Hey everyone, it is me Lisa and welcome back to another episode of the other 99%. Today, I wanted to talk to you about direct sales training. I’ve been in the business for 18 years and I’m gonna say for about 14 of those years, I always relied on my company to provide me with what I needed to know. Yes, I would look at like the odd thing online every now and then, but typically I waited for, you know, my upline to do their training, their weekly training, or I waited for the company to bring something out, or I searched my back office. And when 2020 hit, and I went from working a business that I was told or that I felt that I was told was just like strictly in person, and you really, you really couldn’t do this business online. You know, so there wasn’t really any information about how to run our business online because we were always encouraged to do in person. And then in 2020 we had to pivot and it was completely all in person. And I’m not the type of person who sits there and waits. If I can’t find the information I want, I’m not going to wait for it. And let me tell you, this is the best thing that I ever did when I went outside of my company and I searched for external training. Now let’s just dig into this a little bit because it’s easy, okay? When we’re doing our day-to-day business, it’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and just stick with what the company is providing because it does take a little bit of work to source out and research training on our own, okay? But the thing is, there’s a whole world of external training and resources out there and many of it is free.

So I’m gonna give you a couple little tips as we go through this podcast on where I went for training. So like I said, I started seeking training outside of my company because I was looking for different perspectives. I was looking for different strategies. I was looking for different tools that I wasn’t given in my current situation. Like I didn’t have access to this. And these tools ended up or this information that I found, it ended up unlocking so many things for me. I feel that over the last four years, I had the biggest jump in personal growth that I have in the entire 18 years of my business. So I am so thankful for taking the leap. The one thing that I’m truly thankful for is I…I did something that I would have never done before. Like I actually went out and I sourced different direct sales trainers. There are some that have what I consider like crazy amounts to work with them. You know, I’m a true believer in it takes money to make money. But typically the person who is sourcing out the information, they’re not the five or six figure earners you know, a trainer that is going to charge you like hundreds and hundreds of dollars to work with them each month, like that’s just unrealistic. And I did find a couple trainers who were willing to work with what I call the other 99%. They provided great information and resources. But not only that, I was able to get into a community. I was able to network with other like-minded people in different companies and that is where I’ve seen the biggest growth in my business because I have expanded my network right across Canada and the US and I’m talking to people that I would have never met if I was just solely in person. So I absolutely love that about, you know, direct sales and I love that my adventure to go on this, you know, this seeking training has led me to this network of people who are basically doing the same thing as I am. Yes, we’re with different companies, but we all want the same thing. We all want to have success in our business. And you know what? There are some things that other companies are doing that you could easily adapt into your company couple places where I’m going to refer you to go and look for outside training. And most of these, these pieces of trading that you’re going to find on these two platforms are going to be free.

So number one, my biggest suggestion is to use YouTube. And I’m just going to give a shout out out there to all the Scentsy leaders. I absolutely love the fact that you guys are out there providing such valuable information, training resources, and it’s all free. It’s all there online. And you know what? Direct sales is direct sales. So when you’re going into that training, yes, they may be talking about a, you know, a scent, but that doesn’t mean that that sent that little, you know, their their little bricks of wax, you can’t put your product in place of that and just tweak what they’re doing but still have the same results because again, all we’re doing is taking our product and selling it to a customer. And how are we selling it? By providing them with a service and how this product can be valuable to them. So not only are you going to find like great sales tips, But there’s many, many videos out there on YouTube that will go over mindset coaching. And mindset is like a huge thing. And then there’s people out there that are just going to give you motivational talks because let’s face it, we just need to be to get that that adrenaline pumping. We just need to get motivated every now and then and get out there and do our business. So, you know, take a look and make sure that you’re looking for reputable resources, like take a look at their following and do a little bit of research on them before you deep dive into what they’re offering on YouTube because like I said, there’s many things out there and I don’t want you to go down the wrong rabbit hole, but you can typically find these people like on social and see what people are saying in their comments and all that stuff. So do a bit of research before you jump in.

Now the next platform that I really suggest you using is Google. And just be specific with what you’re looking for. You know, typing in something into the Google search, you can end up finding like some amazing articles to read some case studies, blogs, podcasts, you name it. So it’s really a great way to find some more information. And what I love about Google, you can go in and sometimes like you’re looking for maybe say a specific game that you want to play at your in-person event. And you could type that and then look in the images in Google and sometimes they’ll give you like a layout, like a document that they’ve created that you could just tweak and make it your own. But again, don’t spend all of your time because this truly isn’t a what I call an IPA or what everybody calls an IPA, it’s income producing activity. You really wanna be making money as you’re working your business, but these are great places to dive into when you have carved out that time for personal growth.

