1st Steps as a AVON Rep

1st Steps as a AVON Rep

The Power of Rehearsal

"Everyone loves to win - but how many love to train?"
Mark Spitz - 1972 Olympic Gold Medallist Swimmer

When I was little, I wanted to be a singer. I loved the idea of entertaining people with rythum melody and harmony. I listened to records and learned songs and even put on shows performing with the handle of the vacuum cleaner.

The magic fraternity has a number of rules. The most important one is that you must never reveal the secret of a trick (so don’t ask me!) But one of the rules that I learned that has been useful in my real experiences as a singer speaker and trainer  is that you must practice and practice – and then practice some more. And only when you are thoroughly rehearsed do you perform the trick in public.

Practice and rehearsal also make a huge improvement to the delivery of presentations and speeches.

Here’s what happens to an unrehearsed speaker:

They "um" and "ah"They can’t remember what comes next. They get sidetracked and waffle. They go over time or run out of time.They read their presentation and put the audience to sleep.They lack confidence, control and credibility.

This list of problems is bad enough. But the real problem is that your audience doesn’t say to themselves "this speaker hasn’t rehearsed" – no, they say to themselves "this person and their company, product and service are incompetent." They don’t make allowances – and why should they?

Take on board that you have not finished preparing when your notes are written and your PowerPoint is on a drive. You need to practise your talk out loud from beginning to end. And the more often you rehearse it the better.

Learn your opening – know your first line in your sleep so that "starters nerves" won’t stop you from remembering or delivering your opening words with energy and confidenceKnow your closing – for maximum impact you want to be able to deliver it directly to the audience without any notes and without PowerPointPractise with any props and visual aids – especially PowerPoint. Get the timing of your slides right and be thoroughly familiar with their content.

I learned the discipline and the benefits of rehearsal from my childhood poetry contest daye. And it is a discipline because it is time consuming and repetitive and you often don’t feel as if it’s really contributing to your performance. But I can guarantee that it does.

The popular Polish pianist and composer Ignace Paderewski was once asked to explain why, after so many years, he still practiced every day. His response?

"If I miss one day's practice I notice it. If I miss two days, the critics notice it. If I miss three days, the audience notices."

Opportunity For You To Market To Real Estate Agents, Insurance Agents & More Today Only!

I have partnered with a dear Friend from WomenPartner.org. WomenPartner.org has orchestrated a Guinness World Record attempt to break the record "most people attending a business speed networking event" (multiple venues) on Sept. 17. 10 cities participated.

Although they didn't break the record, they got a lot of donations to help charities that supply back to school supplies and food to the needy. 600 business and professional, female and male, people participated in the events. They included real estate agents/brokers, insurance agents, CEOs, executives, coaches and more. To thank them for their participation and donations, WomenPartner.org is putting together a powerhouse virtual goody bag that will be sent out Monday evening. They are looking for 10 more virtual goody bag sponsors, only $50 to insert a full page ad to promote one company, to complete the "bags". You can promote two businesses for $75 or 3 businesses for $100. In addition to having their businesses positioned in front of the participants, sponsors will be mentioned in the press release distributed by the 10 city organizers.

Visit WomenPartner.org's Guinness World Record attempt Facebook page , http://tinyurl.com/pw4mc55 , to check out some of the participants and organizers. Read the pinned post or email jerrilynnbthomas@womenpartner.org for more information on grabbing one of the sponsorship's. Please note that the payment option is Google Wallet not PayPal. If you aren't familiar with Google Wallet, it's very easy to use. Sponsorship's are first come first serve today.

Until next time

Email Strategies To Elevate Your Holiday Marketing Program

It's not too late to inject a little innovation into your holiday email-marketing planning, even if you feel as if Cranberry Red Thursday (Thanksgiving in the U.S.) is hovering over your shoulder already.

My list below suggests six holiday revenue or engagement strategies that you can either launch or update in the weeks that remain before the blitz begins.

1. Strategy: Look for ways to close the smartphone conversion gap by making your emails easier for shoppers to view and act on, coordinating email and mobile messaging.

Launch: If a full redesign isn't in the cards, make your emails more mobile-friendly: raise the font size, reduce the column width to avoid side-scrolling, and trim copy to place the most important content at the top of the message. Delete all but the most essential copy.

Update: Use email to encourage customers to download, install and use your mobile app. Also, use email to persuade users to accept mobile and Web push notifications.

