NaXum Reviews: The Evolution Of Training | Direct Selling Executives Forum
Posted by naxumadmin / July 13, 2022
On Friday, July 8th, 2022, Ben Dixon the CEO at NaXum hosted an open panel with executives from Rodan+Fields, Color Street, and Beauty Counter.
Together the panel discussed the following questions:
1) When it comes to training, what are you finding is no longer relevant and must be left behind?
2) What elements do you believe define and create a successful onboarding process today?
3) How does technology play a role in the way you train today?
4) When you think of a distributor journey and imagine your members that have been with your organization for over 2 years, what elements do you believe are required to create an engaging training experience?
The full replay and transcript can be seen below:
Ben Dixon:
All right. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us today for the Direct Selling Executives Forum, open forum on the evolution of training. My name is Ben Dixon and I’m blessed to host today’s panel and just feel floored and honored at the panel we have for you here today. Last year, we talked about sheroes and attracting the she-heroes to your referral marketing company. Actually, Johnna was on that panel with us, with a number of great leaders. It’s actually our first time having a speaker back. Johnna, it’s your second time on DSEF. You’re the first to get to round two on DSEF, but you’re at a different company today and I thought it was right. So, for this topic, I wanted to have you back. It’s my honor to intro everyone today and it’s a very exciting topic.
Ben Dixon:
For those of you that are not familiar with Direct Selling Executive Forum, or it’s just your first time attending, this is an opportunity as a place… there’s no pitch. There’s no offer. There’s no services here. It’s all education. It’s questions that we each wrestle with that many of you type in to the LinkedIn group that we gather up and we think about which executives could really speak to that topic. We get together on a panel and it’s just a place to be raw and to share what we’re seeing in that part of the space. We each learn. We each take notes and we talk about it for this time. Grateful to have you here. If you’re watching on the stream or on the replay, good to have you here as well.
Ben Dixon:
As I go around and make the intros today, I’m not going to get into each personal story, but I’m going to list the different companies that Angela, Tracy and Johnna have actually worked at in the past that were very specific times that were important. Something that’s so special about the panel and why I selected the people that we selected to be here today, is each of these executive heroes served at really special times in their roles, whether they were on the sales side, or on the marketing side, or on the training side at that time, for the direct sales companies they were in. If you look at any of their LinkedIns, you’re going to sit there and say, oh, they were the one there during that time. So, even though it’s amazing to hear that Johnna is at Color Street today, and Tracy’s at Beautycounter today, and Angela is doing some cool things at Rodan + Fields today.
Ben Dixon:
I want to just give you a little walk of history before we jump in, because Angela’s story, didn’t start at Rodan + Fields. She was at Pampered Chef. And then was at Creative Memories for a very long time, for a very important season. And then was at MONAT Global for a critical season in their life. So, when you look at the time and what happened to those companies during their time, they’ll say, oh, now I see how Angela could speak to this.
Ben Dixon:
Same here with Tracy. She was at Pampered Chef with Angela at one point in time. And then was at Lia Sophia right here in Chicago. I’m in Chicago. Tracy is the closest one geographically to me today. She’s up in Northern Chicagoland. But Lia Sophia, when they had their big run. And then [inaudible 00:03:06] Cosmetics, when they had their good part of their run. It’s right here. There’s a lot that can be said in that. And today, is at Beautycounter.
Ben Dixon:
Johnna, if you remember back when Scentsy was cranking. Johnna was at Scentsy during that season. She was also at Initials Inc. Initials Inc. just announced they’re closing now, years later but back when they were doing really cool things, Johnna was there. Okay. She was at Veribella when we met. I was a software provider to Johnna at Veribella when we connected. I share a few of those things with you today, so that you don’t just think about the companies they’re leading at today, but where they’ve come from. With that, let’s go ahead and jump in to our first question. And as attendees, those of you who were… the ones who made the time on a Friday to come in live, you can use that questions box.
Ben Dixon:
I will moderate as well, as we go through the questions. How we normally do this, is we take a question and we go through the three panelists. I’m going to actually invite Angela to kick us off today with question number one. And then we’ll be coming to Tracy next and then Johnna. With question number one, as we talk about the evolution of training, we want to unpack that when it comes to training today, what are you just finding that’s just no longer relevant? Some artifact we’re all holding onto that we just need to leave behind. What comes to mind for you, Angela, when you think about that?
Angela Morrison:
When you first presented this question to me, I’m like, “Holy cow, I’m going to have to think about that on.” because we want everything and the kitchen sink in there, because we know the field needs all of it. So, I actually wrestled with this one a little bit. I think for me, the best answer I could come up with, and I’m not certain this needs to be tossed out altogether, but it’s a curious question. What we’re seeing most companies doing now, is moving away from these 50-page notebooks of printed training that show up in the starter kits. And people are opting more for QR codes now, where they can go to this evergreen training that you continue to refresh. It’s economical for companies obviously, but also it’s agile. It ebbs and flows with what the turn of the field is. So, for me, I would say printed materials might start to become obsolete here, if they’re not already in that process.
Ben Dixon:
You have a really good point about the ability to make changes. Today, one of the themes I think we’ll hear in this training today is how fast teams iterate today. It seems like we’re learning faster than we ever were, even as executives in this space. And the hardest thing with the printed materials is you can’t change it once it’s in their hands. Right?
