Sometimes You have to Take a Break

One of the things I love about being in Direct Sales with Initial Outfitters, but you could too with any company, is that you decide which things take priority and you can work your business around those other things.  You can even take a break when things get busy.  

This last month I have been crazy busy!  And even in a little bit of a funk!  My motivation just hasn't been there to give it my all at my business.  But I still managed to have two facebook parties this month to keep my PV Consistency Bonus. I have still been trying to "touch my business" everyday, but it's been more online-focused.  And I've also been pausing from training calls.  

Sometimes, I think we think this business must be more difficult than it actually needs to be.  My best advice for not getting overwhelmed with it in the first place, is to get in the habit of making at least two calls a day.  Just set aside 15-30 minutes, while you're cooking dinner if need be, or while your husband is putting the kids to bed, or while they're outside playing after school...whenever works best for you.  Then pick up the phone and call one person in you contacts just to check in with them.  I call these "Care Calls."  This is not a sales call. This is not a booking call.  I try not to mention my business at all, other than reminding them of who I am, or as a reason for the call.  

For example, "Hi, Linda. This is Lori Slott from Susan's Initial Outfitters party.  How are you doing?  ...Well, I was calling to see how your back is feeling? You mentioned at the party that it's been bothering you and I thought I'd tell you about this great cream I use for my neck if it was still bothering you.  How are you liking your necklace?  And did your daughter like the bag you got her?..."  Just a call to show them that you care and you were thinking of them.  

Then, the second call each day is going to be a booking call.  Now if you have a full calendar, you may want to look over your contacts and make a sponsoring call for a few days instead.  But if your calendar is not full, you NEED to make a booking call.  And of course, you'll check in with that person as well and then offer them a night of fun and a FREE shopping spree!  Or if your direct sales business is not a home party plan type, you can see if they'd like to hold a class or an online class or an accountability group with their friends, or whatever!  Get Creative!

I know, picking up the phone for these calls can be SUPER hard!  But the more you do it, and especially if you do it every day, it will just become a habit.  And the more you do it, the easier it will be to ask for a booking.  {Preaching to ME, right here!}

If you'd like more encouragement on making calls, I found this great post here!

5 Steps to Make Follow-Up Calls Easy

I know I'm guilty of over-thinking, and over-analyzing my business.  Subconsciously, it's like the more I think about it, the more it will grow.   But really, that just equals more internal stress.  So when life gets busy, my best advice that I'm still trying to learn is to quit over-thinking it, quit trying to re-invent the wheel, and just do two calls a day. One care call, one booking call.  

If you have time after the kids go to bed, or before they get up, make a post on Facebook, Pinterest, or Intsagram.  Facebook has a wonderful feature that allows you to schedule your posts, so you can have them publish at a better time!  There's even cool websites like CinchShare that allows you to manage scheduled posts for all kinds of social media!  It's just $8.34/mo billed annually ($10/mo with a monthly subscription) and it even allows you to schedule a whole Facebook party and posts automatically for you! Awesomeness!

  

I still advocate that you have a weekly plan for your business,  but that's the great thing about being in Direct Sales...Work it When You Can!  If life gets busy, and other things need to take priority, slow down, do the CORE functions to keep your business going, and let the other stuff go for a short time, until things slow down or priorities change.  What do you consider your CORE functions that must be done to keep your direct sales business going?

Juggling it "All"

I recently listened to a seminar from Mary Jo Tate, author of Flourish at Home Called, "How do you do it all? Balancing Family Life and Home Business."  It was very helpful and there were several things she said that really got me thinking.  

photo from flourishathome.com

If you're homeschooling your children, I'm sure someone--your husband, your mom, your neighbor, your friends--has said, "I don't know how you do it all." Or, "How do you do it all?"  Well, that's quite subjective.  Because they're "all" might not be the same as my "all."  I am guilty though, of getting overwhelmed trying to juggle it "all."

