Recruiting online is a popular and successful way to build your direct sales team. Knowing how to use the Internet to locate new recruits will save you time and effort. Here are some tips for successful online recruiting for your direct sales team:

1. First, develop a landing page specifically designed for online recruiting. This is the page you direct prospective recruits to, so it needs to specifically address the information potential team members will want. Focus on them, not on yourself. Answer questions a new recruit might ask and invite them to contact you for more information.
2. Define measurable goals and be sure to track your efforts. Know what is working and what is not working so you can focus your efforts where you get the most results.
3. Social networking can be very effective in online recruiting. Use popular sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to post bits of information that will entice potential recruits into visiting your site to learn more. It’s a fine line between promoting yourself on social media and spamming social media, so carefully develop a strategy to interact and provide value; don’t just post ads.
4. While possibly taking a back seat to social networking, discussion forums can still be a great location for finding new direct sales recruits. Search the term WAHM discussion forum and you’ll come up with plenty of possibilities. Visit the most likely results and see which ones appeal to you. Understand that you’ll be looking for people interested in a work-at-home opportunity or a way to earn extra money rather than those that deal specifically with directs sales. You’re looking for places that attract people who want to earn money, not a forum filled with other company reps.

   Again, be very careful not to spam the boards with ads. Instead, become a valuable part of the community by interacting and providing value. Most forums have specific rules about advertising and the use of signature lines in your posts. Be sure to read, understand, and follow the rules or you may find yourself banned. Becoming a trusted member of a forum can be very beneficial to your business.

   Be creative in the use of your signature line. Rather than just using the name of your company, use a tag line that will interest potential team members and get them to click your link.

5. The use of a signature file on all your outgoing email can also be effective in attracting visitors to your website. Depending on your email client the tools, options, or preferences section usually has a way to set up a signature that is automatically added to all outgoing messages.
6. Carefully placed Craigslist ads can net good results. Again, be sure to follow the rules. Use the correct business slot, or under the employment ads that apply to commission only jobs. Don’t be surprised or discouraged if your ad gets kicked off a few times, even if you followed the rules. Sometimes people will flag what they consider a competing business opportunity simply to get rid of the competition. Keep an eye on the site and if your ad disappears, simply post it again.
7. Be very careful to avoid using spam in all your online recruiting and team building efforts. Even if a method isn’t strictly defined as spam legally or by the online resource you use, the community may consider it spam. Before you jump in to any online community, spend some time observing how others interact and react. Anything that appears to be spam can hurt your reputation and get you kicked off forums, dropped from lists, and banned quicker than you can say “I’m sorry!”

While there can be a lot of competition in online recruiting and team building, the right strategy will be successful. Your strategy doesn’t have to be complicated; with specific goals and persistent effort you will gain new team members and build your business.

Finding the motivators that drive your direct sales team to achieve their personal goals will ensure greater success, for both your team members and you. As a direct sales team leader, one of the best ways to grow your own business is to motivate your team for higher profits.

People’s reasons for becoming a direct sales consultant vary. Some reps may join simply because they want to receive a discount on the products they buy. Others may want a reason to get out of house and away from the kids. Still others join because they want, or need, to make additional money.

Some consultants will be self-motivated. They’ll be determined to succeed whether you encourage them, or ignore them. Most of your team members, however, will need some motivation to help them reach their goals, while helping you reach yours.

What do team members want?
Motivating someone requires discovering what they want and helping them to achieve it. One way to determine a team member’s motivation is to ask why they joined your team. You can then provide ways to help them reach their goals and get what they want from their association with your group. That’s what motivation is all about.

Let’s assume your team members are motivated by more money. To help your members use that motivation, encourage them to think about what they might do with that money. Would they pay off some bills? Buy a new car? Save for the kids’ education? Take a vacation?

If you can get your team thinking about what it feels like to have that extra money and how they want to spend it, you’re well on your way to motivating them to work harder to earn it.

Help your team set goals.
One way to motivate your team members to reach their goals is to have them write the goals down. Remind your team that if they don’t know where they’re going, they will never know when they arrive!

Hold monthly team meetings and encourage every member of the team to set a sales goal for that month. Then, have them write down that goal and post it in a conspicuous place in their own home. Your team members are much more likely to achieve that goal when they see what they’re aiming for.

Contests and prizes.
Contests are another great way to motivate your team members. Offer a prize to the member who has the most sales, holds the greatest number of shows or recruits the most new consultants. Whatever the goal is, encourage your team members to work the contest daily and send you an update on their progress.

You can compile the results at the end of each day, or week, and let the group know where everyone stands. Competition is a great motivator for some. Use it to your advantage and see your profits rise right along with your team members’ success!

