Successful Home Business Tips

Regardless your business, there are many ways to successfully market your business, yourself, or both.  We've all created and used signatures in our emails and electronic groups by now (now is a great time to change it up a bit), but there is more you can do. 

Writers!  Tithe your writing once in a while. Write for a magazine, newspaper, or website FREE.  It gets your name, bio, and website out there and gives you experience and writing clips.

Home party specialists can offer a product, wrapped nicely with a catalog and information card, to local charities raising money.  For instance, if your local high school is hosting a quarter auction, give away a gift you'd like to win.  You'll have advertising in the program, during the auction, and again by word of mouth from the winner (a bonus is those collecting the prizes and putting the event on will ALSO be checking you out and are potential future buyers and/or hostesses).

As a victims' rights advocate, I speak at local schools (free of charge) and offer information. Rarely is there not at least one person who contacts me outside of the event for themselves or another or to offer assistance.

I've tried to give examples of things that have worked for me personally in the past, but that's not close to the end of the list. I've taught classes, performed public speaking, sent out monthly and weekly newspapers to specific audiences, advertised on and offline, donated services to different events and charities, as a new At Home America homestyle specialist, I'm constantly looking for ways to share the opportunity without being aggressive.

For those of you who have physical products to share, get yourself a booth at the local craft fairs, or other such crowd gatherers.  The people are there specifically to see your stuff!  You can not only earn sales, but you can plant seeds for home parties.  Throw in a cool drawing, a great prize in return for giving you information (name, email, number, address, do they want to host a party, are they interested in earning full time money working part time, etc.).

Opportunities are endless.  They're all around you. I encourage you to take five minutes and list as many ideas for marketing your business as you can, no matter how crazy or silly. Don't stop for anything, just write.  Then come back here and share the best of the best!

  

 

How to get organized in your direct sales business

Five MORE Minutes - and Then Some

As you know, I'm a fan of five minutes.  I'm NOT a fan of looming deadlines, and that's what I'm facing now.  

In writing. In At Home America. In advocating for victims.

Let me add, thanks to the military, I have no contact whatsoever (for the first time ever, not even when he was in Iraq did I have a day without some sort of communication) with my husband and spent the first lonely day feeling sorry for myself.  That's depressing enough, but when I looked at my calendar, I realized the month spent trying to get our kids on airplanes back to school (and losing precious work, including At Home America parties and meetings) was destroying all I worked for (that's another story in itself, just trust me).

Suddenly, I'm paralyzed. I'm doing nearly nothing.  And then it comes to me... five minutes.  Get back into life.  So I meditated and prayed for five minutes.  Ah. Smart move.

Five minutes of freeing my mind put me on the path to success. First of all, the no contact thing does stink, but I can use it to our advantage.  I imagined four less interruptions each day, then, handing him a check for the money I earned because I used my time wisely.  Also, for us, there's one more thing, he's been waiting for me to send the children's book to the publisher and to type 43:10 (screenplay) into the computer so we can get a new agent...  I CAN do this.  Even if only five minutes at a time.

The next five minutes, about an hour later, I rationally listed my most important deadlines and what I needed to do to meet them.

For instance, as a homestyle specialist, I worked hard the past two months to get to the second of two levels, in order to earn an important all expense paid trip to Chicago to learn more about my company and how to succeed.  When the flight fiasco with the boys happened (and the lovely holidays), I set it all aside. Now, in order to gain the last level and the trip (not to mention a decent check and some free homewares for myself), I have seven days to get $800 in sales. YIKES! I typically only earn about $1000 in sales in an entire month!

Therefore:

Goal - Earn $800 in sales before 4PM Hawaii time on January 24

How - Advertise, beg, motivate three people to host a quick online party

With this information in hand:

In five minutes I rewrote my iPhone email signature and my email signature. Since I need sales right now more than a recruit, I focused on whatever might encourage someone to order ASAP - the fact the Sale-a-bration sale is only through January and only until each item runs out, creates urgency; the fact the items are as low as $2.99 creates a more urgent desire.

In five more minutes, I wrote from my iPhone five letters to friends or family who I truly care about and would normally write.  Hours later, I'd take five minutes and do the same on the computer.  Each day, I'll do it again, but with other friends.  

Results:  I ended up with two online orders.  Both were small, but they are orders I normally would not have. Besides, all orders add up and the magic number is $1000.  I'm now short only $712.

And you can see how the five minutes add up, too. And they're painless!  I'm going to post on Facebook each day a new item under $3 for sale. They have to go through the higher priced items to get to the sale items. Works for me.  I'll take five minutes to go through my address book and call a potential hostess. Five minutes will allow me to check an online party. Five minutes does so much.

With writing... five minutes will give me a minute of screenplay action (I can type a page in five minutes).  I can query three publishers, a literary agent, and print out a proposal. Five more minutes gives me another page. My deadline for the screenplay is a bit longer, I have until February 2. Still, I can take five minutes to figure out how many five minute spurts a day I need to meet the deadline.  Easy.

