Starting a direct selling or small business is a lot like driving a car. You are in complete control of where you are headed and how fast—or slow—you get to your destination.

But on those days when the road gets a little bumpy and unfamiliar, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a road map to help navigate through those roadblocks that can cause your business to stall?

Well, guess what? There is.

DSEF has added another tool to its rich archive of resources to help small business owners implement innovative ideas to take their businesses to the next level: the Business Owner’s Road Map to Success, a free, downloadable ebook.

The Foundation continuously provides informative and helpful content on its blog that offers direct sellers insight on a variety of topics, from finance and ethics to sales and personal development. Those blog posts form the basis of the 53-page ebook.

“The DSEF blog posts collected in the Business Owner’s Roadmap to Success reflect the Foundation’s commitment to championing ethical entrepreneurship and standing up for consumers on behalf of the direct selling industry,” says Nancy Laichas, DSEF Director of Marketing & Communications. “This free e-book gives direct sellers—and any small business owner—actionable techniques to increase their confidence, reach their goals, deliver outstanding customer service and operate with the highest of ethics.”

Jennifer Fong, the Founder of Jen Fong Media LLC, worked with her team to create the ebook, which was made available in May through DSEF’s Facebook page.

“We looked at all of the great content that DSEF had been putting out, because there is so much that business owners can use to build their businesses,” says Fong, whose company manages DSEF’s social media presence. “We wanted to put it together in a package that would make it easy to take to the field.”

The Foundation’s goal was to help entrepreneurs, including direct sellers, learn the skills necessary to become successful small business owners, and provide seasoned veterans with techniques and ideas to help them grow their businesses. The ebook offers success tips for everything a small business owner needs to master—from business planning and ethical selling to creating a success mindset. Sections include:

• Do What You Love
• Business Planning
• Targeting and Identifying Your Customers
• Finding Prospects and Customers
• Ethical Selling and Marketing Yourself
• Generating Leads
• Leading a Team
• Success Mindset

“The response has been tremendous,” Fong says. “We’ve had a ton of people download it and people call us to tell us they love it.”

Leigh Bordelon, Field Training Specialist at Shaklee Corporation, is one of those people who found the ebook extremely helpful. Bordelon, who teaches Shaklee Independent Distributors how to market their businesses online and use back-office tools, incorporated the ebook into her training.

“I found it easy to understand and easy to implement,” says Bordelon. “My audience is, for the most part, new to any form of technology, even the computer itself. So they can use this book to take specific steps to build their businesses and reputations online.”

Coletta Haskin, a long-time Shaklee distributor, says the ebook helped her improve her leadership skills.

“I learned that, in spite of my mothering spirit (wanting to help them rather than letting them go), I may be holding them back,” says Haskin. “The ‘Leading a Team’ section reinforced what I needed to do years ago, which was to delegate the task so their reliance is not totally on me. Yes, be there for them, help them, show them, and say now it’s your turn.”

Learning to challenge her team was another tip Haskin picked up from the ebook. “I have challenged them to think outside of the box with Bold Goals and Dreams,” she says. “They might have been fearful in sharing them, but each member was made accountable for what they really wanted. When the team member accomplished their goal, the whole team would get excited.”

Haskin also liked that she could show her distributors that they don’t have to run a blog themselves, but could partner with several bloggers and write a single article every so often to drive traffic to their retail sites. “That takes a lot of pressure off of a distributor so they can continue to focus on their core income-producing activities,” she says.

“I learned for myself so many easy ideas to help distributors find even one marketing idea that ‘fits’ for them. This ebook will build confidence in our distributors because you’ve made it so easy to understand and follow,” Haskin says.

If you feel like you are spinning your wheels in regard to generating new ideas for your business, download the Business Owner’s Road Map to Success ebook today.

John Parker is used to being in situations that are a little scary and uncomfortable, whether it is surfing the world’s oceans or spending several years overseas in a completely different culture.

What he likes about those situations are the challenges posed—the process of getting through them, to him, is the ultimate reward.

