How to Recruit a Motivated Direct Sales Team

How to Recruit a Motivated Direct Sales Team

It’s an age-old question among direct sales leaders. How do you recruit a motivated direct sales team? It’s a common theme – You have team members who book a few parties and place a couple of orders but then stop showing up, right? But most direct sales leaders don’t stop to think about why it might be happening, let alone how to fix it.

So, let’s dig into some simple steps that you can take to make sure that your new team members start strong and stay that way.

#1 – Stop Talking About the Discount

First, stop talking about the discount. It’s general knowledge that you get a discount when you’re with a direct sales company. If you want team members who want to work and build a business, then that’s what you need to talk about.

Stop trying to sell the discount to get the easy signup and instead sell the opportunity. Think about it – if all you talk about is the discount, the only people you’re going to attract are those who want the discount. If, instead, you talk about the opportunity for someone to earn an income, you’ll attract people who want to earn money instead of just saving money.

Obviously, if somebody asks about the discount, share the details but don’t lead with it.

#2 – You Set the Pace

Secondly, you set the pace. The leader sets the pace of the pack. You need to set the pace because you can’t expect your team to do things you aren’t doing yourself. If you’re just working to a minimum, your team will just work to the minimum.

If you’re a high seller, you’ll have team members who are high sellers. All of them? No, of course not. But your efforts and results will ensure your team does more than they think is possible.

#3 – Get to Their Why

The third tip is to get to their why. As a leader, you need to know what motivates your team members individually. Ask them what they want out of their business. This should be a permanent question you ask in your direct sales team onboarding process.

Do they need money for a car payment? Do they need to pay off debt? Do they just want to buy more shoes and purses? Find out and help them get there.

A quick income win goes a long way to keeping them motivated. Earning quick income in the first two weeks will do wonders for their business, confidence, and momentum. This will keep them going when the business feels like a business.

#4 – Give Them the Tools They Need to Start Strong

Number four is to give them the tools they need to start strong. Most of your team members have never done direct sales before. This is new for them, so they need tools to get started on the right foot.

Think about when YOU first started your business. You didn’t know what you were doing, either. None of us did! Even if they were with another direct sales company, this specific product, compensation plan, and company culture are new. So give them the help they need.

Wondering what help to give them? Start them with the most important things they need to earn money and get their business off the ground. Keep it simple and focused on only the things they need to know for the first couple of weeks of their business.

Here are some common questions you’ll need to answer –

• How to book parties
• How to run parties
• How to set up a Facebook Group and Business Page
• How to host coach
• What to post in their parties
• How to set up direct deposit so they can get paid

Drill down, think about the basic information they need, and give it to them!

#5 – Cheer Them On

The fifth tip is to cheer them on. You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. People need to be encouraged. If you know their why and their personal business goals, you can cheer them on when they win! And don’t forget about the little wins, too.

If they booked their first party, give them a virtual high five. If they overcome a booking hesitation, pat them on the back. If they submitted their first party, cheer them on! A quick message goes a long way to building someone’s confidence and keeping them motivated.

#6 – Teach Them to Fish

Number six is to teach them to fish. Equipping them with the right tools and training will give them confidence. Don’t get frustrated if they ask the same questions over and over. If you’re hearing the same questions over and over, then there may be some holes in your onboarding process.

Use those repeated questions to help you build systems to answer questions before they are even asked. This could be a video answering those repeated questions you put into your onboarding training. And don’t worry. You don’t have to create tons of videos and checklists all at once. Build these systems as you go.

I have a rule of two, which means that every time I hear a question twice, I create a resource that I can refer people to. Over time, it has created a robust and well thought out onboarding system that I could use for my entire organization.

#7 – Incentivize Them Where They Are

The last tip is to incentivize them where they are. This means where they are right now, not where you want them to be in six months. Think about this for a second. If your team is struggling to get bookings, it does you no good to incentivize recruiting or promotions. They’re still stuck on the baby steps of the business.

Start small and meet your team members where they are. Then, as they start to master those things, they create new challenges, incentives, and rewards to keep them moving.

Why Your Direct Sales Team Doesn’t Want to Work

Before we wrap this up, I want to leave you with some common pitfalls for direct sales leaders when you’re trying to move your team forward.

Pitfall #1 – No Relationship or Connection After Joining

Your team members may not have a relationship or connection with you after joining. You work hard to have those one-on-one conversations during your recruiting process. You’re asking lots of questions and learning about them and their needs, then all of a sudden, when they join, you send them off to watch training videos with a “Just let me know if you need help!” There’s no real connection or support.

Make sure you continue to build a relationship or connection after they join your team.

#2 – Doing It All For Them

The second pitfall is doing it all for them. You want to teach them to fish. Give them some confidence to do those basic business-building tasks on their own because if they’re constantly waiting on you for information or an answer, they won’t be confident in their abilities.

Obviously, you want to coach and train them along the way, but eventually, you want the baby bird to fly the nest.

#3 – Not Equipping Them Past the First Party

Another pitfall I see in motivating direct sales teams is not equipping team members past the first party. Make sure that you’re continuously equipping them. It could just be a cycle of the basics of the business. Before, during, and after their first party, coach them on how to get bookings from that party.

Teach them to evaluate their host coaching. Train them on creating party templates. You need to equip them and make sure that they’ve got a solid foundation to continue in their business past the first win.

#4 – Over-Automating

The fourth pitfall is over-automating. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a huge fan of automation, where it makes sense. But when everything is so automated that you don’t have a feel for what’s going on with your new team members, it will be hard to find the bottlenecks on your team because you aren’t actually talking to them. They’re being left on their own.

Make sure you have strategic points within the onboarding process where you connect with them on a personal level and help them work past any problem areas.

#5 – You’re Not Inspiring

The fifth common pitfall is that you’re not inspiring. I’m not trying to be mean about this, but I want you to be a leader. Part of being a leader is thinking about how you come across to other people. Sometimes, being direct does not translate well over Messenger, Facebook posts, text, etc. This can come across as mean or cold.

Step back and think about how your team receives your words. Here’s the truth: if they don’t like you, they won’t work for or with you toward a common goal. They won’t want to come along for the ride. You’ve got to inspire them through your words, actions, and how you treat them.

Evaluate your onboarding, recruiting language, and systems for supporting your team, then make the shift. Here’s a final warning: just because you have mentally made the shift of doing things differently does not mean your team will pivot quickly. Depending on the size of your team, it might take a few months of consistently changing and working on things to implement with all of your team members to actually see results.

Don’t get discouraged if you try one thing one time and it doesn’t work. Keep consistently working at it! You can do this.

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