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| Working Smart, Not Hard .. Patty Campion |
Working Smart, Not Hard By Patty Campion The simple truth about making this Mary Kay thing work is all about having a plan, a goal and then sticking to it. Many of us get in the habit of putting Mary Kay on the back burner when we come across other obstacles in our life. We work when it is convenient. When we surrender to other obstacles, we are surrendering a little bit of our future, we are giving up on our dreams. Instead we should let the possibilities command our life. Whether you are just getting started, just getting started again, or a seasoned consultant, it is crucial to have a plan, structure, a track to run on. Not only will you be creating stability in your maybe otherwise unstable lifestyle, you will be commanding respect and admiration from your family and friends and you will be making the absolute most out of your business whatever your goals may be all while having the time of your life. I have a family of 7. Although my oldest is in college now, he wasnt when I started my business and all 5 of my children have or currently play sports, some playing multiple sports at a time. My husband and I believe in being there for them cheering them on as much as possible. My husband also has his own business. I am the office manager for that in addition to having to work around his schedule. I worked another part time job when I started my Mary Kay. If I can make this work, ladies, you too can make it work, and you too can have what I have. Lets start with goals, whether you started your Mary Kay business to replace an income, or increase an income or you started to join the ranks of women making a difference in other womens lives, not necessarily needing extra income, you still need to set a financial goal to make this work. Maybe your financial goal is to take your family on a nice trip every single yearprice that trip all expenses and have your goal written down I dont know what a trip might be, maybe its $5,000. Maybe youd like to be a Sapphire Star Consultant every quarter, ordering $600 a month on average and earning those fabulous prizes youd probably have a monthly retail sales goal of $1500 to be on that track. Maybe youd just like to start a nest egg for yourselfmaybe youd like to set aside $10,000 a year in a special account Maybe youd like to replace an income of $30,000 a year. Talk with your family and together determine what youd like your Mary Kay income, (thats money in your family account) to be. And dont forget, working for someone else earning $30,000 a year is a LOT LESS than a $30,000 Mary Kay income. The first crucial tool in working smart is to figure out your plan. Mary Kay always said, Plan your work, then work your plan. In order to determine your plan, follow these steps: (write these steps down with me as we go) 1) Write down your desired yearly income from your MK business. Take your desired yearly income, (thats money in your family account) and divide that by 12 to get your desired monthly income. (I know Stephanie would like an extra $10,000 a year for her family out of her Mary Kay business. $10,000 divided by 12 is approximately $833 for her desired monthly income) 2) Next, take your desired monthly income and multiply that number by 2.5 to get your monthly retail sales goal. Stephanies $833 multiplied by 2.5 means she has a monthly retail sales goal of $2,082.50. 3) Next, take your monthly retail sales goal and divide it by 4 so you can see what your desired weekly retail sales goal is. Stephanies $2,082.0 monthly goal divided by 4 is $520 which is her weekly retail sales goal. 4) Knowing that the average small Skin Care Class is $200 and the average facial is probably around $50 for new consultants, you now take your weekly retail sales goal and divide it by those figures to determine the amount of classes/faces you need to hold each week. If Stephanie is working strictly on faces, wed divide $520 by $50, and that would be a goal of approximately 10 faces a week. If she were doing parties, wed divide $520 by $200, and that would be just a little over 2 small parties a week (by small, I mean 2-3 women). We now know our Weekly class/face goal. For Stephanie, lets say its 2 small parties or 10 facials. The next crucial, crucial step in Working Smart, but not hard, is determining when you are going to work your plan. With this, you will need the Weekly Plan Sheet. You can find this on Intouch, your directors website, I think it came in your starter kit. It has the days of the week starting with Sunday and includes the hours of 6:00 am till 10:00 pm. Mary Kay always believed in getting started by 6:00 am each day. For yourself, create a Master Weekly Plan Sheetyour ideal week. Include your personal time, your family time, your other job time, and your Mary Kay time. Get your family involved on helping you determine your weekly plan. Put your husbands name on it for Friday night, date night, they love to see their name on the plan. Also, because they help you create the plan, they know they are part of the plan and that perhaps a couple nights a week, it may mean they are wearing shoes they dont normally wear. Using Stephanies goal of 10 Faces or 2 parties a week, I would do something like this: Monday night is her Success Meeting night. She should make a point to always have a guest or two. This has been a big one for me. Since the day I started, I was committed to attending my Weekly Success Meetings my family was already adjusting to me being gone on those nights without exception, and for 3 years, weve made it work. I am COMMITTED to having guests on those nights. Those are selling appointments. In order to have 1-2 guests at your meeting, youll have to invite probably 6. Stephanie has 1-2 faces on Monday night while attending her meeting. Guests at events are usually also considered Marketing Appts or interviews you are introducing women to the opportunity and you will begin to build your team. Tuesdays and Thursdays can be class night. Have a regular sitter, whether it is an outside source or one of your own teenagers planning on sitting those