Onboarding to Machine Learning: Mapping Sales Processes

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Improving a sales process with machine learning starts with a straightforward assessment of the existing content, including video, audio, text, graphics, and training, a company uses to onboard a new distributor to its policies and practices. These first steps, which set the stage for confident selling by new distributors, are essential to improving sales success during the first two weeks with a new direct selling company. People who close their first sales within 14 days earn an average of 71 percent more than a distributor who takes just four weeks to complete a sale.

Sales and marketing leadership tackling machine learning for the first time need to break their existing onboarding practices and initial selling activities into steps, then organize those steps into collections that are expected to produce a specific result that can be measured. We recommend assembling a map of the onboarding, training, and sales support experience for new distributors, as their immediate success will produce immediate improvement in revenue and profitability results. Tier your product content in terms of 1.) Company overview and welcome programs and content; 2.) Selling materials and programming for distributor use; 3.) Deep product information, such as sales sheets or detailed product knowledge videos.

Break down the first month of distributor experience into:

  • Onboarding: Introduction to the company, its mission, and selling process at the overview level — what you most want your new enrollees to know on Day One and to have internalized by the end of Week One.
  • Prospect Development: This is the first, most important step for a successful sales enablement tool. Rather than explain how to use the contact management tools, get the distributor to work immediately on adding prospects and following up.
  • Product Knowledge Development: Ongoing and frequently updated, product knowledge and product-specific training.
  • Sales Skills Improvement: If there is sales training content that is not product-specific, such as coaching on how to follow up or present at a meeting, these programs will be useful throughout the entire distributor lifetime, not just as they become familiar with the company.

We suggest beginning with a list of all existing content. Write the title of each asset on a sticky note and, on a second note, the goal for the asset, such as “Create a sense of welcoming support” or “Establish product- and lifestyle-claims policy.” Place the two sticky notes, asset and goal for the asset side by side. Examine all the content related to onboarding to see if there are multiple assets seeking to achieve the same outcome.

As common goals are identified, cluster the content assets by the expected outcome. It is likely there will be several assets that drive to the same distributor goal, and these variations are natural places for a machine learning content system to start testing to see which content assets are most effective.

Introductory content, such as a generic welcome message and overviews of the company, should be separated from practical how-to content related to using tools and services offered by the company to refine distributor sales skills. The latter training content will distract distributors from mission-centric learning. For example, most direct selling systems begin with a series of introductory videos about the company, its products, and how the distributor can start to work its selling process. These videos set the stage for future training, but they have a narrow set of goals: To build confidence in the distributor that they’ve made the right choice of product or service to sell, that the company is reliable and supportive of their success. This is essential for winning younger distributors’ loyalty.

With mission- and policy-centric content organized into the first category, the next step is to organize each of your sales task workflows for use by the machine learning platform.

Each days’ distributor training activities during the first two weeks must have a goal, such as confirmation that the new distributor understands the basic value proposition and mission of the company or that they enter and start communicating with prospects. And each day’s activities should contribute to the next day’s goals — if on Day One, the distributor enters five contacts, Day Two should include follow-up activities and content that help convert those leads to a call, presentation, or online meeting.

Look for multi-day processes, such as prospect development and determine whether multiple assets address the same steps and issues. These are convenient reference points when thinking about how to shorten and improve onboarding programming, which can produce immediate improvements in distributor success. Sales process steps in a “What’s Next” machine learning tool allow the distributor to focus on doing sales work instead of learning how to use tools.

Once the Welcome and Onboarding workflows are complete and redundant content identified for testing, the organization of product knowledge and sales skills coaching content if there is any in the current asset library. These are content categories that can be populated over time, as well as licensed from training providers for integration with sales coaching machine learners, which can target sales training based on the distributor’s sales challenges. For instance, if they consistently add contacts, get meetings, but don’t close, the tool can direct the distributor to training videos about closing, getting commitments, and handling objections.

With a smart platform in place, a variety of training programs can be added to address your network’s training needs and to address individual distributor challenges. In the next installment, we’ll explore attribution modeling for machine optimization of each step in the sales process.

Getting Started With Machine Learning for Sales Content

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Human insight and inspiration are the basis of solidly profitable applications of machine learning to sales processes. LifeVantage, which recently launched a Gig Economy Group-based sales app for its distributors, improved its sales and marketing alignment as part of their onboarding to machine learning.

