There are no accidents in business. While it is true that a person may stumble into a successful business just by doing what they love to do, it will become quickly apparent as their business grows, it is important to take control and manage your business rather than having it manage you. This blog will help you maximize your sales potential by helping you look at your business a little differently than you may look at it from month to month.
The sales formula is actually very simple, but once you begin to focus on it a little more intentionally, it is amazing what a difference it can make in your business, particularly if you are a Director or on your way to becoming a Director. The sales formula is this:
- Activity x Productivity = Sales
So…what does that mean:
- Activity = the number of ordering consultants that you have on your team each month.
- Productivity = the size of that order each month.
Here is an example. Let’s say for example that you want your monthly unit sales to be $15,000. You have a team that has 50 Consultants. Now, let’s say that the average order size from your Consultants each month is $300. How many of your 50 Consultants do you need to place an order for you to hit your $15,000 unit sales goal? You need all 50 to place a $300 order if you are going to reach your sales goal, right? Well, as much as we would love for every Consultant on our teams to order each month, we know that just isn’t the reality, so we are left with a few options:
- Get more consultants
- Get more of your existing consultants ordering
- Or, increase the average order size of each order to compensate for the shortage in ordering Consultants. (for instance, getting your average order size up to $375 vs. $300 would mean that you would only need 40 of your Consultants to place an order.
Either one of these options will help you get you to your goal, but unless you are aware of where you are going, it’s not always so easy to take control and help pull the right triggers to get you there, right?
I can tell you from experience, (and a lot of hair loss in the process), that it is much easier to get more people to purchase a little than it is to get fewer people to purchase more. That’s why your Consultant count within your unit is so important. Learning what your Consultant count needs to be within your unit to help you make your sales goals is crucial for guaranteeing and planning for your success.
Naturally, our instinct when it comes to increasing our ordering Consultants or our Consultant count is finding new Consultants to join our teams. While that is an extremely important part of the process, having a solid team of ordering Consultants is just as important. That’s where retention comes in. I often wonder what would happen if we spent as much effort keeping the Consultants that we have as we do going out and finding new ones.
As a leader, you have the opportunity to diagnose and help control your sales each week by creating the sales formula that is right for you. This will help you avoid that last minute rush every month and help you keep a finger on the pulse of your business. Here are some tips that may help:
- Recognizing and rewarding your Consultants for helping you reach your goals will go a long way in helping you build a successful business. Recognize your top seller, person on your team with the most Spa bookings, the most new clients, top recruiter, etc.
- Contact is crucial. Personal, sincere contact with each of your Consultants will help you build a stronger relationship with each of them…remember, this is a relationship business.
- Don’t let your Consultants become inactive. When surveyed, most of the Consultants who are no longer with us said that they didn’t realize that they were dropped or that they never heard from the Consultant who recruited them. Everyone joined for a reason, find that reason and help them keep that passion alive. If they only joined because they wanted to get a discount, then make sure they know what the ordering specials are each month. Remember, they are not as engaged as you are and probably don’t read the emails we send and may or may not look at the Achiever each month.
- Build a strong client base. This will not only help you guarantee that you have residual sales from month to month, but will also be a great pool of Beauticontrol users who may want to join as a new Consultant. We know that the best new Consultants are those that are already in love with the products.
- Know how many Spas you need to have on your team each month to help everyone reach their goal. For instance, I know when I look on the Spa Booking Calendar, that we will have a good month if we have 20,000 Spas booked on the calendar each month. How many Spas do you need to shoot for each month? Booking Spas online is the only way that you will be able to track the health of your Spa business, so be sure that your Consultants are using the Booking Calendar, even if they are having small selling situations, vs. conventional “Spas”.
- When you find a new Consultant to join your team, make sure that they know they are joining with an opportunity to sell and make money. If they are just looking for a discount, then show them how they can actually save more money by either Hosting a Spa or by referring new business to you.
Even if you are not yet a Director and don’t have Consultants on your team, these same principles apply to your business. If you are a Consultant who wants to receive the 50% ordering opportunity, how many client orders to you need to help you achieve that. If your average Spa sales are $500, then we know that you need to have one Spa and at least 20 of your clients placing a $25 order. If you don’t have 20 clients on your client list, then you know that you need to have more Spas and get more people to take the Skin S.P.A. so they will be added to your client list, giving you more clients to contact and increasing your pool of prospective ordering clients each month. Remember, you are offering a service…and nothing appeals to a client more than good, old fashioned customer service.
You make think that you are all alone out there running your business; however, nothing could be further from the truth. Each Tuesday Morning, at 11:00, we have what is called the KPI Review Meeting. KPI stands for Key Performance Indicators and they are measured on a weekly basis. Why do we manage your business on a weekly, rather than monthly basis? This is a weekly business! If you are not measuring your business and have weekly goals for yourself, chances are you are going to get to the end of the month and have no idea how to catch up.