Mary Jo Tate posed the question, "What is your all?"  I think that is the first place we need to start!  We literally can't do everything.  A few years ago, I sat down trying to make a "scope and sequence" of extra-curricular activities I'd like my children to be able to participate in, and then literally tried to figure out how I could squeeze them all into a schedule.  Ha!  Needless to say, it did not take long for me to figure out, that I was going to have to prioritize and figure out which ones we could do this year and which ones we could put off until later, if ever.  We have to first determine what "all" we want to fit into our schedule.  Everyone has 24 hours in a day.  And we should be sleeping at least eight of those hours, that makes 16 usable hours in every day. 

photo from http://www.worldmarket.com/product/world-clock.do

Then we need to have an honest conversation with ourselves.  What is most important to us?  For me and my family, God comes first.  But what does that look like?  If He truly comes first, shouldn't He get a big chunk of time.  I was never a big fan of scheduling time with God, if you just do that for a little while, until it becomes a routine or habit, then it won't feel scheduled.  Personally, I am still trying to get in the habit of rising early to start my day with a hefty dose of scripture and prayer.  But for several years now I have been in the habit of starting my day with prayer, regardless the time I wake up.  And we always start our school day with our Bible lesson.  Then we have other times throughout the day were we spend time in scripture, prayer, and praise.  So what does this look like for you? 

Then we have to decide what comes next.  Mary Jo Tate mentioned in her seminar that we cannot live life constantly in triage.  Constantly focusing on the urgent.  Because when we do that, we neglect the other important, but not as urgent things. Like getting on the floor playing with our children, teaching them how to cook or sew, putting on some music and twirling them around the living room, or spending the ever-elusive quality time with our husbands!  

So if you're struggling trying to juggle it all, join me this week in making a list of the things that are important to you.  We cannot possibly do EVERYTHING that EVERYONE else is doing.  But we can do it "all," when it's "all" that's on our list.  

I highly recommend checking our Mary Jo Tate's websites.  She has several websites, but I especially like the tips she has on this one about managing home life and home business.  

How Do You Do It All

So in the Direct Sales world, we're taught to "touch your business every day."  So how many hours do you spend on your direct sales business a day?  And what are you focused on during that time?  As you're making out your list of what is important to you, and you add your business to that it, be thinking about that time you spend on your business.  Is it incoming-producing activities that you are focused on?  Depending on your product or service, these activities will vary.  If you're in a home party business like I am, you're going to want to use your business hour(s) making booking calls, customer care calls, sponsoring calls, and a post or two to social media.  If you're a Beachbody Coach, you're going to have to do your workout, share results and encouragement on Facebook and other social media, and make coaching calls.  If you haven't decided on which direct sales company you want to go with, make sure it is something that you love and or feel excited to share.  You will quickly find working your business to be a chore, if you do not love it! Whatever your business is, being a parent and homeschool teacher will automatically limit the amount of time you can spend on your business.  So make it count! Work smarter, not harder!

Your Calendar is Your Best Friend

If you've been in Direct Sales for any length of time, you've probably heard the saying, "Your Calendar is Your Best Friend."  Well, guess what?  If you homeschool your children and you're in Direct Sales, this is doubly true!

Free Simple Printables I use at Vertex42.com
 {Just search planner or calendar on pinterest for tons of options!}

Being able to juggle living a homeschool lifestyle and working from home can be a struggle if you don't manage your time wisely. I found that out the hard way.  The longer I have been homeschooling, the more I realize how good it is for me to have a schedule anyway.

This is how days go when I don't have the day planned out:  I lay in bed praying and dozing way too long.  I finally get out of bed between 7:30 and 8:30 to the kids screaming and fussing over something.  While we're all eating breakfast, I get on my phone to peruse facebook, see what's new on pinterest, and skim emails.  Then I get dressed, corral the children and try to start school.  By this time, they've already started playing with toys and they continue to be a distraction while I'm reading.  I ask question after question that they can't answer because they were too distracted.  I wind up getting frustrated, scooping up toys and marching them off to the taken-away toy box.  Then no one is happy!  So then, we drudge through the rest of school, hurrying to try and finish before lunch.  We never do.  Twelve o'clock rolls around so we break for lunch.  I wait 15 minutes just for the kiddos to tell me what they want to eat and by the time we sit down to eat it's almost 12:45.  They pop in a video to watch with lunch, I sit at the computer to try and get some emails checked, read a devotional online, post some business posts on facebook, check on order statuses, make a new polyvore set, post a business pic on pinterest, skim through articles I've been wanting to read, try to go through and close at least 5 tabs in firefox, the list goes on.  Before I know it, it's 2:30.  I tell the children it's time to do chores.  I get up to help with chores and make sure everyone is doing what they need to do.  Then it's time to let the kids play.  I get back on the computer to do more of the same, hoping this time I'll be much more productive!  But before I know it, it's 4:15 and I have not even started cooking supper yet.  Yikes!  Let me go reference my menu plan and see what we're having tonight....Oh no!  I never finished the menu plan.  I go and look in the pantry and the freezer and spend the next ten minutes pacing back and forth trying to figure out what I can make from frozen chicken, canned tomatoes, lentils, and broccoli. I scrounge up something, and hope it's done at a reasonable hour, but I realize I still haven't checked-in with my folks yet nor have I made any calls yet.  So I put family first and call my mom.  We talk for 30 minutes while I'm loading the dishwasher and chopping lettuce.  Then I call my dad and we talk for 45 minutes, while dinner is finishing up.  Then the hubs is home and it's time to eat.  After dinner, it's family time and before I know it, it's time to get the kids ready for bed, put them to bed, and I'm exhausted.