The GEG process builds on five principles that ensure clients onboard to improved, personalized sales experiences:

  1. Attribution analysis provides useful metrics for assessing content and messaging.
  2. Design to deliver “What’s Next” automatically, offering distributors the choice to use or refuse the machine suggestion.
  3. Make the process repeatable and scalable while supporting testable content and messaging variations.
  4. Deliver real-time leading indicators to management to facilitate their own content production decisions instead of blindly following machine recommendations.
  5. Provide a proactive view of the business from Day One.

We began the LifeVantage process using the company’s existing video, audio, and PDF-based content assets. Those assets served as the foundation of a machine learning platform. Assigning expected outcomes for each of these assets, whether LifeVantage management believed the asset moves a prospect toward purchasing, provided the GEG analytics system to identify opportunities for optimization. Each surprising outcome lets the machine learner choose alternative steps and test their efficacy in the funnel.

The teams assessed content provided to distributors as they join the organization, and consumer marketing content. Every aspect of the interactions between LifeVantage sellers and customers were examined and cataloged. With this inventory and a list of expected outcomes at each step, a machine learner can look at every interaction to identify what content works best, which messaging spurs prospect action, and the optimal order for delivering marketing content to customers.

Having innovated early with several technology vendors to develop four mobile apps, LifeVantage found its new distributor onboarding had become fragmented across several applications. Each app addressed different aspects of learning the LifeVantage Way, the selling process, and ongoing training. The company realized its distributors needed a single point of contact with LifeVantage information and its backend sales management systems. Simply providing training through streaming videos, audio programs, and coaching by sponsors would not be sufficient to keep a new distributor engaged if their early investment of time in LifeVantage did not convert to sales.

Results, Before The Machine Kicks In

The LifeVantage app for iPhone and Android connects distributors to the company’s media catalog and sales platform to provide next-step guidance for each phase of the selling process. Building on its established training and invaluable guidance from its most successful distributors, LifeVantage analyzed each step in its selling motion to create a machine learner capable of recognizing the salesperson’s progress in training, achieving product competence, and how each relationship they are working is progressing against network-wide benchmarks.

It was clear from the start a mobile-first strategy was essential. In many cases, distributors used paper-based sales management tools rather than PC applications. iPhone and Android versions of the app became priorities for the team, who moved to the design stage with a challenge: How to make the seller’s success as simple and pleasing as an Uber rider or driver’s experience.

A significant finding in early surveying and interviews centered on the design on framing seller’s choices. Distributors did not want to be told they have only one option, which they must follow the instructions given precisely. Instead, they sometimes want to skip sharing a video or time the gathering of feedback differently than established LifeVantage practice. For newcomers to LifeVantage sales, spontaneity in communication reinforced their sense of confidence. The team had to allow users plenty of flexibility. Experienced distributors moving from other network marketing companies were less inclined to watch training, but eager to get to work.

Through internal discussion and continuing interviews with experienced distributors, the team settled on critical metrics to change with the app that focused on novice sellers. While the first version of the LifeVantage app does offer services for long-term distributors, the newest seller is the next source of growth at the company. The selling steps and events that lead to initial success, such as time to first contact added and messaged, the frequency and success of the new distributor’s meetings, and speedy progress toward the first sale and progress up the compensation ladder became central to the project.

Customization At the Design Stage

Rapid development demanded continuous collaboration between the design and development teams during the onboarding and launch process. The initial distributor interviews produced a design the team decided required too much tool knowledge on the user’s part. The needed to know steps when adding a contact or creating a meeting, for instance, gets in the way of completing the task. A key decision resulted: Each action card that called for a distributor task should open the workspace where the work takes will be performed and, on completion, acknowledge the progress made. Sellers want feedback from their app about their progress.

App performance, too, presented challenges. Machine learning is an evolving computationally intensive technology. Building in a robust development environment on proven cloud systems was essential to fast responses to user input in the LifeVantage app. Feedback from distributors came fast and frequently, providing many signals about where to prioritize early investments.

