Song of My Heart Demonstrators

Creating confident, self sufficient papercrafters

"Give a man a fish and you will feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime." Chinese proverb

Recent online discussions with other demonstrators brought up an interesting question: How much is too much, when it comes to prepping things in advance for your customers? The answers were as varied as we are. I'm a big fan of NOT doing too much of the work ahead of time, and here's a quick outline of the reasons why doing too many of the more difficult or advanced parts of projects for your customers can backfire.

For YOUR sake--

First and foremost, the reason that springs to mind is the bottom line. Demonstrators who spend a lot of time pre-punching, die-cutting, embossing, tying bows, cutting ribbon or even stamping before their events are most likely not charging customers enough for the extra hour or two of prep time they are putting in.

Even making up project packets can be time-consuming and unnecessary step for many events. I'm not saying I never make up packets or pre-punch anything in advance, but as business people, we need to make sure that the time we are putting into things like this is paying off. I always say, I don't have time to do all my own stamping, much less theirs!

Secondly, over-prepping can lead to burnout in short order. The customer often becomes accustomed to the "spoiling" and expects it to continue. There is little true realization of the time involved in prepping for events, and demonstrators can come to resent that their customers do not appreciate the work that they are putting in.

For THEIR sake--

Third, golden opportunities to upsell are lost when too much is done behind the scenes, out of sight. When we don't teach customers to measure their own ribbon on the rulers on the Grid Paper, using our lovely Craft and Ribbon Scissors, we have left money on the table. If we score at home and never bring the Simply Scored board along, they may not ever see the need to purchase it. If you don't let them get their hands on the Big Shot, they will wind up thinking it is something they need extensive training to use.

Finally, the reason I would say is the most important not to do too much in advance of events, is our role as a teacher. Our goal should be to create self-sufficient, confident stampers who know how to score according to the instructions, how to use their Paper Trimmer correctly, who know how to accurately estimate how much ribbon is needed, and can correctly use the plates and accessories for the Big Shot without you hovering over them or treating it like glass.

How many customers don't even know that you cut a sheet of 8.5x11 cardstock in half to form two cards? We need to help them learn to tie bows, learn what adhesives are correct for the situation, learn to count and lay out the pieces and parts to the project and then assemble it. Teach them not to be intimidated by their tools. We should never do so much for them that we are actually cheating them out of the learning experience and the joy of creativity and true accomplishment when they complete their project and feel confident that they could go home and repeat that on their own.

Again, there is a time and place for all levels of prepping in advance, and there is definitely something to be said for making your customers feel spoiled and pampered now and again, but I hope next time you are getting ready for an event, you will take a moment to think about what and why you do things in advance, and make a conscious decision to let your customers learn (and make mistakes along the way) in at least one area in which you may previously have had a tendency to avoid.

Is your goal to teach your ladies? To promote the personal creativity and growth of your customers?  The same principles can apply to your downlines. Are you giving them a fish, or teaching them to fish? And if not for them, do it for yourself.

Just as my goal is happy, self-sufficient, confident customers, my goal for YOU is a healthy, self-sufficient, confident business. Spoil them with chocolate--but TEACH them to stamp. 

Dream BIG, friend!

Lyssa

Why you don't need a business coach

You won't be a demonstrator very long before you notice that there are people offering "business coaching services" specifically for the stamping business owner. Obviously, clever entrepreneurs have discovered a market in selling products and services specifically targeted to other demonstrators.

For clarity's sake, I am differentiating here between those who always offer advice, seminars, etc for free, and those who charge some or all of the time. All of the advice below is referring to paying for business advice or coaching services.

While in most cases, no rules are being broken here at the time of writing, I have reservations as to the advisability of paying for these services for the average demonstrator. Do not feel as if you have less chance of succeeding, if you don't have a business coach. That is simply not true. While some business coaches claim a high "client" base in the percentage of demonstrators who are high achievers, which of course we have no way of verifying, I can assure you that most high-achieving demonstrators are not paying anyone to coach them.

