“I hold my team meetings and only ONE PERSON attends.”

In my connecting and coaching with direct sales leaders around the world, this is probably the most common statement I hear. What can you do to have every team member feel like they can’t WAIT to see each other at the monthly team meeting?

#1 Promote! Promote!   If you want people to attend, you must promote your meeting consistently. I strongly suggest you hold your meeting on the same day, same time every month. When you don’t deviate from this for the whole year, you are role modeling consistency. Promote your meeting in your weekly newsletter. Post the exciting theme on social media—Facebook, Twitter. Do this in 4-10 posts during the month prior to the meeting. Build the excitement and let everyone know WHO is attending. Send a send a postcard in mail highlighting the training topic and the FUN rewards and recognition.

#2 Delegate! Delegate! One of the best ways to get people to attend your team meeting is to delegate a job. Make a special call to a team member for her assistance, or involve the team to take turns in tasks each month on a rotating basis.
What do you delegate? As much as possible… people love to be busy and helping others. Here are a few
• Greeter at the door (maybe 2)
• Raffle Ticket person
• Someone who will share Team & Company announcements
• Product demonstration person
• Testimonial people with success stories
• Someone to train on their expertise
• Display table – a different person at every meeting showing how she displays the product at her parties.

Delegating tasks for team members is showing you value their contributions.

#3 Prepare! Prepare! Taking time to prepare for your meeting makes you more confident in leading your meeting. Create a checklist to insure you don’t arrive at your meeting without your tools or information. Here is my recommended checklist
• Easel & Chart pad
• Product display table
• hostess packets/recruiting packets
• application forms
• recognition list and recognition gifts
• Incentive sheets from company
• catalogues, brochures
• handouts for meeting
• and your AGENDA

Prepare an AGENDA so team members are excited to learn what new ideas and training topics to expect. Having an agenda helps you stay on track during your meeting. It shows the team that you value their time, and that you’re organized with a plan. It also shows them that you start on time and end on time.

In part three of this series, I’ll share the NINE areas I suggest to make your meeting “extraordinary.”

Leave your comments and questions below and come back next week for Part 3 on “How to hold “Extraordinary” Team Meetings in direct sales.

And be sure to get my next Newsletter “The Mymentorbiz Bulletin,” for information on my next training opportunities by downloading the “7 Ways to Maximize your Income in Direct Sales” at www.mymentorbiz.com

“Great content and information.”

“Loved the format.”

“I think using the term “Business” meeting makes all the difference.”

These were a few of the comments from my APRIL Free CALENDAR GIRLS Team booking system webinar on – How to hold “Extraordinary” team meetings for Leaders in Direct Sales.

As a leader, this is a critical part of growing your team and for a team member this is a critical part of growing your profitable business. Team meetings are the heart and soul of a direct sales business because it’s where you learn to grow deep and meaningful relationships. These relationships help you become a kinder, supportive and motivated business owner.

I use the word “extraordinary” because I believe you want to go beyond what is usual. I spent a lot of time working on my “extraordinary” team meetings and the results were not only “extraordinary” they were the part of my success in building my million dollar team. As I grew my team around the country, I would travel to areas and hold these “extraordinary” team meetings and this template helped skyrocket my team to the top of the company.

What’s “extraordinary?” I believe a team meeting is the place where the team
• learns new ideas
• has lots of fun
• laughs and enjoys friendships
• learns how to sell your exclusive products
• gets recognized as part of an exclusive team
• takes notes because they want to implement the training
• attend because they don’t want to miss seeing fellow team friends
• brings guests to join the group
• love belonging to this fun group and spending time together
• are motivated and inspired to make money & build a business

Notice the words I used: Fun | friendships | Learning | recognition | friends | belong | motivated | inspired | Fun.

This was so easy for me to describe because it’s what happened at my own “extraordinary” team meetings.

I have more to share on this, so ask a question or make a comment below and come back to this blog next week for Part 2 on “How to hold “Extraordinary” team meetings in direct sales.”

And, don’t forget to sign up on this website for my FREE monthly Webinars by downloading the “7 Ways to Maximize your Income in Direct Sales” at www.mymentorbiz.com

Expos and Trade Shows are a way to increase your direct sales business if you are a serious business builder. When I moved to three different cities and didn’t know many people, I did many expos, trade shows and fairs to generate new customers and new circles of business. Many of them were smaller venues, like fairs, farmers markets, lifestyle and fitness expos. I also hooked into many local business conferences and corporate vendor events. I found it one of the most effective ways to grow my business. However, they are a very big “time” investment, so you must understand the value of how these venues increase your direct sales business.