The internal knowledge that had seemed concrete turned out to be merely intuitive guesswork in some cases. App usage demonstrated that new distributors wanted to get to work by starting to communicate instead of going through extensive training. Consequently, training sequences were shortened and selling steps moved to the “top of the deck” of the new user’s experience. Early usage showed distributors gravitate to creating new business. Consequently, LifeVantage recast much of its extensive media catalog as daily training material presented contextually while the distributor is performing a related task. When related to an immediate sales challenge, such as gaining commitments, LifeVantage’s training content proved even more effective.

Designers and developers worked closely to move the beta through seven release cycles, each shared with the beta community. Additionally, 20 top LifeVantage distributors and a cadre of 20 newly registered distributors were engaged to give weekly feedback. The result was hundreds of changes to the functionality and design captured over three months that would have taken a year to collect through traditional channels.

The first general release of the LifeVantage app delivered a simple-to-use tool for learning, selling, and supporting customer and distributor network relationships. It integrates the LifeVantage’s Media Library, Contact Management, Meeting and Feedback Management, as well as providing business performance information that assists sponsors in training their distributor networks. From first contact and entry of personal data into the app, through media sharing, it prompts distributors to make calls and send messages that capture prospect feedback. Based on what the prospect does, the app selects from a variety of optional next steps, such as triggering a distributor enrollment or shared cart with a potential buyer.

LifeVantage: Machine Learning In Direct Selling

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Seeing is believing for Sandy, Utah-based LifeVantage. CEO Darren Jensen presented the sales results of LifeVantage’s early implementation of machine learning at the 2018 Direct Selling Association Conference in San Diego, reporting that distributor retention is up 34 percent overall in its 2018 fiscal year, which ends this month. The reason is improved visibility into the state of the business with the ability to intervene with new content and messaging to the individual distributor.

“We can now see if people are getting stuck at any of the [steps in the sales journey],” Jensen said during the presentation. The company, a leading seller of nutriceuticals and beauty products, is Gig Economy Group’s first commercial customer. Although its machine learning tools have been available only for a few months, LifeVantage’s pre-launch analysis of the sales process resulted in rapid improvements in novice distributors’ time-to-first-sale and, by extension, retention rates and average revenue per distributor.

Instead of looking at the whole process “once a year” based on annual sales results, Jensen said LifeVantage now relies on leading indicators, such as the number of contacts being added by distributors as well as meetings and calls presented by distributors. “Now we can see deep into our funnel,” he added.

LifeVantage CEO Darren Jensen speaks at DSA 2018.

Planning for machine learning in its business brought LifeVantage management face-to-face with each step of its sales process, raising new questions about how to achieve the highest revenue and revising the company’s basic assumptions about where to invest. LifeVantage’s comprehensive review of its sales methods and marketing content has recast management activity to focus on tactical changes to messaging and selling process that have delivered continued improving results.

“GEG sat down with us to devise systems and technology to answer and resolve the sales issues we have,” Jensen said. The process, which involved quantitative analysis of almost a decade’s worth of sales data, revealed three key principles that govern decision-making:

  1. Accelerating the first dollar earned by a distributor is the most effective investment LifeVantage can make in retention.
  2. It is equally valuable to sign a new customer or distributor. Because 66 percent of distributors begin as customers, LifeVantage deemphasized the traditional focus on having new enrollees recruit new distributors. LifeVantage also found that customers stayed longer and spent more money than unengaged distributors.
  3. The speed to the first sale by a new distributor is critical to their long-term success. LifeVantage found that if a distributor makes their first sale within two weeks of enrollment, after a year they earn an average of 71 percent more than someone who takes just another two weeks longer to close a sale.

Taking the next step

Direct selling is poised to evolve, adopting greater transparency and digital tools to treat distributors as key partners in success, according to Jensen. As retail and e-commerce companies, notably Amazon, press to gain access to the home, direct sellers enjoy a unique, temporary opportunity to take a greater share of U.S. and global consumer revenue. Shaping each customer experience to address personal concerns and values is mission critical.

The addition of machine learning lets the company “deploy technology to be sure people are closing in the right way to establish a trusted relationship,” Jensen said.

An Action Card: The distributor has just shared a product video with a prospect and will be reminded to follow-up when the video is played.

