Keep New Distributors On Board with the Right Direct Sales Apps
We’ve written before about the fact that when you’re trying to motivate your direct sales reps to sell, you can’t take a carrot-and-stick approach.
Why not? Because there’s no stick—nothing you can threaten them with. You can only incent them by means of various carrots.
Just be careful you’re dangling the right carrots at the right time. And be sure you’re using direct sales apps that support your approach.
When you’re trying to motivate new sales reps, timing is everything. New reps often struggle with fear as they seek to make that first sale. Well-founded statistics show that the quicker a sales rep gets over these initial fears, the better (and longer) overall experience he or she will have with your company.
This means you’ll need to dangle the right combination of incentives in front of your new reps. Can your direct sales apps deliver the fine-tuned control you’ll need?
How to Get New Sales Reps Selling
Most direct sales companies aren’t exactly in the dark about the need to help their new sales reps start selling as quickly as possible. In fact, it’s common to see reps placed in Fast Start programs that reward them for making a certain number of sales—or at least establishing a certain number of contacts—within the first 30, 60, or 90 days.
The concept is simple, but the bookkeeping isn’t. And many direct sales apps can’t keep up.
For example, suppose you’re offering your new sales reps 500 bonus points towards an Alaskan Cruise for establishing three contacts within their first week. They can also earn a $100 cash bonus for making their first sale in the first week, as well as a $50 cash bonus for each subsequent sale within the first month.
Ah, but you know that once the rush of those first couple of sales wears off, your sales reps tend to get discouraged and stop reaching out to potential new clients. So you’re offering them 1,000 bonus points for every online product presentation they host in their second month. And of course you want to make sure that your reps are following up with their leads until they close. So for all distributors who are in their third month with your company, you’re offering double commissions.
These are just some ideas (you may have even better ones). Whatever incentive program you implement to motivate your new sales reps is likely to be complex and precise. It’s also likely to include incentives for each new rep’s upline, so that senior distributors will be motivated to coach and mentor their new recruits.
The trouble is, many direct sales apps only provide you with a cookie-cutter Fast Start program that’s built into the platform. Want to change it up to support your specific levels and types of incentives? Then you’ll have to sink significant time and budget into writing custom code.
You might think it’s worth the investment to get the MLM platform you really want. We say it’s even smarter to choose direct sales apps that are flexible enough to support you right out of the box.
Supporting Career Planning for Your Sales Reps
When you’re looking for a new MLM platform, you don’t have to sacrifice functionality for flexibility. You can find software that’s powerful enough to support any incentive program you throw at it, yet flexible enough to let you set up your own programs and incentives.
In the process, you’ll be doing much more than just keeping your books accurately. You’ll also be guiding the career paths of your sales reps. The more you lead them along the path towards a successful experience with your company, the more likely it becomes that they’ll see you not as a mere side gig, but as a professional engagement they want to hold onto for many years.
Thatcher’s Prowess platform is designed to give you direct control over even your most complex incentive programs.
Find out more about our direct sales apps.