Angela Morrison:
Nope.
Ben Dixon:
How wonderful it is to be able to say, version 1.2 is here. And next week version 1.3 is here. That’s a really solid point for us to remember, is even asking the question, do we need to hold onto that? I’m happy you brought it up. We’ve even seen the companies who provide the printed materials and starter kits go out of business. That’s on trend. Some of the bigger printers that were doing that in the space is… no one even do that anymore. That’s a really good point. We’ll go next. I said that we’ll go to Tracy next, right?
Tracy DeLisle:
Yep. Yep. Yes. I find it very hard to believe that anything that either of these two ladies say that I’m going to say, nope, I disagree. We’re probably largely aligned but I think that the word that popped up for me, interestingly, when I was listening to Angela talk was evolution, which is the topic of this whole call. It’s interesting… and by the way, I find myself, the topic that came to my head or the phrase was throwing out the baby with the bath water. I thought to myself, by the way, I’m majorly challenging myself on all of these catch phrases now. What’s the Genesis? Where did it come from? Can we still say that? I think you can still say, you don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water, but I think that you’re right.
Tracy DeLisle:
We don’t need those 50-page binders, but I think one of the things we’ve been hearing at Beauty Counter is, we used to have all of that, now there isn’t a guide and the field is saying, but can we have a little something? Just because we don’t need a 50-page guide, it would be good to have a guide. So, I was thinking we go from version one to version two, and then we’re like, maybe we need it to be version 1.5, so evolution, learning, but I do agree with that. And then I would say the other pieces, the one size fits all. I remember, I’ve been in this industry a long time and it was like, no, no, no, everybody has to start this way and you have to do this. I think that’s the one piece we have to leave behind. And I’m going to talk out of both sides of my mouth when we get to the next question, I’ll contradict myself here, but no one size fits all.
Ben Dixon:
It’s a really great statement though, because it makes us think, because it’s true that we’ve always thought that people have the same goals. Of course, everyone wants this, if they are joining our company. And it’s not true. Everyone doesn’t want this one thing that you define for them. And how limiting is that for your company, if this is all it’s available, this one goal, this one model? Because it’s going to resonate with some and not with others. We could unpack for an hour, the no one size fits all, but hold onto that gem gang, because that’s going to make you think as we go through these questions. That’s really solid. Johnna, what would you say is an artifact we can leave behind?
Johnna Johnson:
Definitely going to piggyback on what they were saying. One of the things, especially at Color Street, I’ve worked in lots of different companies started in Mary Kay when we had the big binder and it was everything, but I do love this because just to Angela’s point, we’re talking about the QR codes and really providing tools and resources that fit to everybody’s different needs. Just like you said, it’s not a one size fits all kind of thing. The one thing that came to me that I feel like Angela and Tracy didn’t touch on yet, and you guys might think I’m totally crazy, but I think the one thing that we have to leave behind or at least put on the back burner is the concept of in-person training.
Johnna Johnson:
I think that everything has gone just so virtual that you’ve got to be creative. I know that’s in our upcoming questions of how do we make that same excitement and engagement and connection virtually, because I think that’s where everybody’s at. And it’s really hard to compete with the attention span of our independent consultants and how do we do that? Let’s make it convenient, short, simple, easy, and relevant all in one. As Angela said, this is a really interesting question to think about and ponder and attempt to unpack, but that’s… the in-person, it’s kind of old school. So, how can we get creative and in up to date?
Ben Dixon:
A question before you, Johnna, back on that. When you say that, do you mean clearing out in-person training 100% or in-person training alone as a strategy? What are your thoughts there?
Johnna Johnson:
My thoughts are in-person alone as a training strategy. I’ll give you an example. A lot of the annual conferences are coming up and we’re finding a trend of the virtual options now, are far outweighing the participation of the in-person, which the in person we all know is great. You get to hug. You get to wear all of your ribbons and all that stuff, but being really creative and how to tap into the people that aren’t wanting to be in person. Of course, we learned through COVID on how to pivot, how to make sure that we could still be relevant in a world where people didn’t want to get together. I am definitely an advocate of in-person. It’s just coming more and more obsolete, I feel.
Tracy DeLisle:
Interesting.
Ben Dixon:
We’ll get to it too, as we discuss more today, especially in question four. I’m seeing in-person look different than it ever has today too. Where in-person in the past, may have been super Saturdays in every market, all across the world the whole time, where some clients say in-person is just celebrations. It’s just contests and celebrations and celebrations and celebrations. I’m seeing that a lot, even amongst leaders today. If you browse Facebook, you’ll see leaders today doing, hey, let’s do this contest. And then I rented this Airbnb for the weekend and the three couples get to come here and mastermind at the Airbnb for the weekend and enjoy a celebration. We’re seeing it evolve in a great way.
Ben Dixon:
Just as a node to a previous episode of the Direct Selling Executives Forums, we had had Travis Garza, who’s running Plexus these days, unpack how he saw in-person changing, just two episodes ago on our YouTube channel. And shared that when people achieve a certain rank, it’s not a very high rank in Plexus that they took their whole in-person budget and said, we’re just going to them fly the corporate office. They have this little one day workshop they host, that’s twice a month and they fly all the reps out that hit that little rank, to just say, okay, here’s one human touch. This is who we are. And then let them back out. And then the rest of it is digital, to Johnna’s point. They had, one in-person one is going to matter. It’s almost like you don’t want to waste your budget on like something that’s not going to be impactful.