Some Trade shows are expensive so be prepared for this and look at it as investing in YOU and your business. You may want to share the expenses with team members. As I grew my team, I included new consultants and it was a great learning experience on how to connect and talk about their business.

Here are my best FIVE tips to increase your business at trade shows

Set a goal
What do you want from the event? In my first few expos, my goal was to get new customers. My focus was to introduce my product and share how it would help them feel and change their life. I invited them to a special “product showcase” the very next week. Of course, I was looking for bookings and new recruits, but first people had to get to know me and my product. As I grew my client base, my next goals were getting bookings and finding new recruits. However, every trade show is always about increasing your business with new clients.

Let your booth reflect your goal
Make your booth INVITING AND EXCITING!! If you want sales, display product they can buy instantly. If you want bookings, have your calendar with OPEN dates and a ton of hostess packets. If you want recruits, have signage, your kit display and application forms ready. Set up your booth related to your goal. Remember to “keep it simple.” Use your product to make it visually appealing. If using signs, make them simple big words. Words attract people so they will ask for more information. You want your booth to look “inviting” enough that people will want to step in to find out more information and feel comfortable talking to you.

Qualifying your leads
“What brought you to the show today?”
“I’m looking for ideas in working with my crafts.”
“Oh, what kind of crafts do you do?”
“I love to work with paper and create artistic impressions.”
“It sounds like you’re a very creative person. Do you live close by?”
“Thank you. Yes, I live about 30 minutes away at ___ suburb.”
“That’s a beautiful place to live. I have done some of my best shows in that area?”
“What kind of shows?”

This is the REAL reason you do a trade show – to get to know people and qualify them to become customers, hostesses and recruit leads. Notice my conversation above when greeting a show guest, I asked questions about her for the first few minutes without saying a word about my business. I found a way to draw the conversation to my business when I asked her where she lived. To qualify your leads, you must be interested in THEM. If you begin spewing too much information about you and your product you will find people don’t want to spend much time at your booth. If you build the conversation and ask questions first, people will respond and become very, very interested in you and your product.

When I first started doing trade shows, I studied how others greeted people at their booths. I studied why some booths had a ton of people and others “sat” waiting. The #1 rule is to walk toward people to greet them with a big smile on your face and get to know them, and then offer your services and offer your drawing information which should always be on a small clipboard. Rule #2 is to write something on her draw slip that you remember about her for follow-up. e.g. for the person above, I would have written “a creative person who works with paper in creating artistic impressions.”

Working the Expo trade floor
I found one of the worst offenders in being pushy about their business were other vendors who came by your booth and shoved a flyer in your face to come to their booth. Connecting with other vendors can be extremely valuable, but again, build the friendship. Get to know them by asking questions. Be genuine, be authentic and this will attract them to come by your booth to see your wonderful products and gather information.

Follow the fortune in follow up
The best way to build the fortune in your follow-up is to invite everyone to a next event like a “product showcase” or an “opportunity meeting” or simply a get-together for coffee. Remember, these “hot” leads get cold very fast. The longer you take to follow-up, the colder they become. Be organized when making your calls. Prepare a script if necessary. Refer to what boxes were checked on her drawing form and the notes you wrote about her when you connected. Have an invitation ready when making the call. Most of the people I followed up with were invited to my “product showcase” event which I held every week. If they couldn’t attend, I asked if they’d like to get together for a “private appointment.” The key to the follow-up fortune is finding a way to connect with them again. Most people think they have to get a sale, or book them as a hostess. These are strangers who must get to know you, like you and trust you FIRST. When this happens, business will happen and you will see the results of your efforts.

Review your goal after every show and recognize areas you would do differently next time. I found that the most successful trade shows were the ones where I grew new customers and followed up to keep the connection going. If you have persistence and commitment, trade shows and expos are one of the best ways to increase your business.

I have a very informative handout called “How to get the most out of Trade Shows & Expos” if you leave a comment below and send me an email to galebates@mymentorbiz.com, I’ll send you a FREE copy.

