Grow Your Direct Sales Team Fast By Celebrating Effort—Not Just Results

Are you asking all the right people and saying all the right things and still struggling with how to grow your direct sales team fast?

Does it feel like even though you're sponsoring new team members regularly, they are quitting or dropping out as fast as you can find new ones, leaving your overall team growth stagnant?

I'm not talking about the people who are going to leave your team because they've reached their goal and they're pretty much done with their business, which can happen sometimes. And I'm not talking about the people who dropped off because they never really had their minds set up to run a business. I'm talking about the people who were excited about their business and couldn't wait to get started… they seemed so motivated to get out there and start holding their parties and then they just tuckered out for no reason.

And now they're not even bothering to show up to the team meetings.

They haven't completely quit; you know because you still see their names popping up on your reports every month. But they aren't really trying either. Maybe they're just doing the bare minimum to stay active or slightly higher, but they don't answer any messages or join in the team meetings that might get them motivated to actually try harder.

Before you paint these consultants in a negative light, take a moment to think about the team culture you're building and how motivating it really is for a consultant. Most teams celebrate results…they celebrate the leaderboards. The most sales, the most recruits, the biggest party.

I cannot stress this enough:

If you only ever celebrate results, you will alienate more than half of your team.

But wait, celebrating accomplishments and wins, those are good things, right?

Of course they are—but you don't want to only celebrate wins. You should be celebrating failures, mistakes, and growth along the way as well.

Some people respond very well to leaderboards, competition, top sales person, top recruiter; all of these things will attract certain high achievers. But they also only celebrate the numbers. And unfortunately, to the rest of your team, the numbers are meaningless.

And for someone who is working hard but does not have the time to hold parties during the week because of other obligations, they are almost always left out of your celebrations when you only celebrate the numbers.

Imagine working so hard and putting in so much effort and still not getting recognized because someone else happened to get lucky with a big party? And after a while, if your hard work goes uncelebrated or unrecognized, people stop bothering. People start to feel like there is no point.

And then your team ends up being stagnant because some of your hardest workers and the people who could be your biggest cheerleaders are out on their own instead of coming to those meetings and cheering on the team.

Or, worse, some of them might actually quit their business because they've gotten so used to never being celebrated or winning that being with the team ends up feeling just like they felt everywhere else: alone, unheard, and like they don't really belong.

If you want to grow your direct sales team fast, you have to keep everyone together, motivated, and celebrated

Put together a way to celebrate the effort along with the results. Think about the people who are trying their hardest out there, the people who are following your training, the people who are reading the resources you give them, the people who are holding parties when they can, the people who are stepping up and stepping out and growing.

Don't leave them out of your celebrations.

And here’s a hint: this is something you can also ask your team for help developing. You know the values they bring to your team and the reasons you asked them to join your team. Here’s your real chance to ask them how they want to be acknowledged and celebrated. What are some things about themselves that they feel deserve recognition?

#EmpowerSocial