For example, LifeVantage now focuses intense effort on getting a new distributor to close their first sale. Simply winning their first dollar in revenue increases distributor retention by 44 percent over the lifetime of the enrollee (see LIfeVantage image above, which shows the likelihood of a distributor placing a monthly order based on how much they earn cumulatively). To accomplish this, LifeVantage provides each distributor a free machine learning-enabled app that begins training and sales activity on their first day with the company.

The app, which runs on the Gig Economy Group platform, reminds distributors what they’ve shared with prospects and how to follow up through a customized set of “action cards” delivered to each distributor. Action cards can display training content, product knowledge programming, sales guidance, and relationship management tools so that the distributor is always ready to do What’s Next to succeed.

“The first network marketing company I signed up for was one of the most exciting things I’ve ever been part of,” Gig Economy Group Senior Vice President of Business Development Yak Gertmenian, who spoke with Jensen on-stage. “Two weeks later it started to wane because I couldn’t find anyone to help me. I got stuck in the What’s Next trap. I didn’t know what to do.”

In addition to training, action cards provide suggested content to share with prospects, recommended messaging ideas, and follow-up reminders. These cards sent by the GEG platform to each distributor based on their sales skills, communication habits, and, importantly, customized messaging flows for engaging each prospect based on their expressed interests and feedback from the distributor.

Existential questions

Direct selling now competes for distributors with many more options for side income, a challenge LifeVantage sees as life-or-death.

“The next economy is here,” Jensen said. “We are at a tipping point where [direct selling] can become a leading industry or become irrelevant.” He recounted a seeing a recent Facebook add for Shopify, the online commerce tool, that claimed to provide “the best side hustle” to make extra income. As the gig economy evolves, 30 percent of Americans have embraced added income sources, ranging from Uber to selling.

“We are competing for the “side hustler” with multiple industries,” Jensen said. He told his direct selling colleagues: “We need to compete with all these companies at a higher level.”

By embracing machine learning, LifeVantage has learned to customize the onboarding and training experience, helping to increase success when it matters most. The results have been rewarding. In 2015, only 26 percent of new LifeVantage distributors completed a sale during their first two weeks with the company. By 2018, sales in the first two weeks after enrollment reached 36 percent, a 38 percent increase overall.

Interestingly, the sales lift extends past two weeks, even though attrition soars after the first month. LifeVantage also reports that sales in the first month after enrollment has increased from 55 percent in 2015 to 67 percent.

Working from well-aligned principles, LifeVantage and GEG developed a sales process that has allowed LifeVantage to weather the dismissal of a third of the company’s sales force due to unauthorized overseas sales without a decline in revenue.

“Technology can you extremely resilient as well as position you for greater success in the future,” Jensen concluded. As machine learning runs daily, LifeVantage’s insight into their funnel is propelling ongoing content and messaging changes to improve conversion success.

In our next installment, we’ll explore how Gig Economy Group translates client business processes into measurable sales workflows ready for machine optimization.

 

 

 

Lifevantage And Gig Economy Group Partner To Transform Sales Through Artificial Intelligence

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New sales enablement technology changes the way companies and associations can engage and support sales teams and members in a time of digital transformation

SAN MATEO, California. – June 21, 2018 – Gig Economy Group (GEG), a Business Process Management (BPM) Platform and LifeVantage Corporation (Nasdaq:LFVN), a pioneer in Nutrigenomics, today announced a strategic partnership designed to enable direct sales businesses and membership organizations to create and support a more informed and successful sales force and to significantly increase revenue by leveraging machine learning. The collaboration is transforming sales support by proactively delivering personalized training, content and suggested actions at the moment of impact. The GEG engine provides automated intelligence by tracking what content and actions are most successful, analyzing sales outcomes, and delivering updated best-practices in real-time across the organization.

“The GEG platform has fundamentally changed our training and support for all LifeVantage consultants, providing confidence and increasing revenue for everyone, stated Darren Jensen, CEO, LifeVantage. “Additionally, it has provided us unprecedented visibility into our business which allows us to pivot faster versus waiting for revenue numbers to indicate momentum shifts. Lastly, it has replaced three separate applications, therefore making everyone’s life simple and more efficient.”

Machine learning and a unique approach to AI enables GEG to harness the power of human knowledge and experience to proactively surface and present the most appropriate content or action for each individual user in every situation that they face. GEG uses this technology to help address the uniquely human and personal challenges of on-boarding, building momentum and confidence, and moving successfully toward business goals. This value enables sales, service and marketing teams to work more effectively to grow their pipelines, collaborate more effectively, move deals through the sales process faster, and increase win rates.

