Easy 10 Ways to Make Real Money with Your
Home Makeup Direct Sales Business
-(Part 1 0f 3) by Jodie Michelle
ala- Beauty Business Coach™
If you're like most Direct Sales Business Professionals who offer products, you likely got started signing up as an Independent Distributor and making your list of 100 friends and family whom you hope to sell to. Then you begin to get word of mouth referrals. Maybe then, you put up a website, begin sending emails and use social media, such as Facebook, to promote your products and services.
While these methods can really work, there are probably nights you wake up at 3 a.m. worrying, “Where are my next clients/customers coming from?”
Knowing how to make real money with your Home Makeup Direct Sales Business, will
not only solve this problem, but it can add hundreds of dollars to your
business every month (and for many thousands every month). Today my goal is to give you an easy overview, so you can get started making real money with your Home Makeup Direct Sales Business on your own.
In Part 1 we will discuss the following:
- Introduction: The Basic Equations
- Expand Beyond Your Circle
- Go Online
- Never Close the Doors to Your Business
Introduction: The Basic Equations
There isn’t a home makeup direct salesperson on the face of the planet who wouldn’t want to earn more money. After all, that’s why you’re in the business! But unfortunately many home makeup business salespeople don’t understand the basics of business. When it comes to making money in their business, the basics are clear whether you’re the owner of a multi-million-dollar franchise or an entrepreneur working to make your first thousand.
The basic business equation looks like this:
Sales – Expenses = Profit
What that means is, the bigger your sales and the lower your expenses, the more money you’ll make. And when it comes to increasing your total sales, there are really only a limited number of elements that go into that part of the equation. To increase your sales, you have the following options:
- Increase the number of customers you serve
- Increase the number of transactions per customer
- Increase the average value of each transaction
It really isn’t more complicated than that. Of course, a lot goes into each option, and that’s what we’re going to focus on in this report: How to increase your sales so your overall profit is higher. I won’t be addressing the expenses part of the equation: We’ll save that for another day!
Ready to start earning? Let’s go.
Expand Beyond Your Circle
At a certain point in your home makeup business direct sales career – after a week, a month, or a year or so – you will have exhausted your immediate circle. You’ve hit up all the ladies in your Tuesday tennis group; you’ve worked your neighbors, and your kids’ teachers tell you that though they love what you sold them, they really don’t need anything right now – nor do they want to host another party for you. You’re stuck.
Instead of waiting for your current customers to run out of whatever you’ve sold them or suddenly decide that yes, they want to buy from you, and right now!, you’ve got to break out of your small circle of influence. You need to push through to that next level to reach people you haven’t tapped before. There are two main ways to do this:
- Look for “friends of friend
- Look for Strangers
Let’s talk about the first method – getting referrals
You may think that all your friends know the same people, and to a certain extent, that’s true. The ladies in your Tuesday tennis group all know each other, your neighbors all know each other, the teachers at school all know each other. But I bet you know at least five people they don’t… and vice-versa.
Think of the party game, “Six Degrees to Kevin Bacon.” If everyone knew only the same people, that game wouldn’t be possible. Either it would only take one degree to reach Mr. Footloose, or it wouldn’t be possible at all. The same goes for the people you know, and the people THEY know. Think about your college roommate, your next-door neighbor’s pet sitter, your spouse’s officemates. These aren’t people in your direct circle, but they’re in that next ring.
So how do you get to these people? You ask. Ask your neighbor to introduce you to their pet sitter; ask your college roommate in the next town over to introduce you to her neighbors, ask your spouse’s workmates to broker an introduction with their spouses and neighbors.
Tools online like Facebook (facebook.com) and LinkedIn (linkedin.com) make this very easy, as you can see who your connections are connected with. On LinkedIn, you can even request an introduction to a particular person. The key is to see each person in your current network as a bridge leading to many more circles. All you have to do is cross that bridge!
Now, let’s talk about strangers:
When you were young, your mother probably warned you, “Never talk to strangers!”
