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Equal amounts of:

• Family Fun
• Rest
• Good Food
• Grateful Musings

Plus A Whole Dollop of No Business

How can you “have a whole dollop of no business?”  In other words, just walk away from your MLM business?  Simple. Build in a terrific exit strategy for December and a great re-entry strategy into January. How?

Here’s the deal. A little planning goes a long way during these busy holidays. If you want to take the best care you can of yourself, and all those around you, plus have terrific holidays:

• Plan your December exit from work
• Plan your January re-entry back into work

I guarantee, if you exit gracefully from your business schedule, and have a solid plan to re-enter your business in January, you will walk away guilt free and let go of your business throughout the holidays. Not sure how to do that, relax….

Here is the step by step recipe.

Exit Strategy

Take the time to make a list of what must get done before you walk away from your office. Put only those things that really must get done onto your list. Once the list is complete, take another look and see if something else can wait.  If it can, get it off your list.

This is not the list of “what you would like to do.” It is a list of what-must-get-done-to-keep-you-sane during the holidays. Once the list is narrowed down to only what must be completed, go through the list again and see what you can delegate to someone else.

Do you do everything yourself because you believe no one else can (or will) do it as well as you?  You are sabotaging yourself and truncating the growth of your downline.

Leaders delegate. Good leaders delegate in order to develop new leaders throughout their MLM downline.  Do you need to develop your leadership skills?  Consider taking a Savvy Sponsoring Network Marketing coaching program in the New Year.

The trick is to take the 10 or 15 minutes necessary to do this. We are all busy this time of year. It can easily feel we don’t have time to STOP, and organize our thoughts and prioritize our actions. However, for every minute you spend prioritizing what you have to do and giving each item a time slot in your calendar, you will save not only time (lots of it) but your sanity.

Prioritize and Schedule Time For Each Activity

Prioritize and schedule time in your calendar for each of the must do items. Don’t work on anything else in your business until these items are complete. If you have some office time left when all the important “must do items” are completed, then keep working down the priority list. But get the most important things done first.

Sometimes we move so quickly we forget the basics of a smoothly run business.

• Work out of your calendar.
• Make sure you allot yourself enough time for each activity.
• Get everything (yes, everything) off that “to do list” and give it a time in your calendar.

Not only will you get more done…you’ll have some sanity to enjoy all those important people in your life too.

If you currently don’t work out of a calendar, (e.g. book everything you do into a time slot) you are courting disaster. Running a Network Marketing business from the seat of your pants may be a great adrenalin rush, but it is hell on the bottom line. It is also hell on your nerves and the nerves of everyone around you.

Not sure how to keep a good, easy, make your life sane calendar? Buy your business the Savvy Sponsoring Calendar CD and Workbook this holiday season. I promise, you will throw away your ‘to do’ list, get the important stuff done and be sane!  That is a money back promise and guarantee.

Turn Your Business Mind Off and Enjoy Your Holidays

If you take care of the important tasks and tie up loose ends before you close shop for the holidays, there won’t be anything to bug you.  You create peace of mind for yourself.  All the important issues are handled.  Plus, your calendar is ready to get you started when you return to work.

It is the undone, the unorganized things that keep nagging at you.  Take control of your business and the things that need to be accomplished with sound time management.  If you do, you will relax and enjoy your time with your family and friends.

Hint: To make your holiday time even more pleasurable, take all the things you want to do in preparation for your celebrations, and again, make a list. Prioritize – delegate where you can – and assign each item a time to get done. For example, if you want to bake cookies, why not plan the time so you can enjoy the baking.  Maybe make them with your kids. That is a lot more fun than doing them at mid-night the night before you want them. Hmmmm?

The Re-Entry Strategy

It can be really tough to get back to work after the holidays. If we are not careful, it can be mid-January (or later) before we are back into full swing. That isn’t a problem if it is what you planned.

However, if you do not plan this extra time out of production, how do you feel? Guilty?  Are you fretting about what is not getting done? Are you anxious about your next check?

Avoid the January energy vampire.  If you are supposed to be working but you are not, you are spending a lot of negative emotional energy.  Not only are you fretting about what you are not doing, you are digging yourself into inertia.  The longer you are in this work limbo, the more difficult it is to get a handle on yourself and get back into the business of building your network marketing team.  All of this can be avoided if you simply plan your re-entry.  If you are going to take time off work, then plan and enjoy it!

How to Make Coming Back To Work Easy

Don’t leave to go on vacation until you have booked at least one money making activity into your calendar for the first or second day that you are due back to work. This requires you to show up for business on time right after the holidays.

There is nothing like an important money making appointment to bring us back to work.  The more you book your calendar for right after your vacation with strong money making events, the more likely you are to get back into the swing of things right away.  Let us help you get your January in full swing, join our complimentary call on Wednesday, January 6th.  Click here to register now.

How do You Find The Time to Book For January?

How do you start to book January before you close shop? Simple, on that priority list we talked about earlier of what to get done before you close down for the holidays, book an hour or two in your calendar to make appointments in January. Set yourself a goal of two, three, four or ?? appointments and go for it.

Every appointment you set for January will help to make your time off over the holidays more enjoyable. You won’t have one foot in celebration and one foot in angst because you left things up in the air. Be good to you. Plan your holiday exit and re-entry into your business. You will enjoy your holidays knowing you have taken care of business.

Why not start the year out right living your time rather than just spending it.