That was pretty much a day in my life with no planning (on a day when we didn't have anywhere to go).  This is why your calender should be your best friend!  Or better yet a schedule.  Now I know, I know...it's hard to have a set-in-stone schedule when it's always changing.  One day there's soccer, one day there's violin, one day there's a meeting at church, the next it's going to the library. It's always something.  I agree it's nice to keep things flexible, but when there's no plan, things that need to get done, get neglected, and we wind up wasting too much time on things that don't matter.



Find a system that works for you and your family.  Maybe try taking five minutes each evening and scheduling out your next day.  Most of it will be the same, unless you have some special activity or it's co-op day or something.  But those times that are blank on the schedule, like my time right after lunch and after chores...that's the important times to really have a plan for getting things done in your business.  And it's important to have a schedule so that time with your precious family doesn't get neglected as well.  There's a balance we have to strike when we're homeschooling and working at home.  I know we all have visions of the super mom we want to be, but we won't be anywhere near that if we let work take over.  On the other hand, we won't succeed at a business in direct sales if we focus all of our attention on everything else and never touch our business.  "If you never change anything, nothing will ever change."

So pray, pray, pray.  And plan, plan, plan.

photo credit: versifylife.com

Introduction

I recently joined a Direct Sales company, Initial Outfitters at the beginning of March.  I've tried other direct sales companies, but this one is different!  And this time it's different!  This time, I'm homschooling my children!  I wanted to share my experiences with other homeschooling parents who may be looking into direct sales as a way to bring in extra money.  I know how hard it can be trying to do what God has called you to on one income.  Even though we know just how blessed we are, we feel stretched-thin all too often!  We try to save money by couponing, not going out to eat, buying bulk, shopping the clearance racks, but even that doesn't seem to be enough sometimes.  

Well, I want to share why being a consultant or representative for a Direct Sales Company could be the answer to your prayers!  

photo credit: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/235594624233634981/

I know e-cards are suppose to be funny, but this is serious ya'll!  If you're a stay at home mom and/or homeschooling and your budget is always tight, direct sales could be the perfect fit for you to make some extra income.  I think you just need to find the product and company that is a good fit for you!

For instance, I fell in love with Initial Outfitters, because 1) I love their products.  I looked through the catalog and scoured the website and made a wishlist 2 pages long! 2) They help support the Charlie's Lunch Ministry.  For me this was big.  I don't want to necessarily work for a company that doesn't have values aligned with mine. Initial Outfitters' values are right in line with mine.  The Charlie's Lunch story touched my heart and I'm HAPPY to help and sell products that give back to that ministry.  3) It's flexible.  I work it when I can and want to.  I get out of it what I put into it.  I do our first priorities first, ie time with God, school, family time, then work around those things and amongst activities I was already doing.  4) I earn FREE products!  I earned over $375 in free products in my first 3 months with Initial Outfitters!  No kidding!  5) This next year, I have the opportunity to earn a vacation for my whole family to Punta Cana, Dominca Republic!  This past year, my fellow consultants earned a trip to Disney Land!! One consultant in my upline earned the trip for her and her husband AND her 6 Children! The whole thing! Paid for!  Seriously!  6) There are so many wonderful people I've met in the short time I've been with Initial Outfitters, it is like a family!  We are all supportive and helpful. We share ideas, we share pictures, we share tips, we encourage and build each other up!  It has done wonders for my heart!

These are just the tips of the iceberg.  I hope throughout this blog, that I can share that same encouragement with you, help you decide if a career in direct sales is right for you, answer questions you might have, and walk along side you as I navigate this exciting journey of helping my family financially while growing them spiritually at home!