2. Strategy: Move beyond the one-day extravaganza to differentiate your emails from all the other Black Friday emails in subscribers' inboxes.

Launch: Create a unique promotion and content approach for each of the five shopping days bracketing Black Friday, from "Cranberry Red Thursday" to Black Friday to Cyber Monday.

Update: Focus on Cranberry Red Thursday, which became a retail shopping day in 2014. If your stores will open on Thanksgiving, consider special promotions and shopper information about store hours, locations and special offers to increase awareness and drive traffic. 

3. Strategy: Dedicate at least one email a week to "white space" content that informs and educates.

Launch: Kick off your holiday shopping season with an email guide covering essential information: free or expedited shipping deadlines, store locations, special hours, gift lists, return policies, payment options, customer service contacts and anything else that would help shoppers buy successfully.

Update: Create email buyers’ guides for specialty gift purchases where rookie shoppers could use some virtual assistance -- like sporting goods, electronics, jewelry, housewares or clothing. Alert shoppers about impending deadlines, changes in store hours and other late-season initiatives.

4. Strategy: Promote gift card purchases and redemption promotions in remarketing programs and email content.

Launch: Develop a broad-based promotion plan that suggests gift-card purchases to browse abandoners. Dedicate several emails to buying, giving and redeeming gift cards online and in stores. Add gift-card information to every holiday email.

Update: Close out the shopping season with an email listing gift ideas and policies/procedures for redeeming gift cards.

5. Strategy: Add abandoned-cart and browse-abandonment reminder emails to bring casual or comparison shoppers back to your website.

Launch: This might be an ambitious undertaking in the waning days of Q3 or the quietest days of Q4, but given the potential revenue at stake, it's at least worth exploring.

Do what you need to do to get a basic abandoned-cart email program up, tested and running before the shopping season swings into high gear. Address the reasons why shoppers break off transactions, such as technical problems or shipping-fee objections. Link to the transaction page, and include exact product descriptions and photos.

Update: Increase the number of email reminders from one to a series. Move from batched messages to an hour or less from cart abandonment for the first message.

Shoppers often use carts as virtual shopping lists. So, make your carts persistent if you can but remind shoppers in abandonment emails about the hazards of waiting too long (out-of-stock merchandise, expiring promotions, etc.).

6. Strategy: Add or buff up transactional emails to increase trust, reduce doubt, engage new shoppers and bring them back after the holidays.

Launch: Add at least one new transactional email, especially a "fulcrum" message: an email that's pivotal in driving revenue, engagement or actions. Consider an enhanced welcome message or onboarding program or a companion to a purchase, such as a shipping notification.

Update: Add an opt-in invitation to every transactional message to convert new shoppers to subscribers. Move from batched message sending to near-real time.

Which of these has the potential to move the needle on your holiday email program?

Until next time, take it up a notch!

Why Online Presence Is Important For Your Business

The importance of having an online presence and a personal brand is growing day by day, regardless of which industry you belong to. The potential customers and clients want to see that you are engaged in the respective community and are more likely to take on your work if you already have an online presence. The beauty and wellness industry is a blooming business and the high organic search engine rankings go a long way towards its ability to secure first-time as well as repeat client bookings. Beauty companies and advertisers now realize the importance of increasing their online presence and have shifted ad dollars to have a prominent digital focus rather than traditional television and print campaigns.

In this industry, the experience at the point-of-sale (POS) remains highly important because it is where the sale is won or lost, where the interaction with the brand comes to life and the seeds of loyalty are planted. It can affect brand performance by improving brand image and consumer satisfaction. It can have direct impact on a brand’s overall perception among customers and their loyalty to it, delivering a unique shopping experience and further enhancing the beauty brand and customer loyalty. By having an online presence for your beauty products business, you are able to guide traffic generated through media. Beauty companies invest in media to further a particular brand or category, linking brands with special occasions and holidays already connected to your purchases. Therefore, you need to improve return on media investments in order to have an appropriate POS support. It can help you generate incremental sales, build recognizable brand missions and values, attract customers with appealing store merchandising, and foster a retail culture and skills. You can know your shoppers and can have indirect as well as indirect contact with end consumers of your beauty brands and fully understand their needs and behaviors. Your strong online presence will provide consumers with a balanced product knowledge, service and sales techniques that fully embody your brand image.

KASH SKILL Income Producing Activities

Are You Focused On Income Producing Activities?