Warmly,

Jillian

How do you work with new recruits?

There are two approaches to working with your hard found new recruits.

You are Hands off! You say, “I’ll be here to help you if you need me.”

You work with a strategically designed plan of action that includes scheduled check-ins with you after each step or combination of steps.

Here is what happens with the Hands Off approach.

It works well if you have a self starter entrepreneur who is totally committed to being wrong, — often — as they learn the right way to build their business.

Here is what happens with a strategic plan of action with scheduled debriefing check-ins.

Your new consultant keeps moving forward building their business with a sense of accomplishment. She knows what to do, how to do it and takes strength from you being there. You are her sounding board on which she bounces her mis-takes and successes.

Choosing the Hands Off approach often leads to the 500 pound telephone. Without a solid training system that promotes duplication it is easy to worry about recruiting. Recruits new and old only pick up the phone when they are clear they can deliver their promises.

Building a strategically designed plan of action takes an investment in time, energy, often money. It also builds a strong sponsor and duplicating downline.

The “Hands Off” approach is terrific when it works. However, because it seldom works, it is a terrible waste of dreams, energy and hope

How do you work with your new recruits? Tell us here!

Warmly,

Jillian

Ahh when we are in the business of helping others to succeed it’s tough to think that the best way for us to be, is selfish. But I think it is. In fact, I think one of the issues many people in network marketing suffer from is not being selfish enough.

I know it sounds strange. Network Marketing is a helping business and we are all so interconnected. But I see the results of not being selfish enough all the time.

Do you recognize any of these?

• Often working outside of your regular hours because someone else couldn’t (or wouldn’t) make one of the times you offered.
• Calling downline multiple times offering (begging?) to be of service.
• Working with someone over and over again who doesn’t follow through.
• Doing more in someone else’s business than they do so that it gets done.

Not enough selfishness here.

Here’s what I think. The more you ‘bend over backwards’ for someone, the less inclined they will be to take control of their business and do what it takes to make it work. Ultimately their business is doomed because they’re not doing it. But here’s the real scary part…so is your business…doomed.

Don’t let the interconnectedness of network marketing stop you from being “selfish” enough to take care of you. What do you think?

Warmly,

Jillian

PS – Please join me and 9 other business experts, coaches and luminaries for a F.R.E.E event exclusively for leaders in the direct selling, network marketing and multi-level marketing professions. You know I don’t promote a lot of events… but I had to tell you about this one because the speakers are so extraordinary. I know I’m there too but really look at this list.

• Margie Aliprandi, President of My Mind Makeover
• Jane Deuber, Leadership Expert and co-founder of the DSWA
• Leesa Barnes, President of Marketing Fit
• Michael Oliver President and Founder of Natural Selling Sales Training
• Sandy Grason, best-selling author of Journalution
• Scott Stratten, President of Un-Marketing
• Jillian Middleton, founder of Savvy Sponsoring Strategies
• Michael Port and Elizabeth Marshall, co-authors of The Contrarian Effect
• Keith Ferrazzi, best-selling author of Never Eat Alone
• Sarah Robinson, Direct Selling Business Strategist and Founder of Profit, Purpose and Beyond

Profit, Purpose and Beyond will take place October 13 through October 24, 2008 (excluding the weekend). One speaker will take center stage each day at 1pm EST.

Go here now to get the details and grab your seat before they are all gone! Remember folks, there is no charge for this event!

Last week I had the honor and great fun of speaking at the Usborne Book Convention in Tulsa, OK. It is my second year to be invited to speak with these folks and I’m honored to be a part of that convention. I’ve also had the good fortune to be working closely with many Usborne Consultants over the last couple of years and have a close bond with many of them.

Their convention, like most conventions, is packed with great ideas and lots and lots of information. A recurring theme I’ve heard this week after the convention is “Where do I start processing all of this?”

Anyone who has been to a great convention or weekend workshop knows what this feels like. So much good information. How do you sort through it? How do you put it all into action?

Well the truth is, you don’t You can’t put it all into action right away. Your feelings are right, listen to them. It is too much information. That’s why you feel overwhelmed or at least not totally sure where to start. The big problem, because we feel overwhelmed or unsure, is that too often we don’t start at all.

A Little Goes a Long Way

A little goes a long way is not a new idea and it certainly isn’t an original one. But it’s one we often forget when we have so much information to choose from. Why?

Choosing is tough. Because once we choose to do something we are also choosing not to do something else.

• Don’t worry about what you don’t implement.
• But implement something.

You may not see the results tomorrow from a little change in your business, but over time you’ll see a great change. Like most things, it’s the little steps that count. And often when we add those “little steps up,” they leverage themselves and 1 plus 1 starts to equal 3 or 4.

Here’s my suggestion:

1. Pick one thing that you remember right now.  Something that spoke to you.  Something like sounded interesting and you thought at the time “That’s a great idea!”The trick is to pick just one thing.
2. Find your notes and if there is an audio posted from whatever you attended listen to it again.
3. Break down the activity into small doable steps.
4. Put time aside in your calendar to implement each of the steps.

I promise if you pick one thing to implement in your business from that last teleclass, training or convention – just one – and then use the above steps to get it into place, the change in your business will be substantial. It may take a little time for it to show up, but the ultimately you’ll see the difference.

Put some time in your calendar right now to spend an hour to go over your notes and choose the one thing you’re going to implement immediately.

Have fun!

Warmly,

Jillian