Ben Dixon:
People are definitely shifting where in-person matters. That’s a powerful thought. With that, let’s go to Tracy. Kick us off with number two. What are the elements you believe define [inaudible 00:13:12] a successful onboarding process today, as we unpack this evolution of training?
Tracy DeLisle:
I did say, this is where I was going to talk out of the other side of my mouth because I was saying there’s no one size fits all, but I really feel strongly that it has to be simple, easy, and fun. So, literally, broken down to, if these are the three things you have to do, if you’re only going to do three things, so if you do nothing else. It can be at your own pace and in line with your own goals and the rate at which you repeat these three things will be the acceleration towards the achievement of your goals, but really putting in just super simple, these three things. So, it makes it one size fits all, but you get to design what it looks like.
Ben Dixon:
What’s an example? Walk us through three things of what you see today.
Tracy DeLisle:
It’s different everywhere based on the culture or the goals, but it might be, share, get out there, tell the world that you are now a new consultant. It might be, hold your launch, whether that be virtually and or in-person. It might be, go through the training series behind. It might be, connect with 30 people. It might be, book virtual events and recruit your first person. Whatever it is, the first three things you want them to do. I particularly love the concept behind that. Then the rate at which you do those things. It basically says, these are the three things. You might take a month to do it. You might do it all today. And then you’ll repeat, repeat, repeat. Then we can start layering on.
Ben Dixon:
That’s a really good point for everyone to make is that even if you have a path to run on, the variable of different people’s goals could be the amount of time it’s going to take them to do those things. It determines that outcome is, hey, some people, [inaudible 00:15:12] some of you have structure bonuses in place in your companies, where in 15 days, if you do this work, you have this extra bonus or in 30 days you do this work, you get that extra bonus. Those are meant of course, to try incentivize a group of people to go for it right away. But people will then say, even if you don’t go for those bonuses, if you do it within three months, here’s what will happen in your life as well. That’s good. Johnna, what are you seeing? We’ll come to Angela last on this one. What do you feel is the real elements that both define and create a successful onboarding process today?
Johnna Johnson:
I would definitely focus on a drip campaign. I’m really surprised at how many companies don’t have a drip campaign in place. It’s shocking to me. I think that that is really important because sometimes companies feel like, that’s the leader’s job to reach out to them and all that stuff. And they’re just not. So, these new consultants are getting left behind and feeling really neglected and like they don’t matter. And of course, as you know when they don’t matter, they don’t work. To your point, I love that a company would bring somebody in, because how special is that? Those memories… I just got goosebumps because those memories are going to create amazing things. I think the drip campaign is ultimately important. I don’t think there should be any other conversation in a 30, 60, 90-day period, other than that company’s smart start, great start, jump start, perfect start, whatever the start is, get them started.
Johnna Johnson:
That should be all it is. I know that some leaders like to just dump all this information and it’s too overwhelming. So, I think that specific focus is important. Also, Ben, what I’m finding is that consultants and enrollers, recruiters are not… there’s not even conversations with people that are enrolling on their team. I might ask, when’s the last time you talked to your team? And it’s months or months and months and months. So, I think the personal touch, even if it’s a… when I say pick up the phone, people are cringing. They’re just like, no, no, no, no, I don’t want to pick up the phone. I’m like, “Well, chances are, it’s going to go to voicemail, but at least they’ll hear your voice and they’ll know that you took time to reach out and connect with them.” I think that’s such an important part of creating that successful onboarding experience.
Ben Dixon:
Johnna, you had two amazing gems in there. One of the things I love, love, love about that personal touch that we think about today in this busy, busy, busy, busy, busy world we live in, we were celebrating, my mother passed away from cancer last year suddenly. And we were having her celebration of life two weeks ago. We were talking about what is love today? And for people who showered real love into your life. We were talking about business owners and our own employees. My siblings and I are all in businesses. We talked about how creating time is the most valuable resource anybody has. What’s so special about hearing a phone call and everything Johnna just shared, what hit me there and I want us all to hear it, is that time is the most expensive resource we all have.
Ben Dixon:
And why is that phone call valuable even if it’s a voicemail? Because it showed that you cared enough and you valued that person enough to actually leave them a voicemail. Don’t discount that in your drip campaign talk. I’ve actually seen clients put in triggers that when people hit certain ranks, that different executives at the company call. I know personally, when I was a top earner in ’09, long time ago in the space, that the founder of that company called me once. I had won some super ring for a gazillion dollars in sales. I can’t remember which diamond they added to my ring at the time. I was a very young person. It was a crazy wild ride. But I remember when the founder called me and I was like, “He called me?”. I was blown away that this guy would call me, little old me. I’ve seen that make a massive difference.
Ben Dixon:
The second thing you said that I think I don’t want to rush past because it’s something that is probably a lot of disagreement in people who are watching this or even attending life. You said somebody owned enrollment. You said, whose job is it to own onboarding? You said, most people think it’s the field, but you think it’s the company. I agree with you wholeheartedly. That’s actually one of the artifacts to throw out from question number one, is to stop thinking that the field owns this experience of onboarding. And that you need to take responsibility as the company to say, yes, the field owns relationships and they’re bringing their trust relationships to us, but we’re going to not expect them to be perfect onboarders. We want to have a certain experience that everybody gets to have when they come into our company for the first time. And we’re going to make sure at a base level that everybody at least gets this experience, even if they’re sponsor is a bozo.
