Episode 12 Transcript

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the podcast. It is me, Lisa, and we are here for another episode. On this week’s episode, we have my friend Cory from the US. Thanks for joining us, Cory. Thank you for inviting me. I’m so glad that you’re joining us. And I want you just to share a little bit about who Cory is. Tell the listeners who you are. My name is Cory Garrett. I’m with Norwex. I’ve been a customer of Norwex for about five years. I’ve only been a consultant for the last Just over a year I have two kids Teenagers son just turned 18. So I’m not sure where that time has gone My daughter is a 13. So they’re both Getting older quick. Uh-huh Allergy and asthma suffer, which is what kind of got me started into Norwex. I can’t use some of the typical cleaning products that are out there. Um, and this was just a safer, better option for me. I’m an IT person by trade. So, uh, being in front of people and doing direct sales was not something that was ever in my career path or thoughts. Um, I’m an introvert by nature. Uh, but working with this, uh, it’s kind of brought me out of my shell, I’d say a little bit. Not that I consider myself a people person, but it’s opened me up more.

Yeah, I could totally relate to that because I myself am in a social setting, definitely an introvert. So, and then I giggled when you said you’re an IT person because you know me, I love my tech, right? All right, so I’m just curious. So how did you find direct sales? And what made you choose Norwex? So it started, I was invited to a party, or like most of us here, you’re invited. I bought their starter kit basic product set and started using it, really liked it. Then I used it for a few years, but I’d say the person that I purchased from at the party didn’t have a good follow-up because I never knew where to buy it again. So that’s, I just want to just draw attention to that because there are so many customers out there like that and like they fall in love with the product like you did and then you don’t know how to get it again, right? Right. Um, then I was at an RV show, and there happened to be a Norwex booth there with a consultant working. And I started talking to her about what I had and she recommended some products and I tried those, liked it. And then she did her follow-up. And then I was like, she’s like, well, you should have a party. And like, never thought about that, but okay. Had a party and then we did really well. And that party, and she’s like, you should become a consultant. I’m like, well, I don’t want to sell this. I just, so the plan was just, you know, the discount, maybe some friends and family sell too. But then I started doing some vendor shows and that kind of opened me up being able to talk to people more because there’s just a big flow of people generally at the vendor events. You’re not stuck face to face with someone for a long period of time, but that’s what got me started. And then that’s where I am today. Awesome.

So I know that there’s many things that come out of our direct sales businesses and we’re always, we always have that one thing that we’re super proud of that resulted from our business. Do you have something that you’d like to share? Say my proudest moment is getting those connections with the people, whether it be at a party or Mike, this case was at a vendor event. I was doing a demonstration of our basics package, which is our EnviroCloth and WindowCloth and how older lady and I don’t like to guess ages, but she just reminded me of my grandma. Um, and I was telling her about it and she was all excited. And then I told her about how the cloth is made from recycled bottles. And she got so excited. She just started recycling. So she’s like, well, maybe one day one of my bottles will be one of these cloths and I was like, well, that’s a good possibility. But just connecting with people like that, uh, is what I like most about the job.

Yeah, I find it funny because I have a few customers that I have met through direct sales. And honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever met some of them face to face, but the friendships that you form, like I have, there’s some customers that I get messages from all the time. Oh, look, I just went to see my granddaughter and I’m like, that’s so like, you know, it’s great, right? And it’s like, thank you for sharing. But it’s like, yeah, I’m their spice girl they still think like there’s a relationship, which is great because I, I it’s like, that’s what I want to build, right? I want to build like that. No, like interest factor. So I, I like that. I can just imagine you’re probably still in touch with that lady. Right? I am. Yep. She’s not a Facebook person, obviously. Yeah. But she, she does call and text, but yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome.

So that leads us into my next question, which is customer care. I know that you are a super powerhouse customer care person and I know that this is one thing that every direct seller needs to have is a great customer care system if they want that longevity in their business. So can you share with us, what do you do? Are there any tips or tricks or tools that you use to maintain a great customer relationship? Two days after the order, two weeks, two months follow up. Two days just much to thank you. Your order has shipped, you know. In two weeks you received your order. Was everything received okay? Have you used anything? What’s your favourite product type thing? And then two month is just a care and then use tips. That’s what I’ll do, how to clean your cloths, care for them so they can last many years. To do that follow up, I’m using project broadcast for that right now. That’s kind of my main follow-up tool. And I do have the, Oh My High website now, which I’m actually loving. That was so easy to create. I was, I wanted a website, but I wasn’t sure how to create it and get it hosted and all that. I mean, I’m in IT, but I’m not in that side of IT. Right. So, but they made it super simple so I can make landing pages for people that aren’t on Facebook and just send that out via text and they can see specials and whatever blogs or whatever I post that month. Starting to look at PCATU. That’s new to me. So film the end. So that can do kind of like if you’re familiar with Visly, that does scheduled posts to Facebook. This can do that also, but it also can then email directly from there. Okay. So you can automate Facebook responses. So if you’re doing a Facebook already will say you can tag a post that you did, say it’s like a welcome post. And then you can tag that. So as new members come in, it’ll welcome them and tag them in that post automatically and just kind of keep the algorithm going. Cause as we all know, Facebook is getting a little crazy to deal with them. Keep your algorithm up so your customers see what you’re actually posting. Yeah. Facebook is have a love hate relationship with Facebook. Let me tell you. Right. I recently started a Instagram. That’s kind of new for me learning, but it seems to be getting some traction. So that’s another cool I’m using. So do you think that, um, this P what is PCATU. Yeah. Um, do you think that that’s going to be affected by this third party, um, ban that they’re putting up? Yeah. It’s not supposed to be because it uses the Google Chrome extension.

