One of the benefits of working in direct sales is that many companies allow you to build a downline, and you get commissions off the sales of your downline. This gives you income even if you yourself are not selling at the moment.

Obviously, this means you really want to build a downline as well as your own business.

For many people, building a downline is even harder than finding customers. It’s one thing to buy a product, after all, quite another to start a business and actually work at it. Then you have many people who may sign up in your downline but simply make no or very few sales.

Just as in any other business, not everyone is going to succeed in direct sales, and you might be surprised by who succeeds. The more people in your downline, the more chances you have for people who really work the business to be in your downline, but it can also increase your workload.

Even before you start building your downline, you need to know what you have to offer them. I don’t just mean incentives for signing up under you. That may get signups, but if they never produce sales, what good is that? You need to provide support, and help your downline learn to make sales.

When I look at forums, it is not at all uncommon for people to complain that their upline is utterly unhelpful, and not at all interested in their downline. I suppose the upline sees taking time to help their downline as time away from their own business, but what they aren’t considering is that a well trained downline can produce sales for many years to come… well worth the short term expenditure of time.

It’s easier to recruit a downline into a business that you have had some success with. Be careful with income claims, as there are many rules you need to follow. However, even without income claims, if you are having success with your business it is easier to give someone else advice on how to succeed in that same business and to understand their challenges.

One of the popular ways to find new downline members is to join forums where people interested in home business go. It makes sense, after all. You want to be where the people interested in business opportunities go. Of course, this means you are competing with others who are interested in building their downlines too. Make sure you know the benefits of your business well and find a way to stand out from the crowd.

Many of the ways you build sales can help you to build your downline too. If you’ve tried posting flyers in your area, why not have two versions - one for sales and one for recruiting. Alternatively, make a brief mention about the business opportunity on your sales flyers.

Take advantage of the emails you send out every day. Have a brief blurb about your business in your signature line. You might be surprised by who asks you about your business opportunity.

Let your business come up in conversation. You don’t want to be the person everyone avoids because you spend too much time talking about your business, but you do want to discuss it when possible. People are generally curious when you start a business, but if you succeed, they often want to follow in your footsteps.

Don’t neglect one aspect of your business in favor of another. That is, don’t build your downline while neglecting your customers, and vice versa. Both are important to being successful in direct sales.

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