If you are in direct sales then you know that life happens. Products get delayed, items don't meet customer expectations and companies even run out of products and must quit manufacturing them for one of many reasons.
When these things happen, how are you conveying the information to your customers and downline? How you convey these things could make all the difference in the world in keeping that customer or keeping that team member.
I'll provide a few examples. The company you represent has a popular item suddenly unavailable. This could be a tragedy in that everyone orders this product or this could be a golden opportunity to help your customers try a new product. You might even offer a one time coupon for folks to try this new product.
Another example, new catalogs are coming out and an older product is being discontinued. Again, this could be a tragedy and you could lose customers or this could be a golden opportunity to contact your customers now with a coupon for a new product, or possibly the opportunity to buy a supply of their favorite product before it's discontinued. If you have samples, use samples to introduce the new product to your customers.
Tupperware (the company I represent) had a huge warehouse fire this past December, yep right during the end of the holiday selling season. Everything was wiped out. This could've been a disaster for the distributors, but Tupperware turned it around and offered us daily specials, which we could pass on to our customers, a few new products that they were able to get from other plants around the world and even some surprise packages which we all ordered as we knew these items were coming from around the world and we all wanted to see these surprise packages. Truly, I only missed a few items for my customers and explaining the fire to them and promising them a new catalog for January kept me from losing sales or customers.
When life happens in your direct sales company, take the time to plan out how you'll convey this information and how you can use this as an opportunity to increase your sales and build your customer base.
