More Office Organization Tips - Personal Time Tracking

Do you cringe at the thought? Tracking your time? Ah but yes - it's a valuable tool to help you be a better you in your business!

Record for two weeks all the actions you do from the time you get up till you go to bed. When you look back to review, color code your actions into family time, personal time, income producing, team building or team connection time, and office work. Where do you spend the most time? Is this helping you reach the goals you have? Do you see any patterns that are working or any that are not which may need to change. Perhaps you find yourself checking emails six times a day, washing a load or two of laundry, chatting on the phone, surfing the internet. You get the idea. When you see where you are really spending your time, you can see why you are getting the results you have, good or bad.

Based on what you discover and what you want to accomplish with your business, consider what you believe would be the best schedule for you. Set it, schedule it, and then track how closely you stick with it. Ask yourself after two weeks, what has improved and what still needs to be evaluated or changed. Then track it again. The more clearly you understand how you truly spend your time, the better you can manage your time. Granted I know it’s all easier said than done, but I have done it. Sometimes it takes the help of an accountability partner or coach to help you manage the time you spend in and out of your business. The benefits are worth it!

Office Organization Tips

Caterina Rando, Nicki Keohoho and 18 other Direct Selling experts, including me, are busy working on a fabulous new book coming out in the spring called Direct Selling Power. It'll be a must have for every direct seller and a book every leader will pass out to her team!

My chapter is Office Organization. I had a limited amount of space but know you'll still want the content I had to eliminate so I'll be posting it here in the coming days. I'd hate to withhold ideas that can make a huge difference in your business!

For directors and leaders with large growing teams, here's a quick tip for you to help ensure you don't miss any important steps in adding a new consultant to your team.

New Consultant Processing Form
When a new recruit comes into your team attach a New Consultant Processing Form to her agreement. A New Consultant Processing Form is a checklist of steps for processing a new recruit including:
-> Entered into database
-> Welcome note card sent
-> Welcome phone call made
-> Link to team website or team chat rooms
-> Welcome packet sent
-> Any other steps you take can be added
With a simple checklist your assistant can help ensure all steps are completed before a new agreement is filed away.

Do Emails Get in the Way of Your Business?

Before you send an email to your prospect, hostess, or client, ask yourself “Will a phone call have better results?” Sometimes we get so accustomed to our emails that we forget that not everyone reads their emails frequently, emails don’t always reach their destination, and we’re in the people business which means talking to people!

The next question you can ask yourself is “Why do I think an email is best?” because often you’ll discover that you are making excuses for the person you are avoiding calling such as
“It’s too late to call them”
"It’ll be faster to send an email"
"I don’t want to interrupt her dinner"

It’s so easy to make an excuse, but excuses are often a way to avoid what may be a disappointment, cover up an insecurity you have, or a way to procrastinate. Knowing why you are choosing to send an email instead of making the call can help you understand what you may need to improve on. I'm betting your keyboarding skills are already well developed. Focus now on the calls. Then tell me how it goes.