Using a tracking system for your parties helps you discover areas where you are strong and areas you need to improve in your business. If you have a low party average you need to discover WHY? Is it because there aren’t many people at your parties or is it because a lot of people leave without purchasing?  If you are having low attendance and you are not mailing invitations for your hostesses you may want to begin to mail them for 30 days to see if your attendance increases. If you hold party after party with no bookings sooner or later you will be out of business. YOU MUST GET AT LEAST ONE BOOKING FROM EVERY PARTY…NO EXCUSES! So, if you aren’t replacing every booking what do you need to do in order to leave every party with one to three bookings? ( Should try the booking game which is part of the It’s a Party Out There Program www.karenphelps.com/shop.html or www.karenphelps.com/promo.html)

3. Track your Leads.  How many people do you need to hand recruiting brochures to get one person to sit down and talk to you about the business. How many people do you need to interview in order to get one signed recruit.Wow, this is an interesting area because a lot of direct sellers misinterpret signing someone up with interviewing someone about the business opportunity. When someone tells me they sign everyone they talk to my initial response is, “you are not talking to enough people.” The late Jim Rohn said even the best recruiters signed an average of 3 – 4 out of every 10 people which is a 30 – 40% close ratio. As I teach in the new Leadership Virtual Bootcamp RECRUITING IS NOT AN ACTIVITY!  Prospecting, phone calls and interviews are the activities you do to get a signed recruit. The “signed recruit” is the result of the activities you have done previously. Those are the activities you need to track, leads, follow-up phone calls and interviews. Begin tracking those elements and work to improve in each one and watch your number of new recruits increase as you begin to work on areas where you discover you need to improve. For example, maybe you get a lot of leads at your parties but you don’t actually get many of them to meet with you to talk about the business. You may have to work on your follow-up skills to improve your average.

4. How many recruits do you need on your team to get one leader?  Ahhh…many leaders don’t think about this when they are trying to build a direct selling empire. If you promote one leader for every 10 recruits and you want 10 new leaders you know you will need to bring 100 recruits into your team. If you promote one  leader for every 20 recruits you’ll need to have 200 recruits to get 10 leaders. Now, if you haven’t been tracking this all along you can go back and get an approximate figure by dividing the number of leaders you have into the number of people in your organization.  If you have 500 on your team (yes, for this stat you will need to count active and inactive recruits) and you have 5 leaders then you can pretty much figure that you need to have 100 recruits per leader. BUT, you can improve your average by doing the RIGHT THINGS! You can train your new recruits to begin sponsoring immediately. You can hold a Future Leader Luncheon EVERY month to increase the awareness of the leadership opportunity with your company. When you begin to work RIGHT you will notice you don’t have to WORK HARD to get better results!

So, hopefully I’ve given you some food for thought. I know with today’s technology many direct selling consultants and leaders have access to up-to-the-minute stats with their company which can be a blessing as well as a curse. You have to break everything down as small as you can in order to discover what needs to be improved to increase your averages. Even if your company is keeping track of things for you there are probably many places where you could keep better statistics on yourself and your team AND with little tweaks and changes notice BIG RESULTS!  And since I just returned from Vegas, “I’m betting” you can make success in your business happen!!!

Filed Under: Bookings, Sales, Sponsoring Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Develop Your Persuasion and Selling Skills to Increase Sales & Bookings

April 20, 2010 By Leave a Comment

How would you like to have an abundance of people saying YES to you and your offers? Would it be worthwhile for you if you could have more people say YES to booking a party? What would happen if more guests purchased at every party? It’s not as hard to get people to say YES as you might think and actually you probably already know several ways to do so BUT you may not be implementing what you know or you might be missing one element that makes your presentation less effective.

I’ve been avidly studying and practicing persuasion and sales techniques for thirty years. I have sales programs and books from Zig Ziglar, Tom Hopkins, Dan Kennedy, and numerous others and I have to confess even though what I hear or read is often a repetition there are also some BIG AH-HA moments when I read something or hear something and I think to myself, WOW, where has this idea been all my life! Now, you may be thinking to yourself, I know everything I need to know but when you really understand ALL OF LIFE IS A SALES TRANSACTION you might want to study to get things right. That’s right, whether you are trying to get your spouse to take out the garbage, or encouraging your kids to do their homework, or selling a tangible product for commission YOU ARE ATTEMPTING TO INFLUENCE SOMEONE TO ACCEPT YOUR IDEA which is nothing less than a SALES TRANSACTION! So are there some simple things you can do to get a better response? Absolutely! Here’s a few suggestions!

1. Clear Up Confusion in your prospects mind. When people are confused they seldom act and yet there are many times sales professionals have done this to a potential customer and then wonder why they didn’t get the sale, booking or signed agreement! On a recent call with a Gold Plus member we discovered that she is skeptical at first, doesn’t like deadlines and wants convenience and some type of guarantee before she makes a decision to invest in a product. This is valuable information for someone who is trying to sell her something to know and it will be difficult to close this person if you haven’t addressed these concerns. Before attempting to close someone like this you need to make sure she trusts you and the product and that you’ll do everything you can to simplify the process while at the same time reminding her that although she is free to make her decision at any time there are a few additional benefits if she acts soon. Most sales people DON’T ASK ENOUGH QUESTIONS to get to the RIGHT CLOSING QUESTION for each individual. It’s a process that can be developed over time.

