When designing or redesigning a compensation plan, one of the decisions you will need to make is who should be present during the design process. An equally important decision is who should definitely not be present! Let’s tackle the first decision first. We recommend that a small group be gathered that includes the following types…
Customer Retention
Golden rules are the rules you should follow. You probably know this one: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” However, when it comes to customer retention, the golden rules are different. Everyone loves a good story, especially one that makes a point as this one does. When Retention…
How To Make Good Business Partner Decisions
Just like marriages, business relationships can break apart for fundamental reasons. This video contains many important tips on how to protect your business from the risks of business partnerships. Great Business Partner Advice Whether you’re in search of new business partners or you’re already hooked up, there are smart things you can do now to strengthen…
How Are Direct Selling Executives Just Like Airline Pilots?
Just like an airplane pilot, operators of direct selling businesses need to have an accurate set of gauges. Do you have all the information you need to run your business? If not, you’re flying partly in the dark! It’s insufficient to rely upon the canned reports provided by your MLM software company, your business is…
The Purpose Of Policies and Procedures
“I wouldn’t join a network marketing company if its policies and procedures were more than five pages long.” These words were spoken at a conference for new network marketing companies. What was the speaker thinking?
Are You Really Communicating Your Company’s Values?
Walt’s nephew, Roy Disney, said, “It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” As the owner of a direct selling or referral marketing company, you probably want everyone to share the vision you have for your company. How do you do that? It’s best to start by defining your values. …
One Way To Be A Company Hero
Increase Profits by Saving Money Did you know that vendor inbound freight costs are often viewed as an insignificant part of overall inventory costs? In many companies, inbound freight expenses can be as high as 4% or more of gross sales. For example, a company with $20 million in annual sales may spend up to…
12 Key Behaviors For Good Compensation Plans
A good compensation plan is one of the most important ingredients in the recipe for direct selling success, but what makes a compensation plan good? It is good if it financially and ethically fits your business while motivating and rewarding very specific behaviors from your sales force. What are these 12 key behaviors?
Policies and Procedures: Sale or Inheritance of an Independent Representative’s Business
Introduction Policies and Procedures are the rules that govern the relationship between a direct selling company and its independent representatives. When fully completed, they comprise about 60 different topics. In this post, we will tackle one of the Policies and Procedures topics. That topic is “Sale or Inheritance”. Sale or Inheritance Most businesses with revenue streams…
How Should Retention Be Rewarded?
As a compensation plan expert, I’ve written extensively about the 12 key behaviors all multilevel compensation plans should motivate and reward. The 12th behavior is staying active and engaged in the business. This is retention. You may be wondering how a compensation plan should specifically reward retention. What Is Retention? Retention starts with recruiting. If…
Who Are Your Recruiters?
Direct selling companies like to count new recruits and they like to count recruiters, too. While the counts of recruits and recruiters are good to know, what is even more important is discovering some very specific information about your recruiters. Data Tells All At Sylvina Consulting, we improve compensation plans, but before we can improve a…
Why You Should Never Put Yourself Into Your Company’s Genealogy
Most of the articles I have written over the years while working with network marketing, referral marketing, direct selling and party plan companies haven’t been controversial. This is NOT one of them. The Issue Several times each year, we learn that a client of ours or a prospective client is planning to (or already has)…