Be sure to provide a prize to the winner. A gift card, a free product, or if possible, an added percentage of profits. The gift isn’t nearly as important as the contest itself, but again, it will serve as motivation.

Keeping your consultants excited about the company, the products, and being a part of your team will go a long way in helping to motivate your team to higher profits. Look for ways to do that every week, and your success potential will soar!

A motivated team is a productive team. And motivating them doesn’t have to be a huge, complicated process. Here are some quick and easy ways to get your direct sales team energized and active.

1. Email your team on a regular schedule.

   Taking the time to create a weekly email for your direct sales team will pay off greatly in terms of added sales, team unity, and longevity of team members. Topics to cover might include sales updates, team member welcome notes, contests, selling tips, home show tips, hostess coaching ideas, business promotion help, and anything else of interest to your team.

2. Online Team Chats

   If your team is scattered across the country, as many direct sales teams are these days, holding a regular sales meeting at a local meeting spot is quite a challenge. But that doesn’t mean your team can’t get together. Instead of a local meeting, host an online team chat that will serve the same purpose. This will help your team develop stronger relationships, as well as keeping them updated with important information.

3. Training Tip Sheets

   If you aren’t able to prepare a full-fledged weekly newsletter or detailed email, offer your team some training tip sheets to help them succeed. Your team members will appreciate all the business building help they can get. Cover one training tip at a time and help your team learn to sell more, book more shows, promote their businesses, deal with difficult customers, build a website, handle rejections, and anything else you can teach them to better their business results.

4. Contests

   Monthly or quarterly contests can be a huge boon to your business and will tremendously motivate a large number of your team members. Look for simple ideas such as the most sales in a given period. Offer a prize, then let your team’s ingrained sense of competition take over and make it fun.

5. Recognition

   While money motivates some people, and the sense of freedom in entrepreneurship motivates others, some people will be more motivated by simple recognition of their efforts and successes than by anything else. Let your team know you’re proud of them. Use your weekly emails to share team members’ successes such as a first party, a record-breaking sales week, a birthday or anniversary, etc. You might be surprised at the encouragement this provides.

There are any number of ways to get your team members excited and wanting to sell more. Start with these five simple ideas for motivating your team and then build on them as you see what works for your specific, changing team.

How often have you read about a product and service and thought, “I would never buy/use that because it sounds so complicated”? Now imagine if within this same article, the author was trying to recruit you to sell their product or service. You’d be flipping the page, or moving to another web site in a heartbeat.

You know your business – and you’re extremely good at what you do. Yet that can sometimes work against you when you’re trying to recruit people. Why? Because their perception of what’s involved is that – quite simply – it’s too involved! When you add to that the lack of face-to-face contact that occurs with methods such as article marketing, blog posts, or social media, there’s even more focus on what you say.

Step back for a minute and go over what you do when you recruit face-to-face, and determine what must change with your approach when only written communication is involved for recruiting.

To help your thinking process, ask yourself these questions:

• Am I being overly enthusiastic about the product/service? There’s a difference between having true passion for what you do and being overly zealous. Passion speaks from your heart and is more than simply words on a page. To show this passion, make positive statements consistently throughout the article about your product/service. Write something such as “I am so grateful that I found this opportunity since I can now stay home with my daughter full-time.” That’s far more effective than writing, “This is such a great company to be associated with.”
• Do I give specific details about the benefits for what I’m offering? Remove the words great, fabulous, amazing, etc. from your article vocabulary. Now, write about what this opportunity can really do for the reader. For example, instead of writing, “the money you make is amazing,” switch this around to become, “The money I’ve earned has allowed me to take a vacation to Europe that included a private tour of Windsor Castle.”
• Can I deliver on what I promise? Potential “recruits” will have some hesitation – especially when their first exposure to you and the opportunity is via an article. Therefore, when they contact you via email after reading your article, your inclination might be to offer help to keep the process moving (and the interest up). However, the definition of “help” can be on opposite ends of the spectrum. Nip this in the bud before it happens. Inside your article, explain – in detail – just what you offer in the way of help. Even better, share why the training you deliver is, hands down, better than what the next person does!

Recruiting can be a very stressful thing: there is pressure to expand your down line, increase your sales, etc. Add to that, the fact that you are making your pitch using articles as your marketing tool. Switch up your thinking and view this article as a more passive way to help someone else realize the same dream you once had: to be successful doing something that delivers a return of tremendous satisfaction coupled with financial reward.

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For some direct sales consultants recruiting team members has always been a numbers game. Others prefer to sponsor consultants they think are more compatible with their own goals and practices. Shelly Hill is a successful direct sales consultant with more than 20 years experience. And in her experience, quality is better than quantity. She explains in her article below.

