Home Business – Being Prepared For Emergencies

When it comes to having a home based Direct Sales business, it is important to be prepared for life’s little and big emergencies. By being prepared ahead of time, your business can still operate in your absence.

What do I mean? What if your child, husband, parents or even yourself becomes sick and you need immediate time off? What if there is a death in your family? What if a natural disaster occurs in your area? Is your home business prepared for your absence?

Lets remember…if your business is closed due to an emergency…you are not making any money!

Once way you can be prepared ahead of time is by making a list of everything that you need covered in your business. Here is an example list:

1. Answering emails
2. Returning phone calls to customers, clients, leads, etc.
3. Submitting pending orders.
4. Packaging and shipping.
5. Demonstrating at home parties & events that are already booked & on your calendar.

As you can see, that is just a short list, but there is a lot that needs to be covered in a home business should you need some time off.

As a home business owner, I decided to train a local consultant to me to cover me should I need time off. This consultant would go out and do my parties, events, submit orders, run training meetings and so forth.

If you are a Direct Sales home business owner, I suggest you find someone that you can trust who is willing to be trained by you…to handle your business should a personal emergency would occur. This person should be able to step into your shoes and run your business until you can return.

Customers, clients, hosts, recruit leads, etc. will not wait days or even weeks for your return. Most of the time, these people will move on another consultant who can help them so in essence…you lose business.

Do you have a back up plan in place should an emergency crop up and you need time off?

Shelly

How To Set Up A Direct Sales Business Blog

When it comes to Direct Sales, many consultants these days are chosing to start an online business blog as a way to reach out to their established customers but more importantly…as a way to attract new ones.

Before you make the decision to start a business blog, you need to contact your Direct Sales Company to make sure you are allowed to have one online & to see if they have any company rules regarding online advertising. You also need to make sure you have the time to stick with updating your blog before you even get started.

After you have made the decision, it’s now time to decide where you want to build your blog online. Two of the most popular sites for online blogging is Blogger and Wordpress. You will want to open up an account and get your blog set up. Once you open up an account, you can pick out a design. There are thousands of free online blogger and wordpress templates for you to choose from. Once you select one, you need to install it onto your blog.

Now that you have that completed, it’s time to get busy making some posts onto your blog. When it comes to blogging about your business, it is important to keep your new blog strictly about business and not your personal life. In addition, you don’t want your blog to come off as a big fat spam ad…so make sure you fill it up with informative content about your company, your services, your products and so forth. Once you got some content onto your blog, it will be time to advertise its web address.

You can advertise your blog online by joining a few online blog directories, putting your link in your signature tag, announcing it on your Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In Accounts and so forth. There are many ways to advertise online and you can find additional ways to do that by reading other articles here on our blog.

My best tip about blogging for business is to keep at it. People don’t just magically find your blog…just like they don’t just magically find your business services, so it’s your job to promote your new blog & to keep it fresh & updated with new posts.

Happy Blogging!

Shelly

How to Move Your To-Do list to DONE!

It’s our pleasure to have Melissa H. Dery, The Golden Rule Virtual Assistant (VA) as our guest blogger. She offers her expertise and discuss how a Virtual Assistant can alleviate your daily work load so you can focus on the other aspects of your business.

Thank you Melissa for sharing with us such a great blog post!

Take a moment and look at your current To-Do list. What are the tasks you keep moving from one-day to the next because you just don’t have the time or the desire to get them done? These are the tasks that you know will help your business grow, keep you organized and prepared. However, each day you have good intentions to get them done, but other pressing tasks like talking with customers, meeting with prospects and training new team members takes priority. This is where delegating can be vitally helpful to taking your business to the next level. This is how a Virtual Assistant can help move your business forward.

There are many different definitions of what a Virtual Assistant (VA) is, the way I explain it is, I’ve been an administrative professional for over 20 years, I just decided to provide the same professional services virtually. While you work from home building and growing your direct sales business, I work from my home to provide you the support services you need to help you gain more time in front of customers, prospects and team members.

When you took a look at your To-Do list, did it include the following tasks?

•Send invitations for current parties
•Enter new customers into database
•Create a system to organize contacts and schedule follow-ups
•Send thank you, birthday, anniversary cards to customers, team members
•Create and send a newsletter to customers
•Create and send a newsletter to team members

These are just a few examples of projects I’m working on with direct sales superstars like you. There are many ways a VA can help support your business so that you can focus on growing your business. Take some time to review your to-do list and see what tasks you would love to turnover and get done! Schedule a free consultation call and let’s discuss how you can get some tasks off your to-do list and in the hands of a trusted professional.

