The Secret to Direct Sales Success: It’s Not About YOU

The direct sales industry is a baffling beast. To many, its unique approach and strange pay plan are counterintuitive. And while It’s true that plenty struggle to succeed in this type of business, it is not because the direct sales model doesn’t work. It’s because they haven’t yet figured out the secret to making direct sales work for them.

Today, I’m going to let you in on that juicy information. Are you ready?

It’s simple, really – too simple for many to accept. The secret is this: It’s not about YOU. Everything boils down to this one realization. Your job in DS is not to generate success for yourself, it’s to create success for others. The concept may be simple, but that doesn’t make it easy! It’s hard to get out of your own way and it takes effort to focus on others rather than yourself. Maybe this is because corporate America has conditioned us to believe we need to use cutthroat tactics and generate unnecessary competition to get ahead. Maybe it’s because we want to succeed so badly that we cling to every little accomplishment until we end up squeezing the life out of others who have linked arms with us in our business.

I used to work in corporate America. I know all about how competition is bred. I’ve seen firsthand the nastiness that is carried out in an attempt to get ahead (or stay ahead) of peers. Things get mean, things get ugly, and it is often the result of a desperate need to protect and preserve one’s income. Associates withhold important information on systems and processes to keep themselves elevated above their peers. They limit and risk the success of the whole solely to protect their own status quo.

When any of this enmity creeps into a direct sales company, I begin to think that maybe the representatives of the company do not fully understand their business model. DS success comes readily, almost automatically when a representative helps those on their team succeed. It’s a beautiful model, in my opinion. If I focus on helping others on my team succeed, my raises, promotions, and income come naturally. The more people I help succeed, the more income I generate. This model encourages me to share the strategies I’ve learned, to reveal what really works; it rewards me for teaching and training my team. This pay-it-forward model is one that I can feel good about!

So here’s the problem.

The problem is that far too many consultants bring a competitive corporate mentality into a business model that is meant to be cooperative. Instead of teaching and training their team, their partners, they chase after the next hit for their own business: their next personal sale or recruit. This, in my opinion, is at the heart of direct sales failure. It’s the reason we get a bad rap for “roping people into the system.”

Recruiting should never involve of wrangling people onto your team against their will. And the fact of the matter is, when you focus on creating success for others, this wrestle is completely unnecessary! If you tell me that you want to take your family on an incredible vacation every year and you would like to find a way to generate that income AND I can show you how to sell the pure and natural Posh products that you have already fallen in love with to make that happen, then there is no need for me to rope you into anything. Instead, you make a choice. If you choose to join my team, we become partners. It becomes my responsibility to help you to train you, and teach you what I know. It’s my job to coach you, mentor you, and be your accountability partner; and I’m committed to do it.

And not only that, it’s in both of our best interests! Together we win! Together we succeed! Together we can do so much more!

And that is the secret to direct sales success.