LifeVantage sought capabilities that were beyond the reach of existing sales enablement platform. GEG’s features and functionality set it apart from the competition in providing a training and content engine that learns in real-time how to better inform management and salespeople on an ongoing basis. By isolating each action between seller, product and customer, GEG’s machine learning platform tests and identifies actions that work best for every seller and situation, and automatically delivers the training and content at the precise time the seller needs to take the next step.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with LifeVantage to enable GEG’s proprietary technology to deliver the right content to the customer at the right moment, with the right messaging to help their sales teams determine what to do next in the sales process to increase revenue generation,” said Dave Toole, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Gig Economy Group. “By determining which attributes will drive larger deal sizes, longer-term lifetime value and greater loyalty will change how LifeVantage assigns territories, prioritizes prospects and drives customer success management for its customers. This is precisely why we developed the GEG platform.”

DSA 2018: Direct Selling Recruitment & Retention with Sylvina Consulting

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The Gig Economy Group talks with Jay Leisner, President of  compensation planning and direct selling advisory company Sylvina Consulting. Part of our exploration of the future of direct selling, Leisner explains the role of residual value in differentiating the direct-selling business from emerging gig options that may attract distributors. Leisner also co-produces the Direct Selling Edge Conference in Salt Lake City this July, as well as other cities around the U.S.

LifeVantage and GEG Partner to Transform Sales Through Artificial Intelligence

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New sales enablement technology changes the way companies and associations can engage and support sales teams and members in a time of digital transformation

Gig Economy Group June 21, 2018 11:29

SAN MATEO, Calif, June 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — (GEG), a Business Process Management (BPM) Platform and LifeVantage Corporation (Nasdaq:LFVN), a pioneer in Nutrigenomics, today announced a strategic partnership designed to enable direct sales businesses and membership organizations to create and support a more informed and successful sales force and to significantly increase revenue by leveraging machine learning. The collaboration is transforming sales support by proactively delivering personalized training, content and suggested actions at the moment of impact. The GEG engine provides automated intelligence by tracking what content and actions are most successful, analyzing sales outcomes, and delivering updated best-practices in real-time across the organization.

“The GEG platform has fundamentally changed our training and support for all LifeVantage consultants, providing confidence and increasing revenue for everyone,” stated Darren Jensen, CEO, LifeVantage. “Additionally, it has provided us unprecedented visibility into our business which allows us to pivot faster versus waiting for revenue numbers to indicate momentum shifts. Lastly, it has replaced three separate applications, therefore making everyone’s life simple and more efficient.”

Yak Gertmenian, SVP of Sales at Gig Economy Group, joins LifeVantage CEO Darren Jensen on stage at DSA 2018

Machine learning and a unique approach to AI enables GEG to harness the power of human knowledge and experience to proactively surface and present the most appropriate content or action for each individual user in every situation that they face. GEG uses this technology to help address the uniquely human and personal challenges of onboarding, building momentum and confidence, and moving successfully toward business goals. This value enables sales, service and marketing teams to work more effectively to grow their pipelines, collaborate more effectively, move deals through the sales process faster, and increase win rates.

LifeVantage sought capabilities that were beyond the reach of existing sales enablement platform. GEG’s features and functionality set it apart from the competition in providing a training and content engine that learns in real-time how to better inform management and salespeople on an ongoing basis. By isolating each action between seller, product and customer, GEG’s machine learning platform tests and identifies actions that work best for every seller and situation, and automatically delivers the training and content at the precise time the seller needs to take the next step.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with LifeVantage to enable GEG’s proprietary technology to deliver the right content to the customer at the right moment, with the right messaging to help their sales teams determine what to do next in the sales process to increase revenue generation,” said Dave Toole, Co-founder, Chairman and CEO of Gig Economy Group. “By determining which attributes will drive larger deal sizes, longer-term lifetime value and greater loyalty will change how LifeVantage assigns territories, prioritizes prospects and drives customer success management for its customers. This is precisely why we developed the GEG platform.”

