Leaders are so important to the success of all direct selling companies. They sell more, recruit more, and stay active in the business longer than the average representative. Everyone wants more leaders, but how do you get them? There are two schools of thought regarding leadership. One says leaders are born, that is, they have innate…
When Should I Ask A Direct Selling Business Consultant For Help?
You have put a lot of time, money, and energy into your direct selling, network marketing, referral marketing, party plan, or social selling company. It’s your baby, but it’s not always easy to be a good parent of your company. You may be wondering when is it time to ask a direct selling business consultant…
How Do You Calculate Landed Cost?
For a direct selling business to be profitable, it must have healthy gross margins. While margins can be calculated in several ways, at Sylvina Consulting we like to use what we call the “multiplier.” The multiplier is a ratio calculated as the suggested retail price of an item divided by the landed cost of the…
Should You Have A Hero Product?
A hero product is a product that is responsible for a large percentage of a company’s transactions or sales. A prospective client asked me recently: “Should we have a hero product?” My first answer was, “Yes, you should.” But then, I thought about it some more and changed my answer to, “Maybe.” You see, having…
Compensation Plans: Structure Matters
In compensation plans, there are positions of achievement we call titles or ranks. To qualify for them, independent representatives meet volume and structure requirements. Both are measurements of organizational performance. A volume requirement is a measurement of volume from (a) an individual independent representative, (b) a group of independent representatives within one’s downline, or (b)…
How Much Is A Distributorship Worth?
A business is an asset with a revenue stream which can be purchased or sold. Businesses can be valued in a number of ways. One way to value a business is to use SDE (seller’s discretionary earnings). SDE includes the net profit of the business plus any personal income, discretionary income, one-time expenses, and owner…
5 Ways To Get More Customers
There was a time when network marketing companies sold most of their products to their independent representatives for their personal use, and this was not a problem. Back then, companies didn’t worry about having customers who were not representatives. Network marketing companies focused 99% of their attention on selling products or services to their representatives. …
The Best New Year’s Resolutions
As each new year approaches, there is societal pressure to make one or more New Year’s resolutions. Perhaps you have felt it, or maybe someone has asked you what yours are. As direct selling, referral marketing, and compensation plan consultants, we feel the pressure to make resolutions, too. Most Popular New Year’s Resolutions According to…
Why Are Direct Selling Companies Struggling?
The Pandemic Effect For many direct selling companies, the COVID-19 pandemic was responsible for increases in recruiting and sales, because people were looking for ways to earn money while quarantined. Since the world reopened, the pandemic effect is in reverse, so today most direct selling companies are seeing reductions in recruiting and sales. The pandemic…
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…
Why Is Recruiting Like Panning For Gold?
Have you ever panned for gold? To us, recruiting is a lot like panning for gold. Everything looks like mud until you look closer. While most of your pan’s contents are mud, there may be little bits of gold in there, too. Don’t Prejudge It isn’t wise to make judgments about people when you first…
When Should You Pay In Products?
Wouldn’t it be great if you could pay your independent representatives in product instead of money? The good news is that there are times when product is the right form of compensation. Principles First One of the guiding principles of multilevel compensation is to keep within your compensation plan as large a portion of product…