Ben Dixon:
Bozo is my favorite Steve Jobs word there. He said that in his famous speech. He said, “Just don’t listen to bozos in life.” If we just go back to thinking of whose job it is, one of the things we can do, to Johnna’s point gang and hope we all hear it, is we can choose to own it. We can choose to own onboarding and design onboarding from corporate’s perspective so that everybody gets a genuine experience regardless of who their sponsor is. Hope you all heard that. That’s really, really good. That’s what I was hearing. Let’s head over to Angela. Angela, elements define and create a successful onboarding process today.
Angela Morrison:
I feel like we all share a brain here. I think what we’re all thinking on the same wavelength. I went a little different direction here. I think in terms of elements, I think whatever content you’re putting out, it has to be snackable. It has to be these bite sized, short segments and you alluded to it just a few moments ago. We are a time star society. So, if something looks too complicated or too long, they’re simply not going to take it in. Also, another important thing, and you mentioned it already with the onboarding, it’s super important to be able to equip sponsors with how to onboard properly and effectively, whether a company is creating it or, hopefully company partners with field to create it, but sponsors need to play an active role in that whole process.
Angela Morrison:
The company can lay down the foundation, which is great, but then it’s up to that sponsor to pick it up and help their new team members to activate it. Not just with the head knowledge, but also that experiential knowledge too. In a sense, we need to make sure that we are onboarding our sponsors so that they could be master onboarders.
Ben Dixon:
There’s some good examples I’ve seen. I’ve seen triggers of, go tell your sponsor your goals. And it creates the space for, you need to go set a 15-minute conversation with your sponsor and you create almost the expectation as corporate that that is going to happen that [inaudible 00:22:38].
Angela Morrison:
Oh, yeah. It’s on the checklist, right?
Ben Dixon:
On the checklist. Exactly. You’re almost you set up that this type of relationship is going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s really healthy. Yeah. Any other insights as we’ve been listed. Tracy or Johnna, anything to add? I don’t want to move on if there’s… I see all the notes flying too. I’m taking notes too. Any others you want to share? Back to you, Tracy, before we move on. Yeah.
Tracy DeLisle:
No. Good.
Ben Dixon:
Okay. Cool. Let’s stay with Angela for this next one because she… when you get to go last on a question, it’s like, man, they said the thing I wanted to say. So, we’re going to let Angela go first. And it’s okay. That’s totally fine. I even share that with my own staff all the time. It’s like, if you have something to add, say it’s okay. You don’t have to say ditto, ditto, ditto. It’s all right. How do you feel technology, just because there’s been so many changes, COVID and everything, how we interact with each other, how do you see technology and how does it play the role in the way you train today?
Angela Morrison:
I love this question too. I came from a company that grew by leaps and bounds with a field who primarily worked right from their phone. This was their desk. Training’s got to be portable. That’s the one thing I can’t emphasize enough. To piggyback on that, also has to be smart in terms of capturing prospects and really queuing up that activity. This is what helps set the frequency of business. We talk about, oh, consistency is so important. We need to train our consultants, how to be consistent. Well, they could be consistent doing one thing, one time a month and how successful are they going to be? Rather than thinking, in terms of consistency, we need our technology to queue up frequency. For example, if your frequency model is reaching out to five or having five new two-way conversations and three follow-ups every single day, no matter what, the technology needs to be able to serve that up with action items and those reminders and even better, with whom.
Angela Morrison:
If I can just take it one step further, I would love to see technology. I have actually seen some do this relatively well, where it even gives you the words to say, conversation starters so they don’t have to go digging around for something. All of their action items are right there.
Tracy DeLisle:
Love it.
Ben Dixon:
I love that. I couldn’t agree more. There’s one thing to share that I think is really important with the frequency is, sometimes technology, when we have this kind of discussion, there’s a fantasy in the field. When we roll out at certain technologies, where they think like, oh, the tech’s going to build the business for me, so I don’t have to do anything. One of the things I love about what Angela just shared is she’s like, no, there’s a frequency of this business. She mentioned daily habits and I’m a huge fan of daily habits in this space. No one expects to make money from Uber, if they download the app and then never get in the car and drive. And they shouldn’t expect to make money in your business, unless they get in the car and drive. They should know how to come in and do these daily things.
Ben Dixon:
The more you can do that type of work, the better it can be. I’ve personally been investing heavily into what Angela just shared in the space and have been seeing its fruit. As I said, don’t say ditto, I’m going to say ditto to what Angela just shared, because it works in other areas of life. If we look at things that work in tech around us, many of you who are watching, maybe familiar with apps like Noom or My Fitness Pal, who have had just massive success in the space of weight loss, in the space. I could share. I’m a compassionate husband. I’ve gained just as much weight as my wife, every time we’ve had a child. I’m a good husband in there. I do my part.
Ben Dixon:
Three kids later, I used My Fitness Pal on the first two and Noom on the third kid to lose the weight back and I’m 35 pounds lighter than I was a year ago from Noom. That was daily habits, just what she’s talking about. You can learn from other parts of life and apply that to your direct sales. You don’t have to only look inside of direct sales for technology. You can look outside of it and say, okay, how does that help human behavior? Really, really good, Angela. Let’s go to you next, Johnna. Go ahead.
