Elizabeth's attitude about recruiting changed so dramatically that she eventually went on to place fifth in the country in sales for Mary Kay a few years ago. But initially she had to understand the business. "With a little experience and success selling the products, pretty soon I felt more comfortable about the whole business. I found I could meet my financial goals easily." she added. "I was going along steadily. Then someone in the company suggested that I take the next step and start recruiting because that was where I could really make money. It became obvious to me that this person was right; I was sitting on a fabulous business opportunity. All I had to do was look up! That concept became the best selling tool in recruiting others-business opportunity'.'
Elizabeth is my daughter, the one who is generous. l rounded up seven of her school chums and participated in m very first direct sales experience. She was also the one who believed her destiny lay somewhere other than in selling "stuff in pink boxes." Before joining Mary Kay, Elizabeth had gone through a number of occupations over her first three years after college-from ski hostess to a traditional nine-to five job in advertising.
"I was making bologna sandwiches at a lodge in Asper Colorado, when I left college." Elizabeth said. "It wasn't whole lot classier than what I thought Mary Kay representative but I felt better not being a salesperson." She "weakened" one point and let me recruit her. But as she tells it "I did not like it at all! I lasted about two weeks and thought that was enough. Then things changed over a few years. I got married had a child and we needed money." This time Elizabeth asked me to recruit her. "I think we go through stages where one needs change." she explained. "I was ready then to try Mary Kay. It took nearly a year for me to get there and recruit, but did it. Recruiting soon became what excited me about the business. It wasn't long before I wound up with terrific people who created a lot of terrific business activity of their own!"
When she started selling Elizabeth set a goal of "spending money for the week." That year, it amounted to $ 150 in one week or about $600 a month, which supplemented a before taxes salary of $ 13.000 a year selling advertising space for a Aspen magazine. Since her husband at the time was starting his own business, every dollar helped, in her second year, she earned $33,000 with Mary Kay alone-commission dollar earned from percentages on sales from her own business and those of her recruits. In her fourth year, she more than doubled that!
Not everyone who works with a company offering multilevel or override commissions, bonuses, or rewards for recruiting feels moved to do so. Many people in Shaklee and Amway (to name just two) are content just to sell (and buy) and get a commission (or discounts) on their inventories. But what they've passed up! It may take a bit more motivation or sense of adventure or ambition to get inspired and take the next step as Elizabeth did and recruit, but it's worth the effort. It's almost a waste of opportunity not to at least give it a whirl when the company's policy encourages it and the money is there for the making.
One top Amway distributor told me that her recruiter actually neglected to tell her she could build a business by recruiting! Seems impossible to believe, but it happened to Sylvia Wolfe, who's now a "Diamond Direct" distributor, a position that establishes her as one of the more successful in the company. Sylvia lives in Palmer. Alaska, and despite "one main road running north and south and early problems with communication and shipping twenty-one years ago." she managed to bring the Amway opportunity to Alaska, after being the first in that state to sign up.
"When I started out, the company was about four years old." Sylvia said. "I was doing okay making extra money selling retail and so busy taking care of my three children that I didn't bother to check and see what Amway offered. I only knew about selling and thought that was all there was. The man who recruited me had come up from Michigan, and whatever was on his mind when he got to Alaska, it didn't include telling me about sponsoring others!"
The pastor of her church traveled to Michigan about a year later and decided to drop in on Amway headquarters in Ada. "He got so excited by the plant and the possibilities he came back and showed me the marketing plan and how to sponsor. That was in 1965," she added.
Sylvia approached recruiting with a good attitude. "I decided I deserved success, so I sat down and studied the marketing plan until I knew it thoroughly. Then I made calls and explained it to anyone who'd listen. I was persistent." Sylvia estimates that she recruited about fourteen people a year "That's not a particularly high number." she said, "but they're great and work so well." One reason for Sylvia's success with Amway's multilevel format is that she developed a training program for the people she recruited: "I wound up being very good at motivation. I learned I could fire people up to believe in the dream and help them make it happen."
It is a dream for many of us but one we've got the power to make come true.
Why Recruit?
Recruiting is both a subtle art and a simple system. It involves using your judgment to decide who would be right for your business, and also means creating a wide network of people, who, you hope, are equally interested in success. Additionally you'll want to recruit for some or all of these reasons:
- It brings others with whom you'd like to work into the business. You're doing them a favor!
- It offer others a wonderful business opportunity
- It perfect your sales ability-persuading others not only to buy a product, but sell it too
- It increase your yearly income to meet your dream or exceed it
- It commit to the career of direct selling by taking advantage of every opportunity the company offers
- It makes the effort and gain recognition from the company as well as a great sense of accomplishment when you've met their goals and yours.
Companies encouraging recruitment all have their own special formats, ideas, and general conversational suggestions for those of us who love the challenge of recruiting. However, I know the companies all share some of these basic precepts.
