Chapter 5
In This Chapter
Understanding the difference between vision and goals
Participating in company incentive programs
Exploring my proven productivity system: the Power Hour
Developing other helpful skills
Success is measured in different ways for different people. What success means to you is personal to you. Success is a journey, and it is your journey, so you shouldn’t compare your journey to someone else’s.
Whatever success looks like for you, there are certain components that are almost guaranteed to get you where you want to go. This chapter aims to offer suggestions on how to improve them in your business:
Before I explore these components in detail, I want to mention two more very quickly: Healthy habits and positive thinking.
Your vision is the big picture of what you want in life. A large part of what I do as a direct selling consultant is conduct surveys and reports to learn more about the field and gather statistics to help develop my training. Through conducting surveys and focus groups, I have found that only about 3 percent of people have a vision for their lives. According to Brian Tracy, expert on goal setting and author of Flight Plan (Berrett-Koehler, 2009), this statistic is true for people in general.
To succeed in direct sales, you must have a very clear vision of what you want. That’s because you’ll face frequent challenges, and if you’re like all the most successful direct sellers, you’ll become discouraged. That’s right. Every single person who has succeeded at direct selling has questioned themselves, and most will tell you they’ve been tempted to give up. Having a vision to strive for can keep you going.
I have made tens of thousands of dollars a month in direct selling (which was a big deal in the 1980s), and I know dozens of people who have earned that much and even more. But if I hadn’t had a very strong vision of what I wanted and why I wanted to succeed, I would have given up. If you don’t have a clear vision why you should continue to work through the challenges, you’ll be tempted to quit, too.
When I first began a career in direct sales, selling crystal, my vision was to be a rock and roll star. I know that sounds funny, but it’s absolutely true. I was a drummer in a rock band, and our gigs weren’t paying my bills. So I needed to earn money in a job with a flexible schedule that didn’t interfere with drumming and that also let me sleep in a bit on mornings after I played. Direct selling fit the bill — and paid the bills.
A few years later, I traded in my dream of being a rock star for the dream of staying home with my new baby girl. I began to take my direct sales business more seriously so I could still contribute to our household income and afford some luxuries like tiny cute outfits for her. Once again, direct selling fit in with my schedule and helped me earn money during hours that my husband could be home with our daughter. It allowed us to save substantial money for things like family trips, groceries, and yes — tiny cute outfits.
After having two children, my vision for myself and my business was to reach the top of my company’s career plan, earning a six-figure income by the time I was 30. When I was 28, I changed companies and had to start my business completely over. My goals changed (more on goals in the next section) — but my vision never did. And three months before my 30th birthday, I was promoted to the top of my company, earning $10,000 a month.
My vision now for my business is to make my training and consulting company, Step Into Success, a one-stop-shop for corporate offices, direct selling leaders, and representatives for all their direct selling and marketing needs. My vision is to continue to build my already successful business, so I can spend more time with my husband, children, and grandchildren.
Your vision will change. So don’t worry about trying to create a vision that will address every possible detour your life might take. In fact, your vision will continue to change throughout your life as you reach important milestones. Once you reach one milestone, you set a new vision for what you want in life and in business.
I’ve always updated my vision in ten-year increments — when I was 20, 30, 40, and so on. I didn’t always reach every goal, and I didn’t always get there the way I thought I would. I definitely had some bumps and detours along the way. But almost every time, I ended up where I wanted to be.
To succeed in direct selling, you must have a vision of why you want to succeed in this business.
When you join your company, your leader will sit down with you and discuss the career plan and ranks within your company, as well as the qualifications to achieve them. According to your company’s career plan, you technically become a leader when you start to bring other people into the business and achieve a leadership rank within the career/compensation plan.
But being a leader doesn’t happen automatically when you hit a leader rank in your company’s career plan. Part of what it means to be a leader is the ability to inspire others to discover their vision and their success story. You must become a student of it and help others find their why. Find the fire in your belly and then help others find the fire in their bellies. See Chapter 17 for more on what it means to be a leader.
Building vision in others is important because it helps them remember why the challenges are worth going through. As a leader, you know that whether it’s a busy personal schedule, an unorganized calendar, or personal situations, there will be challenges to building your business!
