How to Get Your Mojo Back

April 10, 2010 2 Comments

Q: I’ve lost my motivation and I’m finding it hard to get my business going again. How do I get my mojo back?

A: Quick! Get involved with other people in your business who are motivated for you to succeed.

When you work for yourself, you have to do everything, right? Wrong! Not in party plan.

Party plan businesses are made up of people. How can you get your mojo back? Tap into the people who are motivated to help you succeed. You are in business for yourself, but you are not alone.

YOUR SPONSOR – The person who sponsored you into your business is motivated for you to succeed. Why? It could be any or all of these things: money (she will make money if you succeed), achievement (she will earn a reward from the company if you succeed), pride (she will be proud of you and your achievements), or reputation (she recommended that you become a party planner, so she wants you to actually achieve the level of success she said you could).

ACTION: Call your sponsor. Meet with her to discuss your business.

YOUR UPLINE – Your upline is motivated for you to succeed. All of the reasons above apply, and there is another: Once a party planner ascends into a leadership role, she is motivated to maintain and continuously develop a team. A team is a group of people who work toward a common goal. Your leader is measured by her own performance and the performance of the team, so it is in her interest to assist everyone in her lineage.

ACTION: Call your upline. Read her communications to you. Attend her meetings.

YOUR DOWNLINE – Your downline is motivated for you to succeed. Though not as obvious, because we think money is the  key motivator, people under us in our structure want us to succeed. They want to brag about the team they are on. They want to be proud to bring others into that team. They want to have a good role model above them to provide advice, training, and support. They will look for your name in the company literature. They will talk about you to their partner, their family, their, friends, and their clients. They are motivated by your success, so they are motivated for you to succeed.

ACTION: Call your downline. Ask what support they need. Go to one (or more) of their presentations. Host a meeting. Throw a party.

YOUR COMPANY – Your company is motivated for you to succeed. Money, achievement, pride, and reputation are also motivational factors for the company to help you succeed. Support from the head office of your party plan company comes in many forms: emails, websites, programs, literature, training sessions, conferences, incentive trips, promotions, and newsletters – to name a few.

ACTION: Review everything your company has provided to you and make a list of things to do.

So, don’t let the chairs be empty. Fill them up with the people who want you to succeed. Ask them for advice. Turn their advice into action. Share your results and keep moving. You’ll get your mojo back and then you’ll be able to share your mojo with someone else.

Image: Francesco Marino / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed under Good Advice, Improving Productivity, MLM, Party Plan Tagged with

Email Hurts Your Productivity

January 29, 2010 2 Comments

Email ImageWith a title like that and after quitting Facebook, you must think that I am becoming a technophobe…. Not really. I actually think social media and email and blogging are brilliant technologies.

I just think they can stop me from doing other, more important, more lucrative work.

“When I turn off email, even for an hour, my productivity triples.” ~Seth Godin

Isn’t this the truth?

Here’s my advice. Check email in the morning. Write your replies. Write out a to do list. Then log off email for 3 hours and do your to do list. For ‘party plan,’ your to do list should include making calls, preparing host packs, writing letters to your up or down line, going to a networking event, restocking or cleaning demonstration products, and examining your goals. I’m sure your ‘family’ to do list is subtantial. And lots of you have ‘other job’ to do lists, too.

If in the course of your actual doing, you find that you want/need to send an email, start another to do list… one especially for emails.

  • Email Linda about golf
  • Email John about dinner
  • Email Cassie about hostess specials
  • Email team about Unit Meeting

Don’t write the emails as you add them to the email to do list…. Just keep working on your to do list(s). Then, at some set time (maybe after lunch), log back into your email, reply to new ones and write the ones you need to. Then log off again.

The computer is a tool. Party planners can use email effectively. All by iteslf, it will NOT get the job done. Interrupting your day all the time, it will destroy your productivity.

“Technology does not run an enterprise, relationships do” ~Patricia Fripp

Try my advice for a week and let us know if you got more done.

Filed under Good Advice, Improving Productivity, MLM, Party Plan Tagged with , ,

Q&A – Can You be Too Smart for Party Plan?

January 18, 2010 2 Comments

Question MarkQuestion: Yesterday I was telling a very good friend about my new PartyLite job.  Her comment was “You’re smarter than that.”

How do I respond to that, Wendy? “Then, I’ll be really good at it.” ????

What would you say if your friend said that to you?

Answer: This is an easy one. It’s also a common question. When I started, I was confronted with comments like this. Here is my answer when people ask me. I don’t necessarily say it all, but if they are interested, it’s all here and all true.

Working in party plan is a lifestyle choice. I choose to work when I want and where I want. (Insert here that you get to spend more time with your children by being a party planner. See my other post: Be a Mum!) I am completely responsible for my success or failure. I have the luxury of owning my own business, but have no capital costs to start it; no client inventory; a free marketing department to produce all the products, prices, and promotions; a free finance department to process credit cards and produce reports; a free IT department maintaining my reports, client database, and order systems; a free warehouse and distribution centre; and a free business coach to help me with my business plan. Just to name a few.

Party plan (direct selling) is a business model that allows entrepreneurial people to give better customer service than any retail store. In my business I am responsible for customer satisfaction on products and service.

It seems to be easy for people to shoot down this industry, but don’t underestimate how big it is and how fast it is growing.

