Some companies play in the grey area that separates illegal pyramid schemes from legitimate direct sales companies. That grey area, however, is shrinking as the distinctions become clearer, making it easier to identify a company as an illegal pyramid or a legitimate company. The Federal Trade Commission recently classified one well-known 26-year-old direct sales company […]
On the surface, allowing a customer or prospective new distributor to search for a nearby consultant appears as smart. The customer/new distributor purchases from their consultant of choice, and the consultant benefits from the purchase or new team member. Corporate isn’t getting calls from consultants asking to move orders and people. Everybody wins! When we […]
We’ve always welcomedstartup party plan and direct sales companies. Direct sales software is a necessity for direct sales companies, especially party plan companies. If you know Easy Party Plan Software, then you know that we started out as a party plan company. We couldn’t afford the $25K to $35K starting points for entry-level party plan […]
Cyber Terrorism is Real You go to great lengths to protect your company’s data from cybercriminals. We go to great lengths to protect your company’s data from cybercriminals. Still, encryption and firewalls are worthless if a legitimately logged-in user introduces a bug. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Every device connected […]
How Many Mistakes Can You Find? Have you ever been listening to the radio in your car and a song or a story was so good that you sat in your car until it was over? I had a parking-lot-story experience with a National Public Radio (NPR) story about a well-known direct sales company. LuLaRoe […]
“WE’VE BEEN HACKED!” As a business owner, these 3 words instill panic and generate lots of questions: WHO hacked us? WHAT data is compromised? HAS the hack been contained? WHEN did this happen? WHY were we hacked? WHERE did they get into our system? HOW did they get into our system? Let’s begin at the […]
You Are a Victim of Cyber Crime Cyber criminals are VERY smart – they’re not just teenage hackers with too much time on their hands working from their parents’ basements. Cyber crime is big, big business. We give the bad guys plenty of low-hanging fruit. If you’ve ever had your identity stolen, you know how […]
Avoid These 5 Critical Mistakes (especially my #1) I read an interesting article this week written by Alan Luce and published in The World of Direct Selling (“5 Critical Mistakes that Plague New Party Plan Companies”). You won’t find any surprises in the article, except perhaps “Mistake #4: Establishing your own in-house warehouse and […]
We all have pet peeves — seemingly little habits of others that drive us crazy and are worse than fingernails scraping a blackboard! Do any of these irritate you? When someone doesn’t replace the toilet paper roll When a grocery checker blows her nose and continues touching your products When someone overuses hyperbole (e.g., something […]
I hoped that 2017 would bring some clarity to the issue of sales tax for direct selling companies. Alas, my hopes have been dashed! If we see any resolution to the sales tax issues for direct sellers in 2017, companies selling over $1,000,000 annually in any state other than their home state should be prepared […]
