Success Checklist - 5 Alive Tips for the New Year

Success Checklist – 5 Alive Tips for the New Year

By Barb Girson

Tags: motivational, motivation, Home-based business, party plan, direct selling, new year’s goals, success in new year, time management, direct selling

Ready to get off to a successful start in the New Year? Read my motivational tips, and I think you will be glad you did.
After my first January when my home party-plan business had a disappointing start, I have learned how to bridge the excitement of the holiday season with the launch of a successful New Year, so the momentum of the November and December is carried into a successful January and February. Over the years, I have refined these simple time-tested tips and January became a great launching pad for the success.

1. So Goes January Goes The Year!

It often is said, “So Goes January, Goes The Year!” Each New Year is filled with promise and a renewed hope that this year will be a defining year; this year we will make monumental changes to improve life for our families and ourselves. Select a motto and follow these tips to begin making your motto come true. For example:

It’s the Year To Invest in My Career!
Book more your business will soar
It’s a new year make, proceed without fear
New year, make success appear
Find your Zen, if not now; then when?
Create your own…

By challenging yourself to book twice as many parties in January and February as you want to hold each of the other months. Make your personal booking goal to BOOK EIGHT and feel great to launch the year. Fill your planner with parties before you return from your holiday break (or shortly after returning. Book extra and you will feel terrific. Determine and implement a few new consistent steps to improve your success in the New Year.

2. Set Your Annual Targets!

Figure your sales target that you need/want to achieve monthly. Break your goal into how many parties it will take monthly by dividing your sales goal by your party average to get a number of parties you need to hold each month. Build a cushion. When you book extra you will feel that much more terrific!

3. Get Ready For Success!

Set up a planning day in the next two weeks. If possible, find a business buddy and work together. (I have an annual planning day sometime after Christmas and before mid-January.) For years, a business buddy and I would get ready for success on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon. Our spouses would watch football, and munch on the typical game day food. Our children would play. We would dream, plan and prepare.

What can you do in advance to be ready for success?
Make up your Hostess folders.
Label all collateral materials with your contact information.
Make your call list.
Prepare for a mailing.
Clean up your Kit!
Purge items that you no longer need in your office.
Organize your files. Set up your file folders for the year.

4. Use Strategic Bonus Incentives

Reward those who help you launch your New Year. Make sure all of your previous Customers and Hostesses know what is offered to launch the year. Do not duplicate what your company offers! However you can fill in any gaps, at your expense.
You might offer a personal incentive for:

Filling the soonest dates you want to work.
Pursuing repeat business.

Call back past Customers and encourage them to gather friends and family. You bring your service to them. The guests will appreciate an event to look forward to after the holidays are over.

Encourage multiple purchases.

Suggest that your Customers stock up on items for upcoming gift-giving occasions. (Valentines Day, Easter, Birthdays)

Retaining the biggest spenders from last year.

Call back everyone who spent over the amount of your average customer order last year. Offer an incentive for placing another order before the 15Th of month.
Does the telephone ever get heavy? Do you experience call reluctance? To help you get in the right mind set as you dial the phone, you can silently sing, “Hey big spender, spend a little time with me…at a home party.” This is a fun way to imagine success and have your voice convey your fun, upbeat attitude.

5. Have a System for Your Success.

Develop a systematic approach to your business which when followed consistently produces consistent results. Follow these Five Alive Tips and you will be ready for this to be your year to make monumental changes and move your business forward.
You will also be glad when the old adage proves true for you. “So Goes January Goes The Year!”