5 Super Tips to Building a Successful Team

While you always want to put your customers first, don't forget about your silent income - your team members!

A good team member usually won't take up too much of your time. Aside from a few question here and there, the hardest working downline members are busy working their business and training themselves.

However, it's important to remember this - even if they don't ask for your help, they may need it. Make sure you are paying attention to all of your team, not just the ones contacting you.

Here are a few things you can do to help keep motivation up, and let your downline know you are behind them 100%:

1. Team newsletters
Do you have information or tips to give? Organize them in a simple newsletter. This can be monthly, weekly, or random. Just be sure you have a list they join when they sign up under you. Follow all spam laws on this one!

2. Team incentives
Hold a montly contest for the most sales, or something similar. This helps boost your own income, while getting your team motivated at the same time. If your company holds a contest, sweeten the deal and offer something extra if someone from your team wins.

3. Give a personal touch
Don't forget about birthdays, holidays, and other special days. Keep good track of these important dates and include your downline members on your "card-giving" lists. The extra note will let them know they are important to you!

4. Team Blog
A great way to keep in contact with everyone. There is many different ways you could set this up to fit your needs. You can give all team members full access to make posts or you could have it set up so they can only leave comments, ask questions etc. You can keep your blog private so only yourself and your team members have access or you can keep this open to the public so everyone can read it.

5. Team Training
Part of your responsibilities as a direct selling leader is to train your team members on the specifics of building their direct selling business. One way you can do this is to hold face-to-face team meetings with local team members. Another way thanks to the wonderful world wide web, you can now hold meetings with team members from all over the world. No matter how you choose to do it, training is a necessary part of your role as a team leader.

There are many other ways to help motivate and train your team, Just remember, they are working for you as hard as they are working for themselves!

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Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank, owners of DirectSalesHelpers.com strive to help women in direct sales. Find out how you can earn some extra cash while training your team at
http://www.directsaleshelpers.com/affiliate.html

Three Ways to Automate Your Business Fast

The use of autoresponders is a great way to automate your business fast, freeing up precious time you could be using to do other important aspects in your direct sales business. Set up properly, they’ll make your business more automated without losing that personal touch. The following are just a few ideas for you.

Business Opportunity Information
You could set up your autoresponder to send out information on your business opportunity. For example, you would take a list of frequently asked questions about your business and put them into your autoresponder. Put a form on your website for potential recruits to request more information and then it’s all done automatically for you. This also saves you from having to answer the same questions over and over again. Don’t forget to set up a follow up message to ask if they had any more questions or needed more information!

Catalog Requests
Set up an autoresponder for potential customers to request catalogs. An example on how to do this would be like this: Set up a form on your website for customers to enter their mailing and email address. Set up your autoresponder to send them a message letting them know that you’ve received their request and you’ll be sending out the catalog. Then have it set to send out another message in about a week – just to confirm that they’ve received your catalog and making sure they didn’t have any questions. Next you might want to set it to send out another message in 3 – 4 days maybe offering a special discount “just for them”. Then for your final message, you could let them know about a newsletter you offer with instructions on how to join.

New Recruit Training
Autoresponders are a great way to train your new team members! Here you could take a list of important information about the company, product etc., and put them into the autoresponder to be automatically delivered over time. Another idea is to set it up to send out business tips about online parties, home parties, or just running their business in general. With this, the possibilities are endless.

The above is just a touch of what you can do because, as mentioned, there are so many things you can do with an autoresponder. With a little bit of creativity, you’re sure to come up with something that will help your business stand above the rest and with a little research you’re sure to find a program that will work for you.

For a jumpstart on your research, feel free to take a look at the autoresponder we recommend at: http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/autoresponder.html


Kara Kelso & Anita DeFrank, owners of DirectSalesHelpers.com strive to help women succeed in direct sales. For additional help with your direct sales business, visit http://www.directsaleshelpers.com

Top 5 Ways to Kick Start Your Online Business

Top 5 Ways to Kick Start Your Online Business

It's a brand new year and time and the perfect time to give your business the kick start it so desperately needs. Did you ever get the feeling that your business is at a standstill even if you've been in business for a while? Of course it does. It happens to everyone - I know that because it's happened to me time and time again. In the following you'll find the top five ways to give your business a boost.

1. Build a Website
Yes, we're starting at the very beginning here. I've seen too many folks who for example are affiliate marketers or direct sales representatives and they're still working with their "company issued" website. Sure, that might be the ideal (and easy way out). However, it is time to break out of that shell and build something better.

2. Learn SEO
Build It and They Will Come - Bull! That just does NOT happen so get that out of your head now. Take the time now and learn a little about Search Engine Optimization. Why waste the time building a website if the search engines can't find you? There are a lot of things out there that you should be doing and more importantly, things you shouldn't be doing. Learn how to build your website the right way now and you'll thank yourself later.

3. Start a Newsletter
Hopefully you already have one but, if you don't - start one now! You NEED a way to keep in front of your customer / visitors on a regular basis. Build a list of folks who WANT to know when you have specials, know when you have a new product, etc. etc. Your newsletter doesn't have to be something huge and elaborate. As a matter of fact, here's when the K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Sweetie) concept comes into play.

4. Advertise Your Business
To gain exposure/brand recognition, gain immediate sales, announce new products/services and search engine optimization are just a few of the reasons why you need to advertise. Very few businesses can survive without some type of advertising. It's also one of the most important aspects in running certain types of businesses. Unfortunately, it seems to be one of the biggest steps missed and/or done incorrectly. Take the time to learn more about online advertising, sales copy writing and don't skip this important step!

5. Online Promotion
There are many, many other ways to promote your business online (in addition to traditional advertising). Ebook writing, mini courses and article writing are just a few tactics. Believe it or not, these CAN be used with ANY online business (even affiliate marketers and direct sales representatives). Make it your goal to write one of the above this year.

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Anita DeFrank is the author of Kick Start Your Online Business. The online world is full of possibility. It gives you the power to meet people from all over the world that you could never dream of meeting and better yet, Do Business with these people. Stop wasting time sifting through all the advice that may or may not be useful and learn from her mistakes. Learn more about her book at http://www.mommyshelperonline.com/kickstart.html