Cookbooks, Playbooks and Company Manuals

If you’ve never baked a cake before, how would you know what ingredients to add, what size pan to use and how long to bake it if you didn’t read the directions?  Could you imagine gathering to play a game of football where every single player had never seen a game before and had no idea about the rules or objectives?   Aye yay yay – what a mess that would be!

Yet every single day I see direct sales consultants try to run their business without reading the company manual.  To be clear, we’ll read cookbooks to figure out how to make a raspberry torte, and we’ll go to football practice to learn how a starting quarterback can throw a ball to the backup quarterback lurking along the sideline, who then hits a receiver on a slant and then outruns defenders into the end zone, but we’ll start a business and not have the first clue about basic principles?

No exaggeration, no author embellishments when I say every single day on networks and forums I see consultants who have no idea how or when they get paid.  Some have no idea how much they need to sell to remain active.  One consultant thought her paycheck was going to be $800 when actually it was going to be $26!

Learning the direct sales lexicon can be challenging.  We speak a whole different language: PV, GWV, downline, upline, break away, roll up, levels, generations, percentages, etcetera, so forth and so on.  Yet basic, core concepts such as how one gets paid should be one of the initial tidbits new consultants learn.

I have had opportunity to review more than a handful of different direct sales company policies and procedures.  Some are very in depth and others, not so much.  Yet all had common threads – they all clearly outline the compensation plan, all of them!

If you’re not one who likes to weed through manuals – use the nifty search function in Adobe or Word or whatever program your manual happens to be in.  I’m assuming most all DS companies have electronic versions of their manuals.  Or an even easier way is to go to your company forum and ask, “Hey does anyone know where I can read information on the our pay?”  (Don’t you love it when answers to open book tests are handed to you like that?)

It just boggles my mind how business owners can run a business without knowing something as elementary as their pay. As sponsors we need to put emphasis on our company manuals – where most all consultant questions can be answered.

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”
Chinese Proverb