 
Direct Sales – Recruiting Quality vs. Quantity Team Members by Shelly Hill

When it comes to recruiting new team members for your Direct Sales team, it’s not about signing up every Tom, Dick, Harry, Jane and Sue. Sure, You can bring in twelve new members every month, but how many of those members will work the business? How many of them will stay with the business and become successful with it?

I have been in Direct Sales for over 20 years now and I often see consultants too focused on adding massive numbers of teammates to their teams. If you are looking at quantity and not quality in regards to your recruiting efforts, you will be tempted to hype, mislead, brag and make it all seem too easy to your prospect. Sure, they will often join your company…However, they quickly become frustrated, lose interest and move on to something else.

If you want to build a strong and healthy team, you need to look at quality and not quantity. Personally, I would rather recruit two new team members a month who are serious about building a business, who are hard workers and go-getters, compared to ten team members who are in it just for a little pocket change.

One way you can find serious business builders for your Direct Sales business is by interviewing your prospects. When it comes to the interviewing process, you need to be honest with them. You need to let them know that Direct Sales is not a cake walk, customers do not magically find you and that this type of business takes a lot of hard work. Let your prospect’s know that you are serious about your business and they will need to be serious about theirs.

A strong and healthy Direct Sales team is built on quality team members and career business builders. Any seasoned professional will tell you that Direct Sales is not for everyone. It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality. Take your time when it comes to building a team and concentrate on adding quality business builders and watch your team succeed to it’s fullest potential.

Shelly Hill has been working from home in Direct Sales since 1989 and is a Manager with Tupperware. Shelly believes that team building is more about adding quality members than quantity of members. You can visit Shelly’s work at home business options site at http://www.workathomebusinessoptions.com for Direct Sales articles and home business tips. You can also contact Shelly at http://my.tupperware.com/Ravish30

Article Source: WAHM Articles

It’s always been my opinion that the sales part of direct sales is more important to success than team building. A team of hundreds is meaningless if no one is selling anything. It’s sales that results in income. Jeanette Fisher explains further in her article below. Direct sales – do it your way – recruit or not you can be successful.

You Can Succeed in Direct Selling Without Recruiting

By Jeanette Joy Fisher

One of the most enduring myths about the direct selling industry is that the key to success is being able to recruit hundreds of people to your team. However, that has never been true and it never will be.

Small and Strong Sales Team

Of course there is no doubt that finding and mentoring a team of strong and enthusiastic people can be a component of elevating your level of success. However, recruiting is not absolutely necessary to make a good living in direct sales. You will naturally attract people who like you and your products who will gravitate toward you. If you train a small motivated team well, you will generate more sales than if you try to work with too many uninterested people.

Statistics from Sales

Historically, the statistics back up that statement. In fact, a 1999 survey by National Sales force reported that 34% of all American direct sellers make no money at all from the sales efforts of others. Every cent of their income was derived solely from selling their companies products themselves.

The fact is that a sizeable majority of MLM people first became involved in the direct marketing business because they initially used the products themselves. After using those products for awhile, they were impressed enough with the quality of those products to prompt them to take a larger role in the company.

The key to success is to promote a product you love and believe in. Your enthusiasm will inspire your customers and sales team. Your sales team will see your high sales from your concentrated efforts and want to follow your example.

Public Growth Regarding Direct Sells

Every year, the direct selling industry continues to grow in the United States. A recent study showed that one out of every two American adults purchased a service or product from a direct sales representative last year. That figure represents more than 150 million American residents. To service that huge market, there are some 15.2 million people involved in direct sales in the United States alone.

So, if you are not the sort of person who feels comfortable recruiting other people to join your marketing team, you can take comfort in knowing you’re not alone. Recruiting is not for everyone. That is one of the beautiful things about direct marketing. Even if you have no desire to recruit other people to your cause, you can succeed through your own sales efforts.

Free “8 Easy Steps to Online Selling.” Learn how to sell your products online and create an Internet presence for your business. http://SimpleStepSolutions.com. Reduce your learning curve for free and make money faster.

Copyright 2010 Jeanette Fisher

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Yes, everybody could use more money. But most mom business owners and business seekers I know aren’t looking to make millions. Most of us want to contribute to the family income while staying at home with our children. Especially initially, our goals are usually more family focused, like paying the mortgage, getting a new car, saving for college, or being able to go out to dinner a couple times a month. We want a business that we can enjoy and still have time to enjoy our family.

