In the direct sales business, you gain a positive reputation with your professional demeanor. That is why a smile should be considered one of your most important marketing tools. The next time you head out to a vendor event, go shopping or head out on the town, you want to make sure that you bring your smile with you.

There are several reasons why a genuine and persistent smile can be very powerful in the direct sales business.

A Smile Gives Confidence

A good smile gives your customers and everyone else the feeling that you know what you are doing. When you answer every question with a smile, you are letting people know that you understand what is being asked of you and you have an answer. The trick is making sure that you always do have some sort of answer and in a timely manner.

The direct sales business thrives on people feeling comfortable and confident with you and the products you are selling. When you greet people with a firm handshake and a smile, it instantly helps them to feel a little more at ease and can make your sales presentation more effective.

Sales Consultants’ Sincerity

A well-timed smile can let customers know that you are listening to them and that you have a sincere interest in what they have to say. This is where you combine your smiling with another important skill: listening. Take the time to listen to what your customers have to say and know when to use a smile to give a sincere and reassuring answer.

This is also another way to add confidence to the things you say. When you listen intently to a customer and then respond with a smile along with your answer, you project the feeling that you sincerely care about the customer’s concerns or needs. This also helps the customer to feel confident that you will address the issues.

Direct Sales Consultants Convey Honesty

When you look a customer in the eye and offer a confident smile, it helps to convey a sense of honesty. A forced smile or a smirk can make the client feel uneasy. But a genuine smile followed by a gesture of good customer service will help to create strong customer loyalty.

When you head out to represent your company you should always bring your marketing materials and your business cards. But you should also remember to bring your smile. It can mean the difference between a growing customer base and a stagnant business.

Direct sales consultants who take their smile everywhere they go will have an easier time engaging people. You always hear in the industry that you should market your direct sales business every where you go… it is your smile that makes that possible.

The First Question To Ask A Business Coach

You should always inquire first about a free coaching session. A complimentary session will serve as an introductory meeting. In this session, you should be able to find out if this coach has the experience, knowledge, and capabilities that match what you are seeking. You should also be able to determine if they have right personality. The “right personality” is whatever you think you can best work with. Some coaches are easy-going and informal, while others may be more direct and formal. It is up to you to decide which personality you think will get the job done for you!

#2 Question To Ask Direct Sales Business Coach

As a direct sales consultant, you may want to know if the coach has any experience with the home party plan business. For some direct sales consultants, experience may be a prerequisite for a coach. However, others may not view this as a necessary to hire a coach. Knowing what type of experience the coach has, if any, in the direct sales industry, is important information to have when deciding on a business coach.

Other Questions To Ask Before Hiring a Business Coach

• Is the coaching face-to-face, by telephone, or online?
• Is the coach easily reached by phone?
• Is the coach easily reached by e-mail?
• Can the coaching hours work within the client’s schedule? Are night and weekend hours available?
• How often are sessions scheduled?
• Is the client locked into an agreement for a specified period of time?
• Are procedures documented ahead of time?
• Can the coach offer documented results from previous clients?
• Can the coach provide testimonials?

The answers you receive to the questions above will help you answer the most important question:  Is the coach worth the money?

Is the Coach Worth the Money?

You will not know the full answer to this question until after you have spent the money and experienced several coaching sessions. However, by asking the question listed in this article, you will have a good idea before you begin the coaching sessions, if the coach is worth the money.

When looking for a direct sales marketing coach make sure that the one you pick has achieved success in the sales industry.

No Such Thing As Direct Sales Phone Phobia!

Take a look at the phone – cell phone or regular home phone. It doesn’t look scary, does it? However, for most people the phone can be one scary device. Fear of making phone calls may be the one thing preventing your direct sales business from achieving success and profitability. Overcoming phone phobia is a key to success in the home party business and should be a part of any direct sales training.

Direct sales training should include:

• Learning ways to network
• Learning cost-effective methods of advertising.
• Discovering ways to run a dynamic and exciting party that will encourage sales.
• Teaching effective methods to increase bookings
• Learning how to collaborate with other direct sales consultants.
• Learning how to overcome your phone phobia

How to Overcome Phone Phobia

Learning to overcome your fear of making sales calls is essential to the growth of your direct sales business. The fear of rejection runs deep in most of us, but pushing past this fear is possible.