Stampin' Up has a wonderfully simple, easy to understand business plan, with excellent resources and training materials, available in a variety of formats, and backed by a incredible team of support. While I would never say there is nothing to be learned from direct-selling, marketing and home business books, websites and bloggers, I truly believe there is no need to pay for any extra services beyond what Stampin' Up, an encouraging upline, and the networking opportunities provided through physical events and Stampin' Connection have made possible.

In my experience, the single most unfortunate aspect of some of these coaches is their subtle implication that the average woman cannot succeed in Stampin' Up without outside help. This is not true, and I know this from personal experience and from speaking with many, many other demonstrators who have made wise use of Stampin' Up's resources and their own creativity and determination. You can succeed, and with flying colors!

YOU and your unique talents and efforts are what got you to where you are today and what will get you where you want to go. In fact, those coaches would agree with me when I paraphrase the quote by an unknown author--"all the business advice in the world will not work unless YOU do. "

Not all business coaching services are bad, although there are none that I recommend without reservations at the time of writing. However, some business coaches use frankly shady tactics to draw customers in. I have identified some practices that should set off alarm bells when you are considering a business coach:

• caution that the company is misleading or misinforming their own demonstrators
• promise ridiculously high sales increases in short time periods
• provide no statistics or don't back up claims of efficacy with proof
• have few or no testimonials, provide no dates for testimonials, or never update the testimonials they mention
•  regularly offer "free" webinars and phone conferences that contain some generic advice but are obvious vehicles for advertising paid services, books or products.

Remember, as soon as a person solicits money from you, their motives must be taken with a grain of salt. It stands to reason that those who claim to help you learn all the secrets of good advertising are good advertisers of themselves, and they know how to present themselves in the best light possible.

If you do decide to spend your hard-earned money on a paid business coach, go into the relationship with your eyes wide open and your research well done. Do yourself a favor and commit to really working the resources around you first, before you spend your dollars for advice. Seek out experienced demonstrators who have been there and done that. Take full advantage of the tools available, and trust in your own intuition and ability to learn and grow and help your business flourish.

Dream Big!

 

100 tips for staying busy during slow times

I get asked all the time for ideas to kick start a dying business or get a brand new one off the ground. It's a very common direct-sales place to be--either just starting out and already discouraged, or several years in and beginning to lag. We hit a dead period where no one wants to book (like the holidays, or right when school is starting) and things slow to a crawl.

Whether the first blush of excitement has begun to wear off, or you are established but feeling like things might be stagnating, try one or two of these tips and keep that enthusiasm going even during a slow period.

