Taking your Team on the Road

As the better weather and sunny days approach you should consider taking your team on the road. New horizons and fresh prospects could be as close as a two hour trip away. Traveling for business does not have to be expensive or far away. Consider traveling to communities 2 - 5 hours away. Here are some hints and tips:

- Go prepared - Choose your community to travel to, your hotel and your over all approach to gain business. You will want to share the costs with your team.  As a Leader you should be keeping a small amount of your Leader earnings in a savings to use on occasions such as this. You may want to put an ad in the local paper a week before your arrival.
- Get the Team organized - Each team member should be responsible for their share of all expenses but also their own paperwork supplies. Give your team plenty of time to be able to afford a trip such as this.Make sure everyone is on board with the details. For example, I suggest that your main goal should be to get new recruits but also business. The idea being that any business you get would then be given to the new recruit to follow up with in the future.(You keep the sales but all bookings that are booked beyond your stay go to the new recruit)
- Packing - If you are flying to your destination then you may choose to pre-ship your kit and business supplies to your destination. You may be able to arrange for the shipping company to deliver your shipment to your hotel so that it is waiting for you when you get there. If you are going by car and space is limited then you may want to consider forgoing the usual kit and just use the Networking Gals "Basket Show". Don't forget to bring your Networking Gals "Business in a Box" and provide yourself with extra supplies too.
- Advertising - It is important to find ways to let people know you are there. Your upline may know of a Manager in the area that may be willing to give you a hand. You will also want to print lots of signs to place in your car window when you are parked, in market places, cafes, etc. Bring tons of business cards too so you can leave them behind at every restaurant, tourist attraction, etc. that you go to. Also consider setting up a tray table (2ft. X 2ft. Table) with a couple of products at local cafes, open markets, hotel lobby, chapters,etc. You may consider talking to other Consultant before you go to see if they have friends or family that may want to have a show but you would most likely have to give the other Consultant some of the sales,etc.
- Advertising 2- Wrap up some tiny little gift with your business cards and go to car washes, real estate offices, community centers, library, grocery stores and mall parking lots. Stand at the door of a mall to hand your items out. (If you sell beauty products then try a small sample of home made bath salts, If you sell cookware then buy a box of tea bags and staple them on, If you sell Tupperware then buy plastic key tags, If you sell Jewellery buy Canada flag mini pins) You will want to make 100 or more of these. Even if you can't find anything then try a wrapped sucker/lollipop and tell people you are a sucker for your company name.
- Simpler ideas - If money is a problem then make sure you get a kitchen unit in your hotel/motel choice and make sandwiches that you pack in a cooler for the day time outings. Cook dinners and breakfasts too. Buy bulk cases of pop and water and keep them in the fridge until you are ready to go. Do your best to pick a central area to work from and park the vehicle and walk to various destinations. If a night out on the town seems like a good idea then make sure you bring your git with business cards to hand out. If your hotel/motel has expensive snacks and a full mini bar I suggest you empty it and put all the items up top of the closet so it is less likely to be eaten/drank.

There is so much to think about when preparing for a road trip but hopefully the above tips will help you. The one thing you want to do is try to make it fun, challenging enough that people step out of their comfort zone a bit and a super training time too! Do not get bogged down with planning a ton of things to do. You want to be organized in your plan of attack but also accommodating enough to the teams varied schedules. Never be discouraged if you were unable to get any business or recruits. The main thing is that you put out the energy and tried and you never know when you may receive a call from one of your business cards. Remember....

                                               Life is too short..............so go out and Party!!

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Trade Show Exhibits

It's coming into that time of year again when Bridal fairs, craft fairs and trade shows abound. Investing in some of these can be very expensive. So let's do our very best to make sure that each event is lucrative, eye catching and an over all success. I chose this picture from google images because it closely represents how a booth should be set up.
As a Leader you may choose to do a booth with or without your team. If you are doing it with your team then you should stipulate guidelines.Some of those guidelines are to follow.The booth above it a bit over stated and crowded which is something you want to avoid. Follow my tips below and you will have a winning booth:

-When using a team you should set a price for people to get involved and then the following guidelines: They must bring with them a minimum of 10 books, business cards,day timer, 2 pens, a calculator,10 - 15 Hostess paks and 50 order forms. I would also set these rules: they must be on time or lose their time slot and possibly their payment and involvement, they must come in business attire and must stay for their entire shift or find a replacement.

- I recommend that everyone bring some water and food or money to get their own food.