2. Use Social Proof in your presentation. Even though we like to think it doesn’t matter to us what our neighbors are doing the truth is…it does! The phrase, keeping up with the Joneses hasn’t gone by the wayside and people buy what others buy. Ever noticed what happens at Christmas when all the kids want the same toy and parents are frantically searching for it to no avail??? You can implement social proof in a couple ways. First, you can browse through current magazines and find things that are similar to what your company carries and talk about them or show them at your parties. It validates your company’s knowledge of what’s current and happening now. Second, make sure to say things like, “this is one of our most popular items and our customers are raving about the compliments the have received on this item.” Do you know anyone that doesn’t like to get compliments??? They’ll do anything and purchase anything to get a compliment!

3. Smile . Several studies have been done on the importance of smiling and customer satisfaction and the more authentic your smile the more likely someone is to take action and BE Satisfied with their decision! I’m constantly telling consultants to “lighten up” at their parties. Have fun, smile and people will look for ways to stay connected to you like booking a party or becoming a consultant. No one likes to be around someone who is GRUMPY and frowning all the time but most people will go out of their way to be with someone who is HAPPY and smiling. Who knows, the smile you force yourself to put on today could easily come to your face tomorrow after the additional sales and bookings at tonight’s party. Smile…all the way to the bank!

These are just a few of the many factors you can include when making any type of presentation. There are hundreds more effective strategies for getting people to say YES to your offer. I’ll be sharing lots more strategies on the next Direct Selling Doctor monthly teleseminar on Monday, April 26′th at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. Direct Selling Doctor members can join me on the live call and/or listen to the replay on the website. If you aren’t a member yet check it out at www.directsellingdoctor.com

Filed Under: Sales Tagged With: , , , ,

Effective Marketing to Increase Sales & Profits for Direct Sales

March 27, 2010 By Leave a Comment

“Marketing is an ongoing process of finding, attracting, selling and keeping enough of the right kind of clients to maintain an increasingly profitable business!” Nido Qubein

Marketing is an integral part of having a successful direct selling business! I amazed at how many consultants and leaders don’t have an effective marketing system for their business that will find, sell and keep customers to grow their business and increase their income!

Each month I host a special call for my Direct Selling Doctor members with various guests but every once in awhile I have a topic that I feel is so important I need to get the message to the members myself! This month I realized that too many people are needlessly struggling to get their direct selling business on track so the special webinar on Monday, March 29′th is “Effective Marketing to Maximize Sales and Profits”

Then I realized there are many people who can gain valuable information from her! Here’s my dilemna! Direct Selling Doctor members invest in themselves when invest in the membership and one of their benefits is this monthly call so it’s not fair to them to have others join us for no investment. But, I also know some of you could really use the information!

On this webinar you will learn:

* How to set into motion a consistent plan of promoting, prospecting and selling your services.
* How to Structure a referral system that works to fill your pipeline.
* How to set up a simple and effective system to follow up with customers and hostesses.
* How to create attention getting subject lines and headlines
* How to create an appreciation program for your hostesses
* Simple tools of the trade that will help multiply your business
* Plus much more…

So, here is what I’m willing to do! You can join me on the call tonight one of 2 ways!

1. You can register now to become a direct selling doctor member and you will have access to the webinar information on the membership site. Your monthly membership will insure that you never miss out on valuable information. Not to mention the hundreds of articles and previous calls you can learn from that are already on the site. To check out the Direct Selling Doctor membership go to www.directsellingdoctor.com

2. For a small investment of only $27 you can join me on Monday night’s webinar only. You won’t have access to the membership site and all the other bonuses but you can still learn how to market your direct selling business from someone who knows what to do to get results. If you prefer this option just click on the link RIGHT AWAY so you can have access to the call. You’ll also get to download the webinar replay to watch again! http://www.karenphelps.com/teleseminarschedule.html

Filed Under: Sales, Teleseminars Tagged With: , , ,

Truth about Direct Selling

March 24, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Direct Sales…is it for you?
Watch this short video for the truth about direct selling.

Filed Under: Motivation, Sales Tagged With: , ,

Direct Sellers You Can Do Anything You Want if You Go to Work!

March 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

What’s your reason for working your business?
Do you know why you need to get up and go to work in your business consistently?
Watch this short video which is part of a live presentation

Filed Under: Motivation, Sales Tagged With: , , , ,

Who’s Customer Is It?

November 13, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I had a conversation with a hair stylist who had a few ladies approach her about doing their hair. She was reluctant to provide services because they frequented the salon she was at but had always done business with another stylist. Both were dissatisfied with their current stylist and wanted to switch WHICH IS THEIR RIGHT! Being such a nice person and not wanting to cause a scene she turned down the potential clients in order to keep peace. BIG MISTAKE!!!