The problem is, many of us are still holding on to that advice, twenty or thirty or forty or more years later! With all due respect to your mom, you need to forget that advice right now. She gave you that advice – and rightly so – when you were too young to protect yourself, or to be able to judge between “nice” strangers and “bad” strangers.
As an adult, you must talk to strangers virtually every day: The teller at the bank, the man holding the door open for you at the grocery store, the customer service person at the cable company… these are all “strangers.” Somehow we think it’s okay to talk to them in one way or setting, but it’s not okay to speak to them about our business. Wrong!
If you want to make more money, you have to sell more. And to sell more, you need to talk to more people about what you sell! It’s as simple – and as easy – as that. If you think you can’t talk to strangers about what you do, then you’re basically giving up on 99.99999 percent of the world. Sure, it can be a little anxiety-producing. Here are some ways to make it easier to talk to strangers:
- Assume the best- It was the great Will Rogers who said, “A stranger is just a friend I haven’t met yet.” How true! If you approach each interaction expecting that the other person will be interested, or at least polite, your anxiety will drop tremendously. Instead of telling yourself, “
- Take the pressure off- You can make any interaction scarier by convincing yourself that if the other person shuts you down, you’ll die. Instead, minimize the encounter. Inviting them to hear more about your products or business isn’t a life or death situation; think of it as offering them a stick of gum. They may want one; they may not. It won’t kill you either way.
- Play the numbers- Most direct sales companies will give you a good sense of how many “no” answers you can expect to receive before you get a “yes.” Each time you approach a new person, remind yourself that it’s a win either way. If they say “yes,” hurray! If they say “no,” you’re just one step closer to your yes.
Expanding outside your limited circle doesn’t take any particular skill or talent; it just takes commitment. Resolve to get introduced to one new person a day, and to discover another new friend on your own. If you do that each and every day, each week you’ll add 14 people to your circle – and over the course of the year, your network will have grown by over 750 individuals! Now that can’t help but have an impact on your bottom line.
Go Online
The internet is one of the biggest tools you can leverage for your direct sales business’s success. Where else can you have push-button access to over a billion people – and mostly for free? The internet removes time and geographic boundaries, and allows you to reach individuals you never would have had access to. If you’re not using the internet as a sales channel, you’re making a huge mistake.
Many direct sales companies have already realized that the future of their business is online, and they provide tons of resources to enable web-based sales. These resources might include:
- Consultant websites
- Online sales materials such as order forms, digital catalogs, etc.
- A system and platform for conducting online parties or sales events
If your company offers these tools, set everything else aside (including this report!) and get up and running RIGHT NOW. Each day you are not online is a day a competitor is stealing your potential customers. Go claim your slice of the World Wide Web immediately, and then come back and finish reading.
If your direct sales company doesn’t offer a complete suite of online sales tools, it’s still possible to make this channel produce for you. Here’s how:
First, check out your company’s web-based sales policy- You may find that you are not allowed to sell via a website, or that there are other restrictions. It’s better to find those out now instead of building your own website, only to find out you’ve violated a sales agreement.
- Start small- You don’t have to take over the whole web in a day! Try creating a simple site where you can take re-orders from existing customers, and let them know they can now email you their orders. You can always build, but if you try to take on too much at once, you can easily become overwhelmed.
- Host a virtual party- You know your Aunt Ellie who always said she’d hold a party for you, but has never been able to because she lives in Iowa and you’re in Florida? Ask her to host a virtual party. This can be done via Skype (skype.com) in real time, or via a dedicated website where guests ask questions, place their orders, and interact at their convenience. (If your company doesn’t have an online catalog, ship a box full to Aunt Ellie and ask her to distribute them for you.)
- Keep in contact- Start a money making blog where you post regular tips, specials, and other information and resources related to your business is a great way to get people coming back for more. Become an expert in your field, and you’ll be the one they turn to when they need to buy.
Doing business online isn’t that much different than the way you’ve been working up until now. The same principles of customer service, integrity, and honesty work just as well – if not better – in a virtual world. It’s just a new channel and a new opportunity, one you can’t afford to miss out on.
Resources:
Facebook Timeline- my e-book for how to put it all together