Whom to Recruit and Where to Find Them
Years ago, I recruited a minister's wife from Bismarck. North Dakota, and helped start her career with Mary Kay, but Mona never got very far. When she and her husband moved to Des Moines, she dropped out and started raising a family. Something about Mona Holte held my interest in her lapsed career, though. In my travels through the Midwest, I'd always send her a card. In it I'd say I was thinking about her, reminding her that I thought she'd be great back in sales, tell her when I'd be in town and suggest that perhaps we could meet and chat about the business.
Very politely Mona always declined. I persisted in the mildest way, affirming again that I had faith in her and that when she was ready. I'd be there to help her along. One day, she was ready to start working again and called me to report that she had recruited four people. I cheered her on and said, “find three more and you can go into "qualification"-a Mary Kay term for the first level of management. Mona made it! She couldn't believe she had gone from nothing to something wonderful in about five weeks, after a great gap of inactivity.
What was fascinating to me about Mona was that she wasn't quite sure if this career was for her-but I knew she was right and played a hunch. I waited for her and persisted for years, and she came through for herself and for me. Now she's one of the top people in the company.
I met Mona at a Mary Kay skin care class, one of the more perfect places to find recruits. She was an attendee, though usually the most likely candidate to become a recruit is the host or hostess. This is the person who offers his or her home for the evening and is willing to invite friends to come over. These people are already participating in the business even in this limited way. In fact, they're receiving a gift or small percentage of the evening's sales for their help. Many times these people are shy about speaking up and often, they're waiting to be formally asked into the business. A rule here is to always ask your host or hostess if he or she wants to join the business.
Friends and relatives are the first to come to mind (after considering customers) when you decide to recruit. Well, meaning friends and family may be the more recalcitrant "disapproves" who totally resist all your efforts to interest them in your career. Move on briskly and don't let their negativity get to you. Then again, your family may be the smiling, kind-hearted "approvers" who sign up just to please you. But thereafter forget what business they're in. Don't feel too disappointed in their performance and move on just as briskly. With family, you need to be brutally frank with yourself about who and what they are (hard workers, procrastinators, enthusiastic, blamers, and supersensitive to rejection, whatever) and what you can expect their true involvement to be.
Try your friends on the idea of selling the benefits of recruiting. Some might be bored with their jobs or perhaps they've suddenly become aware that they are in dead-end positions at their companies and that they're going nowhere fast. Others may just want to earn extra money. Let them know about the opportunities available in direct selling.
Opportunities for recruitment can present themselves in surprising places! In fact, direct selling gained a new recruit in Mary Ann Schoudel when she read a version of this book when it was being clean-typed by a friend. Mary Ann, a single parent who had just turned forty, had been trying over the years to pursue an acting career, supporting herself and her son with secretarial jobs, working at "trade shows." and taking on free-lance typing assignments at home for extra money. Professionally, she felt she was at a standstill. "When I read through this book, it dawned on me that direct sales offered me a chance I couldn't get anywhere else." she said. "The more I thought about it the more I liked the idea of a business that was mine. I was always a conscientious worker, and I thought, why not put that energy to work for me. Deep down it struck me-either I could go with it or continue on the way I was. So I decided, what did I have to lose?"
At the time, Mary Ann's sister was seriously ill and she was very conscious of health, health products, and nutrition regimens. In deciding to choose a company, Mary Ann was with Shaklee one direct sales leader which markets vitamin and nutritional supplements, among other products. Mar Ann had met a Shaklee distributor socially, and only had to call her to be recruited. Now a supervisor with the company Mary Ann says, "One bonus to direct sales for me was that if also given me direction. I'd never set goals before, sure l’d never reach them. This business helps me set goals, and with the support system of other Shaklee people behind me, I'd motivated to do well. Finding this career came as a surprise to me, and it's changed my life-unsurprisingly!"
As you can see, you must be alert to possibilities when you least expect them. You can find recruits in locations you probably wouldn't think could hold such treasure. I've known representatives who've made initial contact with eventual recruits in airport lounges while waiting for a runway to be cleared of snow, at a wedding, while sitting in the bleachers a Little League game, at acting auditions, and on a long line a the bank on a Friday afternoon.
Over the years, I've developed an eye for what I call "sparklers"-women who are animated and have a positive aura about them, just plain "good vibes." I've dined in restaurants and spotted such a woman across a room and. deciding right there on a hunch, I've been guilty of actually following her into the ladies room! There I casually strike up a conversation, give her a compliment about her skin, tell her I'm in the skin care business, offer to give her a complimentary facial, and try to get her number for an appointment and eventually recruit her. If she says no at least I know I tried-our paths may cross again. But a yes can change my life and hers. As with other chance opportunities like these, they must be followed up quickly by a meeting with the potential recruit so you can demonstrate products and describe in detail the Company's marketing strategy.
