Day 5 - Joining a Networking Group

Relationships are the catalyst for success.
People do business with those they like and trust.
Serve as a resource, help others succeed. 

 

While I've been more than happy to stay holed up in my little studio, wearing comfy sweats, and making jewelry all day, I realize the importance of meeting new people in order to grow my business in new ways. I've done a decent job growing my business by learning about Etsy, taking good pictures, and word of mouth. But there's a whole big world out there and I want them to know about me!

Networking is about making connections and building enduring, mutually beneficial relationships. Plus it's fun, especially after a few long days only conversing with my dog!

Networking is inexpensive. It’s full of like-minded individuals that you can work with or learn from in some way. Also, face-to-face networking events create lasting impressions in the minds of people you meet.

Today, I officially joined Wink, Women Inkorporated, a women's business networking group based out of San Diego. The good news is that they are going national and chapters will be opening up all over the U.S. Not only am I meeting other women business owners, I am learning so much because they have fantastic guest speakers at each meeting. Examples of some of the speaking events I've attended are:

• Facebook Ads and Boosted Posts
• The 30-60-90 Day Plan for Your 2014 Sales
• The Entrepreneur Mindset Panel 
• Leverage: The Secret Weapon of Successful Solopreneur's

I found Wink at Meetup.com. Meetup is a great site where you can find a wide range of groups for every interest imaginable. While there are many business networking groups in every city, it's just a matter of finding the one that suits you. For me, Wink was the perfect match.

Here is their website for more information on Wink:
http://womeninkorporated.com/
If you are interested in starting a chapter in your city, please e-mail me for more information.

I look forward to sharing the information that I learn from attending these meetings. In fact, I've already made one contact that is offering me a new type of opportunity I would never have thought to pursue on my own. More about that on Thursday!

 

Day 4 - Recap of Yearly, Monthly, Weekly Goals and Tasks

Progress always involves risk; you can't steal second base and keep your foot on first.

Frederick Wilcox

It's Monday and the start of a new week. Also, the holidays are now officially over and I'm so excited to begin working without all the distractions. So, I thought today would be a good day to review my January goals and organize my goals specifically for this week.

I've been working on my Goal Book (as described in Day 2), and have started writing down some solid 2014 goals. 

2014:

• Jewelry Sales - I won't list the actual sales, but I will say that it's an increase of 50% over last year! At first, I thought that may be overly optimistic, but once I added up my reasonable expectations for each month, it definitely looks attainable.
• Arbonne - I expect to become an Area Manager by the end of the year and add 12 team members or more to my team.
• I will attend one business seminar this year to help me improve my overall success.

January:

• Jewelry 
• Stay on track with sales goals.
• Add 15 new jewelry items to my shop.
• Run 2 Facebook Ads.
• Touch base with 2 wholesale accounts.
• Host an event at 9th & Elm.
• Arbonne
• Host 4 facials or workshops.
• Add 1 team member.
• Start newsletter and send out by end of month.
• General
• Start Instagram.
• Create YouTube channel and post 2 videos.
• Schedule one meeting per week with someone that I haven't met with in over 2 months.

This week:

• Send e-mails to my Arbonne contacts that showed interest in January workshops.
• Start Instagram research and begin posting pictures.
• Meet with contact regarding jewelry promotion (more about this in Wednesday's post).
• Continue to post once per day on facebook and 4-5 pins on Pinterest.
• Add 4 new jewelry items to my shop.
• Join WINK networking group (I'll talk more about this in Tuesday's post).

Whew! I have a lot to accomplish, but writing it down is so helpful. It gives me a good solid foundation to work with and holds me accountable.

So, it's time to get to work. :-)

Day 3 - Social Media Plan

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

In order to grow your business, it's important to market in the right places and to the right demographic. To be successful, it's so important to have a social media presence. I currently have a facebook fan page and a pinterest account that I sporadically post to. Note the word 'sporadically'. This is where today's challenge comes to play.

I now am officially committing myself to developing and sticking to a real social media plan. The first step is to figure out which social media venues work best with your type of business.

The most popular social media sites I found are:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• YouTube
• Pinterest
• Twitter
• Google+
• LinkedIn
• Foursquare
• Tumblr
• Reddit
• StumbleUpon

I am going to concentrate on 4 of these sites for the time being. It's easy to get sucked into the social media vortex and spend all day posting. While it's important to have a presence, there does need to be a balance. I will be sticking to the following 4 sites for my 100 day challenge:

• Facebook - Facebook Fan Page
• Pinterest - Pinterest Page
• Instagram - Instagram
• YouTube

Facebook Plan:

• 1 - 2 posts per day for the duration of this blog series.
• I've read a lot of opinions about the optimal number of posts one should make per day. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be one good answer. I hesitate to post too often for fear of spamming and alienating my fans, so I will review my results at the end of January to see if this needs adjusting.
• Current facebook fan count: 628
• I will post current count at the end of each month with my new fan count and average of posts per day.
• Change my cover page and profile picture once a week to keep it fresh.