For more information about the GEG platform, please visit our website at: www.gigeconomygroup.com or request a demo by emailing us at support@gigeconomygroup.com.  Stay updated on GEG’s developments and news by visiting our social channels at: Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

About Gig Economy Group:

Gig Economy Group’s Business Process Management (BPM) Platform enables direct sales businesses (and membership organizations) to create and support a more informed and successful independent sales force.

The company’s software proactively delivers the customer content and sales training information that individual reps require at the moment they need it at any point in the sales cycle. To determine what content, coaching, and recommended next steps to present, GEG uses data-driven insights, machine learning, and ‘augmented emotional intelligence’ to harness an organization’s own collective human intelligence and experience. Through use of the Gig Economy Group platform, reps become more confident, productive, and successful, while companies experience faster onboarding, greater retention, increased overall performance, and growth in sales revenue.

For more information please contact Gig Economy Group at www.gigeconomygroup.com

Media contact:

Beth Trier
Trier and Company for GEG
beth@triercompany.com
415-285-6147

DSA 2018: Direct Selling Trends with Avalara inc.

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We sat down with DSA attendee Colt Passey, Strategic Alliances Manager for Direct Selling at Avalara Inc. to talk about the trends reshaping direct selling. The sales tax processing vendor handles domestic and trans-national sales taxes for many of the largest direct selling companies at the show.

DSA 2018: Mapping The Future Together

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Gig Economy Group present at the Direct Selling Association’s annual conference. Please join us to discuss the future of in-home and local sales enabled by brand content and smart sales coaching. We’re also conducting interviews with direct sales company leadership, vendors, and advisors to lay out the challenges facing the industry in pursuit of its biggest opportunities.

Join Darren Jensen, President and CEO of LifeVantage, and Gig Economy Group Senior Vice President of Business Development Yak Gertmenian for Improving Distributor Success with Artificial Intelligence Tools, at 3:30 PM on Monday, June 18 in Grand Ballroom 4. We will be recording the presentation and collect your ideas in interviews after the session.

We built the Gig Economy Group platform to allow anyone to sell anything using the right branded content and brand sales processes to ensure a comprehensive and satisfying customer experience. Our analysis of the e-commerce and retail world made clear that person-to-person relationships will endure and become more essential, not less, as the economy shifts toward care and service-centric customer experience. Empowering people will more information will ignite new intimate sales opportunities.

Would you join us to talk for 15 to 20 minutes for our podcasts and research program? If you’d like a demo of the Gig platform, we can share that, too. Schedule your session here.

Our demo and recording station will be set up in Marriott Suite #1871.

We look forward to meeting you at DSA 2018.

International Opportunity: Scaling Revenue Globally With Smart Platforms

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While it may not always feel like it in the United States, the world is becoming middle-class and people are adopting healthy, prosperous lifestyles that will reshape decades of established market behavior. As digital technology proliferates, global expansion is the greatest revenue opportunity for established and new direct selling companies, which could even grab market share from retailers struggling to bring customers into stores around the world.

Growth outside the U.S. has accelerated, beating domestic economic gains by 44 percent over the past couple years, according to the International Monetary Fund. China’s embrace of direct selling, which generated $33.9 billion in 2016 sales, just behind the U.S. total of $35.5 billion, is representative of the explosion in international opportunity. Direct selling must adapt to different regulatory and cultural settings to step into the void between modern retail, which has not penetrated many regions nor the in-home market, before new consumer behaviors consolidate. Once set, these habits will be long-lasting.

Are companies in the United States ready to adapt to the global marketplace? They’ll need smart tools that assist in identifying market-appropriate content and sales messaging in each international market. Brand content libraries will swell with variations on existing programming, as well as market-specific training for distributors, who must blend brand and local culture to create great customer experience. The same tools that personalize a U.S. sales relationship will provide support for localization of services globally.

The “Metail” Opportunity Goes Worldwide

The direct selling model may be more suited to delivery of goods and services in many countries where mobile phones and wireless infrastructure were the first digital infrastructure available. In these regions, consumers are already used to ecommerce, but more complex sales and services are challenging to deliver without a personal relationship. Retailers face massive capital and marketing investments in each territory they enter. Global consumers, like younger Americans, want a “metail” experience in which products and services align with their personal preferences and they have a human contact  with which to meet and exchange ideas and feedback — online or in-person.