Melissa H. Dery is The Golden Rule Virtual Assistant (VA) providing administrative support services to leaders in Direct Sales. A former direct sales consultant, who also grew up in a direct sales family, Melissa has a personal understanding of the “behind the scenes” work required to help your business run and grow.

With over 20 years of experience as an administrative assistant, Melissa took her talents as an assistant and combined it with her desire to help support those in direct sales to become The Golden Rule VA. Where her mission is to treat your business as if it were her very own, with respect, creativity and professionalism…it’s her rule!

Melissa is married to her best friend and lives in New Hampshire with her two boys. She has a Bachelor Degree in Business Management and a “Ducktoratte” Degree from Disney University. She loves coffee, running and most of all go camping with her family.

Business Blogging – Topics That Can Drive Readers Away

When it comes to blogging for your business, you really need to pay attention to the type of posts you are putting up for your readers to read. If you post the wrong topics on your business blog, you will drive your readers away which defeats the purpose of blogging for your business.

I read hundreds of blogs each and every week. Some of these blogs are business blogs, some are personal blogs and some are a mixture of both (which I totally disagree about mixing business & pleasure together on a blog).

There are some topics that should never be discussed on a business blog (unless you have a business blog that is totally geared towards a certain industry) and I would like to touch upon those today.

When a customer or potential customer is reading your business blog, they don’t want to read about the following topics:

Your Love Life
Your Home Life Is A Mess
Your Spouse Left You
Hate Words, Curse Words, etc.
Your Neighbors or Your Boss
etc. etc. etc.

A Business Blog is just that…a place where you can share information with others about your business, the types of products or services you offer and a place for you to give indepth service & product knowledge. It is a place to give your readers more information about your business…it is not a place to gossip about your love life, your family or your neighbors.

Case In Point: Just last week I went to check out a persons business blog…but yet…when I got onto her blog, 90% of the posts were chit chat family and personal stuff. What turned me off even more was when I saw a lot of inappropriate language (including curse words) on what she calls “Her Business Blog”. Geesh, that is one sure fire way to drive your readers away for sure and more importantly, it makes you like UNPROFESSIONAL.

So here is my advice….if you want to post chit chat family stuff, you are better off to make a second blog. Keep one blog for business and one for personal.

You want to draw potential customers to you and not drive them away.

Shelly

Balancing Your Business Budget – Demo Products

When it comes to having a home based Direct Sales business, it is very easy to not balance our business demonstration budget.

We are often times enticed by our home company to buy all of the new demonstration products that are released each season…this can all add up to hundreds of dollars that you spend every year purchasing demo products.

I always like to train my downline consultants to stay ‘within’ their business budget when it comes to purchasing demonstration products. You don’t need every new great product that your company comes out with to show at your home parties and events. I recommend getting just a few items that you feel will be big sellers. Personally, I try to stay away from seasonal items because I don’t want to be stuck with those demo’s after the season ends…so if you do buy seasonal items, keep it limited to just a few.

If you are just getting started, I recommend just getting 3-5 new products every season…if you are a seasoned consultant with a big party line-up, then go ahead and purchase more.

Tax Tip: When purchasing demo’s make sure you keep your receipts for tax time as these items can be applied to your business expenses.

It is important to keep our business in-check when it comes to our spending and one way we can do that is by keeping an eye on how many demo products we buy each season.

Shelly

Don’t Disguise Sales Spam As Newsletters

When it comes to writing and creating an effective newsletter that you email out to your customers & clients, you need to keep the sales ads to a minimum.

Don’t draft up a slew of product sales ads and recruiting business opportunity ads and then disguise it (name it a newsletter) and email it out to your customers. If you do, you will lose subscribers really quickly!

A newsletter should contain helpful and educational information about the products you are trying to market. You can included customer/client testimonials, a blurb about your business opportunity, etc in the newsletter but it certainly should not be full of nothing but sales ads.

Think about newsletters like this: If you signed up to get company X’s newsletter and it arrived in your inbox and you opened it up to find NOTHING but 15 sales ads inside it. Would this turn you off? It would me! I want to know why I need a product, how to use a product, features of the product and how this product can fit into my life. Give me a reason to want to purchase it besides that its on sale for a great price.

Newsletters to me are a tool to reach customers and its a valuable tool if done correctly.

So instead of disgusing your sales ads and naming them as newsletters…put some time & effort into your newsletter and educate your customers about the products you are selling.

Shelly

Direct Sales and Door to Door Marketing

Often times I am asked by Direct Sales consultants if door to door marketing works? If my opinion, it depends on the company you are marketing for.