Don't overlook the husband of your beautician, the wife of the garage mechanic, the mother of your baby-sitter, the sister of your accountant, your postman, a business partner even your boss. Don't forget that your best customer could be your next surefire recruit. That's how I joined Mary Kay. My recruiter decided to try and recruit her best customer and got me!
No one is improbable as long as you "commit to a plan of action." said Jafra Cosmetics super saleswoman llene Lawler. She was not only Jafra's first district director on the top spot but the company's founders thereafter used her 1968 sales record as the criterion for earning the title! How did she do it? '' I always thought my strength was in selling the products which I love." Ilene told me from her home in Agoura. California. "I also believed that sponsoring others was not one of my strong points. I'd been with Jafra since late 1959 and until 1980. I didn't have the answer to why that was. Then I figured it out I kept telling myself that I wasn't any good at sponsoring! And I believed it. I made a decision to change."
llene began with a plan. She wrote out an "affirmation" or Commitment to call one person every day and offer the Jafra opportunity. She had no exact number of recruits in mind when she started out but her goal was to speak to someone. Some every day and "never let the commitments slip, no matter what. I started by asking my regular customers the simplest question - one I hadn't asked them before: 'Have you ever considered doing this, too?' Some said no but some said yes Ilene told me.
From there, she talked to people wherever she could. Some were more accessible-the person looking for a new career or part-time job or friends, relatives, and neighbors and others were professionals who were already at some level of achievement.
Before her written "affirmation", Ilene had brought in an average of seventeen people a year. Once her plan was draw up and carried out "without allowing myself any excuses I miss a day," she counted fifty new recruits at the end of the year! Since then, she's sponsored thirty to forty new people year.
Anyone who wants to recruit can! "You must have a system or a strategy." Ilene advised. "It doesn't have to be complicated, but you have to really want to do it. Then you must have a reason for your motivation. I wanted to do it and my reason that I believed that others deserved a chance with Jafra."
After twenty-seven years with the company, Ilene reflected: "I was not extremely successful when I started. I over seventy-five classes my first year, not one brought in over $40 in sales. Then one day in 1960 everything turned around for me. What I was doing moved from my head to my heart. I had been harboring a thread of doubt about the products and that was keeping me back. Once I believed in the product wholeheartedly. I knew I could meet any goal. The secret of my success," she said, "is that I never quit."
One tangible result of her success is that Ilene's recruit and their recruits have made her division number one in Jafra six times.
The lesson is a simple one - any place where people congregate should yield at least one person who'll ask question about your career if you bring it up. When that happens, it's a good sign. Indifference is never encouraging but interest is Keep talking about your career wholeheartedly and its unlimited growth potential. That's your drawing card.
How to Recruit?
When you recruit people to join your company, keep your objective in mind: You want to sell a career to people who have already bought and love your product. Therefore, if you can sell, you can recruit.
Recruiting asks your prospects to make a decision that will change the way they live, how they schedule their days, how they set goals, how they interact with people, how they determine how much money they can make.
This is not a minor request! You'll need to be an expert on the business, a friend, a psychologist, an older brother/sister and a mind reader to your about-to-be recruit. You'll need to be completely aware of establishing a positive attitude, a professional approach, and an atmosphere of trust. It will all fall into place for you when you try it yourself.
The following situations and suggested comments present a generally accurate overview of the recruiting session. Some stages of recruiting will take longer than others-and this will depend upon the number of people, the disposition and inclination of the people you'd like to recruit, how much time you'll have, and so forth. To make the process as clear as possible, I'll use the character of "Jane." a married mid-western woman of forty, and try to recruit her. To simplify matters I'll use the Mary Kay company as her career opportunity, but you can adapt the information to suit other company formats.
So to begin, if you were recruited, remember how you felt at the time someone asked you to join the company. You probably
- Asked questions
- Voiced objections
- Expressed doubt
- Required approval
- Expected your recruiter to listen to you.
Give Jane permission to openly express her finer points. Assure Jane that it's not a matter of bragging, but simply acknowledging positive qualities that can help her create a better life. Being able to handle people diplomatically and kindly is as valuable a skill as typing 130 words a minute. Get her to say what's right with her own world and listen. Jane will recruit herself by listening to her own voice reinforcing a belief in herself and her assets. That's why we want her to listen.
I believe, in fact, that the real process of successful recruiting begins with listening to others. When you listen attentively to someone and respond with a smile, a nod, an empathetic few words, and a number of sincere compliments at the beginning of your meeting together, you are halfway to recruiting her or him. Why? Everyone has someone to talk to but it doesn't mean that that someone is listening. Listening with genuine interest establishes trust and puts others at their ease. They know why you're there, after all and are perhaps a little intimidated. Be generous with your attention.