nights. Because you know you have to pay them and they are counting on you, you will book a class during that time. Consider paying them an extra $1.00 an hour if you come home to a clean house. If Stephanie always had 2-3 guests on a Monday night, she really could book one other large party or 2 small parties in the week and her goal is met! Ive heard of a director that has two Class Beauty Cases that she rotates and she pays the sitter extra to prepare the spare Beauty Case by cleaning mirrors, trays, getting samples and literature ready for the next class! If a class cancels, pay the sitter anyway to come and go somewhere and book. Book from your phone or book conversationally while you are out. Figure making 20 calls to get one class booking. Set aside, (and write this down on your Weekly Plan Sheet) 3 - 15 minute segments daily to make calls. Conduct interviews by sending a CD, the new DVD or a piece of literature with a personal note and then follow up with a phone call. Offer to go to their home or meet for coffee (at a time you have set aside on your Weekly Plan Sheet for that), but tell them the best idea would be for them to come as a guest the following Monday night to see how wonderful your MK friends are and how beautiful their skin is in person and tell them to bring a friend. If your desired income calculates to 4-5 parties a week, then your goal is to have 3 guests minimum on a Monday night to your meeting, and you could book 2 classes each on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For example, you could do one at about 5 oclock and a second one at about 7:45. This works especially great if you can do the classes in your own home. With this plan, you have technically fit in 5 parties in 3 nights. This leaves your Tuesday and Friday nights open for your family and really could leave your entire weekend open, although some of you may prefer to have Saturday be one of your double party days. You could have them done by 1 or so in the afternoon. Other things you will want to include on your Weekly Plan Sheet. Literally block time for these activities: 1) Time to confirm bookings and coach hostesses, preprofile your guests, confirm guests to Mondays meeting and invite prospective recruits unable to come to Mondays meeting perhaps come to assist you at a skin care class. These things might be done something like 7-8:30 on a Sunday night. 2) Youll want time to warm chatter 3 new women a day. 3) Youll want time to pack your car for your facials and classes for the week. 4) Youll want some time to send thank you notes and so some light filing and miscellaneous paperwork (such as your Weekly Accomplishment sheet, organizing handouts, filing profiles, etc) Find some time Monday-Wednesday a little each day to do this. Mail product orders out. 5) Thursday-repack the car. Replace sold inventory and clean your trays. Go to the bank and make a deposit. 6) Fridaymake sure you have your desired party bookings for the next week. If you dont, do what you have to do to get it done before you go to bed that night. Also on Friday, mail or deliver your orders and hostess packets for the next week. This week I tried something new. On Friday I had a few deliveries and I asked each customer if I could just meet with them for 5 minutes to show them the new products. I even had my 5 year old son with me. Each resulted in a on the go facial and increased sales. Dont forget Friday is date night! If this schedule doesnt fit your lifestyle, just keep these things in mind: *Do something with your business every day. Booking classes should have the highest priority. We need to choose to give our best time to our most rewarding tasks, There is a basic principle that says, 6 X 1 = 6 Anything that is important to you, devote one hour a day, six days a week to your task. Sooner than you think, what you desire will become reality. *Dont allow yourself to get buried in paperwork. 2 hours or less a week should be plenty to get caught up. Include time on your Weekly Plan Sheet for 2 hours of misc paperwork. *Listen to motivational Mary Kay CDs while you are in the car. *Follow up with prospective recruits or guests to your meeting within 48 hours. *Make conversational booking or warm chatter a part of every day life. If its not something you go out to do, its something you do while you are out. Setting a goal of meeting 3 women a day gives you a yardstick to measure with so you can feel good about your accomplishments! Booking from your classes and warm chattering everywhere you go will make your datebook full every week. This week I had a $1500 week and I had fun. I had a guest on Monday night, an on the go Wednesday a large party Wednesday night and 3 on the gos on Friday. I completed 15 faces. Thats an average of $100 a face for me. I shared the opportunity with 4 women and will be following up with them this week. I touched the lives of many women and my life was touched in return. I missed only one of my childrens games that was on Monday night. I worked smart and certainly not hard. I had fun while I was working and those around me had fun too. I truly feel that only in Mary Kay can you paint your life as you really want it to be, but I also truly feel that you have to be committed and you have to be smart about it and you have to give it and yourself a fair chance. Be the best boss youve ever had, and be the best employee youve ever been. Everything you do today as long as you repeat the same effort tomorrow will increase your income. Take the time to make your schedule-your Weekly Plan Sheet starting with what youd like to earn from this business. Your director would love to help you. Be patient. Your income will only continue to increase if you are consistent with your efforts and you start to reap the full benefits of working your business full circle. It has been said that all human beings have been created equal; we all have the same 24 hours every day. The difference is determined by what we do with the time we have. Dont spend a dollars worth of time for ten cents worth of results. Make your time productive. Plan your work, then work your plan! |
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