- As the leader you should break up the trade show into 4 hour increments and assign your team to each segment. I would never allow more than 4 Consultants in the booth at one time. You also want to schedule breaks and lunch/dinner breaks. I would try to schedule it so that 1 person has been there 3 hours and is almost ready to go home, the 2nd person have been there for 2 hours and is ready to go for lunch, the 3rd person has been there an hour and the 4th person is just arriving. Likewise you will want to be the float and come and go through out the show. This gives each person ample time to get lots of contacts and ample time to be able to rest if needed.

- It is trade show policy not to allow Booth people in the aisles unless they are going or coming from somewhere but I am here to tell you that sometimes the aisle is where your business is. I would recommend that 1 person rotate in and out of the aisle letting people know about your freebie (see below).

- The key to getting people into your booth is a large basket of items that you will hold a draw for AND your free tiny hand out. You will use the hand out as a way to get people to come into your booth then you will let them know about the draw AND the booking award. You will want to offer a great item for people who book. The booking item is the Consultant's responsibility. As the Consultant earns from each booking then it is only fair that same Consultant pays for each booking award that corresponds to a Hostess. Together all of you will pay for both the large basket draw and the tiny freebie. 

- As the Leader you will want to decorate the booth, provide signage, place recruiting and booking signs up, print/copy/cut draw slips (see Networking Gals template "Draw Slips"), extra pens, a float, tablecloths, etc. You will want to control the float which means if this is a 3 day event then you should close and open each day. That way the float goes home with you and is your sole responsibility.

- Never bring everything to a trade show/fair booth. You want your booth to be eye catching and lure people in. If someone asks if you have a certain item but you don't just tell them that you would be happy to bring it to their show.

- If your trade show is a Bridal Fair then you want to decorate it accordingly and don't be afraid to purchase a few bachelorette items for decorations. You could even wear a bride to be sash as a way to promote your fun bridal shower options.

- Down below is a drawing of a typical layout and it also shows where Consultants should be standing. Theft can be very big at trade shows so be aware of that. That is the other reason to use the typical layout shown below because it makes it more difficult for thieves to get in and out but be aware the minute you are extremely busy is the time a thief will do their best.

- Your goals at a trade show are: Information (draw slips), Bookings, Recruits. Do your utmost to get as many door slips filled out as possible because they are like gold. Not everyone will be truthful with their info but you can avoid that by reminding people to be legible and to make sure their info is correct so you can call them when they win the prize.

- Most trade shows/fairs provide an 8 foot table but you will also want to bring 2 tray tables or a 2 foot table. 1 is for your Draw prize basket and draw slips the other one is for a large calendar and Hostess paks. It helps people to book when they can look at a large calendar. You may want to divide each day into 4 or 6 lines and basically the Consultant would write their name in the date selected and then write all the Hostess info into their own daytimer. Don't forget to get each booking Hostess to enter the draw but those slips should go back to the Consultant they booked with.

Try these suggestions and see if trade shows work for you. I also suggest that if you do not have the money to participate in a trade show that you then consider attending as a guest but go there with your Networking Gals "Business in a Box" so you are prepared is anyone wants anything from you. Step out there and let your company/products and self be seen as your business may rely on it! 

                                       Life is too short..................so go out and Party!

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Spring into Business

One of the hardest jobs of a Leader is keeping your team focused on getting bookings,sales and recruits. The spring is the perfect time to shake things up. You will want to plan some of these ideas around the time your company's spring book/catalogue has come out. First off I highly recommend that you as a Leader offer a couple of small competitions. Such as:

- booking blitz - get your team gathered around a couple of phones and inspire them. They should bring some customer numbers (their Networking Gals "Customer care filer" or " Hostess trackers")

- booking round robin - each take turns phoning customers to try to book them. Great tool to teach open and closing methods.

- Spring Board 2012 - you can do a Spring Board (see Networking Gals "Spring Boards" presentation) as well as each team member can do them. You may want to have a night where everyone brings some supplies and each make one to take home. Your "Spring Board" should include promotions on each day of the month. When Consultant's do show you input their name and total sales into each date. The person who sold the most for that day can win a prize or the person who had the most shows that month can win a bigger prize from you.

Here is what you should be getting your team to consider doing. Remember that in order to keep doing shows as far into summer that you must fill March and April with bookings. Then, May will carry on from the previous bookings and June from May's bookings. Beyond that you will have to be very creative or make sure you are getting 3 or more bookings per show. Challenge your team to be creative and to fill forward their daytimers. (IE: fill forward means work ahead of schedule, book past the 6 week mark) Here are some tips:

- Each Consultant should be talking to all of their past Hostesses and customers about the new catalogue and that's why YOU (the Leader) need to do a booking blitz or Booking round robin.