I was so pumped this week to read a Monday Update Newsletter from one of my private coaching clients that began with

OUTSTANDING Sales!
OUTSTANDING Parties!
OUTSTANDING Recruiting!
OUTSTANDING Teamwork!

The Monday Update newsletter is part of the CALENDAR GIRLS team booking system that I created to help leaders build strong teams. When you work this system you’ll see a team who is earning consistent cash flow in their direct sales business every week!

The Monday Update newsletter highlights each team member’s success in being on the team calendar. The leader lists each team member who is holding a party. The calendar is their accountability partner. It holds her accountable to increasing her income and builds confidence in building consistent bookings. This confidence spills over when team members are working with hostesses who are excited to work with an experienced direct seller.

The Monday Update newsletter highlights team members who are role models for others. For example when a mom of two who also holds a fulltime job is always on the CALENDAR GIRLS calendar with one booking a week, it shows others on the team that if this busy mom can do one party a week, so can they.

The CALENDAR GIRLS workbook, which is a crucial part of this system, helps the leader focus on her goals in coaching and training her team. Specifically, a team booking goal, team sales volume goal and team recruiting goal. These are the THREE major components in building a profitable and successful team. They are all tied in with a positive communication system that helps the leader recognize top performers and upcoming leaders.

My client, who had her best month ever in her business this month, diligently writes her Monday Update Newsletter every week and the proof is in the OUTSTANDING RESULTS she and her team celebrate this week.

What about you? Are you a leader who is having OUTSTANDING results in your business? You might want to check out the CALENDAR GIRLS team booking system here.

I was on a call this week with Direct Sales Leaders and aspiring leaders. We discussed exciting ways and strategies to move up a level in their company’s leadership program. Everyone agreed the best reason to move up was MAKING MORE MONEY

There are other benefits to leadership like building confidence, personal growth and helping others.

I asked the question, “What do you think the big SECRET is to moving up a level?” One bright leader answered correctly – RECRUITING!

Yes, you make great consistent income holding parties every month, but the SECRET to generating a HUGE income is building a team through recruiting. You can only hold one party at a time, but when you recruit and clone yourself you are now generating more sales, seeing more people and giving greater service?

Here are some activities that help you move to the next level in direct sales.

Increase your bookings
Book two extra bookings for the month. This is insurance against cancellations. When you hold extra bookings you’re assured of meeting more people to recruit.

Focus on a goal with every hostess.
Always remember “What’s in it for her.” Set a goal with your hostess on having 10 buying guests at every party. Point out the benefits and show her the figures. Help her with her guest list and who to invite. Share your business opportunity with every hostess.  Interview every hostess.  Hostesses are your BEST prospcts for recruiting.

Recruit leads at every party
Learn to focus on identifying three hot prospects at every party. It could be the hostess, the largest order, or the first booking, or the person who asks lots of questions about the business. Hand recruiting packets to these three people and follow up.

Pledge to share the opportunity with Two people every week
Recruiting is all about the numbers. Make a pledge to yourself to meet with at least two people every week and you’ll see the results.

Develop new circles of business.
Generating new circles of business is essential for growth. Fine tune your powerful story to communicate and meet new people.

Leadership is critical in these times, and people are looking for ways to add to their family budget. Some have to change their whole career because they lost their jobs to downsizing. You have a gift to offer.

April – the second quarter of the year – is a perfect time to move up the next level of leadership. You will not only increase your income and leadership skills, it offers you the freedom of choosing the hours you want to work and more important, it gives you a platform to help others improve their lives.

What about you? Are you ready to move up and make more money?

Last week I had a leader email me for advice because she was having a ton of cancellations in her team. It is indeed a red flag when you see most of your team getting cancellations with their bookings. And most of you know when this occurs, the answer is more than likely your team needs training on hostess coaching.

I walked her through my hostess coaching steps that are laid out in my “Hostess coaching Tool Kit” E-book. After listening to me for a few minutes, she had a big “aha.” She discovered what was missing most from her own training – was the team just weren’t focusing on the hostess wish list!

I put it to her this way. When you wrap up your party, what do you say to your hostess?

Scenario #1 Suzie, I’m so excited the total party sales come to $650 and you have $130 to spend in free product what do you want to order?

or do you say

Scenario #2 Suzie, I’m so excited the total party sales come to $650. This means you can get the whole set of product you wanted on your wish list for FREE! Plus with the two bookings, I would recommend we get the most expensive item on your list at half price.