• Realize that it’s just business. It is nothing personal if you get rejected on a sales
  call. They don’t hate you – they are just not interested.
• Write out a script before you call. A good 30-second script covering the essential
  points of your product will help you feel more comfortable.
• Be yourself. Though you have a script, let your personality come through over the
  phone. You don’t want to sound forced or fake.
• Develop a thick skin. Yes, you will be rejected…over and over again. Your success in direct sales depends on your persistence…and your thick skin.

Repeat After Me: “The Phone Is My Cash Register!”

Sales calls are an integral part of the direct home sales business. Your success depends on your ability to view the phone as a friend, not as a foe. Getting over your fear of rejection and learning to embrace the phone as an effective marketing tool is possible with the proper direct sales training and some good old-fashioned perseverance.

Direct Sales Party Games, Games and More Games

There are thousands of games and variations that can be used at a direct sales party. You are only limited by your imagination. If you try a game and it doesn’t appear to work, move on to a different game.

In the direct sales business, trial and error is often the best way to figure out what works. The important thing is to make sure that the game provides value to all involved.

As you gain more experience in the industry, you will have a better feel for what works for you, your products, and your audience. Your trial and error will have less error and more success.

Games can be used just for fun, to help recruit team members, and to increase bookings. Each type has an important purpose and will contribute to a successful and profitable home business. A good home party show game should be fun, encourage participation, increase the energy level, and offer a prize or prizes at the end.

Increase Bookings With Home Show Games

One of your principal goals at every home show should be to get one or two new bookings. One of the best ways to do this is just to ask everyone at the party if they would like to host a party. To encourage people to say yes, get them excited by playing games. Party games should be:

• Fun
• Easy to set up and play
• Interactive
• Effective – they should work to get bookings!

One of the best games to play is a variation of the “What’s Your Score?” game. You make up a list of things to ask the attendees. Everyone gets five points if they answer
“yes” to your question or have the specific item you ask about. Examples of questions to ask:

• Who has a cell phone in their purse?
• Who has been to a home party before?
• Who is married?

There are thousands of easy questions to ask. The goal is to design questions that most people will respond to with a “yes.” You want everyone’s score to be similar. At the end, you will give anyone who books a party an extra 25 points. The person with the most points gets the grand prize; the prize needs to be an item that is good enough to motivate people to want to win. If you are in the adult toy business, this is a great game to play because the right questions can encourage plenty of wild fun. This game will increase bookings and help you succeed in the direct home sales industry.

Deb Bixler is a direct sales trainer who provides party plan education and training that insures that consultants never worry about where to find business again. Learn more effective home party games to increase bookings.

There are wide varieties of business opportunities that allow you work at home. In fact a work at Home Business is not a new concept. There are number of old home based businesses, like a child day care, candle making, catering and much more. However the advent of internet improves the home based business options.

You can consider starting a home based business if you really have passion for it. You need to have the ability to work hard, dedication and effort would provide you reward once your home business is up and running.

Though work at Home Business requires hard work, you can also enjoy the freedom and fun of working at home. You can also spend splenty of time with your family.

Working at home is very rewarding from my side of the fence. I make my own schedule. I take off when I need, and I don’t have to ask anybody. I will say, it does take a lot of discipline. So easy to take too much time off, you really have to treat it like any other job. Except for the drive to work. We have to be on time for the schedule we make. But the pro’s far out weigh the con’s.

Before starting a work at home business, plan well what type of home based business would suit you. Remember what seems perfect for your neighbor or friend may not suit you.

Most of us like to start business and work from home without even having knowledge of what is required to start a home based job.
Starting work at Home Business is not an easy task. You need to consider whether there are any risks in that business. You need to consider whether the business requires huge investment. You also need to seek the help of a mentor who can guide you well to get sure success in home based business.

