pandemic
In order to improve inter-team communication among our global offices during the pandemic, we have implemented Google Meet, Google Chat, and Zoom meetings. The pandemic has stepped up our timeline to redesign many of our global websites to keep up with the demand of online shopping and internet searches, and we have made online meetups and social selling a focus that has and will continue to aid us in future growth. We believe these changes will only help us build a stronger foundation in our offices and to our IBOs and customers.
— Sunny C. Beutler, CEO, Sunrider
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Direct sellers adopt artificial intelligence across departments to improve recruitment, training, compliance and retention
By: Stephanie Ramirez
Companies are taking customer data and feeding it through a machine-learning algorithm, turning patterns into predictions.You don’t have to understand statistics and probabilities, only how the technology will benefit the company.
—Michael Bayan, CEO, DirecTech Labs
Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are not new concepts to many direct sellers. The pandemic, however, has led to a sharp rise in the adoption of digital and technological advancements. Novel AI applications are opening new pathways and potential for improvement for the channel.
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Major changes in compensation plans, digital approach in the new normal
By: Teresa Craighead
We’ve heard over and over all the ways in which 2020 was denounced as terrible, catastrophic, and unbearable. But from the perspective of many companies in the channel, those words don’t really apply. Strange, unpredictable, and unprecedented may be more apt, and for many companies, bountiful, outrageous, and exciting are better descriptors.
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Companies embrace shift in structure, comp plans to meet market demands
By: David Rauf
“Direct selling is no different than any other form of distribution of goods today. All consumer sectors of business have been evolving dramatically over the last 5 years, and most of it is driven by technology. We looked at this as a good time to enter the market.”
—Robert D’Loren, CEO, Xcel Brands
One of the core tenets of this new world is accessibility.
—Terrence Moorehead, CEO, Nature’s Sunshine
The direct selling channel has been pressed and pressured by a variety of factors over the past two to three years—largely unrelated to each other but all significant in bringing change to the channel.
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Regulators warn enforcement is a ‘top priority’ at a recent industry conference
By: David Rauf
“I caution you to stay on the straight and narrow because now, more than ever, this is a top enforcement priority for me, and I hope, the agency.”
—Noah Phillips, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
A commissioner with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voiced a tough message for the direct selling community at a recent online event, saying the regulatory agency will remain aggressive in its approach to policing the channel.
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Opportunities and obstacles are the name of the game as companies compete and e-commerce explodes
By: David Rauf
“If I’m a traditional manufacturer of consumer packaged goods and always sold in retail stores, but now because retail stores are closed revenue is cut, I had better be looking at every single channel and opportunity to keep my product in front of consumers.”
—Kerry Tassopoulos, founding member,
The Tassopoulos Law Firm PLLC
There are companies right now doing the type of accelerated growth they have not seen before.”
—Mike Sheffield, CEO, Sheffield Group
When the coronavirus outbreak started spreading across the globe earlier this year, executives at The Body Shop, a U.K.-based skin and beauty product retailer, had some decisions to make.
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Times present new opportunity to focus on customers
“We, as the direct selling community, are stepping up and should continue to be present compliantly with unbridled optimism.”
—Meredith Berkich, chief growth officer, Jenkon
Reputation is everything, and in direct selling that is especially true. So when the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the globe, it not only spurred double—and in some cases, triple—digit year-over-year growth for the channel this year, it also provided an opening for reputation improvement that many have been looking for during the past decade.
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