Growth of the business is important in all industries. In today’s challenging business environment, this is crucial at least to prevent complete failure. However, growth is more important in direct selling than it is in many other industries. And this is especially so on the acquisition side. We generally call this “recruiting”.
What we generally also do is to accept a high level of attrition in this industry as a given. But does this have to be so? Maybe not! Let’s take a look at the common causes of attrition first.
1) Personal
Some of those who leave do so because they feel they just don’t fit in. Whether it be a hobby, a way of socializing, a part-time source of income or a full-time business, this can happen to anybody. As long as it is a “true” reason and there is nothing else behind it, there is not much a company can do to reverse this. But what if there is something else behind?
2) Upline
In some of the cases, the reason for leaving is the sponsor or even the whole upline. Sometimes it is only a sponsor’s pure neglect that ends up with losing that “recruit”. In other times, it may be an unrealistic income claim made by the sponsor. Even if it is merely a clash of personalities between two people, I believe there is a lot of homework that can be done by the company management.
3) Company
And yes, sometimes it is the company itself that is the cause of people’s leaving. It may be poor customer services, commissions payments not made on time, frequent price and/or compensation plan changes, to name a few.
Due to the fact that most of the field members are part-timers and socializers in direct selling, probably we will never be able to reach perfection.
Still, I believe we can make some significant moves in that direction. The first step is to identify the reasons why they leave. Once this phase is over, it will be extremely easy to deal with each of them.
Don’t you think so?
