Commentary
We will finish the year stronger than ever because we focused on two main factors: expanding into new markets and growing our product line. Expansion gave new financial opportunities to the millions of people forced to work from home. South Korea, one of Asili’s largest markets, recovered quickly from COVID-19, and conditions were improving as the virus hit our many Latin American, European, and other Asian markets. Diversifying our product line opened doors for Asili Ambassadors who are able to meet more customer needs. More nutrition solutions means better health for Ambassadors and their families, and a wider audience to market to.
— Gary Hasson, Vice President of Global Business Development, Asili Global
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The channel’s biggest opportunity remains the fact that over 50 million Americans are involved in the gig economy today and are willing to step out of conventional ways to earn income with maximum freedom and flexibility leveraging current assets or skills. This overt expression of personal responsibility and mental openness to income creation is a great place to start the conversation around the possibilities of creating an opportunity in the direct selling space, leveraging some of the unique features of the space such as work from home, digital social marketing platforms, unique products, especially in the wellness space, leveraged income, global opportunity and more!
— Al Bala, CEO, Mannatech
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We are living during a special moment in time. There are accelerators (COVID-19, the gig economy, a search for principles and values) requiring us to think faster, formulate plans faster, make decisions faster, protect others who are dependent upon us. Therefore, we are required to respond to the needs of the people faster. The future will not replicate the past. Prudent leaders will realize what they do not know, have not studied, and bring teams together who bring forth the best of innovation, vision, ideas, research, facts, and new or old principles and values. Authentic leaders will invent the future…. Authentically.
-— John T. Fleming, Project Lead, Ultimate Gig
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In all honesty, I wasn’t a fan of remote work. I believed in-person office collaboration was essential to the success of our business—and all business in general. I was wrong. I’ve been deeply inspired by how all our employees across the globe pivoted so well to working from home. In staff surveys and other interviews, we see they feel more productive, family-focused, and more connected to each other and management than ever before. Because working from home has made our people healthier, happier and more productive, we’re extending our work-from-home venture through the end of 2020.
-— Jared Turner, president and COO, Young Living Essential Oils
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If I had to pick just one change to make in direct sales, it would be to change the current model of teaching people to sell to their “warm market.” That type of behavior is not scalable, and it’s just plain icky. No one wants to be sold to by their friends and family, and once they’ve exhausted that small resource the vast majority of people inevitably fail to reach their goals. Our goal is not to make a quick buck off of the warm market of our sales field. We teach scalable ways to market your business without damaging your relationships. By investing in a world-class training platform, we teach our Affiliates how to become legitimate Influencers by using technology, social media and internet marketing.
-— Laura Hunter, CEO, Tori Belle Cosmetics
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Create Opportunity for Others, Be a Blessing to those We Serve, and Have Fun, Make Money are all a part of our mission statement. We memorize it, we share it and we create conversations around these points ALL THE TIME! Every training, every individual coaching session, every rep conversation and all of our daily, weekly, monthly and annual rep recognition centers around these core values; they shape our world. We have found that by keeping these values in the forefront of the language we use and the conversations we have, we are able to keep the main thing as the main thing.
-— Britney Vickery, founder and CEO, Initials, Inc.
In the church that my wife and I attend, I shared with the leadership team the concept of morning team rallies, where all the volunteers are acknowledged and celebrated for their efforts. Sharing how the core values can be implemented in our everyday lives has caused our team to take pride in not only memorizing the values, but sharing them with new team members. We challenge team members to take a photo of them putting our core values in action and posting it on social media. Seeing your core values living and breathing in motion is a great way to ensure “they got it!”
— Terry Briggs, co-founder and president, JemAdorn
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The greatest challenge within this channel will be determining how we will effectively compete within increasingly competitive market conditions. Competition from novel direct-to-consumer brands has provided greater consumer access to products and services. This has not only stolen market share from direct selling companies, but has also made it more challenging and expensive for companies to compete for brand awareness. To survive these challenges, we must evolve to support distributors by leveraging new technology platforms, marketing channels and communication strategies in 2020 and beyond.
-—David Isserman, COO, Touchstone Essentials
To stay focused on the strategic imperatives in the midst of the potential distractions. One of our three imperatives is customer focus. We don’t want to be a good customer program for a direct selling company. We want to be a good customer program in general. People are used to buying online from Amazon Prime or Sephora or any other brand. We want our actual customer experience to be world-class in respect to the channel. The other two imperatives we’ll be focusing on market partner engagement/activity and product excellence.
—Stuart A. MacMillan, president, MONAT Global
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