Why Do Direct Sales Companies Disallow Online Advertising
Today, I received an email from a fairly large company that recently turned to direct sales...asking me to remove a banner on my website. The banner was purchased by a rep of that company and she paid Linda to have that banner placed on my site. The banner makes no mention of the actual company name.
Of course, I was kind of irked that the person from this company (or supposedly from this company - how am I REALLY to know?) contacted me to remove the banner because it violated their consultant agreement. The consultant bought an ad from us and we delivered.
So, I wrote back and suggested that she contact the consultant who can then ask us to remove the banner. I haven't heard anything back and Linda still hasn't taken the banner down over 12 hours later. So, I don't know what's up...but I really don't think it's up to us to make these judgments, do you?
BUT...the main point of my rambling post is that, why do these direct sales companies get so hung up on net advertising? These are the companies that fall behind when they restrict their reps this way. Let's face it, a majority of the people that go for these direct sales opportunities are moms and they want to work from HOME. They don't necessarily want to tote their wares to party after party each night, just to make a few bucks. The Internet provides a terrific opportunity, so why do these companies waste it?
Even Pampered Chef moved into the 21st century and gave their reps websites and allowed them to advertise. I'm sure they would say the benefits have been monstrous.
I guess the company in question from the banner fiasco had a rep email spamming and so they nixed all the Internet advertising. How shortsighted, especially for such a large company (if you have kids - believe me, you have their products in your house) who should be able to see this. I guess I can understand the fear about email marketing and limiting that somehow, but how does somebody advertising on a website pose a problem like that?
I dunno..this ground-floor opportunity may be moving to the basement and it's flooded and cold down there. :(
Of course, I was kind of irked that the person from this company (or supposedly from this company - how am I REALLY to know?) contacted me to remove the banner because it violated their consultant agreement. The consultant bought an ad from us and we delivered.
So, I wrote back and suggested that she contact the consultant who can then ask us to remove the banner. I haven't heard anything back and Linda still hasn't taken the banner down over 12 hours later. So, I don't know what's up...but I really don't think it's up to us to make these judgments, do you?
BUT...the main point of my rambling post is that, why do these direct sales companies get so hung up on net advertising? These are the companies that fall behind when they restrict their reps this way. Let's face it, a majority of the people that go for these direct sales opportunities are moms and they want to work from HOME. They don't necessarily want to tote their wares to party after party each night, just to make a few bucks. The Internet provides a terrific opportunity, so why do these companies waste it?
Even Pampered Chef moved into the 21st century and gave their reps websites and allowed them to advertise. I'm sure they would say the benefits have been monstrous.
I guess the company in question from the banner fiasco had a rep email spamming and so they nixed all the Internet advertising. How shortsighted, especially for such a large company (if you have kids - believe me, you have their products in your house) who should be able to see this. I guess I can understand the fear about email marketing and limiting that somehow, but how does somebody advertising on a website pose a problem like that?
I dunno..this ground-floor opportunity may be moving to the basement and it's flooded and cold down there. :(
6 Comments:
I have always wondered the same thing. I just recently had someone ask me to remove their ad off my site because the company had a no advertising policy.
I think it makes the rep unable to fully work their business. It must be hard to not be able to advertise online. I don't think I would join a company ever that had that type of rule.
Alice this has been a personal pet peeve of mine too.
Some Direct Sales and Network Marketing companies are shooting themselves in the foot with these rules that tie the distributor's hands.
They claim that the rule prevents the reputation of the company from declining, but that's exactly what is happening with one large nutritional company, and another large skin care and cosmetics company. And the blind ads are getting the distributors in trouble. People feel that they are misled, and that they have to jump through hoops to even find out what the products are that they will be marketing!
The companies that are allowing internet marketing and providing free or low cost websites to their reps are "with it" and as a result are growing faster.
Some of these dinosaur companies will need to get with the program if they don't want to continue losing reps to these other companies.
Carrie
Amen, preach it sista :)
There are a bunch of jewelry companies that are being stubborn on this issue and it drives me crazy because it makes it very hard to buy something, let alone sell something!
Totally agree Alice! I've had some similar problems with reps contacting me from the company you are talking about (and yes I know the company in question!) asking me to change this and change that so it's not in violation. My first thought was "How rediculous for this company to change their agreement when so many reps have paid for advertising every where. Isn't that illegal?". If it's not illegal, it should be. At the very least these reps should be reimbursed for the money they put into building this business online.
Anyway, completely agree!
This would be the deep dark question in the back of my mind too. I've also been contacted to remove advertising that had been paid for. (And again, same company) When this new company opened I truly believed there was great potential there. Now, I've even been contacted by a few reps that have already dropped out because of the "new rules".
The sad part is that there seems to be more and more direct sales companies jumping on the "no online advertising" bandwagon. Something that I've been passing on to all that are looking for a direct sales company is to make a list of what they want to be able to do. Like you mentioned, most have plans of keeping their business online.
Something I just don't get is WHY?? I don't understand it and don't think I ever will. My goal is to get my business name out there as much as possible. Not to hide what I actually am.
Online advertising would be really good. I appreciate it as well as it's well organized. The one thing that I can't stand though is adware programs that allow people to just litter pages and links with ads that become spyware programs and are really tough to remove from your browser. That drives me crazy.
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