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Okay, doesn’t post the same way like a Visly or what’s the other one? SynthShare, those type of things. Okay. So I’m going to have to get the, your link or if you have a referral link, I’ll get that from you to post it. Yeah. We’ll post that in the show notes if anybody wants to check that out, because I know that that’s a huge issue that many people are facing right now. You know, like, I mean, a lot of people rely on that on stuff like CinchShare. And, and I know, um, even things like boards, they’re having issues with their links being posted. So if we can find anything that helps us run our business easy, that Facebook isn’t going to ban like I’m all for that. So I’m still getting lots of visually failure posts because it says Facebook had an error or some guessing that’s just more of what’s going to come. Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, it is a free platform and I think we we’ve wrote the wave quite a bit on it for being a free platform.

So I don’t know, I recently have just tried to shift more from my closed groups into my business page. And I was just talking to someone today, like I looked at my one business page for digitally direct and I had like an increase in what was it like post scene, like how many times a post was seen by 25,000% and I had to look at that like three times because I’m like, does it really say? And it said, yes, two, two point or two 5.1% and I’m like, and it had the K on it. And I’m like, what, really? Like that’s like totally crazy, but I’ll take it. Like, I mean, if, if the visibility is out there. So I think maybe Facebook is trying to throw the, all the algorithms at the pages right now because of this change coming. I guess we’ll see because the next thing could be something to do with pages. Who knows? At least with my company, we can’t have a public facing group. Okay. So we all have that private groups. So you can have a business page, but it can’t be related to like Norwex for mine. It can be a cleaning page, but I can’t really mention or anything about Norwex. Well, that sort of sucks. Yeah. I’d have to direct them to my private group, but I know something to think about, I guess, to funnel them over, I guess. But yeah, like all Corey’s cleaning tips or something like that, where you, you just, and you’re like, you’re using the product in the picture, but you’re not really saying what it is.

All right. So I’d, I’d love to know, um, like how, how do you run your business? I do mine mainly online. Like what is your passion? Like where do you get most of your customers? Do most of your sales? So I get most of my customers from vendor events. I do, I think last year I did 18 different vendor events, most of them being three days or more. So that’s where I get their initial contact, whether they purchase or not. I’ll do like a raffle type giveaway and then they sign up for the project broadcast, add their information, all that stuff and then I follow up. Um, the customers from the vendor events. I’ve done a few Facebook online parties, excuse me, but a few customers have events while I was at the vendor event. So that’s, that’s done well. I actually just had a party last weekend. She went in in home and that was my first. And I bet you were saying, oh yes, I would love to come. Yeah. She’s like, would you do an event? I was like, uh, absolutely. And then she got three bookings from her party. So it’s starting to pick up some hope and that trend just continues. But I, I’m only giggling because all the introverts out there are like they totally know what we’re talking about, right? Like how many people are gonna be there? Yeah. It was great. It was my first one, so I’m not sure how long they were supposed to last, but I was there for four hours. Oh wow. I mean, they didn’t kick you out. You were all good then. No, it was good that they were. It was great. I bet her house was nice and clean when you left though. It was. She’s like, I didn’t clean anything before you got here. I’m like, oh great. They don’t need any of my demo tools. That’s funny, because yeah, they expect you to come clean their house. They expect me to come and make them dinner, right? Right.