- Learn how to create and creatively use Networking Gals "Spring Boards" sometimes all a person needs to book is a little extra incentive.

- Teach your Consultants to be creative and to consider doing shows a bit different, such as; in a park, a catalogue show (check out Networking Gals handy "Quickie Book shows") an ice cream party, a fundraiser (see Networking Gals "Fundraisers and Bridal shows") also do a basket show (another Networking Gals "Basket Show")

- Don't forget to get your Consultants taking their Networking Gals "Business in a Box" everywhere they go because business is everywhere.

- It's a great time of year to get those draw boxes out there. You will want to put a minimum of 3 out in cafes, pubs, gym, office lunch rooms, spas, salons, reception areas, bank, etc. (See Networking Gals "How to do a Draw box")

Companies bring out Spring/Summer catalogues to generate new business and keep the interest up over the summer months. If your Consultants are serious about their business then the spring and summer selling season can be the most rewarding. People are naturally more relaxed and energized at this time of year and therefore they are more willing to get out and more receptive to new ideas. Challenge yourself and your team as you take on this great time of year creatively! Remember....

                                                 Life is too short............so go out and Party!

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Goal setting

It is crucial to your business to learn how to set goals. Company heads will speak of this but few actually understand why this is important or are able to teach you how to. When you learn to set AND achieve goals then you make any level of success or acknowledgement achievable!

It doesn’t happen over night because learning to set and accomplish goals can be very difficult for most people. First the goal has to be something you can reasonably achieve. Don’t start off planning to do a show a day for the month when you have zero booking scheduled. That is the same as climbing Mt. Everest!! Now if you have 5 bookings that month and you were to set your goals to 10 bookings to be held in the next 6 weeks then I feel that is totally doable.

 It is very hard in the beginning to learn to set goals when you also have a timeline on it too. Consider getting use to setting and accomplishing goals without a time limit. This gets you use to achieving at a level fairly easy. Once you have been able to achieve many goals (10-15) then consider making them a tiny bit harder and with a time limit.

NEVER get upset that you haven’t reached a goal but instead go back and try again and again if necessary until you do achieve it. Don’t get frustrated with goals, if you are having particular problems with one then go on to a different one.

Setting goals is about understanding that business does not just get handed to you but that you go out and find it. It is also a little bit about learning to quantify your time or realize what time you have available and how to put it to good use. Check out Networking Gals power point presentation on " Calendar Control" as it teaches you some handy ways to improve on managing your time.

Learning to set goals makes you a true business professional. Leaders are where they are in the company because they genuinely earned it and most probably through goal setting and achieving! Check out the Networking Gals handbook “Finding the inspiration a Goal tracker” Take a leap of faith in your business today and you may be pleasantly surprised by your achievement!!! For more about goal setting check out Networking gals ebook "Finding the inspiration a Goal tracker".

                                              Life is too short...................so go out and Party!!!!

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Bookings Questions

Check us out on Facebook today for all your questions on getting/keeping and searching for bookings! This is open to anyone including non-members. We look forward to answering your questions! See you there.

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Networking Gals and You!

As I work on this and our Consultant blogs I imagine what you the reader is interested in. What would you like to know more about. On our website, in our template library are tons of things to read,view and use for your business but perhaps there are more things you need.

When you become a Consultant/Leader for a Party Plan/Direct Sales company you believe that between Head Office and your Upline that you should be able to get all the info you need and want to run your business, improve on your successes and find all the awards and recognition you deserve......right? For some, this is true but for approximately 80% of all Consultants and Leaders it is not!!

