Elevate Your Direct Sales Business with Kelly Northcott

I almost called this episode The Perils, Pitfalls, and Problems of Not Recruiting the Right People the Right Way.

In this episode, I explain the team-building mistakes I made, the lessons I learned from making them, and the cost of those lessons.

When I first started recruiting, I’d recruit anyone who was over 18, didn’t live in my house, and was breathing.

I just wanted to promote to leadership. I didn’t care who was on my team as long as I met the qualifications to promote. 

I thought that if I could just get them in the door, they’d catch the vision, fall in love with everything, and want to build a business, even if it was a small business.

So, I focused on getting as many people as possible through the door however possible. I thought I was taking a shortcut, but what I was really doing was going far off course.

Instead of building my dream team, I ended up with a bunch of kitnappers and hobbyists.

This recruiting strategy not only delayed my progress, but it messed with my mindset.

Recruiting anyone by any means possible might seem like a quick win, but it’s not. It costs you time and money, distracts you from doing things that will help you grow your business, and doesn’t teach you how to build and lead the team you really want. 

Let this episode serve as a cautionary tale for you, and learn from my lessons so that you don’t waste time, lose money, and delay your success.

If you want to build your dream team and a business you love, join us in The All-New Elevate. You’ll get all the systems you need to structure your business to automate your business and attract your dream team to you.

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

The most common question I get is, “How do I recruit people who actually want a business?” 

There’s a two-step answer to that question:

1. Run your business in a way that attracts potential business builders to it.
2. Guide people through the stages of sponsoring.

This episode focuses on the first step, and I tell you the three things you can do to attract business builders to your team.

1. Live the lifestyle of a successful consultant.
2. Model a business that they’d want to have.
3. Show up to your business the way you want your team to show up to theirs.

Everything you do attracts and repels people. 

Potential business builders want to know they can have a fun and profitable business that doesn’t suck up all their time, and they’re looking for evidence that their potential upline has that kind of business.

They want a simple business, and they don’t want to feel spammy. If you make your business look hard and complicated or if you do spammy things, they’ll assume they’ll have to do those things, too.    

Potential business builders are looking for a mentor. They want someone who has her life together and cares how she presents herself.

In this episode, I give you lots of suggestions of things you can do to attract business builders to your team and things you should avoid doing so that you don’t attract kitnappers. 

I also talk about the common mistakes that direct sellers make, why they’re mistakes, and what to do instead.

A lot of direct sellers are making these mistakes even before they start recruiting. Then they continue making them as they build a team, and these mistakes are what prevent them from ever building their dream team. 

This is one of the reasons why I’m completely rewriting Elevate this summer. I want to help direct sellers set themselves up for success from the beginning. The All-New Elevate focuses on team building, and members will learn how to structure everything in their business to attract and recruit their dream team. 

If you’re coachable and interested in building an engaged and productive team, come join us in The All-New Elevate.

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

Having a dream team makes this business more fun and interesting, and it makes leadership easier. 

This is a relationship business, and relationships outlast careers. Building your dream team is important because when you’re with your people, you want your people to be your people. 

Nothing drains you faster than working with a bunch of people who aren’t a good fit for you.

The best way to build your dream team is to start with a vision.

Creating a vision for your dream team will:

• Make it easier to find them because you’ll know where to look.
• Help you structure your business so that you can attract them to you.
• Help your reticular activating system point them out to you.

Your dream team is a lot like you because like attracts like. You’ll have similar interests, be in similar stages of life, and have similar demographics. 

In this episode, I walk you through an exercise that will help you create a vision for your dream team, and then I give you ideas for where to find them. 

I also talk about what to do when you’re with potential team members so that you can guide them through the stages of sponsoring rather than push them out. 

Have fun with this, and if you have questions or want to share your ideas, go to the Facebook group or send me a DM.

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

In this episode, we’re talking about the identities of direct sellers and how your identity impacts recruiting, team building, leadership, and long-term growth.

Your identity shapes how you think, feel, act, and show up in your business. It also impacts the kinds of customers and team members you attract. If your identity doesn’t align with the business you want to build, you’ll keep hitting the same ceiling no matter how hard you work.

In this episode, I break down the 6 common direct sales identities, talk about what each identity looks like, how it affects your results, how it impacts the people you attract, and what it takes to shift into a stronger, more sustainable leadership identity.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How identity affects your direct sales success
• Why some leaders struggle to grow or stay paid at title
• How to support team members at each identity
• Why your business will only grow to the level of your identity
• How to identify the identity you’re currently operating from
• What it takes to shift into the identity of a stronger leader

If you’ve ever felt stuck in your business, frustrated with your team, or like your results don’t match how hard you’re working, this episode will help you see why.

Click here to learn more about Elevate.

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Get your questions answered on the podcast: ask them by filling out this form

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops 

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

This is the first episode of a new series that focuses on the mindset of team building. This series will help you see team building from a different perspective so that you can build a large and productive team.

This episode focuses on the five stages of sponsoring. Most direct sellers are never taught these stages, and instead, they are taught that sponsoring is a separate process from selling and that the sponsoring process starts after you identify a potential team member. 

When sales are your main focus, you attract buyers, not team members, because you show up as a seller. 

But when you make a mindset shift and show up to everything in your business as a team builder rather than just as a seller, team building becomes easier and more natural. 

When you finish this episode, you’ll know:

• The difference between each stage of sponsoring.
• How to identify which stage everyone’s in.
• How to talk about the business opportunity in each stage.
• How to guide people to the next stage.
• The common mistakes that most direct sellers make in each stage and how to avoid them.

Understanding the stages of sponsoring and how to use them is the first step toward making a mindset shift from being a seller to becoming a team builder.

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

If you're a mom of young kids, this episode will help increase your productivity without feeling like you're a bad mom. 

