A Plug for Direct Sales

“I don’t want to sell to my friends and family.”

            – Neither do I.

And – we don’t.

Direct sales is some of the best personal development you can push yourself through anchored by a business. At Threads Worldwide we train women to ask for things, to hear no (and survive), to maintain relationships, to take care of customers, and to be awkward and do it anyways.

Take a look at that list above and map that on to your life.

– If you could ask for things directly,

– If you could ask for things and hear no and be OK with it (truly),

– If you authentically created and maintained new relationships with new amazing women, 

– If you took care of people in your life – appreciated them and thanked them and stayed in touch with them,

– If you weren’t stopped by a fear from doing something you really wanted to do, or saying something you really wanted to say, or being some way you really wanted to be,

What. Would. That. Be. Like?

What would be new in your life? What would you have or not have?

This is the opportunity of direct sales. 

Well, maybe not all direct sales companies, but at least Threads Worldwide. While the benefits I listed above seem to come with the direct sales territory, I actually don’t know because I’ve only had experience with one other multi-level-marketing company (ASN). I wasn’t very good at it, but the experience stretched me as a person and opened the doors for the party-plan model we use at Threads.

There are some compelling arguments against direct sales: 

• You have to sell to your friends and family
• Most people lose money
• The products aren’t quality enough to sell in the stores

Since I only have real experience with the Threads Worldwide model, I will dismantle each of these inside of Threads. This blog started as a plug for direct sales and as I was typing I realized I really don’t know people’s experience at other companies so I’ll stick to what I do know.

Selling to friends and family

True. True for a minute. OK, more like true for the first 60 days. We train new Fair Trade Partners to schedule what we call ‘Your First Five’. These are your first five Showcases within your first 60 days. We train you to start with those people in your life who are a YES! They would say yes because of your personal relationship

Because of the mission

Because they love to host (even love to host ‘this kind of thing’)

Because they want to earn free jewelry

Whatever their reason, we train to start by scheduling five Showcases with people that you know directly. From there, we train you to expand your network, your influence, and your business by scheduling Showcases with women you meet at the Showcase. (Enter ‘asking for what you want’ and ‘being able to hear ‘no’ and be ok with it).

I’ve been working with Threads since the beginning and in the last year out of all the Showcases I held, only two were hosted by two friends (that I knew before Threads) – and they each ASKED ME to host. Their friends were asking them when they were going to host again! 

So, again, not sure how other companies are run, but we definitely train our team to ‘get out of their network’ as soon as possible.

Most people lose money

At Threads, we train people right away to schedule five Showcases. If someone follows the training and meets our average, they not only earn back their investment, but they will be skilled enough to continue and grow a healthy business. When we first started Threads, we thought we’d have to be like the big companies and have thousands and thousands of women selling. Instead, we focused our training to increase our average Showcase amount so women are making more money/hour than ever before – requiring a smaller team of women who are each making a bigger and bigger impact.

Products aren’t quality enough to sell in the stores

This one is pretty simple. The groups we work with do sell in retail stores. We have unique designs that are not sold by them, but the quality is the same.

I am a raving fan of the model we use to share our partners’ stories and work. If you’ve finished this article you just might be curious enough to try it. What is stopping you? Is that thing that is stopping you familiar? Could this be the very time to do something different and get a different result? We think so! Get in touch!

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