In these KPI Meetings, each one of the Senior Leadership Team is responsible for a very specific area of your business and for your weekly performance:
- Activity (Charla Gervers): How many Consultants are Selling
- Productivity (Gary Jones): How large is each order size
- Client Sales: (Gary Jones): Orders placed online from Clients
- Spa Count (Brian Dill and RVPs): How many Spas you have on the booking calendar clearly tells us the future health of the business and helps us forecast new products.
- New skin s.p.a. / eBeauti profiles taken (Gary Jones): This is an indicator of who is building Skin Care clients, which we know have a higher rate of retention.
- Sales (Charla Gervers and Brian Dill): We track sales vs. last year and sales vs. plan.
- New Consultants (Tami Merica): Creating incentives that encourage our Consultants and Directors to find New Consultants to join their team.
- Potential Inactive Consultants (Tami Merica): This list is every Consultant who has not placed their $100 Retail order in the required 4 month period.
- Inactive Consultants (Tami Merica): These are the people who have not ordered their $100 Retail order in a 4 month period and have gone into their period of Inactivity. During this 12 month period, the Inactive Consultant can regain active status by placing a $150 Retail order. After 12 months as an Inactive Consultant, the Consultant will be deleted from our records and will have to join as a new Consultant if they want to come back into the business.
To make it very simple, this is what we are responsible for:
- My Marketing and Product Development teams are responsible for making your clients want to order from you. My job is to give you the products and the tools (like sensors and ebeauti) and marketing support materials to help you market your business to your clients.
- Charla, Brian and the Regional Vice Presidents are responsible for making sure that our Consultants and Directors are out there booking Spas, selling product and finding new Consultants…BOOK, SELL, RECRUIT
- Tami and the Promotions Team is responsible for maintaining total sales force count…meaning, creating incentives to get New Consultants and create communications plans and programs to keep them from leaving.
To make if very clear, this is what we are NOT responsible for:
- We do not market to your clients. We give you the tools to market your own business. It is up to you to contact your clients, create offers and incentives that make your clients want to place an order with you.
- In a similar note, our job in Marketing is NOT to market to our Consultants as Clients. Our job is NOT to make you want to buy products for yourself…you are not a customer…you are a Seller. Our job is to market to you as a Seller, creating offers that give you more profit potential when you build your inventory.
- While we can communicate to the Potential Inactive and Inactive Consultants on your team each month, that is not our job. That is your job. As a Consultant, you are BeautiControl to those on your team…not us. When you start looking at your total consultant count and keeping all your stores open, and not just bringing in new Consultants, you will find that you have more control of a much healthier business.
Every month, we do what we can from a merchandising perspective to help you drive the same KPIs within your units. For example, every month you will have:
- Activity Drivers: New products or offers that inspire more people to place an order. “Buy one get one free” (BOGO) offers is a great example of an activity drive. Every person is purchasing a little more. These offers typically appeal to the Consumer Consultant or those who are less active sellers.
- Productivity Drivers: These are offers that reward for higher purchases. For instance, “order $350 and get a sneak peek of a new product”, or an offer like this …”the more you buy, the more you save.” This rewards the seller for purchasing more and stocking some inventory. Productivity offers appeal to the Sellers in the business or those who are stocking inventory.
- Booking Challenges: To help your team understand the importance of booking their Spas on the ONLINE booking calendar.
- Recruiting Promotions: Finding new Consultants should be something that happens naturally every month to maintain the health of your business. In fact, you should be finding one new Consultant from every Spa; however, we do created Recruiting Promotions and Offers that give you an extra incentive to find new Consultants.
Because every month in the years has different business characteristics, you will see that we develop plans and programs to help support the natural momentum of both seasonal characteristics and the necessary flow of the business to help you balance and grow. Below are the specific KPIs that we use each month to develop offers, promotions and incentives:
January: This is a month that is focused on both activity and high contact. Many Consultants have taken off for the Holidays, and January is the time to get back in the game. From a consumer standpoint, both men and women have made resolutions for a healthier year. This is the perfect time to introduce clients to a new skin care regimen that will help them maintain both the health and the youth of the skin. January is typically a month where we introduce a high contact Blockbuster product as well as products that will help support Valentine's selling.
February: This is another month where activity is key. Many of our Field leaders are waiting to see what we are going to launch at our Leadership Conference, so activity among the higher levels can be low. In addition, the weather in most parts of the country is poor and Spa activity can be a bit sluggish. Contact is key. You will notice that we create offers that drive mass activity and contact at lower price-points to engage the masses.