If you don't have young kids at home, this is still a great episode for direct sellers because you'll learn how to create and use a tool to reach people who won't come to a direct sales event.

My friend, Lauren Nygard, joins me for a special episode where she shares a system she’s created called Fifteen Minutes to Freedom.

Lauren and her husband work from home, and they have two young sons. When the pandemic sent us into lockdown, Lauren struggled to get anything done because her boys wanted her attention. 

But she discovered that when she started and ended their days with a reading session, her boys were more cooperative and could entertain themselves long enough for her to get some work done for her business, do laundry, and even take a shower.

Lauren explains the science behind this system and how using it regulates your child’s autonomic nervous system, syncs your energy, and makes you feel more connected to each other.

She also explains how to use this system, including:

• How to get it started.
• How to choose books even if your children have different interests.
• How to transition your children to an independent activity after a session so you can complete your projects without feeling guilty.
• How to use this system when your schedules change or when you’re on vacation.
• What to do when it doesn’t seem to be working.

Lauren also shares how she teaches this system to her customers and writes guest blog posts about it, enabling her to reach more people outside her network.

Connect with Lauren by sending her a DM on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurennygard/

Learn more about Lauren, Paper Pie, and tools to help promote literacy in her Facebook community: Love Bugs Book Club with Lauren  https://www.facebook.com/groups/lovebugsbookclub

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

I liked doing challenges for my team in the summer because it kept them motivated and engaged, and it helped me structure my training and support. 

In this episode, I’ll go over the ins and outs of putting together a challenge for your team and give you all the details for how to run them from start to finish.

In this episode, I give you details that include:

• The ideal length of a challenge.
• How to get your team to sign up for it. 
• The important elements every challenge needs.
• How to scale your challenge for your growing team.
• How to work with other leaders, including leaders on your team.
• How to choose a focus for your challenge.
• How to layer training and support so that everyone’s successful.
• Different ways to track progress and recognize results.
• The importance of self-celebration.
• Why you want to consider a theme for your challenge (I give you examples I used).
• Prize options and suggestions.

Play around with this, and as always, if you have any questions, send me a DM or ask in the Facebook group. 

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

In this episode, I walk you through several ideas for how you can provide training and resources for your team, even when you’re on vacation and when they want to take a break from their businesses.

The first thing I’d do is have your team complete the sentence, “At the end of the summer, I’m going to celebrate _______.” (Listen to the previous episode, “The Single Key Action for Your Success,” for more information about this statement and how to have this conversation with your team.)

Knowing what they want to achieve and how they plan to do it will help you plan your training and support your team. It will also prevent you from wasting time putting together programs and training they don’t want or need.

When someone responds to let you know she’s taking the summer off, help her come up with a key action that she can either do before she takes a break or do in the nooks and crannies of her summer.

If you need some time off this summer, consider some of these options (I give you details about them in this episode):

• Pre-recording training.
• Partnering with other leaders to share training.
• Encouraging your team to do independent training.

Summer is also a great time for you to offer some different types of training and support that are educational and social:

• Start a book club.
• Have guest speakers on things like social media, meal prep, organization, etc.
• Play games like Jeopardy or do a scavenger hunt.

I wrap up this episode by stressing the importance of being conscious about what you’re modeling for your team when you’re on vacation and how to help your team become more independent.

If you have any questions, ask in the Facebook group or DM me.

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

In this episode, we talk about setting and achieving a goal in the next 60 – 90 days by focusing on one key action.

I walk you through a system that will help you focus on one action. This action will drive your decisions and results and simplify your business.

I give you lots of examples of how to choose your key action and how to help your team choose theirs.

There are four benefits of using this system:

1. It helps you prioritize your time. 
2. It helps you create sustainable habits that move your business forward. Habits take minimal mental energy, and you don’t spend time avoiding them. You just do them.
3. When these actions become habits, they’ll become part of your identity. You must think, feel, and act like your future self to become her.  
4. You’ll increase your skills and get faster results.

Here are the steps to using this system:

• Decide what you want to accomplish in the next 60 – 90 days.
• Determine what key action will have the most impact on your success.
• Verify that the action is something you can complete without relying on anyone else.
• Figure out how many times you need to perform the key action.
• Set up checkpoints to make sure you’re on the right track.
• Tweak and adjust as needed.
• Celebrate along the way and when you reach your goal.

After you listen to this episode, go to my Instagram and tell me what your key action will help you achieve. Find the post that says, “At the end of the summer, I’m celebrating _______.” 

I can’t wait to cheer you on and celebrate your success.

If you have any questions, DM me or ask in the Facebook group.

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn

I did two open houses every summer to connect with customers, meet their friends, book parties, sell products, and schedule opportunity chats. In this episode, I walk you through how I set these up.

My first event was before Conference, and my focus was to book summer and fall parties, sell my samples, and let people know what was retiring.

The second open house was a new product reveal, and I did that after Conference.
I invited as many people as possible. I prioritized my guest list and individually invited select people because the invitation started the booking conversation. 

Sometimes, I did open houses with other consultants within my company or other direct sellers. In this episode, I share the conversations you should have with anyone you collaborate with.

I explain how to set up your event to maximize your sales and bookings and outline the distinct areas all open houses should have.

My focus was bookings because bookings are a catalyst to growth in your direct sales business. I shared several ideas for how you can offer the host opportunity to people, including those who can’t come, who complete a wish list, who place an order, and who have friends who can’t come.

I also give you ideas for how to use your sample sale as a carrot to book more parties.

I wrap up by giving you suggestions on how to invite people to opportunity events.

RESOURCES:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kellydnorthcott

Free Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/directsalesworkshops

Learn more about my programs: https://www.kellynorthcott.com/learn