When those challenges come, your representatives will need to be able to focus on the vision they’re working toward, so the challenges are in perspective. The majority of your team members may not have a clear vision of what they want in life, so when the challenges come, they focus on the challenges. By helping them build vision, you give them staying power.
Vision and goals both contribute to success, but they are not the same thing. Success is achieving your vision by reaching the goals you set. Goals are the milestones on the way to your success.
Whenever I ask people what success looks like to them, most respond with “I don’t know.” Most representatives are fine just going with the flow and taking whatever business they receive. That is because for the most part people don’t know what success looks like for them. If you don’t know what it looks like then how do you know what you are striving for? If you don’t know what you are striving for, how are you going to know when you’ve gotten there? If you don't know that you've gotten there, how are you going to feel successful? And if you don't feel it, how are you going to project it?
For as far back as I can remember, I have been setting goals. It’s hard for me to even go through a regular day without setting a goal and achieving it — whether that be getting on the phone with a client, getting in a workout, or writing ten pages of this book.
When I was young, my goals were things like how fast I could ride my bike around the block or how many records I could collect. When I started playing drums at ten, a goal might be trying to master a technique or playing along to a particular song. Everything was always about hitting a target. Now as an adult, this habit has carried over into my life without any thought. No matter how big or small my vision is, I always set mini-goals to help get myself where I want to be.
Maybe you are afraid to set goals because you fear they are too daunting or challenging. Nonsense! For one thing, goals don’t have to be stupendous. People think goals need to be life-changing. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Goals are exactly what you need them to be. A goal could be creating an Instagram account, calling five people, or recruiting a new team member. You may be in this industry as a hobbyist or for some part-time income to help pay for the everyday things in your life like dance lessons, gas, groceries, and so on. That is your vision for your business, and your goals will align with that.
Goals are not scary. Fear paralyzes people, and most of the time, it is fear that stops them from setting goals. Fear they will fail and what others will think. Now, if I said I’ve never been afraid, well, that simply wouldn’t be true. But I don’t let it stop me. I ask myself, what’s the best thing that could happen? And what’s the worst thing that could happen? If I can live with the worst, then I move forward and strive for the best. And most of the time, I land somewhere in between. Everything in life is either a blessing or a lesson, as they say.
Your goals may change over time. You may need to do things differently, or your goals may not work anymore, or you may find better ways to get to the end of the race. Goals help you measure your success on your way to your vision.
I believe that when you put your vision out there, or even just say it out loud to yourself, that is when things actually begin to happen. Some call this the Law of Attraction — the idea that like attracts like, and positive thoughts bring positive things.
Goals are a way to break down your vision into manageable steps. Look closely at your vision. What steps, or goals, will it take to get there? For example, if you want to take your loved ones to Disneyworld, you need to determine how much that trip will cost. Once you know the dollar amount, you can easily plan how you are going to achieve that in commission.
Think how many parties do you need to book, how many tradeshow events you need to do, how many more products you need to sell, and how many one-on-one appointments do you need to schedule. Those can become goals.
Follow my Five Ds of Setting Intentional goals to help you create the steps that will lead to your vision and develop your success story.
First, you need to make a decision about what you want. For example, should you put your children in public school, private school, or home school them? Do you want to move to a new neighborhood or a bigger house? Facing tough choices can make you waver between the two options. How do you feel when you’re indecisive? Anxious, frustrated, overwhelmed? Who would choose to live there on a regular basis? But by not making decisions, isn’t that what you’re doing? When you make a clear-cut decision — even one with consequences — you feel relief, like that huge weight has been lifted off your shoulders. That is a much better place to live, and it’s the only way you’re going to get what you want.
Once you’ve made a decision, the desire to act on it will build. Many people put off a decision and tell themselves they will feel an overwhelming desire to get moving in the right direction when they wake up in the morning. If you wait for desire to overwhelm you, you’re going to be waiting a very long time. You’ll never wake up one morning and suddenly be overcome with the desire to get moving with your business without ever setting goals. But once you’ve made a clear decision, the desire will follow. Almost always, action is side by side with desire. When you decide, Okay, we’re going to move, you get excited. You call a real-estate agent and you start making your home ready to sell.
