Industry News

Stories in this section:
Direct Selling: A Future without Boundaries
DSA Launches Image Enhancement Plan
DSEF: Building Bridges of Understanding
Industry with Heart: XanGo
Young Company Focus: Sensaria

DSA Launches Image Enhancement Plan

Thirty years ago, pollster Lou Harris told Direct Selling Association (DSA) leaders that no amount of effort could improve the image of direct selling. Today, we look back and see that 30 years of inaction translates into 30 years of lost potential-lost recruits, lost product sales and lost recognition and credibility among consumers. But it's never too late. After consideration and discussion by several DSA committees, and ultimate approval by the Board of Directors, the DSA is launching its first national image-building and reputation management program.

The new image program is designed to make direct selling more attractive to customers and potential sales representatives, and to strengthen the industry's position among the financial community and other influentials. Improving the industry's favorability among the general public and, in particular, its primary audience-women between the ages of 25 and 49-will require an ongoing communications outreach program that will largely rely on winning supportive coverage by the print and electronic media.

The Direct Selling Association has never conducted a national image-building or reputation management campaign for the industry. The hesitance stems from pollster Harris's comments back in 1976. Now, however, the association has recognized that it needs a substantial image- and reputation-building campaign. The time has come to put a significant concentration on enhancing the reputation of the direct selling industry. As a result, DSA and the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations (WFDSA) will embark on a U.S. and global multiyear reputation-building, image-enhancing program.

The need for such a campaign is supported by the most recent polling data. Though favorability has increased slightly since the original benchmarking survey in 1997, negative characteristics-pressure to buy, delay in receiving purchased products, difficulty in finding a sales rep-continue to be more closely aligned with the image today's consumers associate with direct selling. We need to reinforce the positive characteristics (informative sales reps, excellent service, unlimited opportunities, etc.) in order to build a new image in consumers' minds.

While negative perceptions of direct selling are still common among American consumers, our research identified several opportunities for improvement:

Younger consumers are significantly more interested in traditional direct selling channels than older ones, offering an increased opportunity to cultivate new generations of customers and sales reps.

About one-fourth of the consumers surveyed have experience as a direct selling representative, providing a large base of Americans who are familiar with the industry and its practices.

Nearly 60 percent of the consumers who have made purchases through direct sales rate the experience as "good," "very good" or "excellent" (largely in the "good" category).

That last finding is intriguing because it seems to conflict with the overall negative perception of direct selling. This conflict was also found in the 1976 Louis Harris survey:

"Put simply, direct selling's reputation is not based so much on what is actually happening to the customer but on what the customer thinks is happening to others."

This appears to remain the dilemma today-even 30 years later. The experience of most customers with direct selling is favorable, but the overall impression is considerably more negative-most likely the result of (Louis Harris's phrase) "anecdotal stereotypes," or opinions based on old instincts and popular-culture perceptions.

Focus groups held around the country in the summer of 2005 also shed light on the attitudes of consumers toward direct selling. For example, when asked about their general perceptions of direct selling, most focus-group participants offered no opinion at all-they were neither positive nor negative. However, when queried further, most had at least some level of negativity toward direct selling, whether it was a feeling of obligation to attend a party, listen to a presentation, or purchase a product. For many, it was the fear of being pressured to become a representative. In addition, most did not consider direct selling to be particularly convenient, and most rejected the notion that direct selling is growing in popularity.

The challenge to DSA is to modify these perceptions and eventually replace them with more accurate, positive impressions of direct selling. This is not a short-term assignment. It will require a significant, ongoing commitment. But the result will include not only improved favorability, but increased use of direct selling by customers and increased interest in becoming a direct selling representative.

In the first year of the campaign, DSA will develop the tools, lists and other materials needed for effective media outreach; develop and refine the outreach and management systems; and lay a foundation of positive messages that will reach much of the general public, with emphasis on specific priority audiences. We will position DSA with the media as a reliable, responsive, creative source for article ideas, storylines, information and lively individuals who can be profiled. In the first year, DSA will also test communications approaches on a "pilot" scale to determine their effectiveness and determine whether they should be conducted on a full-scale basis in future years.

The results of the first year's outreach activities will be measured against specific objectives, and DSA will make modifications to the ongoing program as indicated, including the possibility of an increase in activity, building on the foundation laid during year one.

Recently, the kick-off event for the Image Enhancement Plan was held in New York City (see page 15). The event was anchored by the release of the results of the Economic Impact Study conducted in the United States last year. The study revealed that the overall impact of direct selling exceeds $72 billion annually. Representatives of more than a dozen companies were on hand. Six of the companies made formal presentations, complementing the economic data by illustrating the broad social impact of direct selling. More than 30 representatives of the media and the financial community attended the event, beginning the process of building solid relationships that will support future efforts.

The key to success in this plan? It's not about spending a lot of money. And it's not about simply racking up media placements. The key to success will be the involvement of every company, every executive and every member of our collective independent sales force who cares about the future of our industry. The key will be involvement on a personal level, as well as involvement by integrating the tenets of the image-enhancement plan into the public relations efforts of each individual DSA company. We need presidents and CEOs to volunteer to talk to the media, to rally their troops, and to support this plan. We need personal stories of field sellers whose lives have been changed by direct selling or who have effectively used direct selling to touch the lives of others. We need companies to promote their DSA membership to all of their key audiences-both internal and external. And we need to promote understanding of the idea that by helping the industry succeed, so too will individual companies succeed.

It may at times be hard to balance corporate priorities with the priorities of the industry, but understanding that they are really one and the same should make the importance of participation and support crystal clear.

Lou Harris certainly must have believed he was doing the industry a favor back in 1976 when he advised us to sit back and hope the image of direct selling wouldn't get any worse. But in fact, every day that we did nothing was a day that we wasted in telling the story of direct selling to the very people who fuel our success. We are on the threshold of an unprecedented opportunity to improve our industry's future.

When you think about it, we encourage our field sellers to seize much the same type of opportunity every day-it's high time we take our own advice and embrace this opportunity as one that will change our industry's future for the better.