It’s notable that direct selling is growing faster on an annual basis than retail across the world. Euromonitor International found that direct selling has seen higher annual growth than retail since 2012. While direct selling accounted for only 0.06 percent of global retail as of 2016, the industry has an opportunity to carve out one or more percentage points of retail sales by focusing on home-based relationships in emerging markets. That would more than double the size of the direct selling market.

Coresight Research adds a compelling idea: Using local influencers as  hubs of direct-selling networks who market products fulfilled by distributors: “In the digital age, the rise of influencers, or key opinion leaders (KOL) as they are called in China, has been dramatic. Influencers gain popularity on social media, which they monetize by advertising and selling products.” It is not necessary that everyone in the network be a closer. Adjusting compensation models to enable influencer marketing is another unique opportunity, which may be captured by direct sellers, ecommerce, or, even, retailers who solve the problem of compensation. But direct selling’s business model is the most prepared for virtual-physical hybrid selling.

Brands, too, may be more open to direct selling relationships in overseas markets. They can be the first in regions that have never heard of their competition, establishing brand beachheads through personal relationships.

For instance, Lenovo, the Chinese-owned computer maker, pioneered small-store distribution in China in the ’00s by giving shopkeepers in rural communities an ordering app to quickly replace each computer sold. The on-demand approach minimized the shop-keepers’ inventory risk while giving Lenovo virtually real-time access to consumer data in China. Even a shack without a paved floor could carry Lenovo products this way, and it lead to widespread adoption by Chinese consumers of a PC originally made by IBM.

That early presence in villages outside Chinese cities gave Lenovo an overwhelming advantage in the PC market as it gained footing in the country. By 2010, Lenovo held a 28.8 percent market share, with Dell trailing in a distant second place at 10 percent. It was constructed on person-to-person relationships augmented by digital tools.

First-movers With Smart Tools

Applying this approach to direct selling, a brand can be represented by an individual distributor even in the most difficult economic circumstances. Distributors are in a position to hold inventory briefly, deliver personal service that establishes a customer relationship that increases likelihood of follow-on purchase, and provide feedback that can be used to better target products.

Being first, whether to offer wellness products, beauty products, or technology in a market is an undeniable advantage. Much of the world is waiting for better consumer products and experience. With half the planet using mobile phones, 4.93 billion people in 2018, according to eMarketer, there are many new distributors and customers waiting for opportunities to earn, learn, and enjoy products introduced by friends, family, and local entrepreneurs using direct selling tools.

Great tools also create engaged distributors. Mobile and personalized training and sales coaching, especially in emerging economies, will establish strong distributor networks in new markets. Once engaged and earning, these workers will be far less likely to leave the organization, because it may represent their first middle-class work. As the world settles into greater overall prosperity, the first work relationships people have may be, like the fading notion of a career, permanent for generations.

Smart platforms that analyze the distributor’s behavior, the customer’s buying signs or objections (recorded by the distributor), and adjust sales programming and steps appropriately, are the foundation of a new distributed approach to sales. The technology-enabled customer-centric approach to direct sales counters the weak trust relationships of ecommerce without the overhead of retail.

The era of customers flocking to stores isn’t over, but that model no longer exists in isolation from ecommerce and direct selling competition. The question remains to be decided: Will U.S. and other direct selling companies step into these uncharted sales environments with confidence? They can with tools that help them learn from every interaction and tune their established communications and sales rhythms to newly opened markets.

 

 

Can Direct-Selling Compete With The Gig Economy?

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The times they are-a changin’, especially in the world of work. “Gig” roles now make up a significant portion of young and old workers’ time, though many still retain traditional jobs. Younger workers seek work that aligns with their life mission, generally to make the world a better place. The notion that multiple revenue streams are necessary to be prosperous, or even to take a vacation, has become a standard part of career planning. Gig platforms are emerging as the easiest way to establish additional revenue sources in the emerging economy.

Will direct-selling companies be ready to compete for part-time and full-time distributors in this new job market? There are several challenges facing any firm that wants to win and keep gig workers, and e-commerce and retail companies are investing heavily to be compete for sales and support staff who can bring the sales relationship into the home:

It is a plain fact that part-time work is on the rise. Although the U.S. Department of Labor reported that the traditional job market is still alive and well as of May 2018, the agency’s count did not include part-time work in its count of employment arrangements. The DOL suggests that only 3.8 percent of workers are in “alternative or contingent” work arrangements as their primary employment.