Johnna Johnson:
I was going to say Angela mentioned what to say, and I think that’s one of the biggest challenges that I’ve experienced over my decades in the industry. That is, people just lob onto what do I say and how do I say it? Ben, you and I have worked on a project, using your app just about specifics, okay when this happens… I’ve written out everything that needs to be said, but they have to click send, or they have to click… but we’re making it so easy. Technology is unbelievable. The stuff that you’ve opened my eyes to Ben, it is unbelievable. The one thing that I’ve put down for the question too, is how does technology play a role in the way that you train today? And I think one of the things that is getting creative with, let’s say even Zoom. Making sure that you have a tech producer. Making sure that you’ve got a co-instructor that’s behind the scenes that can fill in if you’re coughing or something happens to your laptop or something like that, or somebody that’s a facilitator in the chat. So, you’re engaging.
Johnna Johnson:
We talked about the time, because if you start having tech issues or I can’t share this, or whatever, you turn people off. They’re out. So, I think that getting creative in how you do that, one of the things that I’m teaching in the last couple of years is with even doing virtual meetings, with the top leaders, doing virtual meetings. Getting your audience involved in, maybe it’s, I did it. You have a sign that says I did it or something like that. When [inaudible 00:28:26] in your team meetings, who sold a nail strip this week? Who sold a moisturizer? And people can engage. And, I did, I did it because how else are you supposed to do it? To make people have fun and be excited, to want to come back again. Because if they’re going to come back and engage and they’re feeling loved, it’s going to happen.
Johnna Johnson:
I think really leveraging all the tools, the pulls. Right now, with a… I’ll do it right now. Hold on. I think it’s here. No, I don’t see it. Right now, in Zoom, you can now add reactions. Oh, whoops. Just little things like that. Learning all the different things that you can do, I think is really important.
Ben Dixon:
Mixing the physical and digital world, what Johnna just said, is so critical gang. I’ve seen clients do product launches digitally to where they send a box and the box says don’t open me. And they get on the Zoom or the live stream together and everybody’s sitting there with their box. At the same time, they’re like, oh, oh my gosh. I’ve seen this happen at digital conventions for award ceremonies, where people don’t know what award they got and it’s in the box. And then they say, and next we’re going to have her open it. And they’re opening it in front of everybody. Oh my gosh, isn’t that cute. And gang, you can have so much fun with it. And gang, it’s a no excuse thing, because anyone can do it. The technology might be fancy like an app, like Johnna said, it might be a PDF gang.
Ben Dixon:
Some of you haven’t even done the work of creating a frequently asked questions PDF to coach your people. I just hope when you hear this stuff today, you say, oh my Lord, I’m going to go do that this afternoon, because you should. But that’s what I’m hearing. We all have excuses in mind. Well, if only that was in my budget for this quarter or if only I could do that in six months. Gang, you can make a PDF this afternoon. That’s what I want you to hear when you’re hearing this stuff, is hear the problems it’s solving. Yes, having a predictive app is going to change people’s lives over a PDF, a hundredfold, but you better go create the PDF because without the PDF, they’re just messaging their sponsor on Facebook saying, ah, Julia did this, what do I do next? Come on. We can be better than that.
Ben Dixon:
When I use the word technology, don’t always think it’s software. Technology can be a stinking PDF. All right. I just want us to, it could be low, it could be high. Just throw the excuses out and let’s do something. That’s what I’m hoping for today. Tracy, what would you like to add? I know you’ve been on all sides of this one before, so what [inaudible 00:31:02].
Tracy DeLisle:
Yeah. Two things. One, Angela you were talking about snackable, portable and I think that is like the stair step to the one piece that I would say is customizable because again, my mantra has always been, Angela and I worked together a hundred years ago and she’s probably like, yep I know that’s the running theme. And it is, find out what they want and help them get that. How do you scale that? As a leader, I can do that with everybody on my team, but how do we scale it as a company? I have seen companies do very well where the person can plug in, here’s what I want out of the business. And then we go, oh, well, let’s just serve it right up to you, exactly what your step should be. And then again, that frequency.
Ben Dixon:
There’s one word you just had there that I think is really important when we revisit, it’s snackable. The one part we didn’t say was accountable. I’ve seen this trap for a lot, and we should bring it up in this step because I had a client who was super passionate about their training process. They were very proud that every time they put a video on Facebook, they get 10,000, 12,000 views. They thought, man, we have these groups on Facebook training our reps, we get 10,000, 12,000 views. We’re doing it folks. And I said, man, you only got 30,000 people in the company. A third of them are… wow that’s amazing. You say, well guys, how many people are actually finishing those videos? Is Facebook even the right place to do it? Because that data’s kind of meaningless. They’re browsing pictures of their nieces and nephews and they see you for four seconds and stop. And then they scroll back on.
Ben Dixon:
I don’t think they finished your six-minute video, Angela. I don’t think they finished it, Johnna. So, the one part of the snackable that I’d agree with in a big way is to have, where technology can play a big role, is the accountability around rewarding people for finishing content. Instead of just being people who start content. One of those simple ways that can be low tech, high tech, but putting your structures in place to where you’re not just celebrating formats where people are starting stuff, but when you’re really putting the energy on them finishing stuff. The more you can help show the sponsors that people are actually doing it, the better. Yeah. So, you know who [inaudible 00:33:15].
