|
By Annette Yen
Congratulations! You've got a strong direct sales downline or
are beginning to build one! This is one of the best parts of
being a direct sales consultant, - the fact that you can share
your passion for your business with others, help them to earn
a
little extra money and get paid for helping grow your company
as
well.
Now that you are a leader of a team, you'll need to build a
strong relationship with downline members to not only help
them
stay strong in their business, but to help your business grow
stronger as well. A strong downline relationship will be one
that's mutually helpful and everyone benefits.
But you may be wondering how to insure that downline members
feel cared for while still maintaining some type of balance
with the rest of your life. Here are 5 easy tips for
maintaining a great upline/downline relationship.
1. Start off with a bang. When a new recruit first signs up,
it's vitally important that you communicate often with her.
One
thing that I have found very helpful here is to develop a
series
of emails to send to new downline that talks them through
those
first days "on the job".
It will help them feel like they are connected to the company
and to you. Each day while your new recruit is waiting for her
kit she should hear from you. This is very easy to do with an
autoresponder system, but can also be done by just copying and
pasting into an email message every morning.
2. 15 minutes a day. Set aside fifteen minutes of each workday
for downline phone calls. Use those minutes to call one to
five
members of your group for a quick "just checking in" call.
Leave
a message if you get voicemail. The idea is to let them know
that you're thinking of them and giving them a chance to hear
your voice. This is a great time to ask how they're doing with
their non-business life as well and get beyond your direct
sales company to show you care about them.
3. A downline website. Creating a simple website for my group
has been the best thing, by far that I did to keep
communication open and strong with my group. We have weekly
topic discussions, contests, upload important files and just
have fun with the whole group. Through this many relationships
between members of my group have blossomed just because the
website allowed them to "break the ice".
4. Meetings and/or conference calls. This is another great way
to foster unity and strong relationships within your group.
Many of you probably have downline that are out your area, so
have a quarterly conference call with everyone just to touch
base. There are many free teleconference services via the
internet that make it very easy to do. And if you can, have a
face-to-face meeting once in a while as well. Some group
leaders have meetings monthly or quarterly. Others do a once a
year get together with everyone.
5. Ecards. I love ecards for celebrating birthdays,
achievements etc. First of all it's FREE, which is great, but
it's so convenient and just plain fun. Use one of those
Internet calendar functions to keep track of birthdays. Once a
month go through the upcoming month and set up the ecard
deliveries for the birthdays and company anniversary dates for
the next month or more. You can set these up to deliver up to
a
year in advance! It's a wonderful thing. There are hundreds of
sites for free ecards on the Internet.
The key? Communicate in any and every way that you can. You
will find that your direct sales team members will stay with
your company much longer when you've fostered a strong
relationship by keeping in touch! Have fun and happy team
building!
About The Author: Annette Yen is 20-year veteran of Direct
Sales and leads a great team of women in her direct sales
business. To find out more about how to start a strong
relationship with your new recruits, sign up for her free
e-course at www.directsalestools.com
|