March/April: These are months that are focussed on Recruiting. Look for new products that support Spa Themes and/or support selling at the Spa. These Spas will lead to new clients which lead to new Recruits. These promotional months typically offer recruiting incentives such as trips or other high value items as an incentive to find New Consultants to join your team. An important note for recruiting months such as March/April as well as August/September is that without Spas on the calendar it becomes increasingly difficult for a Consultant to find New Consultants. It is imperative that each February and each July focus on loading the Spa pipeline so you have people to talk to about joining your team as a New Consultant.
May: May's focus is Activity. Coming out of a 2 month recruiting promotion means that we have an influx of New Consultants who are entering the business. Our goal is to create activity drivers that help these New Consultants become qualified. Many of the new Consultants will be going to BeautiYou, so there may be special ordering incentives at BeautiYou to encourage ordering. The first few months in the business are key to the success of the New Consultant, so we do everything we can to help them become active during the first few months as a Consultant. May is the month where we have our Spring Super Saturday Meetings to kick off our Summer Selling season.
June: June is a Productivity month...meaning that the key focus is driving an average order size. During a productivity month you will notice that the offers from Marketing are focused on building the order size. June is WHO month, which is accompanied by a sale. This sale encourages larger average order size, thus increasing productivity. Increased productivity means you put more money in your pockets.
July: July, like February, is a unique month when it comes to Consultant and Director Activity. Many Consultants are on Summer Vacation, while others are waiting to see what new products and offers will be introduced later in the month at Celebration. Contact is key. You will notice that we create offers that drive mass activity and contact at lower price-points to engage the masses.
August/September: August/September are focused on recruiting. Look for new products that support Spa Themes and/or support selling at the Spa. These Spas will lead to new clients which lead to new Recruits. These promotional months typically offer recruiting incentives such as trips or other high value items as an incentive to find New Consultants to join your team. An important note for recruiting months such as March/April as well as August/September is that without Spas on the calendar it becomes increasingly difficult for a Consultant to find New Consultants. It is imperative that each February and each July focus on loading the Spa pipeline so you have people to talk to about joining your team as a New Consultant.
October: October's focus is Activity. Coming out of a 2 month recruiting promotion means that we have an influx of New Consultants who are entering the business. Our goal is to create activity drivers that help these New Consultants become qualified. Many of the new Consultants will be going to BeautiYou, so there may be special ordering incentives at BeautiYou to encourage ordering. October is also when we have our Holiday Super Saturday Meetings to launch the 3 month Holiday Selling Campaign.
November: November, like June, is a month that is focussed on Productivity. Historically we have a "Thanksgiving Sale" which drives average order size and encourages our Conslutants to stock up on inventory items that can be purchased at a discounted price.
December: Like February and July, December is another month where activity levels are historically low; therefore, our intent is to create offers and incentives that engage the masses and keep our Consultants active. Typically December merchandising will include new products that have mass appeal or lower price points to support last minute gifts or stocking stuffers.
Now you can see how there is a very definite rythym to this business and a logic to the offers that we create to help support your business. When you take the offers that we create for you, and add on your own Spa booking challenges, unit sales challenges or recruiting challenges, etc, you can see where this becomes a beautiful partnership to help each of you grow your personal business and help develop future leaders within your unit.
At the risk of sounding blunt, THIS IS YOUR BUSINESS, not ours. If we were running this business from Dallas, we would be a retail business and go directly to the customer, selling at full retail. But we aren’t…that’s not our business model. Once every Consultant and Director understands that they have total control of their business, it is amazing how your perspective can change. Platinum National Executive Director, Evelyn Coleman once said something that has resonated with me for a long time, “The only things I need from BeautiControl are my products and my paycheck…the rest is up to me.”
So as you plan your month, ask yourself these questions:
- What is your sales goal?
- What is your average order size each month?
- How many active, ordering Consultants do you need placing orders?
- How many clients to you need placing orders?
- How many Spa bookings do you need within your unit?
- What are you doing to increase your Consultant count: either retaining the Consultants that you have or adding new Consultants to your team
- What are you doing do increase your client pool each month?
When you begin each month with an intentional and achievable plan, you will find that more often than not, you will reach it. Knowing and understanding your personal KPIs, whether you are a Director or a Consultant will help you build a strong business and make more money in the process.
This is a simple business…I didn’t say it was easy, but it is very simple. When you love what you do and what you can offer for others, there’s really nothing to it. In fact, for thousands of BeautiControl Directors and Consultants, it is the most fun you can ever have earning a substantial income and having the flexibility you want and need in your lives. While others go to their J.O.B. you get to go to your S.P.A.