How to Train and Engage Downlines in the Right Way

Distributors might not be able to see each other face-to-face on a regular basis; they might feel alone in the field, distant from the team. Uplines and field leaders wonder: how do I make sure my team is inspired and engaged?

Here are three actionable ways to inspire and engage teams, even from afar. Read on to learn how to organically increase downline performance and ensure that distributors are consistently prepared, enthusiastic, and goal-oriented.

What Is a Downline in Direct Selling?

In direct selling, a downline is a group of network of individuals who have joined a particular company as independent distributors or representatives. They’ve done so under a sponsor. The sponsor is typically an existing distributor who has recruited and enrolled the new distributors into the business.

The downline includes all distributors who are placed beneath a particular distributor in the hierarchy. This means that the sponsor is at the top of the hierarchy. New distributors that they recruit end up directly underneath them. This is called their downline. Any new distributors that the recruits bring in are placed beneath them in their downline, and so on. So theoretically every downline can become an upline eventually. And every upline could be a downline to someone else.

The downline structure is vital in direct selling. It is the basis for compensation structures in the business. It determines the structure for each distributor’s sales and the sales of those in their downline. It’s hard to imagine a direct selling business outside of this structure.

Typically, companies calculate commissions thruogh downline sales volume. The distributor’s personal sales play a role as well.

Conseequently, the larger and more productive a downline is, the more potential there is for a distributor to earn income from their direct selling business.

Top 3 Motivation Tips for Direct Selling Field Leaders 

1. Training Needs to Be Actionable

Humans like to learn. Though scientists are still figuring out exactly why and how we learn, research shows that learning and motivation both stimulate our brain’s pleasure centers.

The fact is that people spend most of their time making an income or business building. So it stands to reason that there should be opportunities for training throughout the workday to keep them engaged, motivated, and happy.

Thankfully, modern technology makes team education possible, and even easy, in the age of remote work. For distributed direct sellers in the field, each day can offer a game-style educational experience—with all the motivation that follows from community-based recognition.

Rallyware’s direct selling software opens a team-wide learning funnel, flowing from upline leaders to downline sellers in the field. Rallyware enables uplines to mentor their downlines about:

• Best marketing and prospecting practices
• Customer reengagement techniques
• Business building tools and strategies. 

Of course, the most motivated distributors are the ones who become superstars, evangelists for your brand, as many of Rallyware’s global-scale customers have seen in the past. The good news is that motivation and superstardom are not static figures but can be dynamically changed through technology. In our digital age, direct sales motivation is a direct result of the technology you’re giving the field access to. But you have to make sure it’s the right technology. Poorly structured technology depletes motivation. Unified, consolidated, easy-to-use technology increases it.

In direct selling, actionable distributor training is essential, as learning without purpose is futile. Providing downlines and uplines with smart to-dos ensures training translates into tangible results. This approach, supported by real-time performance tracking and digital tools, drives productivity and success, equipping the workforce to excel practically.

2. Inspire Your Distributors to Become Superstars

Superstar distributors make for a superstar enterprise. But superstars aren’t simply born—they’re made through practice, inspiration, and encouragement.

Whereas in the “olden days” of direct sales, inspiration might come from field leader pep talks, inspiration today can be crafted from statistics and data using Rallyware’s performance learning and enablement tools. Inspiration doesn’t just happen. Direct sales motivation doesn’t come out of nowhere. It has to be created, even automated. After all, downlines are often huge, and our experiences today are more digital.

Rallyware takes much of the burden of results-tracking off the shoulders of leaders by automatically slotting high-performance distributors into the more ambitious “Superstar” learning track. High performers get the recognition that is so critical in retention and performance, while their teammates cheer them on and get inspired to work and learn even harder.

Let’s consider an example. Jane has been doing direct sales for six months, and her company has just started using Rallyware. She exercises before work and takes care of the family in the evening, and though she excels at her job, she’s begun to feel less motivated and more drained when it comes to building her own business and driving her sales.

Yet now that Jane has Rallyware, she can prove to herself how talented she is at direct sales while inspiring her teammates with her success. The moment she sees that she’s automatically earned Superstar status, she lights up and gets that extra bounce in her step. Because her peers sense how happy she is to receive recognition, they’re inspired to level-up as well.

3. In Downline Motivation, Personalization Is Key

If you’ve ever whiled away the time playing games on an app, you know about badges and rewards. Imagine if you could create that kind of connection to technology that drives business results. The thing is, game-like elements alone aren’t enough. The game elements have to matter to the end user.

Rallyware isn’t a flat platform that gives every distributor the same experience. Rather, Rallyware grows and changes, offering new rewards depending on the progress achieved in relation to your personal goals. Direct sales team motivation is largely about goal-reaching—how close am I to my ideal?—and Rallyware personalizes this process – from setting up unique goals to navigating each distributor towards their achievement.

• Goal-based encouragement: Each team member gets individualized goals depending on the progress they’ve made so far.  
• Smart progress: Rallyware details the steps needed to reach each goal, so that individuals always have a helping hand and are never in the dark.
• Rewards and recognition: Rallyware stimulates the game-playing part of the brain by rewarding distributors with points and awards that matter most to each individual.

Rallyware makes work performance not only educational and satisfying, but fun. Humans are driven by goals and the feeling of reaching them. There’s very little more pleasurable in life than finally getting 100% of the way to your destination—a feeling that Rallyware digitalizes and makes available for downline distributors.

Direct Sales Motivation, Remote Age

Rallyware embeds motivation into day-to-day work processes. For a distributed workforce to maximize success and motivation, it is equally important that downlines feel engaged with their tasks and that uplines have insights to make the right decisions on how to encourage and coach their teams. Rallyware not only helps you make those decisions, but automates all the daily tasks and activities that lead each distributor step by step towards their success.  

Curious about how Rallyware catalyzes distributors to raise their productivity +32%?
Request a demo today and see this Performance Enablement Platform in action.