During the same month Labor issued its reassuring report, the Federal Reserve found a very different total by counting all work arrangements, not just workers’ primary employment. According to The Fed, 30 percent of adults are working on side jobs to raise their income. The gig today is viewed as necessary to making a sufficient living, consequently the gigs that fit most conveniently in a worker’s life are preferred by potential hires.

People are driving for Uber and Lyft, doing side jobs on TaskRabbit and, critically, many small and medium-sized businesses are turning to online marketplaces to find customers. Intuit reported 34 percent of U.S. workers were working side jobs in 2017 and projects the share of gig workers will rise to 43 percent by 2020. Today’s “hustlers” are choosing software-enabled work opportunities.

Put yourself in the distributor’s shoes

Direct sales opportunities may appear riskier than the typical gig job that promise lower but consistent income. Workers are willing to take the lower pay in lieu of higher income that isn’t certain, according to the Fed: “Three-fifths of workers would prefer a hypothetical job with stable pay over one with varying but somewhat higher pay.”

This is the lens direct sales recruitment must use when assessing its pitch to prospective enrollees. The worker has many choices for a side-income and, if they are going to engage in direct selling full-time need a successful program with world-class onboarding for distributors as well as better tools for selling than competitors.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics suggested in a 2007 study that flexibility and a sense of being in control of one’s time and choices are key motivators for workers, across all generations. That’s an implicit endorsement of the benefits offered by direct selling. As the labor market has tightened, prospective direct sellers are able to measure their options and pick selectively based on social feedback about companies, how distributors are treated, and the tools provided to help them achieve success.

Just as pre-sales determines which sales program will be most successful, distributor recruitment today requires early engagement of prospects with targeted video and audio content, sales messaging delivered through the tools the prospect will use to sell, and a stellar onboarding process to keep them moving toward early success.

Turn the prospective enrollee’s view on your companies offerings: Are the tool mobile and designed to provide training that converts sales rapidly? Are marketing and sales messages reinforcing the importance of distributor success at every step? Has your content library developed to support personalization of sales experience, and does that include helping new distributors embrace and make your sales process their own? Without complete distributor engagement, customers will quickly come to doubt the marketing message overall.

The Brookings Institute reported in 2016 that gig work is thriving in cities, which direct sellers need to target with increasingly diverse personalized messaging. Brookings found that 81 percent of four-year net growth in non-employer firms took place in cities, where huge groups of transient workers are mixing, networking, and making life-long connections that direct sellers can leverage to build revenue. The gig wave will reach the suburbs and rural communities in the next five years.

The next generation of self-starters are entrepreneurial by nature. Millennials, Gen-Z and the newly born Gen-A have grown up in a world where information tools give them extraordinary powers of choice. They also tend to think in terms of building service relationships with customers, a natural fit with direct selling that, without the right tools, quickly leads to frustration and distributor attrition.

The first wave of gig work made commodity labor delivery more efficient. But the sales challenge in the 2020s will revolve around deep customer relationships facilitated by smart content platforms. This gives direct sales an advantage, because the industry has focused on one-to-one relationship for decades. Without the right tools and a clear socially responsible message expressed daily through sales training content, customer messaging, and within the sales network, direct selling will face declines in recruitment.

Even as retail and ecommerce companies launch campaigns to get a foothold in direct selling’s traditional stronghold, the home, potential direct salespeople are juggling more options than at any time in history. Is your direct-selling network ready to engage and support the next generation of self-starters who are willing to work hard for a profitable business and satisfying lifestyle?

See You In San Diego

Gig Economy Group and LifeVantage will be presenting at the upcoming Direct Selling Association 2018 Annual Meeting in San Diego, June 17 through 19. We look forward to meeting you at the event, where our team will be exploring critical questions about the future of direct selling. Schedule a demo or reach out to meet and talk at our suite during the event.

We would also appreciate your joining our blog team for a discussion at the event about the challenges facing the industry. We will be writing about direct-selling in the weeks before DSA 2018 and would like to include your thoughts in our reports. Send email to schedule an interview.

 

Reference: Bankrate