Or are you busy running in 50 different directions like a chicken with its head cut off?  If you’re like most people getting started in Network Marketing and trying to build a home business, the picture isn’t really clear as to how you should go about producing income.

Income Producing Activities

I’m sure you have some great income producing activities, but most of them won’t generate income right away!

Let me explain:

Most people, myself included when I first got started, focused too much on the company products, the science behind it all, the compensation plan. How to do social media, building a blog, watching guru videos, studying this and studying that…

The next thing you know, a month has gone by and  all of the so called income producing activities you were working on, didn’t bring in a dime.

Yes, having some basic knowledge of your product line and how the comp plan works is important.  BUT… None of that is ever going to generate any income.

A lot of us when we just start out in our home business have a limited amount of time because we have so many other commitments to attend to. Like a J.O.B., our families, hobbies etc. Most come into network marketing as a part time gig in order to make some additional income. Especially in today’s economy.

Well, if you’re spending all your time doing Non-Income Producing Activities such as the ones listed above, you are setting yourself up for nothing but frustration and disappointment.

Here Are My Top Three Income Producing Activities!

If you focus on these three things, 80% of the time, you will experience a lot less frustration and become successful in half the time.

1. Share Your Opportunity – Prospecting!

It’s as simple as this… If you are not talking to at least 3 people a day and sharing your opportunity, (5 or 10 would be better) then where will the income, come from?

2. Build New Relationships!

This goes hand in hand with prospecting. You have to build the relationship first before you can ever share your opportunity.

Get out and network! Hey these days you don’t even have to leave the house to network, although I suggest you do. There are meet-up groups going on all over the country in every city. Get out an mingle with people, if you’re the type person that shy’s away from socializing, then you need to break old habits, force yourself to get more.

Remember, your not going out there to sell anyone anything! You job at this stage is to build relationships.

If time is really limited then spend an hour a day on Facebook or Google + and start up some conversations with people. Friend the interesting people who are talking business and current events. You can join different groups on Facebook, get connected in forums, start to add value to the conversations going on there.  People will take notice and start to look at you as a leader.

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT just start hitting them over the head with your new business opportunity. That should be the last thing you discuss. It takes a little time to build a relationship.  Some build faster than others.  It’s all part of the Income Producing Activities.

Lead with solutions, not your opportunity! You wouldn’t walk up to a complete stranger and ask them to marry you right? This is no different!

The Most Important Of The Income Producing Activities is… (drumroll please!)
3. The Follow-Up!

The fortune is in the follow-up as they say and it’s the most overlooked step in the process, for whatever  the reason is.

Quick story…

The other day as I was working on a one of the long term income producing activities, putting together a few new autoresponders for one of my lists, an email came through. It was someone that had opted into my system because they were looking for information regarding how to generate leads online.

That person had just received an email of mine from my autoresponder about Domain Names and Autoresponders. (oddly enough)

Here’s what they had to say:

“Sir what do you want? I’m in college at the age of 48! I have no life anymore and I just want to finish my degree. I don’t think there is anything you can help me with!”

WOW – I thought to myself, how do I approach this one? Or do I just let it go? After all, they were the one that opted-in for this info… But sensing their frustration I decided to follow-up with them immediately.  What did I have to lose?

My response:

“I apologize if there has been any misunderstanding. At one time you opted into my website looking for info regarding marketing online. At the bottom of all my emails you will find a link to allow you to Opt-Out so you don’t receive any mail from me”.

I do understand your frustration, I am 54 and a couple of years ago I had to reinvent myself too. I can relate to NOT having a life for a while.

You chose to go back to school, get a degree and most likely will work for a big corporation. I chose to build my own business and in the process, try and help those who are looking for ways to use the internet.

My first time around working for someone else didn’t work out so well, it’s even worse in today’s economy. Corporate America and its loyalties just aren’t what they used to be.

I wish you all the best in the world and hope you can take back your life very soon!

One final thought… At one point you were looking online for something. Perhaps a way to generate some additional income, I am assuming thats how you found me in the first place.

I don’t push my primary business often but thought you might find this intriguing”

I added a link to my latest video capture page and figured I would probably never hear from that person again; or worse, I’d get a really nasty email back!

Much to my surprise, 10 minutes later I received an email with an apology and their phone number saying… If you want to talk business, give me a call.