The most difficult of my home "business" is being a victim's advocate. The reason it's difficult is that it earns nothing and depends on the earnings from the other jobs.  Constantly, I have to stop working on what I truly feel called to do, to do the others.  It's a catch-22, isn't it?

The biggest way I help is through a website.  I've been struggling for the last several years (after years of success) because I don't understand how to create the website in my mind now that I use Mac and Dreamweaver, and therefore, rarely do I get to actually write, research, or help. It's another bit of disappointment.

Yet, again, this is how five minutes works.  Five minutes can allow me to choose a subject in Dreamweaver that I really do not understand, and read.  It's ONLY five minutes, I can deal with the dry and often confusing information in such a small amount.  I can use five minutes more to create a pretty web page as best I can. Another five minutes will be spent sharing information author Sue Russell has shared in her Missing Mondays.  And if I have another five minutes to spare, I can write. I can write about cold cases, real cases, domestic violence, a plea for help.

Yes, in five minutes, I can do it.

Incidentally, it took longer than five minutes to write this and I do wish I had an extra five to decide if it makes sense, but since I really write it for me, to keep me on track, I'd rather take my five minutes and earn another $5.

God bless you and pray for our soldiers.

Aside:

We've had something odd happen. A "homeless" "runaway" teen came to our home. Being a victim of a serious crime myself and watching helplessly as our children went through the same - and the law does NOT prevail... I could not let it go. Nor, for once, could my husband.  The teen's gone back to her home, because legally she must, but I'm praying losing the time I've lost (workwise, of course) works out for this poor child, though I have not much hope. Always, always, protect the innocent. At nearly all costs.

Home Party Business: SIX Parties?

As you know, I began this odyssey long before I actually applied. Because of that, I'll backtrack to that day and move forward until we are here. TODAY here.

The decision to become an At Home America consultant was easy. Applying, thanks to my mentor, Donna Moses, was easier. At Home America suggests and encourages you to book your first SIX parties before you apply, that meant I had to hurry and find hostesses because I was applying the day I received my application.

Luckily for me, Donna's daughter, Maureen, booked my first party - we live on the same island, making it easy for me to accept and her to commit. Donna was very happy about it and is sure to be the reason for Maureen's party success. How can you loose when your mother is your party girl's mom? We can't!

Five to go. I decided NOT to ask my family for many reasons. First of all, I've never seen At Home America anywhere but online. Not even one product. Though I know that I am confident in their products and hostess program, they do not. Family is often harder to convince then others because they know you and maybe have been in this position before (ha, ha!).

Second of all, I love challenges, and because I have not had any friends for about a year (other than my friends at home or online), it was high time to make new ones and invite them to enjoy my business. I said a prayer and took a leap. I asked anyone in my few Hawaii/military groups to help me out.

On a very serious note, many of you already have your friends and family nearby and you may have lived in your area a very long time. Might I suggest to wait on your family in order to expand your circle? Your first bookings, if coming from friends and new people, will have you feeling successful and on a business high. If it's family, it's great, but not the same. I know because I'm on that high, even while we speak! And guess what? When it's slow, maybe in January, I can now ask everyone in my family AND be even more excited about the quality and care of the product and At Home America.

(I'm apologizing now for rambling, I'm just very excited AND I have so much to share... my hopes are this will help just one person and myself become more efficient with their new home business and that it directly affects your family in a great way)

Anyway, back to I need five more bookings and I have my online application open and waiting. Armed with my one booking, I went to my personal Facebook page and using my personality, I made a request to watch me give you a fun party where you can laugh out loud at me while I practice being a home party direct sales consultant, and YOU get free gifts and specials and we all get free food, because I do encourage food and drinks - sometimes that's what hooks people. I'm not kidding (but that's an entirely new post because there are many people who think food and drinks are distracting, too).

I got party number two, as a catalog party, though I was not positive there are catalog parties available (I assumed from my designated time as a hostess - and there ARE those parties, called "e-show"). Here's a funny thing about Jennifer:

I've been a victim's advocate pretty much my entire life, but I've been putting my money where my mouth is for only a decade and a half. I have websites and professional social network accounts. To gain a better following, I did what social networks did; I played Mafia Wars. Yes, me. I know, I hate games, especially video games, but it worked. People came to me for play, but they stayed for my heart and they believe in the messages. Jennifer is one person.

When I called out for parties, even though I had stopped playing Mafia Wars a long time ago, she was there right away. We had conversations over the couple of years and it was natural, we were already friends in this technological world.

Jennifer is officially my first party. And she has my first questions, but is awesome by being patient while I learn.

And that's all for now... I have things to do, places to be. See you soon, when we can discuss the rest of my application and creative ways to get your first bookings.