5 Easy Tips for Building a Strong Downline by K. Moehr

Your direct sales downline: You've got a one or are beginning to build one! This is one of the best parts of being a direct sales consultant, - the fact that you can share your passion for your business with others, help them to earn a little extra money and get paid for helping grow your company as well.

Now that you are a leader of a team, you'll need to build a strong relationship with team members to not only help them stay strong in their business, but to help your business grow stronger as well. A solid relationship will be one that's mutually helpful and everyone benefits.

But you may be wondering how to insure that team members feel included while still maintaining some type of balance with the rest of your life. Here are 5 easy tips for maintaining a great relationship with your team downline members:

1. Start off STRONG. When a new recruit first signs up, it's vitally important that you communicate often with her. One helpful ideas is to develop a series of emails to send to new member that talks them through those first confusing, scary, exciting days.

They will feel connected to the company and to you. You should communicate with your new recruit each day she is waiting for her kit. This is very easy to do with an autoresponder system, but can also be done by just copying and pasting into an email message every morning.

2. GIVE 15. Set aside fifteen minutes of each workday for team phone calls. Use those minutes to call one to five members of your group for a quick "just checking in" call. Leave a message if you get voicemail. The idea is to let them know that you're thinking of them and giving them a chance to hear your voice. This is a great time to ask how they're doing with their life as well and get beyond your company to show you care about them. They don't want to get the feeling you only care because you are making money off of them.

3. Get online! Develop a simple team website. It keeps communication open and strong with your group. You can have weekly topic discussions, contests, upload important files and just have fun with the whole group. The website is an easy interface and will allow them to "break the ice".

4. Hold meetings. This is another great way to foster unity and strong relationships within your group. If you have downline members that are out your area, have a quarterly conference call with everyone just to touch base. There are many free teleconference services via the internet that make it very easy to do. And if you can, have a face-to-face meeting once in a while as well. Some group leaders have meetings monthly or quarterly. Others do a once a year get together with everyone.

5. Ecards. They are FREE (great!), but also convenient and fun. Use an Internet calendar function to keep track of birthdays. Once a month go through the upcoming month and set up the ecard deliveries for the birthdays, anniversary dates for the next month or more. You can set these up to deliver up to a year in advance! Everyone like to get an ecard!

The bottom line to getting a strong downline team is to communicate in every way that you can. You will find that your direct sales team members will stay with your company much longer when you've fostered a strong relationship by keeping in touch! Much success!

About the Author
Karen Moehr is owner of Moehr & Associates, a specialized marketing company serving the direct sales industry. Ms. Moehr is also author of several books including, Direct Seller Guide: Get Booked Solid! and Top Sellers Tell...Top Direct Sales Pros Tell How They Achieved Big Success!