Terms and acronyms change all the time, especially in business. New buzzwords are all the rage and while sometimes they can have the same meaning as more familiar terms the intent is to bring fresh awareness and strategy for using these terms.
When you are just starting out in a new direct sales business of your own you may quickly find it is like learning an entirely new business language on top of trying to find your way through the process of establishing your business. However, depending on your approach and strategies some of these new terms may be your very best friend in reaching your ideal customers.
To help, here is a list of the top 5 common but strange terms you need to know for your direct sales business.
Avatar
An avatar is a detailed description of your ideal customer. This is your model customer that helps guide you in finding, working with and securing relationships with the right people for your customer base.
The more detailed and specific you get about what your avatar looks like, what they like and where they are the more likely you are to find genuine ways to connect with them. Often our avatars are similar to ourselves and what we like but sometimes depending on the product you sell your avatar could be very different.
Make a list, draw a picture, vision board or strawman of all the characteristics, demographics, preferences and anything else you can think of about this ideal customer and use that to hone in on where you may find these type of people.
In addition to a customer avatar, direct sales businesses also need team members! Be sure to describe a team member avatar as well. Who would you like to work with? What do they look like, do for a living, like, want and need? Just like your customer avatar this will help you identify potential people who would be an ideal team member avatar to ask to join you.
Funnels
This is a new term in business recycled from the words process or system. A funnel is series of steps a customer, team member, you, prospect or other follow to complete something in your business, such as a new sale, orientation of a new team member or general interest about your products or services. There are names for the types of funnels you set up such as a Marketing Funnel, Sales Funnel, On-boarding Funnel and so on.
Setting up funnels to work can be automated using technology such as a mail distribution system that links potential customers to a website for ordering to more manual funnels where you directly schedule follow up appointments with potential customers. Whether your funnels are automated or not, it’s important to define them upfront so you know how things work in your business. These funnels become your operating protocols that will greatly help you when you are busy. As your business grows you can look to automate some of the funnels to make things even easier.
Document your funnels on a piece of paper or flowchart them using a laptop but make them part of your standards of operation so you can refer to them as needed and look for opportunities to automate or become more effiicient as time goes on.
A funnel is also a great way to see where things are not working in your business. For instance, if your prospect customers are receiving a monthly newsletter from you but there is little engagement on links or promotions you’re describing then revising how your newsletter is laid out, the content or messaging could be the issue. Or perhaps the method of using email isn’t the best way to reach your customers. Looking at your outreach funnel will lead you to look at other creative ways to increase engagement.
Here is a list of common starter funnels a direct sales business need upfront (these can be automated or manual depending on your budget and skill) . They can also be as elaborate or basic as you need to make your business operate smoothly.
Outreach funnel – how you reach new prospects and customers and how they can respond to your calls to action. Where do leads go?
Marketing funnel – social media, advertising, newsletters, blogs and other marketing activities that spur a response – where do those responses go? What happens to them?
Orientation funnel – there are 2 of these funnels, 1 for new customers and 1 for new team members. How do you train, orient and on-board these people? (hint: sharing your funnels with your new team members is a great help to them in getting started!)
Service and Support funnel – where do customers or prospects go for questions? How do they contact you? How quickly do you respond?
Sales funnel – all the steps associated with your sales process including ordering, returns, follow ups, confirmations and more! What is everything you need to do when a sale is made?
CTA – Call to Action
A Call to Action is specific messaging in your social media posts or in person messaging that triggers a response from prospects and customers. This is where sales style comes into play. If your Call to Action is pushy or worded wrong you can easily turn off engagement and responses quickly. It is extremely important to have a Call to Action on all your messaging but take the time to practice them and have a variety to use to fit different scenarios.
Elevator Pitch
An Elevator Pitch is your 30 second summary of who you are, what you do or offer and why it’s important for the person or group your speaking with to want to learn more. This can be provided in a short bio on your social media page, in a conversation of someone new you met or literally from bumping into someone in an elevator. Drafting what this pitch looks like takes time and lots of practice but is a very important tool to have on hand, memorized by heart and ready to use.
Given the opportunity in any setting, time of day or night or scenario if you have the chance to tell someone what you offer and interest them in learning more what would you say? Can you say it in 30 seconds or less?
People’s first impressions of us is often formed in the first 5 seconds of meeting us. In normal conversations of meeting someone new our opinion of if we are interested in learning more about them is formed in less than 20 seconds. You have 25 to 30 seconds to tell them enough to engage, intrigue and get a conversation going.
A trick I learned that has served me well is to give them a high level sentence and then immediately turn the conversation to them. I want to learn as much as I can about them and keep the focus on them. People love to talk about themselves so opening that focus on them instead of me, builds my knowledge of them and can help build their interest in asking about me.
Organic Growth
This term seriously cracks me up when I hear it. It really just means you developed and built your customer base, prospects, social media followers and other people interested in what you’re saying without paying for them. As a small business owner why wouldn’t I want to “organically” grow my customers through trusting relationships, honest information and superior service? Organic is the new way of saying you put the work into something apparently.
In today’s social media world there are ways to buy followers. A few have been very successful in building their online presence using this method. The theory being the more social media followers you have the influence to be seen on social media and your posts will be seen by a larger audience gaining you more notice from potential customers. Sometimes that works and most of time it doesn’t.
Having a large social media following can be great for your business but if those followers are not truly interested in your messages then you’ve truthfully gotten nothing but a large following. It is very difficult to transform a follower into a paying customer so while it takes significantly longer to build online and through social media the results can be much more meaningful in terms of actual paying customers versus simply followers.
No
This is the 6th term on a 5 term common list but it may be the most important term on this list.
You will hear this word a lot in your business and it can be challenging, deflating, frustrating and welcoming. Yes even welcoming!
When someone tells you no or doesn’t respond, this is your opportunity to ask yourself what’s next. Working with a prospect can take 7 to 20 touches before they express interest in your products. However each time you receive a no from them does not mean to immediately ask again either. Sometimes a no is really a no. Your job is to know when it’s a soft no and when it is an absolute. Do not ruin relationships with others including those with your friends and loved ones over the push to make a sale.
Relationships trump business every time. Respect what someone tells you and develop the skills, tact and adaptability to know when it’s ok to ask again and how and when it’s time to back down and just appreciate the relationship you have with a person.
Interested in more?
As a new business owner it’s important to not only learn about your new business and how to build it but also the current lingo. Having this knowledge keeps you updated and able to leverage the latest techniques and skills to building your business.
If you have questions or would like to learn more about how these terms are used in my business please reach out! I’m happy to help you explore what having a natural health business looks like and help you get the information you need to make an informed decision on if doTERRA is right for you.
If you’re ready to start your own natural health business and help others without the pressure cooker sales tactics and with a team that is truly different in how we support and help one another then you absolutely need our business packs. They contain all the tools, templates, scripts and more to get you going on the right path starting day 1 of your business.
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