For example: If you are marketing let’s say ‘cookware’ then door to door marketing usually doesn’t work. However, if you are marketing for a company that sells ‘cosmetics and skincare items’ (like Avon) then door to door marketing can work.

If you are planning a door to door marketing campaign, please realize that it can get expensive. Often times you will need catalogs, brochures, fliers, samples, business cards and then some door hanger bags incase the resident isn’t home so you can leave a catalog and information. All of those items can cost a lot of money if you are marketing on a grand scale.

My personal recommendation for those who are interested in trying door to door marketing is to take it slow and to start out on a small scale.

You should try just your neighbors in your neighborhood first and see what kind of reception you get. (perhaps 15-20 for your first marketing campaign). If things go well and you get some orders or a party booking, you can increase your marketing strategy.

It is better to start small and work your way up. After all, you are in Direct Sales to make money and not waste it.

Have you ever tried any door to door marketing? Did it work for you or was it a failure? Do you have any door to door marketing tips to share with our readers?

Shelly

The Work At Home Mom Work Schedule

When it comes to working from home and working your Direct Sales home business, do you have a work schedule or do you just ‘wing it’ and fit in business whenever you can?

If you answered ‘wing it’ then I can tell you that you are doing the wrong thing! When it comes to having a home business, you need to take your business seriously and set down a work schedule for yourself. This schedule can be a few hours every day or several hours a week…but you do indeed need a work schedule.

When you set up a work schedule for yourself, you will find that you will get more work tasks completed and that means business growth. You should try to mix up your schedule too…like working some days in the morning, some days in the afternoon and some days in the evening. By mixing up your schedule, you are being a little more flexible for your customers & party hosts who might not be available during the daytime.

You should also be flexible about working on some weekends as some of your customers & party hosts will only be available during those times because they work FT jobs during the week.

Sure…your family and children are important but so is your home business! You need to set aside scheduled time to work on your business and if you do that, you should see your home business flourish.

So…lets go back to my original question. Do you have a work schedule or do you just ‘wing it’? What are your thoughts on this topic? Please feel free to leave me comments :)

Shelly

The Importance Of Explaining Your Warranty, Returns and Exchange Policy To Customers

When it comes to Direct Sales and demonstrating your business products at home parties, it is important to take time out to explain your company’s warranty, returns and exchange policy to all of your home party guests.

Customers who attend your home parties have the right to know your business policy up front before they place an order. There are a few ways you can approach this but I feel its best to do it at the beginning of the ordering process, in other words…before your customer starts filling out the order form.

You can go over your company’s policy several different ways, However, I like to do a combination of ways to ensure that my customers know the policy. Here is how I handle it.

1. After talking about my products and before I have the guests fill out the order forms, I like to spend 5 minutes talking about my particular company’s policy and I do this in a group setting…near the end of my demonstration time period.

2. My company has the policy printed in the catalog so I tab that particular page with tab-type stickers.

3. My company has the policy imprinted on the back of our order forms so when each customer hands me their order form, I like to ask them if they have any questions about my company’s policy.

By spending a few minutes at your home parties explaining your company’s policy to all of your party guests, you will save yourself time, money and a headache down the road. Customers have the right to know your business policy before they give you an order so its in your best business interest to spend time explaining it to them.

What are your thoughts? Do you spend time talking about this at your home parties? If so, is it in a group setting or one on one with your customers?

Shelly

It’s Just Not About Selling Your Products

When it comes to having a Direct Sales home business, its just not about selling your products to your customers. Direct Sales and Network Marketing is also about building relationships with your customers, party hosts, team members, etc.

Many times a consultant gets too focused in pushing the product sale that they forget about building a trustworthy business relationship with the customer/client.

One of the ways you can build a relationship with your customer is to keep in contact with them. Let the customer know that you appreciate their business and that you are there for them when then need additional items.

When I work on building a relationship with my customers and clients, I like to talk to them about some generic personal topics…such as: Are they married, have children, hobbies, holidays, vacation plans and so forth. By allowing some personal chit-chat when you are conversing with customers/clients, this opens up the door to some ‘personal’ relationship building.

Studies have shown that customers/clients are more apt to do business with you or refer their friends and family to you…if they feel like they have a good business & personal relationship with you. It reminds me of the old saying “Customers will do business with those they know & trust” so its your job to get to know your customers and to let your customers get to know you.

When you take the time to build relationships with those who you come into contact with…this will lead to future sales, additional party bookings, new team members and so forth. Relationship building is well worth your time & effort and should be done on a consistent basis.

How do you like to build relationships with your customers and clients?

Shelly

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