Should You Permit Orders From Anyone On Your Company’s Website?

April 20, 2020 By admin Leave a Comment

Will you permit anyone to place an order on your direct selling company’s website or must customers order only from the replicated websites of your representatives? Before you answer, understand that this question is actually on a controversial topic, as not all companies answer this one identically. Do you know all of your options?

Here They Are

Don’t Take The Order

An “orphan order” is a term used to describe an order placed by a customer who does not have a relationship with one of your sales representatives.

Traditionally, direct selling companies respected the role of its sales representatives to be the only channel through which orders for the company’s products could be placed. Perception was everything. Sales reps perceived that if the company easily accepted orders on its website from customers, the customers of a sales rep could and would place orders directly with the company, bypassing the sales rep who would not be compensated upon the orders placed by his or her customers.

Your company can choose to honor the promise not to compete with your sales reps by not accepting orders on your company’s website or you can make a different choice.

Ask For The Identity Of The Sales Rep

Another option is to ask during the order entry process for the identity of the sales rep, requiring the customer to choose the rep who will get the commissions and volume credit on the order. You can prompt for the ID number, name, zip code, etc. of the sales rep to help the customer to find him or her easily.

With this option, you would still need to choose whether to accept the order if the customer does not identify a sales rep.

Accept The Order, Share The Commissions

A third option is a novel one and that is to (a) accept the order without prompting for the identity of a sales rep, (b) place the commissions that would have been earned into a revenue pool, and (c) share the revenue pool with the qualified participants. You would decide who is worthy of sharing in this revenue pool. For help making this decision, contact Sylvina Consulting.

What’s Next?

Let’s assume you’ve permitted that orphan customer to place an order with your direct selling company.

Will you ask the customer if he or she would like to talk with a sales representative about the company’s products or the company’s income opportunity? If you do this, be sure not to give the customer’s information to anyone without his or her permission.

Jay Leisner, the President of Sylvina Consulting, is a top compensation plan and direct selling expert, a trusted adviser to new and established network marketing and party plan companies. For more than 30 years, Jay has enjoyed assessing and improving party plan and network marketing companies across the globe.

Jay Leisner and Victoria Dohr authored the top-rated book for new and young network marketing and party plan companies, "Start Here: The Guide to Building and Growing Your Direct Selling Company".

Available in English and Spanish. This startup guide contains 250 pages of wisdom that will guide you through the right steps to start and continue on your journey to build a successful direct selling company.

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Sylvina Consulting and Thompson Burton sponsor the pure education "Direct Selling Edge Conference Webinar" for new and young direct selling companies. The wisest direct selling executives never stop being students. They seek out opportunities to learn more. They understand that the long-term success of their companies depends on how much they know, so they make efforts to keep learning.

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In 1986, Jay began his career in direct selling by working for a major direct selling software provider. First as a software developer and later as a project leader and a business analyst, Jay worked closely with new and established network marketing and party direct selling companies to provide them with software solutions to meet their unique requirements.

Jay contributed in many ways to the success of large implementation projects for many companies. Jay also worked with dozens of smaller companies to assist each of them in various capacities to provide them with the systems they needed to help their businesses to grow faster.

Along the way while working with them, he learned the secrets of successful direct selling companies and the challenges faced by them. In true entrepreneurial spirit, Jay’s decision in 1999 to start Sylvina Consulting as a direct selling consulting company was driven by what he saw was a need for answers, advice, and solutions.

In 2004, 2006, 2009, 2014, and 2018, Jay gave presentations on compensation plans, recognition, and field leadership development at conferences held by the US Direct Selling Association.

He traveled to South Africa in 2015, 2016, and 2017 to conduct workshops on compensation plan design and recognition programs for member companies of the South African Direct Selling Association.

In 2017, Jay spoke at the Canadian Direct Sellers Association Meeting on the importance of recognition.

More than just a compensation plan expert, Jay is exceptionally skilled at advising new and established companies on business strategies. Before offering advice or solutions, he asks important questions to understand each client’s specific concerns and goals.

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