Work At Home Business

Some essentials for starting a work at home business:

Once you have decided to start a home based business, you need to organize it properly so that unnecessary delays can be avoided. The following things are essential for home business success:

1. A phone with unlimited long distance calling option, caller Id, Voice mail, call forwarding and anonymous call rejection.
2. You must have a calendar. You can also use a online calendar like Google, outlook or yahoo calendar.
3. Computer software tools, high speed internet connection, flash player, Adobe reader and Java script etc are also important. You can use email software like outlook or outlook express for business email.
4. A good filing system is extremely important so that you can do work most efficiently. Organize business mails, faxes, training materials etc in separate folders.
5. You can use Instant messenger service which allows you to communicate with your online contacts and getting your questions answered since your phone line needs to be opened for incoming calls from prospects.
6. You can use any room in your home for business purposes. But organize the room well so that you can work peacefully.

These simple steps can help you start home business and run it successfully.

Job at home ideas

If you’re looking for a way to make some extra money by doing jobs at home, then learn to think outside the box about the possibilities. There are many creative ways to spend a few hours each day doing work from home .

Perhaps you are looking to work for an outside company that gives people jobs at home. You may be able to get paid to do research for a professor at a local university or to grade papers for a local teacher.Look for a local business that allows people to do bookkeeping or payroll jobs at home. Try looking through the classified ads for jobs that can be done at home. It never hurts to give a few companies and try and suggest to them that you perform the duties they require from your home base business.

Consider other jobs that you can gather by assisting your neighbors or friends. Babysitting or nannying for the children of your friends or neighbors can be a great job to do from the comfort of your own home. Especially if you are raising your own kids at home, day care is a great home business.

For those to whom creativity and artistry comes naturally, put an add in the paper to create custom made invitations for weddings, bridal showers, or birthday parties. Get paid to do fun jobs at home that you enjoy. Meet with clients and then take their ideas back to your home. Think of the fun you could have spending a few hours each day creating beautiful and unique invitations to some of life’s most special events.

There are endless ways to get jobs at home. You simply have to know what you are good at and then market those skills to the people around you. In no time you can built a home business
that you love.

Home Party Business Shows Must Be FUN!

Working At Home: What Options Are Available?

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Vendor Events Bring Consultant Success

As a direct selling consultant you have worked hard to build your business and achieve success.  You have streamlined and improved your strategies, and your enthusiasm and passion are more than a dream. Now it is time to take your direct sales business to the next level of vendor events.

Vendor Set Up Tips For Sales Results

The vendor events give the visitor visual overload so it is important to have an attractive table to catch the eye of potential customers, to stop them in their tracks.  This makes it feasible to engage them in conversations about your product line. The right display is necessary to hold the attention of passers-by.  Too many items on your display table or in your booth can look unorganized.  Handmade risers can be made of pieces of wood utilized to raise like items and conserve space.  For a booth, a banner can be inexpensively fashioned from pieces of material with your logo stitched on with colors complimenting your displayed items. The direct sales business lends itself to a hands-on approach, with no limit to creativity.

Direct Selling Leaders Train Team

The vendor event is a great opportunity to train your team. Bring consultants to every event and let them practice and listen to the expert on the showroom floor.

Whether you are a team leader or a party plan consultant, you know the significance of using the right delivery to get your point across.  It is important to create an environment that is conducive to instilling the right desire, letting your potential customer know that she or he is in the right place at the right time, that you have what they want. To start, your vendor table has to be functional and stable and can be very cost-effective.  The best way to begin is with the centerpiece. Many direct selling consultants focus on their product line, overlooking the focal point: the centerpiece.

Even with a limited budget, a centerpiece can be a very elegant display of candles of different sizes, or various shaped and colored bottles which can be picked up at a local thrift or craft store.  A very practical and inexpensive display can be a catalog or list of your products displayed with dried flowers in a basket.  Passers-by will get a treat from your direct sales business with inexpensive little tidbits of edibles, such as small pieces of chocolate or small bite-size veggies attractively displayed in wicker baskets.  And what about drawing from nature and gathering up rustic branches, flowers, wild berries, flowers, pine cones or other types of natural materials found in your area?  You may even find that any type of sliced fruit cleverly displayed in tall clear vases filled with water and flowers will spark a conversation as potential customers look over your vendor table.

Visual appeal and budget do not have to be mutually exclusive, in fact they can go hand-in-hand as you network and continue to grow your business.