1. add one new event to your lineup for the year
2. work on recruit packets or replenish your workshop folders
3. send Shelli Gardner a card
4. create a game for your next downline meeting
5. weed out your email inbox
6. create a Facebook business page and get your friends to "like" it
7. send a card to each downline member or especially out of state ones
8. browse a blog long enough to get just ONE idea and go do it before you browse again
9. go through and update your mailing list
10. repaint your stamp room a cheerful, inspiring color
11. hold a booking blitz
12. make up quarter sheet ads for Online Ordering to go in each order bag
13. put together a basket for the next charity raffle/auction you will be asked to do
14. work on swaps for an upcoming event
15. hold an open stamping night once a month
16. write your name and number on all your order forms ahead of time
17. print off flyers for upcoming promotions or go get copies made
18. change up the samples on your display board
19. hold a week of color challenges for yourself
20. start a blog or start a new feature on your blog
21. open Customer Manager and type a couple things about each person into the Notes box
22. work on some cute but simple hostess gifts
23. start your Christmas Cards for next year
24. volunteer at the local Ronald McDonald House
25. send in a suggestion (or two or three) to the Suggestion Box
26. register for a craft fair in your area
27. create your own blog header with My Digital Studio
28. submit something for the monthly contest in Stampin' Success
29. wheel all your order forms with a pretty stamp
30. put some Decor Elements on your car
31. look into starting a class at the local library or senior center
32. visit Stampin' Connection with the sole purpose of answering five basic questions from some clueless new demonstrators
33. take a package of cards to a local shop to consider for consignment
34. wash your demo apron
35. go back and add a link to your store to every blog post that didn't have one
36. make a card using the Ala Carte template in Stampin' Success
37. buy some new digital downloads and play with them right away
38. make up a coupon sheet
39. invent a new technique by combining two of them
40. pick a charity and plan a benefit event for it
41. sketch out some rough ideas for the next Artisan Award contest
42. inventory your pads and papers
43. stamp with your kids and don't sweat the mess
44. hold your own workshop
45. pick a troublesome stamp set and go look through Stampin' Connection for ideas
46. make yourself a flower brooch on the Big Shot
47. run an email-only 24 hour special
48. send out a customer satisfaction survey
49. check all your pens and markers for dry ones and order new if needed
50. join an online swap or start your own
51. go over your downline and see who is close to promoting and call them with encouragement
52. choose one old set and challenge yourself to use it three new ways
53. actually read all the articles in this month's Stampin' Success
54. visit mydigitalstudio.net
55. send a reminder email about the fabulous Clearance Rack
56. do one of Shelli's creative challenges
57. take a downline out for coffee
58. do a big co-event with an upline or sideline
59. arrange a time to come in and make a craft at your child's school
60. get a family picture and make up a photo card
61. mark your catalog with all the sets, wheels and punches you own
62. set up a "paper scraps only" recycle bin next to your stamp room trash
63. make up a handout for your next downline meeting
64. put up a chalboard or a white board for your office to-do list
65. make some business card refrigerator magnets to put in orders
66. separate out your retired stamps
67. plan a rubber rummage sale
68. send a card to any dropped downlines
69. start scrapbooking, or start an inspirational quotes scrapbook
70. pick a motto for the year and stamp it in a pretty frame
71. send an elderly relative some cards and postage stamps to use
72. read through recent Current Updates to make sure something fun didn't slip your mind
73. order yourself a fun new embellishment in a color you normally wouldn't
74. start a referral program, 50/50 board or a frequent buyer card
75. call up a past hostess and ask her if she'd like to schedule her yearly party
76. weed out your swap basket of everything that has retired colors or sets
77. make a piece of Simply Adorned jewelry just for you
78. schedule a scrapbooking retreat at a local retreat house
79. wipe down every surface, doorknob, handle in your office with an antibacterial wipe
80. clean all your stamps and wipe out the cases with a baby wipe
81. submit entries for a color challenge on Splitcoast Stampers
82. print out some templates from the Printing Place and make them up
83. make a sample ring for the Big Shot with different materials
84. arrange a family picnic, couples' night or Christmas event with your downline families.
85. plan a road trip to an SU event
86. google "free demo inspiration blog" and have fun browsing
87. contact your local Welcome Wagon or Chamber of Commerce
88. call your last hostess and ask if everything was great with her order and if she had questions
89. trade parties with a friend in another home business
90. send your upline(s) a card
91. make a piece of home decor or framed art
92. write up a little article on what wish you had known when you started
93. plan a shoebox swap for area demonstrators
94. send a reminder postcard about gift certificates to your customers' significant others
95. "Like" Stampin' Up and Shelli Gardner on Facebook
96. improve the lighting or wash your curtains or blinds ad windows in your stamp room
97. buy a clock, mug, tissue box cover, photo cube or other alterable item
98. plan out what you will need for the next quarter's classes
99. work on items to sell at a craft fair, coffee shop or Etsy shop
100. order a stamp set and plan a product-based stamp camp around it.

Dream BIG and stay busy, friend!

 

Procrastinating and paying for it

"A wise person does at once, what a fool does at last. Both do the same thing; only at different times." Lord Acton

We have something to do and for whatever reason we don't want to do it. It's going to be boring. It will just need to be done again. It's too hot. It's downstairs and I'm upstairs. I just turned the computer off. I only have ten minutes. I don't want to. I'm not sure where to start.

We think about it. We make a list. We decide we'll do it tomorrow. We complain about how much we don't want to do it. Then we Facebook about it. We remind ourselves to do it tomorrow. We make a poll on our favorite chat site about it. We do ANYTHING except do it.

Some of us embrace our tendency to procrastinate, like it's an endearing fault that everyone, including ourselves, has to learn to live with. But it really isn't cute, and when it comes to your business, procrastination can be deadly.