I have spoken about this fact before on the Consultant blog, only 20% of all Consultants and Leaders find what they want in this industry. It is not because the industry sucks. It is not because no one has shown them the right things to do. It is not because we are all a bunch of idiots.....no..... it is because of many many reasons, as follows:
- If you can not relate to what is being taught you won't learn it well, if you have difficulty understanding what is being taught then you do not learn it well, if you do not believe in yourself and your ability to attain what is being taught then you never will. Shocking isn't it!!!( the last one is the #1 reason most people fail in this industry!)
- Focus is a tough cookie to crack! If you only know how to nibble on focus then all you will receive is crumbs. Learn more about Focus with Networking Gals eBook "Finding your Focus"
- Putting what you have learned into practice is also a bit difficult and unfortunately this industry expects people to grasp everything and does not have a system in place to track or follow up with Consultants to ensure they are getting it.
- Something I have always taught my Consultants and am now teaching on Networking Gals is learning to be duplicateable (not exactly a word but we'll pretend) in other words, learning to make yourself a carbon copy of your upline and then teaching your downline to do the same. Now that being said, I expect of course that you would input your personality and flair into it and basically just copy the successes!
- Life gets in the way very easily when your job is not at an office or work place everyday! People find it hard to respect your time and office space when you are at home working for example. I see more really great Leaders and Consultants lose their business to this fact. This is why Networking Gals teaches you how to get your business AND your life organized. We truly believe that both go hand in hand and you must respect the one in order to have the other.
- The "I wish syndrome" affects approximately 30% of all Consultants. When you join a PP company you see all these people up talking about how great their business is and how much money they make, etc. Unfortunately it creates an image that it is easy to become a Leader or become wealthy or  become successful overnight.....which we all know is not true! So many people waste time wishing and hoping to be something instead of understanding the time, money and commitment that is involved in getting where you want to be in this industry. This is where Networking Gals specializes in. We discovered the crucial steps it takes to find the various things you want in this industry. It is our proven success system. It does not happen overnight, it isn't easy and it takes a great deal of time and practice. For those committed and able to learn this you will discover how it works.

So all of the above stands between you and finding what you want in this industry. Some people are happy at winning awards or getting the prizes, others like socialization, many people seem to be happy to teach, and yet others are driven. Knowing and understanding what you want and how to get it is the key. Networking Gals teaches all of these fundamental aspects of being a Consultant, a Leader, a Manager. Look no further than to our blogs, our website and all the other components that are being added each and everyday. You may never know your path unless someone points it out to you......let Networking Gals do that for you today!

                                           Life is too short so..............go out and Party!

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Structuring a Meeting

When it is time to start having your own meetings it can be stressful and difficult and very bumpy. You can learn how to do meetings with your team from your upline but if perhaps your upline has issues or perhaps is accustom to formatting it in a very boring and generic way then it will make you look the same. So I think it is time to challenge you to have occasional meetings. If you only have 1 or 2 recruits then only have 1 or 2 meetings every 6 months but if you have more then you need to schedule it a bit more often. Here are some tips on what to try for your next meeting:
- Now ideally you want to have 1 meeting a month but NOT training. Training should be separate and customize according to where your Consultants are at. I believe you should find a day of the week that works best with everyone and stick to it for as long as you can.
- Make it known that they are expected to attend and when they do not they will automatically be your personal lackey for the following week....well.... at least get them to take on the job of setting up the display for the following meeting.
- Delegate responsibilities to your Team and make sure they rotate each meeting. Assign one person to be the greeter and make sure everyone has a name tag, another to set up an example of a starter kit including their idea of how to dress it up, get someone to be your chalk board or write on wipe off attendant, someone else could be in charge of passing out paperwork, someone could collect for you twoonie draw (see Networking Gals for Meeting Notes), someone else could be in charge of the early bird game, and so on and so on. This is a brief example of how a meeting should be run but for full details members of our Leader group can receive the entire document on "Meeting Notes".
- Games are a big draw and are what keep your team eager to come back to each meeting. As a Leader you should have ample chances to get products at reduced prices so that you can have that twoonie draw or early bird and not have it cost you. Another item you can give away is a day with you - it could include a tour of how you file or how you organize all your orders to get them out to the hostess and it should include a small lunch that you could make if you choose.
- I highly recommend that every meeting should have visual content and audio content. For Visual - make a board demonstrating how to track your success or how to set goals or have a race game where you chart each person's progress for 3 months. There are tons of ways to make things visual just think a bit outside the box. For audio - I highly recommend a power point presentation played on a few laptops (copy onto CD and ask people to bring their laptop) with an audio track of how to do the following. In this format you can not only show what you are talking about but also they can hear it too. This is a creative and very effective way to show things.
- You could also consider a skit when you are trying to illustrate interaction with a customer or consider a road robin session (for more info on this you would need to read my Leader's handbook)
- As a Leader it will soon be your responsibility to keep track of your team's bookings/sales/recruits. The sooner you start asking for this info the better it will be. Keep records for your own information but it is also a great way to track improvement too.

- Aim to have one lead story or experience that you want to share then allow time to break up a bit and come back to discuss or illustrate you points further. It may interrupt your flow but makes it easier to understand.
- Do your best to end meetings within a 2 hour period. Start promptly no matter how many people are there.

Make your meetings fun and interesting and challenging and your team will come running to meetings. Never worry about how perfect you are or where you have meetings just worry about content and finding ways to communicate in a wide pattern of ideas. The less generic the meeting the faster it will go or at least seem to. Remember.....

                                               Life is too short..........so go out and Party!

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