Angela Morrison:
You said something really important that the ideal technology would be able to show metrics. Not just who’s consuming the courses, who’s completing them. And then the ability to track, what do they do after that? For instance, you have an LMS of some sort that has an onboarding course, these people who are brand spanking new, go through the course, what do they do in their first 30 days, 60 days, 90 days? You’re going to gain knowledge from that and knowledge is powerful, especially in terms of the efficacy of the training that you’re putting out. If it’s not working, you got to change something but you don’t know if it’s working or not, unless you can measure it initially.
Ben Dixon:
Measure both things is what I would share. Some of us fall into the traps on needing 90 days to make a decision or 120 days to make a decision because we’re only measuring sales. It’s a warning for us all. Your competitors are going to beat you, if you’re still measuring sales. We all think, no, Ben sales is all that matters, but sales is way down here. It’s at the end of the whole thing. It’s the result. There’s, did they send the text message? What Angela said earlier, the daily behaviors. Did they do the daily behaviors? How long did they do them? Did they show up? You can measure that stuff way up here in your process. Sales is way down here. Some of us miss that. We miss how fast we could be making decisions, if we measured things that were closer together than just going all the way to who finished this video. And then did they hit X rank, which is way down here. I’m not even on the Zoom screen anymore, it’s [inaudible 00:35:08].
Johnna Johnson:
I was going to share too.
Ben Dixon:
Yeah, go ahead.
Johnna Johnson:
You talked about being raw. I think one of the elements to that piece that I’ve been a part of in multiple companies is how to reward for those achievements, that we clicked on this, we watched the whole thing. Some people give points, some people give product, all that stuff. I’ve seen people give way too much product so then you have to reel it back in. I’m an advocate of, even if you just put them in your newsletter congratulating the… they love that. You got to figure it out. It’s, what do they say? Part science, part art. Trying to figure out what the best solution is for those prizes and rewards and things that you do to celebrate those people that do those things.
Ben Dixon:
I’ve seen all of those, Johnna. I’ve seen points be used. I’ve seen everyone do points, but then use points in very unique ways. Sometimes people do use points to get product. Sometimes you can just get certain Swag that you can’t get without points or certain seating at convention that you can’t get without points or you can come to the certain mastermind call that you can’t come to, if you don’t have the points. I’ve actually seen all of those. Anyone have any of those to share? I would love to hear just, Angela or Tracy, do you have any of those you’ve seen of how people use the points while we’re being raw about that, outside of what I mentioned, because I’ve seen a couple different ones were that actually were pretty cool.
Tracy DeLisle:
I’m thinking about certainly being a customer or a client of this. A year ago, we bought a sleep number bed. You get points for reading the articles and points for taking the quiz and points for… and I was up at night in my sleep number bed, trying to rack up more points, then before I know it, I had $90. I got a free pillow. My husband’s like, “You are ridiculous.” I’m like, “Oh, no. Shh. I almost got 90 points.” It works for… it gets the best of us.
Ben Dixon:
Right. Those pillows rock by the way, if anyone hasn’t [inaudible 00:37:18]. It’s worth every moment of the energy Tracy put in. They are like [inaudible 00:37:23]. My wife got me one for our 10-year wedding anniversary. So, I [inaudible 00:37:28] changed my life. They’re a great pillow.
Johnna Johnson:
I’ve seen gift cards. Company gift cards in $10 increments. You can use them as incentives or things like that with your customers or your team. And you can only use one gift card per order. I’ve seen that. I’ve seen, like you mentioned, the Swag or special Swag, exclusive Swag, calls or lunch with an executive or an owner, Amazon gift cards, Starbucks gift cards. I think it’s what your field likes. I am a firm believer of changing it up all the time so it’s always new and it’s fun. I just noticed that your bookshelf is color coded, Ben. I love it.
Ben Dixon:
It’s a rainbow. Yes. It’s done that way. It’s ROYGBIV.
Johnna Johnson:
Love it.
Ben Dixon:
Yeah.
Johnna Johnson:
I love it.
Tracy DeLisle:
Love it.
Ben Dixon:
Yeah. Thank you. The next question, let’s dive into here for time. I’m going to have, actually, have Tracy kick us off on this one is, when you think of the distributor journey and imagine your members that have been with your organization for over two years, we just talked about onboarding and sometimes we forget this other half. What are the elements you believe are required to create and engage that training experience? The folks who’ve been here a while, it can get stale if everything about the great start and the fast art in 90 days and it’s here and 150 days and it’s here and you’re only talking about those. What elements have you seen really work for the people who’ve already been here two years?
Tracy DeLisle:
Yeah. I think that it’s fundamental because we’re currently in this space right now. What got us here, won’t get us there. I’ve seen that in so many companies, you get to a different, grown-up phase of the company. And even though the success has been amazing and incredible, I always find it interesting how difficult it can be to make that duplicatable. Because what I did to grow my business back here, it’s not working. It’s almost like a new onboarding. I think there is, should be, needs to be an attention on your current field doing the onboarding as well. Rewarding them for going through it. Johnna you asked, when’s the last time you’ve done X? Have you gone through the onboarding, because it’s updated six times since when you started? But people think they don’t need onboarding because they onboarded six years ago.
