The cross-age nature of Direct Sales

For a long time, we have become accustomed to viewing age as a kind of professional label. Younger people were seen as too inexperienced; older people, as less adaptable or out of touch with innovation. This view, which is still prevalent in many organisations, often results in a waste of talent fuelled by generational prejudices.

In a constantly changing labour market, diversity can be a competitive advantage: generations working side by side, sharing the same professional space, bringing with them different experiences, perspectives and ways of thinking, communicating and working. The OECD itself concluded, in its report *Promoting an Age-Inclusive Workforce*, that companies with greater age diversity tend to be more productive, precisely because of the synergy between experience and innovation.

At the same time, Europe’s demographic reality makes this discussion unavoidable. By 2024, over 21 per cent of the European Union’s population was already aged over 65 (Eurostat), a figure that will continue to rise in the coming decades. In Portugal, the ageing population is forcing a rethink of traditional models for attracting talent.

Few sectors illustrate this cross-generational nature as well as direct selling. There are few business models that manage to bring together such a diverse range of people and foster such natural collaboration between generations. Perhaps this is because, at its core, direct selling continues to rely on things that no technology can fully replace: human relationships, trust and the ability to communicate.

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in sapo.pt – By Gee Soares, Vice-President of the IPVD and Managing Director of Herbalife