My worst business habit is procrastination, and the worst instances of it involve the phone. Last week I procrastinated to a criminal degree, neglecting to call my hostess until it was shamefully late. I left a message and then procrastinated about following it up. My hostess ended up tracking ME down and rescheduling, and she was really nice about everything, but I did a bad customer service deed that week.

Did you know that the number one complaint that home party hostesses have is the lack of contact by the consultant before the show? Now that you do, what are you going to do about it?

It wasn't intentionally that I neglected my hostess--I just kept putting it off. I don't like making phone calls and so I put them off with any excuse under the sun. But with one thing and another, I left it so late that there was no margin for error. I caused myself and my hostess a lot of unnecessary angst, and barring her forbearance, I would have very deservedly lost a customer. 

Think of all the mental energy I expended on thinking about this one phone call. I could have looked at my planner, thought to call her, and done it. But what I did was procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate, every time I thought about it. And the more I put it off, the bigger hurdle it became in my mind, until suddenly this one little phone call I had to make--not even a cold call, a call to a willing hostess--was a giant dread that nagged at me several times a day. How much better would it have been if I had simply DONE it when I first thought of it? 

So here's my challenge to you this week. First, identify when you are procrastinating. Chances are, while you were reading this article, something popped into your mind. It may not be phone calls for you. Maybe it's doing your tax information, updating your mileage book, or filing those order forms. Whatever it is, you KNOW you procrastinate dreadfully with it.

Secondly, decide right now that when you realize you are procrastinating, that the item will move to the top of your list. No excuses allowed. That thing you hate to do is now the very first item you must tackle. 

My son is an extremely picky eater. He has some sensory issues like his sister, but we still require him to try everything. We're constantly telling him that he should quickly eat the item he detests the most (usually meat), and get it over with. But no... the child will sit with food in his mouth for a half hour or more if allowed. Wouldn't you think he would chew it up and swallow it down as fast as he could, to get it done? It just makes sense! And yet I do the same thing every single day. I sit there with a phone call to make and I worry it like a dog with a bone, ALL DAY LONG.

It really is ridiculous. And when it crosses the line into poor customer service, or causes you to be running around trying to pull good projects out of a hat at the last second, it hurts your business. Make the choice to stop seeing procrastination as "cute," and start seeing it for the risky business behavior it is. The relief you will feel when you conquer that mountain will be intense.

Dream BIG!

What one thing will you do today?

Swiping an idea from my friend Rhonda today, who awhile back started a chat thread at www.stampinaddicts.com with this title: "What ONE thing will you do today for your business?"

I love this idea because it spans all types of demonstrators--those who just want to stay active so they can continue their crazily consuming hobby, to those who want to kick it up a notch, to those who are maybe slowing down after a few years of working full speed, all the way on through career demos ("lifers") like myself.

Every one of us, no matter their situation, can do ONE thing per day for our business. It doesn't have to be a big thing. Maybe it can be one phone call while you're waiting in the carpool. Maybe it is designing one project for next month's club after the kids are in bed. Maybe it's something as small as making one blog post, or delivering one order. The point is not WHAT the one thing is--it's that we're consistently working our businesses. We may be slowly working, but we're slowly working consistently--and that's huge!

I've italicized the word consistently twice now for emphasis, and that's because I sincerely believe it is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Too many of us don't give a thought to our businesses for days at a time--sometimes weeks, and I've even heard some say a month or more. It always saddens me when I ask a new customer if they have a demo, and their answer is, "well... I did, but I'm not sure she's doing it anymore. I haven't heard from her in a long time."

You would not follow a blog that only posted once every three months, would you? After about a week of checking to see if there was anything new, I'd lose interest, myself. Certainly, after a couple months with no posts, I would be turned off for good. So why do we "hope" our customers will "follow" us if we're not consistently offering stamping opportunities, news, and promotions?

Here's a couple of pieces of advice that may help you begin to look at your business in a consistent way.

First, always have one up your sleeve. Before each event ends, you should have another one in the hopper. At least have the general concept and a date down, so that you can tell your customer friends about the next fun event while they are still enjoying the current one. They will want to prolong that feeling of fun--they'll be looking for more. If you've been consistent in making sure you always have another event in the works, you will be able to offer them that next opportunity. Don't wait until you realize it's been two months since you had an event.