Tracy DeLisle:
I think that’s a biggie. And then also, taking things… I think, again, this is not necessarily as scalable, but very customizable is, I think back to what are those things you put on the shelf? Johnna, you’re mentioning go back to that yellow book in the middle there, Ben [inaudible 00:40:23]. We go to these conferences and we take notes or we get the book and we highlight and we stick it up on the shelf then. So, what were the things that were working? Because again, some of them are fundamental and they worked 50 years ago, they’ve worked today and some of them are, that did work 50 years ago, it doesn’t work today. Finding a balance of both of those, I would say. I also think investing in leadership development and really… I loved what you said Angela about making them masters of onboarding. So, same. Let’s feed those leaders so that then they feel like leaders and then they want to go and really deploy those tools to their teams, making them stronger leaders.
Johnna Johnson:
Love it.
Ben Dixon:
One thing that is so powerful when you think about a relaunch, the way you just shared it, Tracy too, it ties in right with what Angela shared earlier about daily habits, is sometimes the reminder is, are you actually doing what we teach in the daily habits? Many times, you’re not in a season and it can feel really daunting when something’s forever, but people can always do something for a period of time. And so-
Tracy DeLisle:
That’s right.
Ben Dixon:
… what I’ve seen too, is that challenge of, hey, just do 30 days at this level and we just talked about again, just do 30 days. Can you commit the 30 days? Let’s just see what happens in 30 days. When you’re done, we done, but just 30 days. Let’s just see. You can always go back to what you were doing. And then could be life changing. And there’s a fun way you can call that, whether it’s relaunch or… I’ve seen all kinds of fun phrases for that. That’s very cool. How about over to you, Angela? Not the onboarding, but someone’s been with us two years.
Angela Morrison:
Yeah, sure. I see a good training platform would include not only training at each level, within whatever compensation, what are the skills they need. For sure that’s there. Always evaluating and measuring and seeing if anything needs to be reframed based on innovations within your company or field trends, or like Tracy said, when something that’s not working anymore. That needs to be agile as well, to shift and pivot and whatever. But one of the things within the journey itself, however that looks, is to incorporate mindset training, particularly for the people who have been around for quite some time. Two things, actually. Another thing just popped into my mind. Mindset training. Rather than throwing another skill building course for people who have been around for a little bit, we can come behind… and particularly when they might be experiencing roadblocks. We can come behind that and support it, encourage them with some mindset drills. It might be something purely anecdotal delivered by another distributor who faced something similar and how they overcame it. But I think we need to nurture their head space as well as their skill building.
Ben Dixon:
That’s an everyday decision, what Angela just shared. We have a culture in our company where we call it Daily Kaizen. It’s part of people’s scorecard, literally. You have additional goals in your scorecard. Everyone in our company listens to audiobooks for 15 minutes or more every day. It’s part of our scorecard because we understand that people face garbage all day long in many ways, and they need something positive, refreshing their mind. So, we have a list of 75 in a row and we say, start at number one, when you finish that, go to 2, 3, 4, 5, and we ask that you write notes. It takes about 20 minutes a day and we literally have all 55 plus of our staff who do it every day. And it’s been life changing.
Ben Dixon:
I bring it up to say that some of my clients and friends that I know that even aren’t my clients today in the space, at this level, to Angela’s answer gang, have done a book of the month club where the founder or the director of sales has picked a book and has said, you know what, gang? For July, we’re going to read High Five Habit from Mel. She’s got a crazy wild story. Here you go, we’re going to read Mel’s High Five Habit and boom, let’s all read that and share our thoughts of how we can apply the high five habit in our life. It’s those little pieces gang, on some of these later journeys where it’s going to speak to them in a special way. It might be Grant Cardone’s Be Obsessed or Be Average, or it might be something that’s softer in this space. So, you just got to decide what really fits your culture because there’s a ton of great, life changing books up there you can bring in and audio books are game changing. That’s good. Johnna, on your side. What are you seeing as an element?
Johnna Johnson:
This is a fascinating question because it’s about two years, right?
Ben Dixon:
Yeah.
Johnna Johnson:
You said they have about two years. I want to use a specific example because I think it applied to many of the direct sales companies, but specifically for Color Street. Because if you remember, two years ago, every nail salon on the planet was closed for months and months and months. That’s when Color Street people were like, oh my gosh, this is an amazing alternative. I can do a pedicure and a manicure with this it’s dry nail polish. It was amazing. Things were explosive. What the challenge is now, is two years later, when our market is going back to normal, which is still in a growth pattern, the thought process we’re really having to work with because it’s like, we’re not tanking, we’re normalizing. We have this incredible anomaly. To Angela’s point, the mindset has been riveting to try to change because where people came on board, people were just going to their websites and buying all this stuff like crazy. We had amazing rank advancements. People are making unbelievable money and now they have to work at it.
Ben Dixon:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:46:57].
Johnna Johnson:
Now, they’re like, what’s happening? Yeah. And it’s like, well, if you haven’t talked to anybody or you’ve never even put samples on somebody, this is where it’s coming. So, I think training is absolutely essential with that mindset, like Angela mentioned. Going back and trying to remind people, there’s not problems. We’re just normalizing. I also put down, and Tracy mentioned this too. I put down continuity, making sure that your message is very, very similar and moving forward. But also, you can have the same message, but saying it in different ways, which I think is really important. So, I put that down as… there’s different ways to arrive at the goals that you have.