Pinterest Plan:

• 4 - 6 pins per day for the duration of this blog series.
•  Maximum 2 pins for my business each day. Additional pins will include other boards that I enjoy: recipes, natural health, crafts, etc.
• Create Arbonne board and begin pinning.
• While the number of followers vary depending on the board, I will just concentrate on the boards that feature business:
• Theresa Rose Designs: 45 pins, 22 followers
• Wedding Jewelry: 12 pins, 16 followers
• Arbonne: 0 pins, 16 followers
• I will post current counts at the end of each month with number of pins.

Instagram Plan:
This is a new site for me so  I don't have a plan yet. I will be researching this option next week and this challenge starts in 1 week. I am committed to the following:

• Learn about Instagram.
• Develop a solid Instagram plan by January 17th.

YouTube Plan:
Here is my main social media challenge! I haven't signed up yet, but this challenge starts in 2 weeks. I am committed to the following:

• Create a channel.
• Post one YouTube video per week.
• Develop a solid YouTube plan by the end of January.

What are your social media plans for the next 100 days? What are your biggest challenges?

Day 2 - Setting Goals

If you are bored with life, if you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things - you don't have enough goals.

Lou Holtz

Today's challenge is to start setting goals. On the surface, that sounds pretty easy, but there is a difference between knowing what you want and actually setting measurable, specific goals to achieve what you want. Sure, I have a goal for more sales in 2014. But, what does that really mean? More sales could be $1.00 more than 2013. That wouldn't make me very happy, but it met the goal. So, here is where I am going to set real specific goals that will force me to be accountable. These are goals that when I look back, I will actually know if I worked to achieve them.

I have created a Goal Book for 2014 and have divided it up in 13 sections. The first section is my overall goals for this year (such as sales figures for the year, number of team members on my Arbonne team, etc). The other 12 sections are for each month. I will list all my goals including sales goals, workshop goals (for Arbonne), new product goals (for Theresa Rose Designs), and anything else that comes up.

I will post a picture of my book in the next day or so when I have something to show. :-)

First, we all need to set yearly and monthly goals for sales. It should be an actual number. While I won't post these specific numbers on the blog, I will post if I'm achieving them (or not).

Second, we need goals that are true action items, such as marketing, networking, sales strategies. I will be outlining these in the coming posts as I post about Facebook challenges, etc.

Third, (and this comes from Principles of Success, Principle #7 - Unleash the power of goal setting), we need a breakthrough goal. As the book states - this should be a goal that represents a quantum leap for you and your career. It doesn't need to be attained tomorrow. It can be a goal that you want to achieve by the end of the year that will really show you made major gains to further your business. This is a hard one for me.

So, in conclusion, today's challenge is really to get my Goal Book created and start writing down my goals for the 3 categories stated above.

I will edit this post as soon as I have pictures of  my 2014 Goal Book.

Day 1 - Cleaning Up the Clutter - Success Principle #28

A Journey of 1,000 miles must begin with one step.

Ancient Chinese Proverb

Today begins the 100 Day Grow Your Business Challenge! I've been so looking forward to diving in and beginning this journey. I can't wait to see the results and I know that I will see amazing results.

Since this is also New Years Day, I thought it appropriate to begin by getting my workspace ready for the 2014. How easy it is to procrastinate and put off getting real work done when you look around your office and see it in a disarray. I am as guilty as the next person of disorganization and have a tendency to put off certain tasks because it will involve going through my mess.

In the Success Principles, Principle #28 deals with this very issue. As he states - "One of the ways to free up attention units is to free your living and work environment from the mental burden of this clutter."

I love this other statement from principle #28 also - "If there's anything new that you want in your life, you've got to make room for it."

I'm embarrassed to say that my entire Arbonne organization included one stack of paperwork:

I've now reorganized all my paperwork for both businesses:

My workspace is now completely uncluttered and I'm ready to start the new year!

Day 1 is off to a great start. Now that my studio is organized and I can find everything easily, I'm ready to tackle tomorrow's challenge - goal setting.

Finding Our Why

The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.

Michelangelo

How many of us have really thought about WHY we are in business for ourselves? There are the usual stock answers such as independence, tired of the corporate world, etc. But, why did we choose this particular business? Why did I decide to make jewelry and sell it online? Why did I decide to branch out and also become an Arbonne consultant, especially as my jewelry business was ramping up?

Today's challenge is to answer the true question - WHY? If you can answer that question, then making decisions about how you run your business becomes so much easier. It will drive how you grow your business. You will conduct your business with true authentication and be yourself - and gain more pleasure from it.

There is a great video that I love to watch from time to time. The main point this video makes is that

People don't buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it.

How true this is!