Details are better known as daily lists of things to do. Most people make regular to-do lists. You need to know what the list is for. You need to know where you’re going. Ask yourself, What are the four to six things I can do that will move me closer to my goals? The details are the work you do to get there.
Let’s recap: When you make a decision, the desire builds, you follow through with the details, and you reach your destination. You may need to pull over and get directions to your destination (meaning you may need to get help from your upline or an accountability partner), but you don’t ever give up.
All this requires determination. Tell yourself that you are not giving up. And then don’t. When a party cancels, don’t just think, Oh well, I guess I have the night off, and then hang out watching TV. Instead, make some calls and get another party (or two) booked. If you are short on your sales goals for a trip, don’t hang out watching TV — instead make up the sales with more bookings, one-on-ones, or re-servicing orders.
Many companies offer programs and incentives to help motivate you and keep you consistent in running your business. It is important for your success and momentum, especially at the beginning of your business, to set your sights on earning these incentives and programs.
Most companies offer programs within your first 90 days of starting (typically called Fast Start, Quick Start, Fast Track, and so on). The fast-track type program is a great way for you to earn additional products for your kit, gain items for your own personal use, and of course, establish good business habits and patterns. From my experience as a trainer and coach, I have found that what you start with is what you are likely to continue with. So, if you get your business off to a healthy and successful start by pushing yourself in both sales and recruiting, you will most likely enjoy long-term success.
It’s important to familiarize yourself with the program and the exact requirements and qualifications you need to hit to earn it. Not only will earning this program get you off to a great start and land you a nice reward from the company, but you will be getting paid at the same time.
Do you have an hour to spare? Of course not. No one does. But could you spare 15 minutes here and there? My system, called the Power Hour, uses one simple hour to produce results. The Power Hour means taking an hour in your day and breaking it down into four income-producing activities, or key things, that you want to accomplish in that hour.
Using the Power Hour, you take small blocks of time and get extraordinary results from them. Once you’ve mastered the concept for your direct selling business, you’ll find you can apply the Power Hour concept to almost every area of your life. Even fitness. Did you know that three 15-minute increments of cardio exercise gives the same benefit to your heart as one 45-minute session? It’s true.
Have you ever had plenty to do, but felt like you really couldn’t achieve anything because you didn’t have a day, an afternoon, or even an hour available? Then you’re going to love Power Hours.
A Power Hour means you only spend 15 minutes on a single task and then move on to another one. The idea is that, because you’re focusing solely on that one thing, you actually accomplish more than if you attempted to spend a full hour on it while being distracted by other things.
For direct selling, you’ll need to spend a Power Hour on four activities: booking parties or appointments, host coaching, recruiting, and customer follow-up. But you can also use the Power Hour concept to achieve everything from working on your finances to cleaning your house.
To ensure you’re able to focus on your direct selling Power Hour, it’s a good idea to remove distractions. You may want to turn off your social media alerts, or even silence the ringer on your phone.
In the Power Hour system, you create four folders, either on your computer or using actual cardboard folders. Label them as follows:
If you’re like most people, you have piles on your desk — sticky notes, and scraps of paper with notes scribbled on them. During your Power Hour, you put your information in one of these folders, so it’s always easy to find. When you’re out and about and get questions because you have on logo wear, or you happen to talk about a product or the opportunity, put these leads into the appropriate folder. Any lead you get will live in one of these folders.
If you’re looking to build your business, 15 minutes of phone calls is less daunting than spending hours on the phone trying to get bookings or repeat sales. Even if you only get a few orders, by the end of the week you have 10-15 additional orders. Not bad for 15 minutes and a little consistency!
You don’t have to wait until you have an hour to become entrenched in what you’re doing so that you’re successful at creating a habit. Take 15 minutes with each task and it can turn into results and rewards quickly. And over time, it will become a habit of reward and success.
Often hosts complain that they booked a party and the representative didn’t touch base until two days before the party. So spend 15 minutes touching base to make sure you’re keeping your host excited, engaged, and informed.
I use a ten-contact time system for host coaching (see Chapter 10) which can be utilized with the Power Hour. Use folders to help you organize your pending hosts, so you can always keep an eye on who you’re reaching out to. When you have multiple books, it’s easy to forget who and when you’ve reached out to your hosts. And that’s how people fall through the cracks.
