Once you’ve invested a great deal of time and effort into building your team, the next step is to invite success by helping them improve as individuals and as a whole. By doing so, everyone wins. Each member of your team will find individual business success and will be able to pass that on to his/her downline as well. When this happens, the financial benefits increase. In today’s post, we’ve selected three steps you can take right away to improve your team and subsequently grow your business.
- Help each person focus on his/her goal and future. Chances are that each person on your team has a different goal. Sally might just want to work a few nights a month and make enough to pay for her daughter’s dance lessons, while Jill, who recently lost her job due to downsizing, is determined to make her direct sales business a full-time job with a full-time income. Sally and Jill’s goals couldn’t be more different, so make sure that as a leader, you help them focus on the individual goal. Doing so will make it more real, and they will have sincere motivation because it comes from something they truly desire. Help each person visualize achieving the goal and define what needs to be done to get there.
- Provide mini workshops so they can learn new skills. As with most industries, direct sales is always changing and adjusting to meet the needs of its customers. Stay on top of industry trends, changes from the corporate office, and even newly created techniques for closing a sale or signing a recruit. Teach a mini-workshop or hold a training call if possible once a month to teach your team new skills. Professional development not only helps the individual improve a business, but it also refreshes people’s ambition and determination to succeed. Choose a different topic each time, make a brief presentation, do a Q & A, and then provide a call to action for your downline to put the information to use. As an added incentive, follow up at the next workshop with invitations for your team to share their successes and perhaps earn a small reward.
- Rally around a cause to bring your team together. It is easy to get caught up in one’s own needs and responsibilities when working in direct sales, so find a cause that requires your team to work together. Cooperation and collaboration fosters an environment of camaraderie and creates a culture of support among colleagues. For example, a local family is raising money to pay for the medical bills of a sick child. Aside from donating a basket of goodies to be raffled off at the fundraiser, a direct sales team leader called on each of her members in the area to attend the event with a guest from outside the industry. For those not in the area or simply unable to go to the fundraiser, she called on them to find another way to contribute. She created a competition of sorts among other direct sales team leaders she knew. Her team was motivated not only for the cause of the fundraiser, but also to win out over the other direct sales teams participating. They were able to work together and contribute generously to a worthy cause; furthermore, they got a chance to know each other better, which guaranteed support for each other going forward.
It is said that a leader is only as good as his or her team. There are so many reasons to invest the time into making your team the best it can be, so don’t let this responsibility fall by the wayside. You will not only be helping your own business, but you will be making a difference in the lives of others by contributing to their successes.
What quick tips do you have for improving your team? Please share below!