Happy Friday! Isn't it funny how short weeks can seem so long? We have had a WILD week at the office getting ready to head off to NYC Fashion Week tomorrow - Thursday for what is going to be a great opporunity to pick up some really great media attention. Be sure to follow me on Facebook and through my blogs to keep up with the excitement and share with your clients. This kind of wonderful publicity gives credibility to your business in a way that advertising just cannot do. Today, social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter can publicize a company virally faster than any other time in history. We are so proud to have teamed up with a great company that will allow each person who attends each of the 9 shows that we are sponsoring to enter to win a drawing by "checking in" at our boutique which will be set up along-side the runways and register to win a $1,000 prize package. When they check in, they will be automatically directed to either the Skin S.P.A. video commercial or the eBeauti video commercial, depending on where they check in, and when they do, their post will automatically be published on their Facebook page for all of their "friends" to see. Think about it...each show will have approximately 500 attendees. It is said that every person on Facebook conservatively has 100 friends minimum. If everyone checks into our booth (as one of the 4 sponsors of the shows), we have the potential of reaching a MINIMUM of 50,000 people in just 4 days. That is incredible! We will be sure to keep you posted on all the fun.
Anyway...back to today's blog. I hope you see a similarity in the blog topic today and the blog topic from Monday's blog. Monday's blog was about getting your new Consultants started in business. Today's blog is about KEEPING your Consultants in business. Trust me...I am not dilusional. I know that not everyone who joins as a Consultant is looking to start a business. They may have joined because you are their friend and they wanted to help you out during a promotion, or they were a guest at a Spa who tried the products and wanted to get them at a discounted price. Regardless of why a new Consultant joins BeautiControl, we want them to feel valued and enjoy their experience with the company, and we want to retain them in the business to help them keep receiving the perks of a product discount opportunity, or the opportunity to place infrequent orders for herself, her family and friends. As hard as it is for me to believe, when we conducted a recent survey among Consultants who had "dropped" their active status, the #1 reason was that they never heard from the person who signed them up. The #2 reason was that they didn't know that they had been dropped. In all sincerity, that breaks my heart! Not only does it break my heart that they didn't feel that BeautiControl connection that makes them feel part of the family...but I hate to see the person who signed them up lose Consultants as fast as they get new ones. The real value of building a team is not just how many new people you can get to join, but how many of your current Consultants you can keep. The success of your business is directly related to the total size of your team...not just the new people that you bring in to your team.
Our goal is to keep every Consultant's store open for business. I would like for you to think of something from a little different perspective. If you are a Consultant who has been part of the BeautiControl family for a while, or even in the Director ranks, when you think of BeautiControl, you often think of us here in Dallas. You think of the home office, the BeautiControl Research Institute and our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility, right? But for a Consultant who may have joined to help you out during a promotion, joined to get a great discount opportunity when she purchases products for herself, her family and friends, or one who never went to BeautiU and made that "connection" to the company, WE here in Dallas are not BeautiControl...YOU ARE! The person who signed her or him up is the only BeautiControl that they know. They know that they get a lot of emails each week, but these are part, part time Consultants who are paying part, part time attention (at best) to our communication from the home office.
I'm not sure if you know this or not, but you might find it interesting to know exactly what we do each month to communicate to our sales-force. Each month, not only do we create a weekly All Consultant Email and Director Communique, we also create emails that are segmented by audience (in 3 different languages) as reminders of the offers that we have available each month. Each segmented audience has a totally unique message, photographic image and positioning designed to appeal to each audience differently. Currently, those segmented audiences include:
- Leaders
- Sellers
- Buyers
- Those who are about to become inactive
- Those who have become inactive
- Clients
To each of those segmented audiences, we send communications that remind them of the offers, a 24 hour reminder prior to the close of the offer, as well as a 6 hour reminder prior to the close of the offer. WOWZA...that's a lot of emails; however, no matter how many emails or postcalls we send, the fact is that we mean very little to them because YOU are BeautiControl to them. As a "recruiter", it is important that you reach out to each member on your team to keep them in the loop...not only to help you maximize your comissions, but to allow them to feel like part of this incredible family. There is a reason that Facebook is such a revolution in our world today...it is because it creates a community. That is the magic of "social networks"...they create a community that keeps people connected. But you know what? Direct Selling was the first, and still the largest "social network". One of the largest draws to our business is not the products and not the business opportunity, but rather the community of women that we bring together! We are an incredibly beautiful Social Network that brings together women from all walks of life and create the most unlikely relationships possible. I can say from my experience that my very best friends in this world I have met through BeautiControl. People who I would have never imagined that I would have known (or even liked) are now the dearest people in my life! Your personal contact with each of the Consultants on your team is so important to help you keep them active and let them be a part of your family...YOUR BeautiControl.
I wrote a blog recently called, "Planning For Sales Success", if you haven't had the opportunity, please check it out. There is a proven formula for success in this business and it has to do with creating a plan each month that focuses on how many people on your team place an order and the size of that order. It goes without saying that the more people you have on your team (or the more "Stores" you have open), the easier it will be for you be successful. There is a definite cycle in our business. We have larger numbers of new Consultants during March/April and August/September, right? That makes sense since those are the times that we have more incentives for you, the "recruiter". As a result, there are 4 months out of each year where we are at risk of losing more Consultants...December/January and August/September.
Well, here we are, in September and we want you to know that we've got your back. We want to do everything we can to help YOU keep more of your team in business. As a result, we have created an offer for those on your team who have gone inactive in August by offering them the ability to regain their active Consultant status in order to retain their discount priveleges with an order of only $50 (that is a $100 savings from our normal re-activation price). That means that they only pay $37.50 (after their 25% career level discount) and they will regain their active Consultant status.
Now, it's up to you. These Consultants have not seen the incredible new products that we have rolled out since Celebration. They have likely not seen the incredible eBeauti diagnostic tool or even know about the Skin S.P.A. tool. They probably don't even know that they can earn a free trip to one of the most posh and decadent resorts in the entire world just by sharing the opportunity to join with their friends. We are sneaking up on the holidays, and we don't want to allow any of our Consultants to go inactive just before the busiest selling seasons of the year. We know that retailers have incredible sales during the holidays and everyone loves to shop with a discount. No one has better gifts and personal pampering products than BeautiControl and they make the perfect gifts. Why would they want to give up their discount priveleges right before the holidays? Like I said (more than once, actually), YOU ARE BEAUTICONTROL to these Consultants. Make time in your busy schedule this month to contact both those who have become inactive and those who are at risk of becoming inactive and let them know about the incredible opportunity they have. Let them feel part of the family. Once call from you is worth 1,000 emails from me, trust me! The reason most people come to a Spa is because they want to be pampered. The reason that most people want to join is because they want to be connected. Don't let them lose that connection, and don't let them be one of the statisics that left because they never heard from the person who signed them up or, worse, didn't realize that they had been dropped. Make it a personal goal this month to keep your Consultants from going out of business. Not only will it help your sales, but I think you might find that it will also help your heart!
Make it a great weekend. Ciao!