Now you’re ready to spend 15 minutes solely focused on contacting people to schedule a party with you. By booking during your Power Hour, you’ll soon sharpen your skills speaking the language of booking by doing multiple booking calls during a single short block of time.
Whenever you add a name to the Booking Leads (or Recruiting Leads) folders, be sure to make a note of the circumstances. For example, if your lead told you she wanted to have a party when her kitchen remodel finishes in six weeks, then make a note of those details — and mention them during your call. Your call to her would sound something like this:
When you get a booking, immediately make another booking call. It’s not time to celebrate yet! The excitement from the previous yes will still be with you, and you will discover that the language you used from the last call will come easier to you. This will build your confidence, and people will notice that. People will always mirror the energy you give to them — if you sound hesitant, nervous, or desperate, they will pick up on that too. In fact, you can reference the prior call to show your new lead that you are busy, energetic, and in high demand. You can say something like this:
Recruiting is the one area of your business where timing is everything. When someone has expressed interest but then says no, that doesn’t mean no forever or that they don’t like you. It just means right now isn’t the right time.
People’s lives change. This is why follow-up is so important. Previous leads showed interest about your opportunity, which is why they’re in your lead notebook. But just because the timing wasn’t right at that time doesn’t mean it won’t be right sometime in the future. If you get a no or a not right now, don’t just say, “Okay” and forget about it. Ask her if you can keep her informed with specials, especially those to do with the kit. Say something like this:
During this 15 minutes, you simply contact people who have previously ordered from you and ask if they’re enjoying the products they purchased. After they say yes, ask if they would like to add another specific product to their collection. Tell them about a current sale or special or ask if they need to reorder more of their original purchase. It’s a good idea to know what they ordered last, and you should be prepared to tell them what the specials are this month.
Direct sales companies say that only one to three percent of direct sellers do re-servicing calls. When you don’t make these calls, you’re leaving money on the table. Someone, either another representative or competitor, will pick that money up. Great customer service is incredibly important not only to your sales, but also to your bookings and recruiting. So be sure to make these calls. The results we have documented is that it can increase your business as much as 50%.
My 2+2+2 program (discussed in Chapter 13) teaches that you should follow up two days after a purchase to thank the customer, two weeks after that to ask how they are enjoying the product, and two months after that to see if they would like to re-order. It’s important to follow up with your clients and continue to keep in contact with them. It helps create loyal customers.
There are four more skill sets I want you to develop for your direct selling business. You can use each of these skills during a Power Hour to create exciting results:
For a lot of people, the idea of focusing on something with undivided attention seems almost impossible. There is just too much to do and there are too many interruptions.
In business, you normally find yourself in one of two situations:
With the Power Hour, you learn to take each task and break it down, making it easy and well prioritized, and giving you a starting point.
There’s no way around it: Focus takes focus. Everything else in your life needs to be put away for 15 minutes, so you can focus your undivided attention on the priority at hand. It is easier than it sounds. You can do anything for 15 minutes! Do it with the prize in mind — at the end, you’ll have achieved what you wanted. You’ll have results, and the next block of 15 minutes will be even easier.
Most people tend to spend their days focused on what they don’t want:
Create a habit, practice your focus, and you will be rewarded with results you never expected.
Some people’s greatest asset is truly their ability to focus. These people are good at doing; deciding their goals and getting it done. In this asset, there is also a slight weakness. Sometimes, they get so hyper-focused that they miss the bigger picture. For this reason, they miss the details and planning. Does this sound like someone in your life?
Usually these peoples’ tasks go something like this. On a Saturday morning, they think, Okay, I am going to clean out the garage. They’re excited about it and spend the whole day on it. By the time they finish a full eight hours later, it is spotless and looks like a showroom. The tools are hung, screws, bolts, and nails are all in their own little jars, and gardening tools have their own area. A place has been made for everything, and everything is in its place.
Of course, they will have gone to the hardware store 3–4 times that day because they didn’t look forward and plan what they would need. But to them, that isn’t the point. The point is the garage looks spectacular.
Many people feel their greatest asset is multitasking. But it can be more of a weakness than a strength. Some people can plan their whole day out, but many times they lose sight of the one thing that they want to accomplish.