In scenario #1 the consultant has no idea what the hostess wants for free. WOW! This means the partnership is very weak because there is no “goal” for her. When she writes out a wish list the hostess is excited. Afterall she’s having the party because she loves the product. So, you want to add up the amount of the product from her wish list and let her know the sales total of her party that will help her get the whole list for FREE!
Now, she has a goal.
Now, the BOTH of you have a goal.
Now, you can explain who to invite and how to get the right amount of people to her party and it makes it so much easer because it will help the hostess get the product she wants for free!

Whereas, in #2 scenario you know exactly how this consultant has formed a great partnership with the hostess because she knows immediately what she will order for FREE!

This is a tiny little part of hostess coaching that can make a HUGE impact on getting the right people to attend the party. When you focus on what the HOSTESS wants for free AND share the sales goal and the best way to achieve that goal is to invite 6-8 friends who love the product and want to have fun, you and your hostess are connecting and focusing on her FREE PRODUCT!

Essentially, connecting with your hostess is focusing on what’s in it for her! When you do this using the HOSTESS WISH LIST, you’ll find you’ll have tons of successful parties with high sales and many future bookings.

What scenario are you using with your hostesses? #1 or #2? Leave a comment below if this has been a helpful tip for you.

Do you love meeting up with old friends, finding new friends and having lots of laughs together?

What about getting so excited when you attend workshops and learn how to increase your sales or find a cool idea how to keep your calendar full of bookings. Then your passion level rises when you hear how a woman just like you recruited 15 people in one month, and you think, “Wow, if she can do it, so can I.” At this point you are ready to go home and try all the tips she gave you from this one testimonial.

Then there’s the motivational stuff! You hear the words shared by a “keynote” speaker and you are pumped. You get that wonderful feeling inside knowing you definitely made the right decision to join your company.

How many of you are thinking,
“I’d love to go to convention but I don’t think I can afford it,” or
“I’d love to go to convention but I’d have to take time off work,” or
“I’d love to go to convention but how can I leave the family.”

Convention is about YOU and FOR YOU! It’s about your future and your development in building a strong and profitable direct sales business.

Convention is designed to help you grow personally and professionally and learn from the best in your company. The first workshop I attended at my first convention was entitled “How to make a 6 figure income in Direct Sales” That was all the motivation I needed to build an amazing business to the top of my company.

There is nothing more rewarding than to attend convention with your team! Those late night get-togethers and grabbing quick cups of coffee racing to your first workshop. All the fun and laughter with others who love their business just like you.

That’s convention. It’s where you get the big picture. It’s where hear that ONE amazing tip you’ve been searching for to move your biz forward. It is the perfect place to build team spirit and bond with other like minded people.

Don’t miss your 2012 convention. All it takes is planning.

#1 Calculate how many parties it would take to pay for this event.
#2 Pay attention to the early bird registration price
#3 Look for inexpensive air fares
#4 Find room mates NOW to split the cost
#5 Encourage your team members to attend with you.

Don’t let perceived costs of convention stop you or your team members from attending because convention is an investment in you!

Invest in yourself, make a plan and break it down into achievable steps. The rewards are enormous!

Are you planning to attend your 2012 convention this year? 

What are you willing to do to attend?

This morning…
I was facebook Instant messaging with a client who was visiting Hong Kong,

I was on the phone coaching with a client in Nova Scotia, Canada,

I answered emails from Auckland, Halifax, Chicago and Padre Island,

and this afternoon..

 I’m skyping with my mastermind group in Utah, Victoria and Hawaii.

Wow and oh yes,

 I texted a friend who visited and was traveling home to Denver to make sure she arrived safely.

You could say we live in a busy world, but at the end of the day, connecting with people is what all direct sellers do to build their business.