Here is a link to the video. It's 18 minutes and very powerful!
Great Leaders Inspire Action

The other reason to develop my 'WHY', is that it will then lead me to my 10-second commercial and my 30-second commercial. Everyone in business needs to be able to explain their business in 10 and 30 seconds. It's also called the elevator speech. If someone asks you what you do, what do you say? I know that I definitely need to practice this speech. So, by combining my WHY with my HOW and my WHAT, I can clearly articulate what Theresa Rose Designs is all about.

So, here is WHY Theresa Rose Designs exists.....

I started Theresa Rose Designs after attending a home jewelry show. There were so many beautiful jewelry pieces and I wanted it all, but I couldn't afford the $50 earrings and $100 necklaces. I also didn't want the same jewelry as everyone else in the neighborhood. So, I decided to make my own and found that I loved making jewelry! I believe all women deserve beautiful, personalized jewelry that reflects their own unique style, no matter what their budget. This is why nothing in my jewelry shop is over $30.00. My favorite part is working with my customers creating individual designs.

By reading my 'WHY', it becomes so clear how I want to grow my business and so much easier when I need to make decisions.

People often ask me why I joined Arbonne at this time. It would seem that I have my hands full with the jewelry business and becoming an Arbonne consultant would only distract from it. Actually, the two businesses blend very well together and allow me to have my 'alone' time making jewelry and my 'social' time interacting with other like-minded people who are also interested in the health and wellness industry.

So, here is WHY I became an Arbonne consultant.....

After my husband recovered from neck cancer a couple of years ago, I became very interested in the health and wellness industry. I started using Arbonne products a year ago because they are natural, vegan certified, and safe - plus I saw a big improvement in my skin and overall health! At the same time I quit my corporate job to run Theresa Rose Designs full-time and became very passionate about encouraging other women to take the same path I did to start their own businesses, whatever their passion may be. Arbonne gives all that to me. I absolutely love their products and the business opportunity it provides anyone who wants to achieve that same level of independence that I have.

So, what is your WHY?

Welcome to 100 Days to Grow Your Business

 'You can't hire someone else to do your push-ups for you.'

Jim Rohn, Motivational Speaker

I invite you to read along and hopefully join in as I spend the next 100 days concentrating on growing my business. My hope is that I will move out of my comfort zone, expand my knowledge and take my home-based business to the next level of success.

Here is my 100 Days Business Growth Pledge:

• Once a week I will apply a new concept/idea. Examples of this will be starting a YouTube channel, new sales techniques, reaching out to other people for help, marketing strategies such as Instagram, etc.
• Any action plans created during these 100 days will be applied consistently. Once committed to a plan, I will see it through for the duration.

I decided to start this blog series after reading the book 'The Success Principles' by Jack Canfield. If you have not read this book yet, I highly recommend it. I will be using many of his principles and documenting my success (or failures!). 

It is not my intention to provide this blog series as a 'how-to'. I am certainly no expert and I don't have all the answers. This is an experiment of sorts. I will be pushing myself WAY out of my comfort zone for the next 100 days. I am excited to see where it takes me (and you if you follow along!). I won't pretend that I'm not the least bit anxious or nervous either. There are many principles in Jack Canfield's book that I know I should adopt and utilize, but am very uncomfortable doing so. I'm going to challenge myself, and you will hold me accountable! By documenting my journey and hopefully with your comments about your journeys, we will hold each other accountable and see tremendous change in our respective businesses.

Here is the blog series plan:

• The challenge begins on Wednesday, January 1st and will run for 20 weeks.
• I will post 5 days a week, usually Monday through Friday. There are times when this schedule will change slightly, due to a couple of travel commitments I have in the next few months. During those times, I will post an alternative blog post schedule.
• On Mondays, I will outline the posts for the whole week so you know what to expect and if you are taking this challenge with me (and hopefully reading Jack Canfield's book), you can plan accordingly.
• Besides my jewelry business, I also have a new Arbonne business that I'm really excited about. I absolutely love their products and while I didn't plan on being a consultant, I found that it was a natural course of action to take and balances perfectly with my current business and life. My blog posts will include both businesses at different times as they each have their own unique challenges and opportunities. 

For this week, December 30 through January 3, the blog posts will be:

• Monday: Introduction to this blog series.
• Tuesday: Finding our Why (I found a great video explaining how you need to know why you are in business!).
• Wednesday: Success Principle #28: Cleaning up the Clutter. I thought this would be a good way to begin the new year.
• Thursday: Goal Setting.
• Friday: Developing a Social Media Plan.

So, welcome to my new blog series! I hope you enjoy it and gain as much from it as I will by writing it. I always welcome comments. Please feel free to share this with anyone else you think can benefit from taking this challenge.

Getting out of your comfort zone is the only way to see big change. Taking those scary steps are necessary! The ones we most resist are usually the ones we need to embrace and adopt. I know that I'm ready to plow forward - are you?
Theresa