Let's return to Jane. Suppose she's recounted her assets and feels at ease with you. You need to probe a bit more now and take note of her needs. Does she need money, recognition, something to fill her time, something to care about? Does she seem competitive? Does she need to win or can she lose? Ask yourself: "What would she want from direct sales?"
You want to get her talking by directing the conversation toward questions that require information-giving answers, not yes or no only answers. The more Jane talks and you listen the more you'll learn about why she'd be right for this career. Often, people respond with surprisingly candid bits of information that will soon help you deal with the toughest part of recruiting-overcoming objections. You need to be really attentive here. Do her objections ring true or do they sound to you like excuses?
So let's assume Jane is relaxed and talking. She may disclose her economic problems or financial goals. She might reveal her outlook on life-whether she's fatalistic, moderate politically, religious, a risk taker, or conservative about accepting new ideas, or maybe a little of all of these. If Jane is married she will most likely tell you her husband's feelings about working women. Jane may provide you with information about how much power her husband has in deciding her future. But what you want to hear before you pull out recruiting notebooks or flip charts or filmed visual aids is her opinion of direct sales:
If it's favorable or neutral, you'll have a better chance to recruit her. Be enthusiastic about her interest.
If it's tinged with doubt or negative, be happy you found out immediately. As long as she's willing to hear your presentation about the business, and doesn't show you the door proceed with your recruiting strategy. Draw her in by reminding her of her good qualities and what she'd bring to the business.
Okay. We've listened to Jane and discovered that she's tantalized by the idea of the career, but unable to imagine herself actually doing it. Jane needs to get some basic information from you immediately. You need to tell her what the company has to offer her and what she brings to the job. Then, by using visual aids (notebooks, films, or whatever the company provides) you will describe and clarify the company's marketing plan so Jane understands how she can build a career or solid financial future, and at the same time, gain the personal extras that go with success-self-esteem, recognition, and leadership.
As you turn the pages of the recruiting notebook, probably Jane will be trying to digest growth charts and marketing strategies, the company's policy for earning commissions, bonuses or rewards, the actual scope of the products, and in the case of the Mary Kay recruiting notebook, pictures of what gifts are in store for her at each level of achievement. (Many other companies share this procedure. They're aware of the psychological impact a photo of the actual item can have on someone-not just the word.) There are furs, a pink Buick or Cadillac. There are pearls or diamonds, and there's even a photograph of Mary Kay Ash usually taken with the person who's doing the recruiting. (When my recruiter showed me a picture of Mary Kay I was stunned to discover she existed-not like a big red spoon representing Betty Crocker!)
Here's where your recruiting skills really begin to be exercised. Earlier, when Jane spoke about her life, she happened to mention that she and her husband just took out a second mortgage. Clearly, Jane needs some financial relief. Income would offset debts one way but the tax benefits that come with the career help, too. When you operate a direct sales business from home keep a small home office for paperwork, inventories, meetings, etc.-you may legitimately claim that room, phone, supplies, and so on as a tax deduction. (More on this later.)
This tidbit of financial information may stir Jane's enthusiasm, but she's still unsure of herself. "Maybe” she says doubtfully, referring to the tax breaks. She continues this way:
"But I live in Florida. What would I do with a fur coat? And truly, I'd as soon ride a donkey as drive a pink Cadillac!" I'd happily inform Jane that the company would exchange the coat for a piece of equally valuable jewelry. And in the matter of the trademark pink automobile, we understand if you turn it down and hope you go on to earn enough money to buy a Rolls. The fact is practically nobody wants a pink Cadillac until it's delivered to the front door. Suddenly it looks almost beige. Still not ready. Jane tells you exactly what she likes and doesn't like about what's been presented to her. If she's not opposed to any company policy and she likes the product and trusts her recruiter, I'd reiterate how I think she'd be great in the business and why she deserves the successes that can come from this career. Then I'd ask her if there was any reason why we couldn't get started. I'd want to prepare to close the recruitment meeting and hand her the agreement to sign, but Jane may show some discomfort and respond with an objection:
- I've never sold anything before.
- I have no time, what with two children at home.
- I already have two (three) part-time jobs.
- This is fine for you and not me.
- I have to ask my husband and my husband won't let me.
Objections are to be expected in sales and in recruiting. They don't signal failure, but in fact, are a measure of success. Objections leave the situation open to discussion. You can reassure your recruit-to-be that these objections can be overcome. Objections often hide the real reason your recruit-to-be is stalling. She may be afraid to take a chance. Like most of us. She is comfortable with the familiar and what no longer challenges. She may be afraid of success or failure. Those color photographs of cars, furs, jewels, or the ships that will carry her to exotic ports may intimidate her. What if she only wants to make two or three hundred dollars extra a month for a while and not achieve at such a level?
