Facebook Live Contributor: The Newest Collaboration Tool to Grow Your Direct Sales Biz

It was almost three decades ago that I learned about harnessing the power of collaboration to launch my direct sales business. You see, I didn’t have a big list. In fact, no one in my warm market wanted to book a party.

But, here’s what no one tells you. You don’t need a big contact list to build a successful direct sales business. What you do need is to find other people who do. My solution was to reach out to the manager of a local women’s gym to see if she wanted to collaborate to grow both our businesses. I told her I would send referrals her way, in exchange for a (free) vendor table during her busiest aerobics class where I’d give away a prize by random drawing. That one action step resulted in six parties with total strangers…hostesses who actually wanted to host a party. By my second month, I’d recruited six Consultants on my team and in six months, I said goodbye to my corporate career forever.

Fast forward to today. Thanks to a new feature called Facebook Live Contributor, you can collaborate virtually with like-minded bloggers, small biz owners, experts and even customers. Facebook started rolling out Facebook Live Contributor to Pages in late February (give or take) of 2017, and it first appeared on my page in April. Simply put, you can invite anyone to go live on your page to contribute content. For example, if you sell jewelry, reach out to a stylist or style blogger to share a tip on #TrendyTuesday. Choose your contributors wisely so your collaboration efforts offer value to everyone involved – expanding both your fan and customer base. I reached out to my friends at CinchShare to be my first Facebook Live Contributor on the Million Dollar Party Girl page, creating a Thursday morning show called The Weekly Cinch. Melanie from CinchShare will be sharing insider reveals, Facebook Party and Group tips, and more! Watch the first show here.

To see if you have Facebook Live Contributor go to your Page > Settings > Page Roles > Assign A New Page Role. Click on the drop down menu and click on Live Contributor. You’ll need to be Facebook friends first, and your contributor will be going live from their personal profile via the Facebook app on their smartphone.

Here’s 5 ideas on how you can use Facebook Live Contributor to provide engaging content, while growing your fan (and customer) base:

Unboxing: Have you seen all the celebrities unboxing their FabFitFun subscription boxes in your newsfeed? They grew a mega business by collaborating with influencers. So can you. Invite your top Customers (who aren’t camera shy) to go live on your page and unbox their recent order.

Hostess Haul: Ask your star Hostess of the Month – or week – to go live and share her excitement about all the products she earned, along with what she loves about Hosting.

Expert Tips: Invite a small business owner or blogger who has expertise your fans would love to host a weekly “show” on your page.

Success Stories: Your best recruiting tool is the success story of a new Consultant. Shine a light on a new Mom Boss and invite them to go live on your page to share why and how they got started.

Behind the Scenes: Having a live event? Invite a social-savvy attendee to be your roving reporter and share all the highlights.

A final tip: Provide an outline and use a simple collaboration tool, like Trello, to organize and plan your content so you are both on the same page. As the page admin you’ll have final control and in case the livestream doesn’t hit the mark, you can always delete.

Ready to really rock your direct sales biz?