Secondly, make a list of things that need to be done, and break them down into small increments. Every big task that needs to be done is made up of smaller steps. For instance, if you are attempting to put out a snail mail newsletter (unfortunately still a necessity in my book, when so many still do not check email or visit blogs regularly), and you are viewing it as one task, you will be staring at what can seem like a huge time-sucking worm-hole. If you're like me, you will then procrastinate indefinitely. However, if you say to yourself, I'm going to write the content for page one today," or "I'm going to get my dates for the next quarter settled today," you can feel GREAT about consistently working at the larger task until it is done.

Keep that broken down list close to you at all times (purse, planner, phone, car--wherever). Now when you have fifteen minutes before you have to pick up the kids, you can take a quick peek at the list and choose one thing to do off it. You'll be efficiently, consistently marking off things every day--at least one.

Thirdly, don't buy into the idea that you have to have "office hours." This concept is heavily promoted by some direct sales business coaches, and I always laugh when I read it. Whoever says everyone needs set office hours clearly has no idea what the life of an ordinary stay at home mom is like. Especially if your children are still at home for any portion of the day, you can just bet that your office hours are going to be interrupted time and time again. That will leave you nothing but frustrated, and you might even begin to feel some resentment towards those precious interruptions.

Office hours also don't necessarily translate into anything getting done, either. How many times have you gone into your stamp room and wound up organizing your closet instead of stuffing the hostess packet you needed to make? Or decided to separate your sponges by Color Collection instead of coming up with a swap card for tomorrow's meeting? Office hours in and of themselves don't mean a blessed thing. 

And fourth, realize that your business, like your life, is made up of individual days. The days add up into weeks, months, years--and that's your life. I recently read a great quote by John C. Maxwell: "You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine." I'd like to put forth that the secret of a successful demonstrator is consistency.Even when your motivation is low, you can still bring yourself to do just ONE thing per day.

So what I'd like to challenge you do to this week is to consistently ask yourself every morning, "what ONE thing will I do for my business today?" And at the end of the work week, you should have at least five things accomplished for your business that you did not have accomplished on Monday. That's awesome! 

Dream BIG, friend!

Protecting your investment

Last week we discussed some strategies for wise reinvestment of your resources into your business. This week, I'd like to look at some ways to follow up on and protect those investments so that we maximize the benefit to our business.

Too often we invest unwisely in our business, but even when we do our research and direct our resources to the place they are needed and likely to succeed, we sometimes have no clear idea of what we want to accomplish with that reinvestment. We have a vague goal of "building our business" but no concrete objectives. It doesn't help that sometimes there is no way to accurately measure the impact of an investment on the business.

Some of that can't be helped. There will always be a subjective quality to putting yourself out there--getting your name out--building goodwill in the community--increasing awareness. There may not be a good way to measure that. But if you are always putting your resources towards vague, non-specific business goals, you will soon become frustrated with your reinvestment and discouraged in your business, because you cannot see measurable results.

One example of a specifically measurable investment results ties right in with Stampin' Up's current focus on the mini catalogs. Many of us send ours out through this great program, which is both financially and physically more efficient than sending them individually or handing them out. However, how many of us follow up on those catalogs with a phone call?

The catalog itself comes in the mail--is probably opened and looked at--and then gets set aside. In two days it is lost, tossed, or underneath a stack of stuff to do later. A phone call from you protects your investment of your money, your time, and your business goodwill. This is called follow up, and many successful demonstrators consider it the silver bullet of business.

Statistics show that 81% of business results from the fifth exposure. How many times have we given up on a person after the first or second exposure to stamping? How many avenues of follow up do we pursue? I am not a phone person and I tend to go to great lengths to avoid it.

Marketing expert David Frey says that surveys show 90% of small business owners do not follow up on their leads.

Mini catalogs are just one example. Advertising can be another. I placed an ad for $45 in a school supplement a few years ago and got nothing from it--no leads, no workshops, no recruits, nothing. Clearly that $45 would have been better spent in a different avenue of advertising or on another area of the business altogether. Some of this will be just "live and learn." But now that I realize that investment failed to bring me a return, I should stop putting my precious resources there, or revise my efforts and hopefully increase the likelihood of success.

