Tip Tuesday

There are a TON of places to get information. We need to become sponges and absorb absolutely everything we can so we can stand out from the crowd and be known as a “highly trained professional”. Use the resources on ThirtyOneToday.com to constantly improve your booking, selling and sponsoring skills! Are there conference calls available? Put them in your datebook and make an appointment to BE ON THEM.

Social Media and Your Direct Sales Business

Obviously we are all on social media and we have all seen others using Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and Google+ to promote their direct sales business but how do you do the same? How do you know what to post and when to post let alone how to come up with enough content for at least one post per day to each platform?

7 Foolproof Steps That Make It Easy To Recruit Anyone

I recently came across this post by the amazing Julie Anne Jones, on her blog, Julieannejones.com - Have More Time, Team Members and Income.  We all know that building our team is key in the direct sales business but often people are reluctant to attend events where they feel they are going to be leveraged to join, marketed to, or feel pressured to join.  WE know these events are not meant to be intimidating in any way however that is not always the case for our guest.  Read on to discover 7 Foolproof Steps that Make it Easy to Recruit Anyone. 

Theme Parties Work!

If there is one thing I love it's a great blog or pinterest board with lots of ideas to share with YOU.  I recently came across this AMAZING blog by Lynn Bardowski, Millions Party Girl.  Her blog and website are packed full of great ideas and very valuable insight.  Lynn is a multi-million dollar revenue generating direct sales entrepreneur.  I knew when I came across the great post below I had to share.  Enjoy. 

Get In The Game With Direct Sales

Are you struggling with creative marketing ideas after the rush of the Holiday Season and feeling a little burnt out? With SB 50 right around the corner and the entire country thinking about The Big Game why not bring your business to the bleachers and take advantage of the excitement with some really Fun Football Themed Ideas?  Here are a few of my favorites that are sure to score a touchdown with your audience...

To Do List Overwhelming? Try this!

So I'm juggling a lot in my life right now...my business, my household, and also settling up my mom's estate. Maybe some of you can relate to the whole "running around like a crazy person" thing I have going on. I seem to be plugging away at stuff constantly, but nothing feels like it's getting accomplished. I haven't been doing a good job sticking to my regular schedule, so today I decided it was time for a change-up.

This will change your direct sales business

If you're like me, you sometimes fall behind on life. It happens. I'm there right now. Through a series of events that were some completely within my control and some that were not, I've completely fallen out of my routines and systems that I worked so hard to create.

This is not a tragedy.

All you can do, honestly, it start back up again. So I am. Step one is going to be my email inbox. I am typically very structured when it comes to cleaning out my inbox. I prefer to have less than 25 emails in my inbox at any given time. Everything else is either deleted or sorted into the appropriate folder/sub-folder to file away in case I need it. Currently there are over 600 emails in my inbox. This drives me insane so it's time to fix it!!!

I spent a lot of time developing this system, and it works wonders for me (when I work it). If you're in direct sales, this might be helpful to you.

First off, under your inbox, create a folder for your home office emails. So mine is 31 Corporate. Underneath that folder, create subfolders for anything you get a lot of emails on...for example, my subfolders are Shipping Notices, Leads, Leadership, Commissions and Incentives, and Meetings. Any email that comes in from my home office will generally fit into one of those sub-categories, and if not it goes into the main 31 Corporate folder.

Next, and these are the most exciting, I want you to create monthly folders...so my main folder is called 31 Monthly Folders. Underneath that I have the following:

• a. January 2015
• b. February 2015
• c. March 2015

And so on. Then, under each of those monthly folders is where the magic happens. For every party, event, open house, vendor fair, etc. that you are participating in, you will create that event folder underneath the appropriate month. If you have 7 parties and 2 vendor events in March, then March is going to have 9 sub-folders, each named with the name of the host or the event. EVERY SINGLE PIECE of correspondence regarding that party or event is going to go into that folder. Every email from the hostess, every RSVP from the guests, every order notification from online orders. Everything. This is a GAME CHANGER. You will never again have to search through hundreds of emails to find info on a specific party again. Trust me, try it.

The other big one is you HAVE to have a place to file all those great ideas that show up in  your inbox that you MIGHT some day want to try out for your business. You know, those great post from company groups on Facebook that you're in a million of and will never ever find the post again if you don't save it? I know I have a ton of those mysefl!!! I call this folder 31 Ideas and have sub-folders like Party Ideas, Hostess Gifts, Fundraisers, Vendor Events. etc. Now every great idea that you honestly might really implement or try out has a place to go that isn't just your inbox, and if you find yourself looking for new Vendor Event ideas you know right where to look!

Okay, so mind blown? The rest of the folders are fairly easy, such as 31 Team, where I put all my team correspondence (sub-folders for Newsletter, Assistant, Weekly News).

Because I use just one email address for both my personal email and my business email, I also have a folder called Personal, and that has sub-folders for the kids, their sports (one for each sport), their school, a spot for emails from friends, etc. The whole point of all of this is to have a place for everything that you need to save.

I'm not going to lie, setting up this system and sorting through potentially thousands of neglected emails in your inbox is not going to be fun or easy. But I promise you it's totally worth it. And once you have it done, maintaining it is as simple as 30 minutes a week (scheduled into your calendar, which I will address in a future post on time management).

Now, time for me to go clean up a few weeks worth of neglect in my inbox. Good luck, all!