I about fell out of my chair! 95% of the time I can’t capture someone’s phone number with a direct call to action- LOL!

But if I hadn’t followed-up, who knows how this would have ended! This just proves the most important income producing activities end with the follow-up!

Decide Commit Succeed!

Xoxo
KASH Karla A Smith Howard
Declaring and Sharing Inspired
Knowledge Attitude Skills & Habits

"To Be or Not to Be" The Face of Your Brand

The secret to creating a powerful personal brand include building a compelling persona by accentuating the better aspects of your characteristics while minimizing those that are less compelling, shaping your personal persona to appeal to your target market and forgoing cheesy gimmicks.

Now that you’ve identified these essential components of your personal brand, it’s time to carefully consider what will happen the moment you step in front of your business and become its public face.

People Will Want To Meet You And Know More About You

Many consumers do research before choosing to patronize a business – most simply seek out reviews from current and former customers, but some want to know more, including how long a company has been in business, how many people they employ, if they have ever relocated and, finally, what awards or recognitions the company has received. For some, the stability of an established company speaks positively to their reputation, while others seek out attributes that they like and can identify with. Many people like to support local and locally-owned companies, while others may feel compelled to patronize a business with a long and interesting history.

You Must Be More Available To Others

When an entrepreneur becomes the public face of a business or organization, their personal brand essentially takes the place of their business brand, and it becomes necessary to share many aspects of your personal and professional history and accomplishments with prospective customers.

Becoming the face of a business or brand doesn’t mean that your life is now a completely open book, but it is necessary to become more open and available to others, especially at public events, and seeking out opportunities to introduce yourself and share your personal story with others.

These opportunities can include public speaking events at conventions, conferences and smaller events held by organizations such as your local chamber of commerce. If you don’t feel comfortable speaking to groups in public or sharing your story, or the idea of mingling and meeting new people is intimidating, you may want to reconsider taking a public role as the face of your business.

Prepare To Face Personal Complaints, Criticism And Gossip

Shushh she coming!! There is another, sometimes more personally uncomfortable consequence of becoming the public face of your brand: when a client or customer is unhappy or disgruntled, you may become the personal and often public target of their ire. As professionals, we have all likely dealt with an unfortunate situation in which a client or customer was unhappy or disgruntled, but it was likely more of an impersonal situation in that the client or customer directed their complaint or ire at the business. Once you become the public face of your business, many clients and customers will hold you personally responsible for the actions of the business, or for the actions of one of your employees. While you are ultimately responsible for the satisfaction of your clients and customers, you may be emotionally unprepared when a public and sometimes very personal complaint or criticism is lodged, especially over the Internet.

Reconsider Some Public Activities

Creating a compelling personal brand involves accentuating your positive attributes while downplaying and sometimes omitting the negatives.  Once you become the public face of your business, it is important to carefully consider and sometimes rethink activities that you may have felt comfortable doing in the past, such as commenting or discussing controversial topics in public or on social media. While some business owners feel compelled to be politically active or to share other controversial opinions, it is important to consider the ramifications of alienating any segment of your target market.

Should Someone ~Else~ Be The Public Face Of Your Company?

After carefully considering some of the responsibilities and consequences of becoming the public face of your business, you may be more hesitant than you were before to take on this role. Not everyone is willing and able to become a public figure, even a minor one, and it is better to consider going another, less personal route with the branding of your business than damaging your personal brand and the brand of your business. However, some business owners seek a compromise – instead of becoming the face of their business, they appoint an employee or manager to take that role, or they have sought out a former owner to become a promotional “figurehead” of the company. Perhaps the most famous promotion figurehead of a company was Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s. Although Mr. Thomas resigned from running the daily operations of Wendy’s in 1982, he spent the remainder of the 80s and the 90s appearing in commercials and other advertisements as the face of the company, and many believed that he was the actual owner and leader of Wendy’s during that time.

Are The Risks Worth It?

As the owner or manager of your business, you should carefully consider whether or not allowing someone else to become the public face of your business is a good idea. While the previous example of Mr. Thomas was a resounding marketing and branding success, it is important to remember that by handing this role to a third-party, you are ceding the branding and public face of your company to someone else, and this can backfire. If one of your employees becomes the public face of your company, what will you do if you have to terminate their employment? What will happen if they commit a public gaffe, or share a controversial opinion? It may be better to create a less personal brand for your business, rather than risk its continued success and good standing in the community.