ABEVD Conference on Incentives has surprising results

The ABEVD / DIRECTBIZ conference held last Thursday, July 22 2004 which had as its theme “The Recruitment and Incentive Campaigns of Direct Sales”, surprised us as being one of the best in recent history.

With relevant speakers and debates at the highest level, the event measured up to the impressive audience attracted by the theme.

The tone of the conference was established by the brilliant presentation by Marco Antônio Ferreira – Director of Research of Yakult S/A, who gave a real lesson on marketing applied to the channel of direct sales. Despite being technical and detailed in nature, his presentation was also very clear, showing the importance of being socially responsible in this business.

Next, we heard from Walquiria Gasparoto, the new Director of Training at Sara Lee of Brazil, who showed how the philosophy and the concept of a company are fundamental to having a sustainable business over the long term.

The last event of the morning, a panel entitled “Is it better to recruit and train new vendors, or collaborate with current vendors already active in the sector?”, enjoyed the participation of the two speakers, as well as the consultant Marcel Alves from DirectBiz and the distributor Lucy, from Ceraflame, who really set the panel on fire as she spoke about her experience as a successful distributor in direct sales for more than a decade. In her testimony, she practically opposed everything presented, emphasizing quantity and not quality. Lucy admitted to having an extremely low retention rate and very little loyalty to the brand she represents, but her numbers were still very impressive. Just then, Fran, a distributor for Natura that was in the audience at the event, interjected to the contrary, explaining that she also has worked in the sector for more than a decade, but with the principles of fidelity and loyalty to the brand, and has had a much greater rate of retention. The other participants were very careful in restating their positions, but it was evident that the expectations of the company and of an actual distributor can be very different.

After lunch, it was time for the consultant Marcelo Pinheiro from DirectBiz to present some numbers from the market and emphasize how necessary it is that business have a department (or persons) dedicated to the marketing channel of direct sales, taking care of things like “recruitment”, “training”, “incentives” and “recognition” as well as the products. The lecture was complemented by the presentation of Sueli, Director of the Sim Group (A recognized marketing agency), who spoke in detail about relationships and the importance of recognition to retain and build winning teams.

The greatest impact however came with a presentation by Gilberto Guitti, Country Manager of Tahitian Noni International Brazil. With innovative principles and a very clear position, he demonstrated why the American company is one of the fastest growing companies in history. Tahitian Noni uses the proprietary concept of “Access Marketing”, derived from multilevel marketing, which raises the importance of long-term relationships to an extreme level. Despite its unique characteristics, Tahitian Noni was very well received and reinforced the concepts of sustainability presented in the previous lectures.

To end the day, a panel entitled “Do Sales Incentive Campaigns encourage all sales channels, or do they eternally reward the same top distributors?” included all of the afternoon speakers, as well as the consultant Sergio Buzia, President of the Chance Network. Generally speaking, all agreed that the incentive campaigns always end up rewarding the same people, and that they must be revised to include a more ample view. The focus of this panel ended up centering on Tahitian Noni. Gilberto Guitti responded to various questions about the business model of the company and Sergio Buaiz explained the differences between the monolevel and multilevel models in relation to incentives. While in monolevel direct sales the campaigns are temporary and stimulate immediate productivity, with multilevel there is a program of progressive qualifications and recognitions to find and build leaders.

In summary, this conference went far beyond the original theme, highlighting not only the ways to recruit and reward isolated distributors, but also (and most importantly) the strategies and concepts that some companies have been using to create identity and recognition, leading to greater retention.

The next ABEVD / DIRECTBIZ conference will take place at the beginning of September, with the theme “New Technologies for the Automation of Direct Sales”.

This article appeared in the 23rd of July issue of Brasilian Association for Direct Selling Companies and is reproduced with permission.