Vendor Training For Direct Selling Success

Going to vendor events regularly can mean the different between success and failure. Training your direct sales consultants to go to vendor events will bring you a constantly growing team. Direct sellers who attend vendor events will never worry about where to find business again. Learn more about how to maximize your results at vendor events from the Deb Bixler, Direct Selling 2011 speaker of the year in this free sales training video.

The CashFlowShow – Direct Sales Radio is the newest FREE education opportunity and it is available worldwide without any call fees. Host Deb Bixler has combined direct marketing business motivation and education with internet radio to bring you weekly shows that are guaranteed to grow your business.

Focusing on direct marketing education The CashFlowShow – Direct Sales Radio airs every Wednesday on the World Talk Radio Variety Channel. Tune in every Wednesday 5:00 PM Pacific / 6:00 PM Mountain / 7:00 PM Central / 8:00 PM Eastern time in the USA to get the motivation and education you need to grow your business. When you open a World Talk Radio user account you can set the time for YOUR time zone.

Word Talk Radio and its partner company VoiceAmerica deliver over 1,000 hours of programming weekly, making it the largest internet radio network worldwide.

Direct Marketing Education

The CashFlowShow – Direct Sales Radio will offer topics that teach work at home (WAH) direct marketing consultants and business owners how to create a consistent cash flow from home, using proven systems that work for all businesses no matter what the product line is.

The show is a talk format with special guests on alternating weeks. Listeners may call in for audience Q & A, and Deb loves audience participation.

Win Direct Sales Training Program

The success of the show depends on YOU the listeners. With direct sales growing on a worldwide scale this move for The CashFlowShow from teleseminars to internet radio will fill a huge need internationally.

Share The CashFlowShow – Direct Sales Radio with your friends all around the world and win The CashFlowShow program for building your business and finding BOOKINGS! Share this link with your team and friends and get an entry for all new referrals and all international referrals. http://www.createacashflowshow.com/sweepstakes/radio.htm

The Power UP For Professional Results grand prize is valued at $97!! How does that sound? You will get paid $97 for a referral!

The party plan industry seems to have slow adopters of the social media for generating leads.

"Like" Deb!

The invention of social media has resulted in an incredibly large and ever growing online community. Thanks to social media platforms such as Facebook, access to potential clients has become easier. There is a wealth of opportunity that sits on the other side of your computer screen and once you have identified who your target market is, social media can be a gold mine. Facebook currently has over 500 million active users and over 50% of those active users log on to their Facebook accounts at least once per day. Some analysts have estimated that the average users collectively spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook.

Local Leads For Party Plan

Your home party plan business has become easier but it is important that you maximize your accessibility and find leads by using Facebook to market your business in as many ways as possible. The following are the top ways to promote your business on the social media giant and still grow a local business.

1. Use your Facebook profile- Creating your user profile is the first step in the process and having a profile is required if you want to create a group or page. It is important to be as thorough as possible when completing your profile but be careful not to reveal too much personal information. It is wise to include your website URL in as many locations on your profile as possible. Once your profile is complete, you can begin the task of adding friends each day. Currently, there is a limit of 5,000 friends and you can have up to 1000 friends on each list. This is a great feature because you may have one list for family and one for clients. You can also create lists for local clients and others for those farther away.
2. Create a Facebook group- Groups are a great place to discuss topics of your choice. Groups can be specific for your niche or for your local market. You can perhaps choose a product that you would like to feature and discuss the benefits and uses of the product to draw interest. These groups can act as mini-forums and you will have an automatic audience for your home party plan business.
3. Create a Facebook Page- Facebook pages were designed with businesses in mind and they have similar features to the groups that can be created. This is where you market your party plan business. There are additional key features that may make pages a better option for you. The main benefit of a Facebook page is that it is indexed by Google and is available even for non-Facebook members to see. When you create your business page, be sure you become familiar with created SEO friendly text.
4. Utilize Facebook Ads- Facebook ads are an excellent way to increase exposure of your business. You have the ability to target your users by age, location, gender and interests. An added benefit is that you have the option of advertising your external webpage or your Facebook page.

Market Your Business Online

Everyone in party plan should take advantage of every opportunity to market their business. Online marketing should be one more part of your plan. If you are not a member of Facebook, join today and start working on creating a solid clientele by using Facebook promotion! Learn more about how to drive traffic to your party plan website using social media.

