Helping the DSA seize the sales opportunity
Industry
Direct selling
Location
“The nature of the business has changed considerably since I first took it over, where door-to-door sales were strong in the early days, but non-existent in the membership now.”
“The DSA scrutinises companies that want to join to make sure their operation is legal, but we also look out for those not applying, which can mean they are running illegal pyramid schemes.”
Overview
Direct selling has come a long way from the door-knocking salesperson with the perfect patter.
Social media has had a huge impact on the industry, altering the approach in many cases but also creating fresh opportunities.
It remains a challenging industry, with good profit margins, personal interaction, low maintenance costs and good reach into potential new markets balanced against high staff turnover, reputational challenges and competition.
The Direct Selling Association of New Zealand is the national trade association that supports companies that market products and services directly to consumers through an independent, entrepreneurial salesforce.
It’s a member of the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations (WFDSA) and was a founding member in 1979.
The WFDSA serves to protect, serve and promote the effectiveness of member companies and the independent businesspeople it represents, to ensure member companies’ products and the direct selling opportunity is conducted to the highest level of business ethics.
DSA New Zealand is made up mostly of multinational companies but includes some domestic businesses such as EMA Members Nutrimetics, Nu Skin and World Organics Ltd.
The Need
DSA New Zealand needed an Executive Director to take charge of organising and running a wide range of activities and representing the organisation across the breadth of government to ensure both the profile and the concerns of the DSA were being heard.
For this, the DSA turned to the EMA’s team of manufacturing and industry group experts for its regulatory and compliance prowess.
The EMA’s Executive Director of Manufacturing and Industry Groups, Garth Wyllie, has been the Executive Director for 30 years. Since November 2014, he has served as Chairman for the Association Services Committee of the WFDSA.
Wyllie has now been on the board of the WFDSA for 26 years and also chaired their Association Services Committee for the past nine years, which focuses on improving the performance of direct selling associations globally.
There are currently 62 DSAs across 94 markets in which multinational companies operate.
The Solution
“The nature of the business has changed considerably since I first took it over, where door-to-door sales were strong in the early days, but non-existent in the membership now,” says Wyllie. “On the flip side, social media selling has skyrocketed while the more traditional meetings to promote the business has dropped back, mostly thanks to Covid and lockdowns.”Currently, across the New Zealand companies, there are 89,000 direct sellers and 42 companies that are members of the DSA.
“Most of the businesses operate a network or multi-level marketing model, where independent contractors build up a network of people and receive rewards from the sales of products.”EMA Members Nutrimetics and World Organics both use party plan – hosting social events at which products are offered for sale – to generate sales, but with a network marketing model for the rewards. New Image, also an EMA Member, uses pure network marketing to achieve sales globally. Sometimes, network marketing is confused by some as a pyramid scheme. “However, pyramid schemes are illegal and there is a difference,” says Wyllie. This is where the EMA’s regulatory and compliance skills come to the fore.
“The DSA scrutinises companies that want to join to make sure their operation is legal, but we also look out for those not applying, which can mean they are running illegal pyramid schemes. “In the case of those that are illegal, I will firstly look to see if they are a member of a DSA elsewhere in the world and if so look to have them fix their sales plan to be legal. For any others, I report immediately to the Commerce Commission.”Wyllie gathers the sales statistics from the DSA member companies in New Zealand and provides them to the WFDSA Global Statistics Committee, which he also oversees and appoints the chair of.
“The meetings on this and in my role as chair often means midnight calls, as we tend to work to Washington time.”It’s the 50th anniversary of the DSA in New Zealand this year, and Wyllie says the association is planning an event to celebrate that milestone.