And then the last thing, I know I’ve already mentioned podcasts, but there’s other places out there that you can get information. So yeah, definitely go in and look at some more podcasts. There’s some great ones out there like the Modern Direct Seller. I know Kristen Boss has one and there’s a couple others that I can’t even think off the top of my head, but like I have a whole bunch of them in my downloads that I just listen to each week and they usually have great guests or great information. You can…Typically find webinars out there. Like there’s a lot of people who do free webinars or free online courses that you can take and get some information. Just make sure that when you go on those, be prepared. So typically what happens when you’re going onto a free platform like that, or a free resource like that, there’s typically an offer that’s coming. So, you know, the person is giving you valuable information for free and if you want it all, you know, you can join their paid course or their paid workshop. Do I say jump in? If you feel that the money is something that you can afford and you feel that the information is what you need, absolutely. If they’re a reliable resource, yeah, go ahead and jump in. But just know that, I mean, I offer them too. I offer the free webinars and workshops to get people into my paid courses and if people don’t take the paid courses, I’m not offended. I know that it’s not for them and I’m happy that I could provide them with the information that I did for free. So don’t feel like you’re obligated to jump into them if you join one of those courses. But like I said, there’s lots of information out there for free. And if you can afford to have like a small fee that you’re paying monthly for training, then jump into that too. I mean, just make sure you don’t get locked into anything because that can be a bit scary if you’re locked into like 12 months at a set number of, or a set amount, and you’re like, eek, that could be, that’s scary to me. I don’t know if it would be scary to you, but yeah, I don’t wanna make that kind of commitment. So make sure the next thing, so you’ve gone out and you’ve researched all the stuff, and guys, that stuff is gonna do nothing. That information is gonna do nothing unless you can create a plan on how you are going to use this information that you’ve taken in. So start to assess where you need to focus on in your business. Do you need to set a training schedule or a training plan to learn how to improve your sales techniques? Do you need…to look at maybe communication skills or time management. Oh my God, time management is me. I really need to learn how to master time management in my business, that’s for sure. But you have to be clear with what you need and what’s gonna help you improve your skills to improve your business, okay? So once you create that plan, then you have to actually apply it. So taking in all this information without putting it to work, is useless because this information is not going to help you by staying in your head. You need to actually put it to practice and experiment with the information.

So remember how I said earlier that, you know, their direct sales is direct sales and you could find training and all you have to do is tweak it to match what your product is and you know how it would work with your company. Well experiment with that. Take what they’ve shared with you and then make your tweaks and experiment. See if it works. See if it is the best fit for your business. Like is this new party approach or is this new communication style gonna work with you and gonna work with your business, okay? So that’s the one thing that I really think that you need to focus on. You can take in as much training as you want, but unless you implement it and actually put into action, you’re not going to see any, any move in your business. You’re just going to stay the same. Okay. It’s like that saying, you know, insanity is like doing the same thing over and over again, while you don’t want to be considered the insane direct seller that, you know, is sitting there saying, well, why isn’t it working for me? It’s because you try to keep doing the same thing and you’re, you’re obviously not seeing success in that, that avenue. Let’s just change things up.

So to wrap up today’s episode, let’s just summarize what we’ve gone through. Don’t always rely on your company to give you the information. There is external training resources out there all over the place. There are tons of valuable strategies and some great insight that will help you grow your skills and achieve greater success in direct sales. Go on to things like YouTube, Google other platforms, there’s just a vast array of information out there. So go out there and look for what works with you. I mean, you’ll know a few minutes into watching a video or listening to something if it’s your jam, you will, you will know. And then I encourage you to explore these resources and continuously seek growth opportunities. So we need to always want to be growing in our business and if you’re even listening to this episode, obviously you wanna grow in your business or you wouldn’t be sitting here listening to me for like 10, 15 minutes, however, along this episode ends up being telling you about where to find training. So if you wanna grow, you need to put the work in to make the growth happen. Be sure to write out a plan of what you need to grow. And you know what, guys, if you’re stuck on this, reach out to your leader. If you don’t have a leader, reach out to a sideline or a leader that will work with you or seek somebody out in another company that’s willing to be your running buddy. If you have somebody to work with, you’re gonna be happier in your business. You know, you could bounce stuff off of them. So there’s just so many things that we could do out there just to keep leveling up our direct sales business. So I hope you enjoyed this information, everyone and thank you so much for joining me on another episode of The Other 99%. And we will see you again next week. We’ll take care.

JOIN ME FOR A FREE BOARDS MASTERCLASS

Hey everyone. It’s me, Lisa. And I just wanted to jump in to let you know about my free upcoming boards workshop on Monday, June the 10th. It’s going to be all about building your perfect digital business card using boards webpages. Check the info in the show notes for details. Hope to see you there.