Ben Dixon:
One thing that’s a powerful reminder from what Johnna just shared, is teaching the law of seasons. So many people miss that. If you look at the people who have been the greatest on your teams and have done so much, they all had that long term focus. They didn’t let something tragic take them out of the game. That happened, whether it was good or bad. There’s a power in teaching this concept of the law of seasons, of how most things are temporary. It’s going to look different in a few months and you got to know why you’re here to get through it.
Ben Dixon:
We talk a lot in direct sales and network marketing about knowing your why, and knowing your why. And sometimes at the two-year mark, the revisiting power I’ve seen, is coming back and explaining why it’s important to know your why. The reason why is because you ask the question, is it worth it? Because people will face challenges and challenges will take them out of the game, if they forget why they’re here in the first place. The question to always ask is, okay, what was your why? Why are you doing this business? Okay. Is it still worth it? Do you just need to be reminded of that’s why you’re here or do you need a different why?
Angela Morrison:
It also might be… sorry to jump in here, but it also might be their why has evolved and when’s the last time they remembered what they first started with. Two years later, why are they still here? And what do they want from their business today versus two years ago?
Ben Dixon:
Yeah. You came here to fund your daughter’s college. She’s already through college now. What’s next? So many people, they miss that. You came here to not have to work that part-time job. Now, you don’t have to work the part-time job, so what’s next? Some of those most powerful whys come when it’s about somebody else, not even them anymore. If they’ve gotten through certain things in their life of their own goals and now their why becomes about others being able to achieve. That’s a very special place, when they don’t need the big event anymore and they’ve already had the big event and it’s about helping others achieve big events. That’s where you’re going to get some of your longest-term builders because they won’t be attracted by shiny things from others because they see you, your company as the platform that will transform other people’s lives. If you can get to that level, gang with your company being that platform that they trust for others’ success. Watch out for the growth, because that just gets phenomenal.
Ben Dixon:
Any closing thoughts as we wrap up today. Tracy, anything else you’d like to add?
Tracy DeLisle:
Just fun. Just wow. You were saying everybody can make a PDF this afternoon and I was like, great, thanks Ben and ladies, I’m going to be working this afternoon. Now, I’m going to be working this weekend on imparting some of these ideas that we had, but no always a great forum. Thank you for hosting this. Of course, I’m honored to be sitting next to these two ladies who I knew before today, but love even more after today.
Ben Dixon:
Oh, thank you, gang. Any others as we wrap up? [inaudible 00:50:55] Johnna, anything else you’d like to today?
Johnna Johnson:
I would just say Ben, something that you shared. I think that we all go through seasons of challenge and fear and what have we done and, oh my gosh, look what we’ve done. We go through these seasons. And as we talked about, I mentioned Color Street with this huge explosion. It was a very cool opportunity, but there’s also people, I’m studying Southwest right now, like Southwest or the airline industry in general, how it just totally tanked, but some of them had to shut their doors, but most of them didn’t because they know that there’s those cycles. I think that it’s important. I just want to remind everybody who’s on the call, watching live or watching the recording is just keep going. Just keep plugging into resources and tools and phenomenal people like you’ve seen today and know that, that’s part of the journey. Just keep going, because what did you say Steve Jobs said, no, somebody said you get… maybe it was Angela. You can be something or a bozo. Be crazy and go for it. Be a bozo. I don’t know.
Ben Dixon:
Yeah. Don’t listen to bozos [inaudible 00:51:55]. That’s one of his larger speeches in life. I love that. It’s just a reminder. Everyone’s got opinions. You will not make everybody happy in your life or if you do, you’re not really getting anything done. You’ll be very conflicted. Yeah. Angela, any thoughts as we wrap up today?
Angela Morrison:
I am just thankful for being able to be with this panel in particular. It’s funny that direct selling, it’s a large, large industry, but it’s a really small world and I’ve had the pleasure of working with both of these ladies. I was super excited to be here today and I took a whole page of notes, almost a whole page notes, but thank you guys for this.
Johnna Johnson:
Thank you.
Ben Dixon:
Thank you for being involved. For everyone who came to the event today or is watching on replay, if you haven’t yet subscribed on the LinkedIn group or the Facebook group, depending on where you like to live in social media world, do so. The YouTube channel has all the replays. We will this one up with a transcript in the LinkedIn group within the next few days here. Thank you so much just to our speakers for being here today. Super grateful for you. And just keep, man, keep changing lives. What you do matters in so many incredible ways. We forget when we don’t get to go to conventions and get all the hugs what a difference it makes in people’s lives and hope we can all pause and just reflect for a moment on the why, for why we do what we do in our own space.
Ben Dixon:
And just remember that there’s real family’s lives changed forever from the work we do in this space. There’s a lot of good, with all the negative press on MLM or network marketing that yes, there’s bad actors in this space, but then there’s a whole bunch of good in… when you can look in the mirror and say, I do good every day. It’s a powerful reminder. So, remember that when you’re in your referral marketing space and everything that you do. Thank you for being here, gang. Have a blessed day, everybody. We’ll see you soon.
Tracy DeLisle:
Thank you.
Johnna Johnson:
Bye.
Tracy DeLisle:
Bye.