Why is this a big mistake? Because when I asked her a few months later if these women had been back to the salon she said, “No.” In fact both of them had went elsewhere and found someone else in other salons to do business with.

So, when is a customer, really your customer?  When THEY ARE HAPPY WITH THE SERVICE YOU ARE PROVIDING! That’s it!  When someone is happy with the level of service you are providing for them THEY WILL NOT LEAVE! When they are dissatisfied it’s THEIR RIGHT to go and do business elsewhere. They are NOT being disloyal to you, they are LOOKING FOR SOMETHING or SOMEONE who will provide the level of service they desire.

In direct selling (and many other industries) salespeople put a tag on someone as soon as they make a sale. “THIS IS MY CLIENT -HANDS OFF!” Sales people with Lack Mentalities believe they need to put a net around everyone and often complain to their upline or company because someone else sold product or booked a party with another consultant. The big complaint being, “She bought (or booked) from me first so she’s my client!

Hey, do you take time to look into why someone CHOSE not to do business with you again? It could be as simple as she attended her friends party and wanted to help her friend by purchasing and booking a party. OR, it could be because after her last party you didn’t do any follow up. She had a few situations that needed to be handled and after the party you were nowhere to be found.  Sounds ridiculous I know, but the truth is if you spent just as much time keeping your customers as you did getting new ones you’d have a thriving business.

People like to do business with people they know, like and trust and who will provide them with great service.  Work hard to get new customers and hostesses but work even harder to KEEP THEM! Here’s a few simple things you can do to keep customers and hostesses LOYAL to YOU!

1.  Send a Thank You for ordering or a Thank You for Hosting note! Yes, it’s true people DO LIKE TO BE APPRECIATED! It’s so rare in these times for anyone to take time to send a thank you card.  Send Out Cards can be used for any business or The Booster which provides products only for direct sales.

2. Follow up with customers after they have received their product or a few weeks after they have been using their products to make sure everything is okay. This can be done with a quick email or a phone call. The busier you are the less you will have time for phone calls so follow up with an email or another card or note. Make sure you ask if everything is okay and also ask them to call you if there is anything they need help with.

3. Birthdays are a great way to recognize people and put your name in front of them again. Send your Hostess a Birthday card with a coupon for a discount or a Free Gift.

4.  Send Thanksgiving Cards to your Hosts instead of Christmas cards which can get lost in the clutter.  Again, Send Out Cards allows you to store lists and a quick click will soon have you sending an appreciation card to everyone on the list.

5. Make verbal contact by telephone with every host at least every 6 months. Let them know what the current specials are and also some of the new release items they may be interested in.

6. Send a new catalog to your best hosts. This is a big investment on your part and one that I did in my business. When a new catalog came in I would mail about 100 catalogs to my special hosts. These were hosts who had high party sales or who booked at least once each year. I wanted to make sure they didn’t receive a catalog from someone else first! The several hundred dollar investment on my part gained me thousands of dollars in commission each year. Oh yeah, some of you may want to skimp by sending an electronic version but let me ask you a question. When is the  last time you put your computer in the magazine rack? Out of sight, out of mind!

7. Survey your hosts and customers on what you can do to provide better service for them.  You can’t fix anything you don’t know is broken.

Building a Loyalty Based business is not hard. Be nice, be appreciative, be concerned, and stay in touch. You customers and hosts will begin to say, “thanks, but I already have a consultant who provides me with great service. I don’t need to switch!”

Filed Under: Sales

Direct Sellers Should Read Uncensored Sales Strategies

July 27, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I just read “Uncensored Sales Strategies” and it was one of the best sales books I have read in a long time. One of the things that I loved about this book was it really gets you thinking about what “movie is playing in your customer’s mind.”  We could be talking about someone having a party and she is seeing a picture of “a lot of work, too much trouble, no one showing up, anda whole series of negative things.” The picture we NEED her to see is on of, “how easy it will be, how much fun it will be, your friends will love the experience!” So, it’s time to start working on CREATING BETTER PICTURES for your customers.

Check it out now on Amazon

Filed Under: Sales, What's happening

Get Your Direct Selling Questions Answered on Free Teleseminar

December 28, 2007 By Leave a Comment

Get ready for an exciting call on Tuesday, January 29′th, 2008 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern, 8:00 p.m. Central, 7:00 p.m. Mountain, 6:00 p.m. Pacific.

On this call Karen will answer select questions submitted by Direct Sellers from around the globe! Here’s your chance to ask Karen anything you want about how to succeed and become financially independent in Direct Selling.

It’s easy to register for the call, just click on the link below to go to the Ask Karen Phelps website to submit your question and register for the call. You will also receive a Free E-book as a Thank You for your participation.

Click Here to Ask a Question and Register for the Teleseminar

Filed Under: Bookings, Sales, Teleseminars, What's happening
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