MLM Marketing Blog

Direct Sales - Answering the Question "What Do You Do?"

By Audrey Okaneko

Whenever we are in a social situation the question "what do you do?" is bound to come up. It's almost as popular as "how are you?"

I'm sure you too have been the victim of a long drawn out sales pitch, when the question "what do you do?" is asked of someone in direct sales. I've NEVER met anyone who wants to listen to a ten minute sales presentation because an overeager sales person believes they now have a lead.

If someone works retail they say "oh I work at _____". That's it, you know what they do in 5 seconds. If someone owns a business such as an air conditioning business, again you'll know what they do within 5 seconds of asking "what do you do?"

Yet for some reason, those in direct sales seem to not be able to convey what they do in under 30 seconds. I've truly met folks who when asked "what do you do?" they respond with a sales pitch that ends with "please join our conference call". C'mon the "what do you do?" was asked in conversation...this is NOT a lead.

There are just so many things you can say:

1. I sell products on a website.
2. I sell advertising via content rich websites.
3. I sell products for a direct sales company.
4. I represent a direct sales company.
5. I help people learn about _______(fill in one or two words here).

The answer to "what do you do?" should not be a sales pitch but rather a conversation starter. If someone says to me "I work at _________(insert retail store name here) then I can say "oh I've never heard of them before" or I can say "oh wow, I shop there all of the time" or I can say "oh what do you do there?". The one sentence of "I work at _____" began a conversation".

Given the above five suggestions, one might then say to you "oh what do you sell?" or "wow, how long have you been doing that?" or "I've never done that, how did you get started?" Those five above ideas are conversation starters, not full blown sales pitches. You now can see where the conversation leads.

See if you can come up with at least five short answers to "what do you do?" that will begin conversations for you, no matter where you are.

About the Author

Audrey Okaneko has been in direct sales since 1983. She can be reached at audreyoka@cox.net or you can visit her website at http://www.recipe-barn.com/tupperware-consultant.html.

9 Steps to Effective Networking

Networking events can be a challenge for many people, but if you follow these simple 9 steps you'll find that it's lots more fun and productive!

1. Be interested and friendly
   
2. Ask open ended questions (such as "What do you do?", not "Are you interested in a business opportunity?")
   
3. Drop hints
   
4. Wait for a reaction
   
5. If positive, tell them something more
   
6. If not, excuse yourself and move on
   
7. Never push
   
8. Always carry business cards
   
9. Follow up with a phone call or a friendly note
   

Linda Locke
MLM Marketing Blog

Tips for Boosting Your Facebook Presence

If you are looking for some better ways to leverage your Facebook account for your business, here's some tips from the Social Marketing Journal that will help.

Six Facebook Tips To Boost Your Presence

"It can be difficult finding the time to be social on all these social sites and some, like Facebook and Myspace seem to take more time than many other. There are several ways you can manage your activities on Facebook that will increase your presence but don’t take up all your time.

1. Limit your contacts - With Facebook you will get a lot of people wanting to connect with you. Check them out first and only connect with those that are going to be of value.

2. Limit your activities to twenty or so groups - Thirty groups max. Select groups that are relevant to you and to your niche; getting involved with groups outside your niche just uses up valuable time."  Read more here:

Linda Locke
MLM Marketing Blog

8 Ways to Invest in your Relationships with your Customers

In these challenging economic times retention of your existing customers is key. And the only cost to making it happen is your time. Here's how to Keep Your Customers from Straying

Enjoy!

Linda Locke
MLM Marketing Blog

Why overly agressive sales tatics just don't work

Here's a wonderful post by Bill Caskey of http://www.eyesonsales.com who explores 5 sales techniques that you should definitely avoid if you want to build trust and respect with your prospects.

5 Sure Fire Ways to Get Your Prospect To Lie To You

Linda Locke
MLM Marketing Blog

If you want your customers to love you, don't do these 13 things!

Check out these 13 Ways To Generate Customer Hate.

Really funny and sooo true!

Is the New Frontier Local Search?

Another good article about local search and how it is changing how we use the Internet.

http://snurl.com/2743h

Why Won't You Do That Which You Already Know?

Great video by Diane Hochman of the MLMxFactor.com about learning to trust yourself.

7 Steps to Local Search Dominance

By John Jantsch

Local shoppers are going online to find products and services in your town — you must find ways to get found when they do!

Right now, in every community in America, increasing numbers of people of all ages are turning to the world wide web to find products and services right their at home.

This trend, known generically as local search presents a huge opportunity for small businesses that focus on winning in this arena. Below are seven steps every local business should explore today in order to gain a competitive advantage in their local markets. (Someone in your market and industry will do this, why not you?)

1. Register with the primary local and social search engines Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Ask, Local.com and TrueLocal are all awaiting your information as they build local search directories. Make sure you are listed.

Judy's Book, Craig's List, and Insider Pages are sites building directories with user generated reviews. Get in those as well and manage your online reputation

2. Optimize your web site for local search  Put local terms in you page titles — not Home page — Kansas City Electrical Contractor

Put local terms in your anchor text — not Kitchens — New York Kitchens

Put local terms in your H1 and H2 tags

Put local terms in your body copy

3. Put a map on your site The whole mapping category just keeps getting easier to use. Google Maps, both mapping and local directory, recently added a feature that makes it super easy to embed a map rather than simply copy an image or link to a map. This means that you can use a map with all the functionality right on your web page. Many businesses can benefit from this tool, especially when it comes to local search.

To create a map for your business, simply visit Google Maps, conduct a search for your business (you've got to be in the Google Maps directory to show up — get listed), hit the "link to this page" link and copy the HTML code for your map. I've simply pasted that code below so the map shows up in this post, but you could put it on any web page. Then create directions in text to your business from various routes and you've created some nice local keyword rich content. (This is a good web content strategy even if your clients don't need to find your office.)

4. Check your InfoUSA listing InfoUSA compiles lists for direct mail and telemarketing but they also provide a great deal of the directory listing information for many of the smaller search directories. Go here and make sure your listing is correct and up to date. You can also add things like your web site address to the profile.

5. Add local content You should create several pages of content on your site focused on local angels. You can report local news, talk about your firm's history in a town, give an overview of non-profit activities, even report on the various suburbs your staff hails from. Don't forget to put your physical mailing address on every page — that's local content too.

6. Add a blog A blog (not a free blogger one, but one that resides on your domain) is one of the most powerful local search tools going. You can simply post about things going on in the community, school events, neighborhood block parties, the local sports teams. It's helpful if you can do this and post content that is relevant to your primary business, but as long as the towns and neighborhoods you want to score well in the search engines with are in your posts and titles, you will get some serious lift for those terms.

7. Get local inbound links The search engines give lots of credit for links that are coming back to your site from other sites. Go out their and find some local directories or strategic partners that will link back to your site but don't have them link back to your business name - Joe's Pet Shop. Have them link back to your site with a local search term like — Toledo's Biggest Pet Shop.

About the Author
John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing. He is the creator of the Duct Tape Marketing small business marketing system. You can find more information by visiting www.ducttapemarketing.com

10 Facebook Power Tips

Just getting started with Facebook?

Here's 10 Facebook power tips you need to know.