Some of the struggles I hear from direct sellers are

“I follow-up and nobody ever responds.”
• If you’re following up via telephone and never getting any responses – maybe send a positive text. “It was great to meet you at the event last week. I’d love to continue our conversations about your interest in getting to know each other better. I’ll call again in a couple of days.” This is a very friendly text message which will many times create a quick “thank you” response. You know she remembers you.

or, “A team member won’t reply to my emails”,
• When you get no response from a team member it usually means she’s either embarrassed because she feels like she’s let you down, or something major has happened in her life. I find a quick “facebook message” always gets a response. Many people may not be checking their email. If they are a facebook friend, you can believe they’ll be checking it out once a week.

or, “I have such a difficult time making calls to people”
• Find a way to make this FUN! Use a system that excites you to connect like my “20 Calls Weekly Worksheet” system*. Text a customer, or get familiar with skype.
• One of the BEST ways to get repeat business coming back to you every week, is to send a handwritten thank you note to every person the day after she orders. (I have clients who are doing this and getting a ton of repeat business.)

It’s time to diversify your communication strategy and connect with people using ALL the opportunities available to you today.

How are you connecting and getting the most results?  Share your ideas with others.

Last week I was preparing for my free CALENDAR GIRLS team booking system monthly training and I went to www.youtube.com to view some inspiring and motivating videos. It is the phenomenum of our times where we not only can read uplifting and spiritual messages, but we can SEE and visualize a meaningful video. I love it!

When I clicked on the “motivational videos” a lot of Brian Tracy’s training came up. I have read many of his books and believe he is one of the most important teachers for direct sellers in helping build a direct sales business.

I love to share his philosophy of “Eat your Frog.” When I work with my coaching clients in helping them deal with overwhelm on what to do first. I always ask them to “swallow” their frog first! That simply means tackling your toughest task first, focus on it until it’s completed before you move to the next one. It’s a great philosophy that works.

The video I came upon was so rewarding for me. Brian shares his 1004% productivity formula. It’s based on the law of incremental improvement, increasing your productivity by one-half of one per cent each week.

Make sure you watch it.  It’s very cool. Here’s the link.

After watching this video, I made a decision. Lately, I’ve found I’m not getting the reading done I need as part of my own personal development system, so I decided to use Brian’s one-half of one per cent productivity process and read an uplifting, personal development book for one hour every morning. Brian calls it the “golden hour.” He suggests you get up one hour earlier and invest in yourself reading uplifting and spiritually  motivating books.

Many of you know I believe personal development is essential to your business acumen. That’s why I review a business or personal development book in my free ezine, the “Mymentorbiz Bulletin” every month.

I am loving the “Golden Hour.” I did indeed finish my first book which was Jack Canfield’s “The Golden Motorcycle Gang” which has been on my nightstand for over six months. I finished in the first week and now my goal is to read 52 books this year.

I’m slightly behind starting the second week of February, so will have to figure maybe one month adding another hour to the “Golden hour.”

How much do you invest in personal development in your own direct sales business? And what have you been reading lately? Share your latest read and help others invest in success as well.

This week one of my favorite Social Media business experts, Karen Clark, put a post on facebook. She said,

“Who follows up with their individual webinar attendees to see if they put anything into practice?”

Well in fact Karen does, because she’s holding seminars that help you get results “Within One Week.”

I hold a FREE teleseminar/webinar myself for leaders who are using the CALENDAR GIRLS workbook system I’ve developed. This is held on the second Tuesday of every month. At the end of every call I ask everyone to share their W.O.W.

The W.O.W. is simply sharing what you learned from the teleseminar that you will implement in your business “Within One Week.”

It got me thinking, how many teleseminars and webinars do you listen to every week, every month? We are living in the information age and there are lots of wonderful, exciting and very helpful training seminars that are available today. Many, of which, are FREE training.

So, think about Karen’s question today. Are you a teleseminar/webinar junkie? Are you listening to all this great information and learning from it? Are you truly spending your time wisely listening to information that will bring you the results you want in your direct sales business?

Results like, higher sales from every party.
Results like a FULL calendar of bookings rolling out every 4 weeks.
Results like a recent participant in my BOOT CAMP SERIES who wrote to me today,

“Gale, I want to “thank you” for your Leadership Boot Camp and for the Girl’s Calendar Planner. This month with my company promo my interviews have been “Wonderful!” I’ve had four interviews, and 3 out of 4 have signed up and one of them has already had her first launch party and signed-up a team member. My TEAM is really starting to GROW! Thank You Again!”

I think teleseminars and webinars are one of the greatest learning tools of our modern information age. However, I would encourage you to ask yourself after every seminar.

• What did I learn?
• How can I implement it in my business within one week?

Share with us today your W.O.W. What results have you got from implementing what you learned within one week!