Starting an online business?
One of your biggest challenges will be getting noticed among the millions of other web sites. An online branding strategy plays an instrumental role in raising your site above the clutter. Toss out all those cheesy books with titles like 101 Online Branding Secrets and Internet Branding Strategy for Imbeciles.

In this column, we will explore the various ways to promote a brand name on the internet and how it can benefit your business.

As mentioned above, a brand is a mark indicating identity. Many times in the world of business, people will think of a brand name, such as Kellogg’s, and instantly know that they are a cereal company. It is important to be able to do the same thing with your website.

Perhaps the simplest way to brand your website is to develop a logo with your URL (web address) included. Be sure to include this logo on EVERY SINGLE PAGE of your website. This allows your visitors to see your web address on every page, reinforcing your web address.

Another option is to give away free email addresses at your website. A company such as hotmail or yahoo is very well known, primarily because every time one of their users gives out their email address, they are reinforcing the hotmail or yahoo brand name. By using this strategy, even with as little as 100 users sending 5 messages per week, this means that there are 15,000 messages per year going out with your internet address in them, that?s 15,000 free advertisements for your website every year. At one time, this was an expensive option for site owners, but with companies such as Everyone.net, you are able to include this service on your website for no charge.

Be sure to include a unique slogan on your site. If your site name was Echicken.com, a good slogan might be ‘The Best Breasts on the Web’. A slogan like this would be sure to make your site memorable. Although this particular slogan could be considered pornographic by some, it certainly would not be in poor taste if you were marketing to the young and hip cooking crowd looking for chicken recipes

The absolute best form of marketing your brand name (as well as the most inexpensive) is to start an affiliate program. Study after study shows that by paying webmasters to place your banners, buttons, etc on their websites, that people will be more likely to visit yours. This gives you the option to place your logo (the one with your URL) on thousands of websites, reinforcing your brand name even more.

Finally, be sure to include your brand name in your newsletter (you DO have one. Right?) This allows visitors to sign up and be reminded of your brand name every time they receive your newsletter. In fact, email marketing has been proven by Forrester Research to be one of the most effective forms of advertising

By using these strategies, your business will grow and expand, as more and more people begin to think of your website for their internet needs.

Media Traffic Meltdown Bottom line – you need a lot of traffic every day to make a consistent income online.

Key To Party Plan Success = FUN!

The reason people fail so often in the home party plan business is that they forget the business model the entire industry was built on. In one word, that model was ‘fun’. Hosting fun events causes would-be customers to return and makes fellow team members feel more involved.

FUN Shows Keep People Returning

It really is the FUN that keeps people returning to the show. Traditional advertising says that your average consumer must be exposed to an advertising message 7 times before making the commitment to actually buy. You see this played out every day – If you watch 2 hours of television on one channel, think how many times you will see a certain commercial repeated over and over. Now, if someone does not enjoy your events and chooses not to return after 1 or 2 times, it’s clear that you never get to that magical 7 exposures. Yes, you’ll still make sales because the 7 exposures is an average (and let’s face it, some people will buy because they don’t want to look you in the eye otherwise).

These sales though, aren’t a viable business. Now, if you’re hosting interesting gatherings that people actually look forward to and invite friends as an entertaining run night out, imagine how much better sales will be as returning friends are exposed to the products over and over.

It Is A Party!

Too many people think of the gatherings as a “demo”. No one on the planet has ever been excited to see a demo. The easiest way to inject fun into this boring concept is to add a theme and make it a real party. If you sell cooking utensils, don’t just call people asking them to attend a demo, why not invite them to Tex/Mex party? Get them excited. Offer a prize for the person who brings the best recipe. A demo is a lot of people watching while one person tries to get them to buy something. Having them get involved in a theme, using the products and thinking how handy the products would be for their own lives changes the entire landscape of the event. Everyone wants to have fun. How about a margarita party? When you can get people to associate having a good time with whatever product you represent, your chances of success in the business go through the roof.

Consultants Make Home Shows Fun With Games

Many home party consultants like to play games at their shows. If you are and you are having trouble with bookings then consider the fact that maybe the games are not fun. Fun games will help with bookings. Download a FREE party plan e-book for fun home party games.