So I mean, vendor events, I can see. So you said like three day vendor events. So do you take stock and sell it, or are you just trying to get leads? Like how do you run your vendor events? I take stock. I have quite a bit of stock. That’s my main focus is that’s how I’m getting my sales. So that’s my main focus second focus with that is getting the lead contact and follow up and hopefully turn into an event. Let’s take that a little bit because I know that there’s probably a lot of listeners out there, especially if they’re in Canada because project broadcast is really a new thing. This whole text marketing thing up here in Canada is new. It’s like for some reason it’s taboo to text people. So how do you use like the leads? Like I know on project broadcast because I’m a project broadcast that you can have them fill out a slip by scanning a QR code and it goes automatically into your system, what kind of follow-up do you have with there? How do you reach out to your customers from your events? So if they do it that way, where they scan the QR code for the entry, I’ll just follow up whether they were the winner or not. And if they were not, one of the questions is, are they familiar with Norwex? And if not, then I ask them would they like to try a sample? Mm-hmm. And then I yes or no, and then I will send them a sample kit in the mail. And then my checkout process, I use Square. OK. And I’ll use that for cash or card just so I can capture their phone number and their information. And then I’ll follow up after the sale that way. Same with my 2-2-2 type process. Yeah. So to me, it sounds like you have a really solid follow up customer care system, which is making you very successful in your business. I mean, that is totally the key of running any kind of sales business, not just direct sales, right? I mean, you have to, you have to keep your customers happy, right? Or they’re not going to keep coming back to you. So no, I love it. I love it. And I’m just in the process of getting all of my customers migrated into project broadcast and doing that whole, you know, Hey, just wanted to see if you want it to stay in touch via text message. And like I said, Canada is a bit taboo and probably 90% of my customer base is Canadian. So I’m like, I could see a lot of stops coming, but that’s okay. I’m just going to do it. Yep. You get a few stops too. You can’t let that discourage you. No, exactly. It’s like I was doing another, um, recording of a podcast this morning. And one of the quotes that, um, Jamie was given is that, you know, don’t let the no stop you, right? Yeah. Don’t let the stop stop. You just keep doing it because as long as you’re reaching out providing from a service base, not like, Hey, I want your money, come in, come and buy this from me. But like, how can I help you? Like, what can I do to make your meal time less stressful? Then I know that that’s, I’m trying to help them with solve a problem. So that’s, I think that’s how you can overcome the fear of objections is knowing that you’re coming from a place of service. So I love it. Not to take that nowhere stop personally, but you got to just let it go because I look at it as if I would have had that follow up initially when I placed my order, I would have known who to contact to get more products. I would have known how to take care of the loss better and all that stuff. So I look at it in that way. Yeah, they can tell me no, and that’s fine. And stop. It’s good to have the information followed by Well, and it’s so it’s so much easier when you agree to have your business running on great customer care. Than trying to go out and find the next new customer. Finding that next new customer, it’s like, it’s just so daunting, right? And if you could keep a customer happy and they’re a happy repeat customer, then your business is almost like, it’s not really on autopilot, but you know what I mean. It’s like they keep coming back for more because your laundry detergent, if they fall in love with your laundry detergent, they’re not gonna go to the local Walmart to pick up like Tide or something like that, right?

So I love it. All right, so that leads us into our next question about quotes, because I was talking about asking Jamie for a quote. So is there any quote or piece of advice that you’ve been given during your business that you think everybody needs to hear? Like, is there something that was a true aha for you? So this was from a recent Morbics meeting with local consultants all got together. One of the leaders said, old keys don’t open new doors and that kind of hit me, meaning you can’t move forward using the old key, trying to do the same process as you were doing maybe years or months before that wasn’t working to move forward. So you have to kind of shift and move with the times. I love that. I actually got the goosebumps when you said that because it’s like, it’s so true because sometimes you feel like you’re just bashing your head against the wall when people are saying, well, this used to work. Right it used to work, but we are in 2024 now. I know that it might still work, but you have to tweak what you’re doing. It can’t be exactly the same as it was in 1980. Because, let’s face it, not everybody wants to go to their mom’s Tupperware party, right? I mean, things have changed in direct sales. And that’s what I think, what I love about it. I have to say, happy for the world to shut down in 2020. But I was happy from the results that happened. Like, I mean, if it wasn’t for that shutdown, people like you and I would never have met. Exactly. Right? I mean, I have built my network so far across Canada and the US because of that shutdown, because I had no choice but to go online. And then when you start talking to people online, building that connections and those relationships, and it can be done online, it might take a bit longer, but you just have to be authentic and like talk to somebody like if you were in, like right now we’re sitting here talking, we’re on the camera, it’s like no different. If we each had a coffee in our hand, it’s like we’re having a coffee, we just not face to face, right? It’s virtual face to face.

All right, so the last thing I wanna ask is, where can people find you? You can find me on my website, Cory And from there, you can see all my blog posts, ordering links, all types of specials and things like that. Awesome. So I’ll make sure to link that in the show notes. And if anybody wants to reach out, and if for some reason you can’t get connected to Cory, just make sure that you just message me and I’ll make sure that you guys get connected. But I wanna thank you so much Cory for joining us on the podcast. I really enjoyed our conversation and I know that people are going to have a quite a few takeaways from your customer care system. So thanks again and have a great night and thank you guys. We’ll see you on the next podcast. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Hey, thanks so much for taking the time to listen to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you would take a minute to rate and review the podcast, I would absolutely love it. And if you know someone who…really needs to hear this podcast, please feel free to share it with them. More listeners, the better. And if you know someone who would like to be a guest on the podcast or you yourself would like to be a guest, be sure to check the link in the show notes or visit lisa duck dot com and click be a guest. We’ll talk to you soon.