The industry is global and growing. Recent figures from Direct Selling Association members throughout the world show almost fifty-five million people being involved in retail sales of over AUD 140 billion. Sales by DSAA [the Direct Selling Association of Australia] members have reached $1.3 billion annually, with more than 620,000 Australians having some involvement in the industry. With a long and proven record, direct selling is an obvious alternative to conventional retailing.

~ DSAA Website

Finally, intelligent people treat party plan for what it is: an entrepreneurial opportunity. For some it’s a small business, for others it’s a career. It doesn’t take education to run a successful party plan business. It takes training, persistence, and intelligence.

Of course, to be credible, you need to believe you have made the right choice – you need to develop pride in your job.

Success is the best way support your decision for yourself. I have seen too many women succeed in this business, and develop that pride, to not believe that. When I finally quit my other businesses to focus on party plan, people stopped wondering why, they could see why: I was (am) happy, successful, and committed.

Comments: I’d love to see what other people think. Feel free to leave a comment here.

Filed under Good Advice, Lifestyle, MLM, Party Plan, Q&A, Second Job, Working Mothers Tagged with , , ,

A Few Ideas to Get You Going in 2010

January 6, 2010 1 Comment

How can you kick start your party plan business in 2010?

As party planners, after the Christmas break (which most of us take), sometimes we need a little motivation to get started again. When you work for yourself, it is sometimes hard to get the ball rolling again. But, my husband didn’t need motivation; he just went back to work. His vacation was over. So, this year, I treated my business exactly the same: like a business.

So, do you need motivation?

Well, I just watched a video with 3 simple suggestions. (1) Call your clients and friends and ask them for some referrals. (2) Contact someone you look up to in your business and ask her to mentor you. (3) Invite a friend to come to a show with you and get some feedback from her about how your presentation can be improved.

I think those are pretty good ideas.

It’s also always a good idea to get reading. Personal development comes from reading blogs (like this), books, and company literature. So , to start off the year right, go get yourself a book or two. I can suggest one that will be quick to read and will help you think about this business as a business: The Skinny On Direct Sales. Another one I strongly recommend is Mary Christensen’s Be a Network Marketing Superstar.

And finally, if you live in Australia or New Zealand, Mary Christensen is coming to town (play video below). I suggest you book a ticket to go see her. I promise you will be motivated, energised, and you’ll leave with a to do list.

Mary Christensen in Australia
Sydney – February 11
Melbourne – February 22
Brisbane – February 24

Tickets are available from the DSWA (click here).

Well, I hope those suggestions help you. Do you have any other ideas? You are welcome to share them here so we all can benefit.

Make it a great day! WLC.

Filed under Coaching, Good Advice, MLM, Networking, Party Plan Tagged with , , , ,

We Need to Provide Better Customer Service

August 28, 2009 2 Comments

The reputation of Party Planning overall needs to be improved. I’ve just recorded a video to explain how and why. I’d love your feedback.

Make it a great day!

Filed under Customer Service, MLM, Party Plan

What is a Pyramid Scheme?

July 12, 2009 Leave a comment

Often when being told about a multi-level marketing (aka MLM) business opportunity, people inevitably say, “Oh, I get it. It’s a pyramid.”

I suppose that they’re right from one perspective; structure-wise, a successful MLM person has a downline (i.e. people they’ve recruited) and when you draw out the organisation chart (though there is no organisation per se) it could look somewhat like a pyramid. But from both a legal and imagery perspective, MLM is not at all a pyramid.

Legal

The real difference is in how money is made. In pyramid schemes (which are illegal), people pay money (a joining fee) to get involved, and they make money by recruiting other members who pay a joining fee to be involved (and so on). In pyramid schemes, real value is not being created at all – money is not being exchanged for goods, it is simply changing hands and the joining fee is being distributed up. The people at the top and at every step down along the way get part of the joining fee every time another person pays to join. “Smart” schemers have tried to make their activities look legitimate by pretending to sell something. According to the ACCC, “some pyramid scheme promoters disguise their true purpose by introducing products that are overpriced, of poor quality, difficult to sell or of little value. Making money out of recruitment is still their main aim.”

On the contrary, MLM is a legitimate (and perfectly legal) sales and marketing strategy. Rather than employ people to sell goods, a company sells at wholesale prices to distributors (also called associates, independent business owners, dealers, franchise owners, sales consultants, consultants, independent agents) who then onsell those products at retail rates. Distributors develop their own clients and can recruit additional independent distributors (i.e. their downline) to expand their reach. Money is made through legitimate sales of legitimate products. The distributor makes the wholesale/retail margin. The company makes a profit from their wholesale mark-up.

Imagery

If you think about it, a pyramid needs a strong base and then you build up. Once you’ve established the size of the base, you know how big your pyramid will be.

But MLM businesses are anything but fixed in size. They can be run for friends and family just to save money off retail rates, they can be run just to earn pocket money, they can be run to save a fixed amount of money each month for larger expenses, or they can be developed into grand organisations with unlimited income potential. And the interesting thing is that MLM businesses can change in size and scope over time. They aren’t like rigid buildings; they’re not like pyramids at all.

They’re more like trees.

I can feel a tree post coming soon…. Until next time….

P.S. For more information about pyramid schemes, see Scamwatch, a website managed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.

Wendy Lloyd Curley is an Expert in Profitable Party Planning
www.wlcenterprises.com

Filed under MLM, Pyramid Schemes

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