I recently posed a question on a popular message board and the responses I got confirmed that “rich” isn’t always the goal. Moms want to “pay bills and have some in savings,” “pay my bills and take care of kids, and “pay the bills, have some fun and still have enough to set aside in savings/retirement.” Others mentioned “financial security” and the “peace of mind” that comes from not worrying about money.

Often after meeting some immediate needs with our first business endeavor, we start looking more towards the future and wanting a little more. I think about how I’d like to enjoy retirement without worrying about money. And how I’d like my son to be able to choose his career or business path without being so concerned about whether his chosen path will net enough income. I even think about how much fun it would be to help other moms get started in business by providing some start-up cash or funding a business expansion.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t go for millions if that’s what you want. In fact there were a few responders who said they want to be rich and be able to afford luxuries. What I am suggesting is that if you are marketing your business to moms, don’t assume we’re all looking for big bucks. Promising fancy cars and six figure incomes doesn’t attract as many moms as you think it might.

The key is to listen to what each individual prospect is looking for and help her meet her goals.

When you sponsor other consultants into your direct sales business you become a team leader with a new set of responsibilities. Here are 5 tips to help you develop successful leadership skills:

1. Lead by example. Many of your team members will emulate you not only when leading their downline, but when dealing with customers. Setting a good example will have a positive effect on the entire team’s business. Be respectful, courteous, and honest in all your interactions. Reply to emails and return phone calls in a timely manner. Treat your team the way you want to be treated and the way you want them to treat customers.
2. Leaders need to have confidence in their self, their decisions, and in their actions. If you, as a leader, are constantly second guessing things, it will be hard for your team to take you seriously. If you find yourself wondering about a decision or choice you made, consult your own upline or the company. It’s fine to ask your team for input before you make a decision, but once you make it, don’t ask you team to weigh in whether or not it was the right decision.
3. Communicate clearly and make sure you encourage your team to ask questions when they don’t understand something.
4. Listen. When your team members ask questions, ask for help, or make suggestions make sure you really hear and understand what they need. Sometimes we get so caught up in delivering our planned presentations that we forget to adjust for the audience.
5. Be organized. Good organization saves time, reduces stress, and helps you present yourself more professionally.

By being a good leader you will help your entire team stay motivated and become more profitable.

In her blog post this morning, “Direct Sellers, Cut the Crap,” Jennifer Fong asks direct sellers, network marketers, and MLMers to “stop being so desperate to recruit that we stretch the truth.” She wants truth in recruiting. And I agree 100%. There are so many benefits to becoming a direct sales consultant that there’s no reason to use untruths to recruit.

But in my opinion, the only way the nonsense will stop is when people stop responding to outrageous claims of instant riches.

I want to be very careful here and not blame the victims. None of us are immune to being duped by some of the very sophisticated frauds, con artist, and scammers out there. But for the most part, I don’t think the direct sellers using these less than honest recruiting methods fall into the category of scammers. Many are simply misguided marketers who continue to use these types of methods because they work.

Many of us want to believe. We ignore common sense and allow ourselves to think that it is possible to get rich quick or that there’s easy money available. Just look at state run lotteries. Despite slim odds of winning, people in the U.S. spend more than $50 billion a year on lottery tickets. They’re hoping to hit it big for overnight riches. It’s the same mentality that makes claims of overnight success in MLM attractive.

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of the possibilities. But as Jennifer said, the reality is that while there is the potential for big earnings, “it’s a lot of work, and it takes time.” Jennifer and others have been teaching that reality for years, and I think that’s the message we need to keep in the forefront. A bit of skepticism can be a good thing when evaluating an opportunity.

Still Jennifer’s plea for truth in recruiting is important to reach that group of misinformed and misguided direct sellers. Perhaps they’re using the same methods that they responded to or they’re just doing what their upline teaches. Again, everyday Jennifer teaches direct sellers how to become successful by conducting themselves with honesty and integrity. Lister to her!

The truth is most of us don’t need to be rich and that’s not what we’re looking for. We just want to live comfortably, take care of our families, and have a few extra dollars to indulge ourselves once in a while. Direct sales can help achieve those goals. Recruit with that reality.

Nicole Dean just released two videos from some of the material we covered in a recent interview about how direct sellers can use private label rights articles.

In this first video Nicole talks about how PLR can be used to help direct sales consultants earn customer loyalty.

• EasyPLR.com – a variety of topics including packs specifically about direct sales. (I have purchased several article packs at EasyPLR and have been extremely happy with the quality.)
• YummyPLR.com – all about food, cooking, and recipes.

Have you purchased articles from these resources? If so, leave a comment and let us know how you used them. And please feel free to ask any questions you have about using PLR. Nicole and I will be happy to answer.

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