My challenge to you this week is to look at one of your business investments and try to determine the success or failure of that investment. One of my favorite "Doctor Phil" quotes is, "And how's that workin' for ya?" It always makes me laugh, because when people stop and really look at whether or not their subconscious relationship strategy is working, they are always surprised to realize it is not.

Sometimes an investment will not clearly be a success or a failure, but fall in a gray area somewhere between the two. If the investment is successful, great. If it is unsuccessful--time to revise your strategy or see if follow-up is the solution.

If you are not sure if the investment is going well or not, if the pros and cons seem to cancel each other out--try throwing some follow up at that as well, and see if you can't improve the investment to the point where it is clearly successful.

Dream BIG, friend!

This article first appeared at www.stampinaddicts.com in October 2009.

Purposeful time investment

“Time invested in one area is time away from another. Invest your time on purpose.” Pamela Waldrop Shaw

Stampin' Up has a great little Decor Elements saying that states a concept I love--"Live every moment." Some might focus on the word "every" in that statement. Others might focus on the word "moment." When I see that saying, I always read it with the emphasis on "live"--LIVE every moment. I want to squeeze every drop of juicy goodness out of this life. Seize the day! The moments fly by, whether you're having fun or not. Make the most of them.

Many of you may have read the best-selling book The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren. Even if you aren't an evangelical Christian, you can still be struck by the fascinating concept of being "purpose-driven." Having a focus or over-riding goal, a personal "mission statement," say, can make a huge difference in how one lives out everyday life.

My friend and sideline Susan Auyer, a 2008 Rising Star Award Winner, says this is what she does when she feels unfocused. "I keep a log of every 15 minutes for a few days to see how I am really using my time. I evaluate whether it is an ‘investment’ or a mere ‘spending’."

All of us have the same number of hours in our day. They are ours, to spend thoughtfully or waste frivolously. Much of those hours are, for busy wives and moms, taken up by the needs of others. There is often nothing that can be done about those hours. But how are you "spending" the hours you DO have?

Susan puts it this way. When she has made her every-15-minute log, she can evaluate. "Am I spending "dollar time" on "penny" jobs?"

I do this all the time. I often spend the best and most productive hours of my day, right after the kids leave in the morning, on the computer. Some of it is legitimate business work, but much of it is not.

This puts important tasks in less important, more "likely to be interrupted" time slots--or jettisons them entirely. How often have I sat down to make a blog post (which I consider important) and two hours later go to get off the computer and realize I never made the blog post? But I've spent those precious hours and I have to scoot to get to an appointment or pick up my kids.

Or I will spend an hour organizing a shelving unit... but what I really needed to be doing right then was creating projects for my next event. Sometimes I spend an hour "discussing" a topic with a negative person--how much better would it suited the purpose of my stamping business life if I had spent that hour gleaning ideas from mentors and people I look up to in business. If the purpose that drives me is growth as an upline and demonstrator, what did that hour accomplish? Zilch.

It boils down to priorities. My overall purpose with my business--what drives me--will be different than yours, but if we both figure out what our focus is and keep it in mind, we'll be more productive, more mindful of time-wasting, and more likely to remain in business.

We women can't "do it all." Don't buy into that dangerous ideal. We're human beings and we have limits. We need to prioritize, figure out our purpose, and let that be our focus as we choose how to invest our time. Our time is our most precious resource. No one in the world can give you more of it, or give it back to you once it's gone, or hit "rewind" and spend it differently the second time around.

So... a challenge. Today I'd like you to take a moment and think about the purpose that drives your stamping business life, and what you can do to help you be more mindful of your time investment, based on that purpose.

Maybe it will be as simple as a note stuck to the computer screen reminding you that Facebook is fun, but needs to be limited. Maybe it is a Decor Element stuck up on your craft room wall that reminds you the moment are passing quickly. Maybe it's something like putting up a clock or setting a timer so you don't get lost in a project and forget you have other things that need to be accomplished as well. If you have a "stay on track" trick works for you, please post it and share here.

Dream BIG, friend!

This article first appeared on www.stampinaddicts.com in August 2009.