I'm feeling philosophical today, so this is more of a rumination post than one with concrete tips and advice. I promise to get back to that next go round!
I have this dear friend, and this week she "lost" her manager's title with her direct sales company. Now, this particular company has pretty demanding manager requirements, and she had maintained them easily for two years. But, life got in the way, and although her personal sales met the quarterly requirements, her team sales did not.
And POOF! Her team is gone, rolled up to her sponsor.
Ouch.
Her company's rationale for having such tough management requirements is that if you have to work hard to GET there, you'll work hard to STAY there. Likewise, it keeps those who aren't serious about the business from moving into management. Okay...I'll buy that.
On the other hand, some companies promote you into the first level of management if you and your team meet the requirements just one month. BANG...congratulations, you're a manager! The argument for this is that by making it "easy" to get to the first level of management, a consultant gets to "see" the benefit very quickly. This inspires that person to keep working and keep recruiting in order to keep the benefit. Okay...I'll buy that too.
Both ways make a certain amount of sense.
In my experience, the latter of the two is more common - the "easy" first promotion with one or two month sales requirements in the $2000 to $5000 total team sales range. The sales requirement for the person promoting may be as low as $100. The downside of this method is that a team may get off to a fast start then fizzle. The person promoted to management really doesn't know a lot about what they are doing, and may seesaw back and forth between management and consultant. This can make it very challenging for the upline, both financially and team/support wise.
On the high range,my friend's company, who pays NOTHING in downline commissions until one becomes a manager. The manager must sell an astonishing $2500 per month (averaged every three months) and the total team sales must average $7000 per month.
WOW.
The downside of this approach is that people are essentially penalized for sponsoring until the team is big enough to promote. Then, brutal monthly sales numbers to maintain can create stress in a "job" someone probably started for a little extra money, and a lot of extra fun.
I don't have an answer, I just hate to see good people lose their teams after a bad quarter. And it happens every day, in every company.
One - know your comp plan and make sure you understand how, when, and the rules for moving into "management."
Two - don't let it stop being fun and start being work.
Three - always go back to the reason you got into this to begin with. Got champagne wishes and caviar dreams? Then you best get off your tush and work it. Just want to earn a free trip? Okay, what do you have to do to get that? Just an extra $200 a month? Just out of the house a couple nights a week?
Whatever YOUR goal is/was, go after that. Don't let people who have other goals and dreams push you into modifying yours.
Unless you want to.
And remember. NO ONE makes any money unless product changes hands.
SALES...the Life of the Party Plan
Good Selling!
Kimberly Bates
Follow me on twitter @kimberlybates
Get a free ecourse on selling skills for party plan http://www.sellmoretonight.com
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This whole situation is quite sad and I have first-hand experience. I worked a party-plan business for 3 years, initially to just make a little extra and get my products paid for, but eventually "caught the dream" and advanced to leadership. However, even faster than I gained the status, I lost it. My team didn't "rollup" until I quit myself, although at that point there was only 1 or 2 left on my team.
ReplyDeleteI've personally chosen to move out of the party plan avenue and found something that works better for me. Knowing the compensation plan is important, and I have found that being paid commissions on products going to end consumers, rather than distributors or consultants (which will sometimes sit on shelves for months or even years on end), leads to a much more reliable income.
Also, for some reason I couldn't post as my wordpress account, so my blog is www.estherlittlefield.com