Often they start their day by thinking, I need to make booking calls.
But before they get on the phone to make booking calls, they make coffee, clean the kitchen, and start a load of laundry. Then they sit down to make the calls, but it’s almost time to pick up the kids and they don’t want to get started on this important task until they get back. Once they get the kids, they decide to visit a few stores and runs errands. Now it’s time for dinner and they never really get started on what they wanted to do in the first place. The biggest problem is that people like this delude themselves into thinking they had a great day… but they never did the one thing they set out to do.
Some can multitask like no one else — and many times it can be a strength and work in their favor. But sometimes it’s hard for them to stop focusing on the big picture so they get lost with the small important details.
Commitment is one of the most important promises you make to everything and everyone in your life and business. You need commitment to get anywhere, and you absolutely need commitment to succeed with your direct selling business.
Commitment means saying what you’re going to do — and doing it. It means respecting your relationship with yourself, and with others, enough to follow through with what you have promised. There will be days when you’ll be tired, and perhaps even wishing the host would call and cancel the party. You will even be tempted to cancel it yourself.
Your reputation as a businessperson is always on the line. Honoring your commitment means your customers never have to question whether they can rely on you to provide the products and services they want to purchase.
Consistency is doing something again and again. It is making your effort a habit. Consistency can help make your business successful.
Habits are consistent. Habits are just the things that you do continually. Once, probably a long time ago, you made the choice to do it consciously, liked the reward enough to do it again, and continued to do until it became part of your natural flow. Whether it’s a good or a bad habit, if you practice it consistently, you become successful at it.
Direct selling is a simple business, and you can be very successful just by learning and practicing a few basic skills and repeating them over and over until they become habits. (One of the very best habits you can form is the Power Hour.)
One reason I was so successful as a direct seller is that I had a regular schedule and I stuck to it just as if a boss set it for me. On Mondays I coached my team. On Tuesdays I made follow-up calls. On Wednesdays I ran errands and handled personal business. On Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays I held parties. My schedule was always consistent, and it helped prevent procrastination.
I’ve had moments — even whole days — when I just didn’t feel like doing something. On those days, I have to get flat-out honest with myself. I have to ask myself: What if I gave up today? And: Do I want to stay where I am, getting what I’ve always gotten — or would I rather power through and keep myself consistent so that I reach my goals and realize my vision?
It’s important to accept that you will have days like this. You’re human, and your brain wants to stay with the pathways it has always taken. But you’ve already decided on a new course, you have the roadmap, and you are headed to your destination — if only you can stay consistent.
Here are some things you can do to be more consistent:
Many people dread hearing this, but organization is also vital to your success in direct selling. Your lack of organization will rob you of more time than any other single thing. The good news is that organization doesn’t have to come naturally to you, and it doesn’t require sophisticated methods to work well.
How organized is organized enough? You are sufficiently organized when you have a method for tracking what needs to be done, and what has been done. You should also know what supplies you currently have, what you’re running low on, and what you need to get. And you need to be able to quickly and easily access the records of your lead contacts, your previous sales, and your previous hosts and customers.
If there is one thing I suggest you organize first, it’s your calendar. For at least the upcoming three months, have your family commitments and the days you plan to hold parties marked in your calendar. I also suggest that you always know what your next three available dates are. This way, if you’re chatting with a friend, and she mentions (as some definitely will) that she might be interested in having a party or hearing about the opportunity, you can say, “That sounds great. I have Thursday the 3rd, Saturday the 5th, and Friday the 11th available. Which one works best for you?”
Direct selling is a high-touch business. While you use technology to place orders and track your business systems, your customers value the personal service and product knowledge you have. You provide much more excellent service when your office area and files are neatly organized.
Having an organized home office space will make working on your direct selling business more enjoyable. I have a simple (and it’s pretty common, I didn’t dream it up on my own) system for decluttering an area. I simply sort everything into three piles:
I actually have a rule that I can only touch an item once, so I don’t allow myself to have a Decide Later pile — that’s how the clutter happened in the first place.
In your home office space, you should have a strict policy on organization. Phone numbers, host files, and customer records should always be in reliable, easy-to-reach places. This is information you’ll frequently need, so it’s important that you can put your hands on it quickly.
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