How to chose the best direct sales company to work for

Everyone has that goal to earn a few extra dollars. Let it be for a new car, buy a house, kids schooling and everyone wants to work less to spend more time doing the things they love like family time, travelling and buying whatever they want. It is the million dollar conundrum! Within every woman is a natural entrepreneur so why not get paid for something you are already doing naturally by referring restaurants, books and services.

There are different types of entrepreneurs and you don’t have to have the killer idea or product or start your own company to make it happen. There are people who make things and people who sell other peoples things.

1. People who makes things examples are the lovely talented people selling their creativity through markets and online to small and medium business owners who either manufacture and sell services. These guys have either part-time of full time gone out and worked for themselves establishing their own business processes to get their product to the market.
2. People who sell other peoples things can be sole distributors i.e. you see a product overseas and negotiate the exclusive rights to sell in your country can be a fortune for the right person. An example is Pandora jewelery, distributed exclusively to Australia was an entrepreneurial idea.

But if you want to get your feet wet and try your entrepreneurial hat, but you have not yet come up with the killer product and you’re not quite confident that we have the market for those Italian lace-up beach pants/sarong in Australia to import. I would like you to consider choosing a direct sales company to work for.  I believe that every entrepreneur is looking for the right company. The benefits for an new entrepreneur is you do not have to manufacture and set up a company and all the administration, book keeping and staff PLUS re-mortgaging your house (in some cases) to come up with the costs required to  start your own company.

These are the steps to chose the best direct sales company to work for:

1. Go to the Direct Selling Organization www.dsa.org and find a list of companies. You want to align yourself with a creditable company. Just like the share market where you might chose from the top500 S&P and then by industry sector, you want to do the same with a direct sales company.  Direct sales companies are a legitimate and regulated business model. You want to make sure your company compiles with the guidelines because it is the rogue companies that gave it bad name and scares people to think it is a pyramid scheme (just like Timeshare did to families in the 1980s).
2. Short list companies based on what you are passionate about. Every 5 years or so I buy a car but I have absolutely no interest in selling cars. Likewise I wear makeup every day but I have no interest in selling makeup. Even if they have the best compensation model in the world if you a. do not use the product and b. are not interested in the benefits a product brings it will be really hard to sell and grow a team.

Benefits are the reason why or problem a product solves. You buy a bed for a good night sleep, you buy a drill for the hole in the wall, you buy a car to get from A to B, you buy Isagenix to get energy and lose weight.

When you meet your sponsor from the company you identify remember that you are interviewing them too. The questions you need to ask:

1. How long have your sponsor and their sponsor being in the company? No right or wrong answer but you need to get a feel if people are coming and going or staying.
2. Know your Industry and understand how do you get paid? I actually did not know this but in direct sales/ MLM there are four main business models in addition to the traditional wholesaler and retail customer acounts? Is it a deposit in your bank account or do you manage your own bookkeeping by collecting money from retail customers?
3. What is the training and support provided?
4. What is the start-up cost and how much is it to maintain and active account? In Isagenix to earn an income you need to maintain a minimum monthly autoship order whereas Tupperware it was fairly negotiable to maintain an open account. Start-up costs should very, very small.
5. What online and e-commerce benefits do the companies provide? Some companies now provide demonstrators/affiliates with websites, online ordering and online training whereas other affiliates are still required to attend weekly meetings and paper catalogues and manual ordering.
6. Is it a party plan dependent organisation where you need to demonstrate products or is it a product you can refer through alternative means?
7. It the product a consumable that customers will come back for? i.e. if it is makeup, food product that get consumed and customers will return or Tupperware life time guarantee but products get used forever?

This is the type of analysis I would recommend to chose the best direct sales company to work for. What are yours?

Lisa