This month, Parker, Vice President and Chief Sales Officer for Amway, will take on another challenge as the new Chair of the DSEF Board of Directors: to guide the Foundation as it works with its many partners to execute programs that promote ethical entrepreneurship and champion consumers rights on behalf of the industry.

“The DSEF does so much in terms of bringing credibility and understanding about our industry to key influencers,” says Parker, who is also a member of the Direct Selling Association Board of Directors. “By building those relationships with individuals and establishing partnerships with some really respected organizations, it creates an environment in which we can have others tell our story in a compelling way and speak for us in times of crisis. I think there is just a lot of power to that.”

Parker assumes his new position with a focus on a few key initiatives, such as the Direct Selling Entrepreneur Program, a new community college curriculum developed in partnership with NACCE (National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship), and the CBBB  (Council of Better Business Bureau) program, which helps DSEF spread the message of the direct selling industry’s commitment to ethics and trust in the marketplace.

Parker would also like to expand the global relevance of DSEF, which already successfully supports consumer welfare globally through such programs as APEC /CEPI (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Consumer Education and Protection Initiative). From his extensive international experience, Parker knows that international markets could benefit from a variety of DSEF programs.

Charlie Orr, Executive Director of DSEF, thinks Parker’s knowledge and experience will be a great asset to the Foundation and its Board. “He brings both a domestic and global perspective,” says Orr.  “And he knows and respects the distributor mindset as well as anybody in our industry.”

Parker’s knowledge of the distributor mindset comes from nearly two decades of working with Amway distributors around the world.  Parker joined the company in 1993 as a Distributor Relations Sales Manager and assumed several management roles within the company over the years, including Chief Marketing Officer.

In 2007 he was named President of Amway Japan, where he led all operations for one of Amway’s largest affiliates. “It was a fantastic experience, both personally and professionally,” says Parker. “It was an opportunity to experience a very different culture. I think my children will forever see the world differently. Certainly I will forever see the world differently.”

Parker’s time in Japan provided him with a new global perspective of the industry. “It was interesting to see the challenges the direct selling industry is going through in Japan. Some markets are a little more organized than others, but as a whole the industry has very similar issues around the world,” he says. “I had a better understanding of that within the context of Japan, and now that I’m back here, we’ll be able to support our business and the industry as we try to improve the environment for direct selling in Japan.”

Living in a foreign country was similar to his time spent at the University of Notre Dame, where Parker was a member of the varsity golf team and earned a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. “The two experiences are not all that different,” he says. “Being an expat in another country—typically folks are there four or five years—you are thrown into a strange environment with other people going through the same thing at the same time, which is kind of like college. You build these deep relationships quickly and build on the friendships, just like you do in college.”

And just as he sees similarities in those two experiences, Parker also sees a connection between sports—he is an avid surfer and golfer— and the direct selling industry.

“We think about our industry as individual distributors doing their thing—and they are—but it’s also a community, a team environment,” Parker says. “If direct selling were a sport it would be a team sport. because the encouragement, the community and the social dynamic of direct selling make it more than just people selling products and getting compensated for it.

“The relationships are probably the things that make the industry so special,” Parker continues. “And I think that’s true in sports as well. You have a feeling about your friends and your teammates that you carry with you your whole life. I think our industry is very much the same way. We are out building businesses but we are also out building friendships. I think that is a pretty great part of the industry and a pretty special part of life.”

Parker’s new team at DSEF will include two new members to the Board: Orville Thompson, CEO of Scentsy, who will also serve on DSEF’s Executive Committee, and John Wadsworth, President of Morinda Bioactives.

“As we welcome our new Board members, I am looking forward to having their perspective and guidance as we continue to grow our existing signature programs and pursue several new exciting strategic opportunities,” says Orr.

Orr also acknowledged outgoing Board members Heather Chastain (Celebrating Home), Al DiLeonardo (CUTCO/Vector Marketing), Sandy Spielmaker (Amway) and Jim Stitt (CUTCO/Vector Marketing) for their contributions. “I thank them for their service and their support over these last several years,” he says.