February is a short month. It’s time for you to pick up the pace, and inspire your team to do the same.
One important skill for anyone, especially for entrepreneurs like you, is to organize their calendar. I recommend you “color” your calendar. Part of the process is to balance your activities between those that support your personal business such as prospecting and sponsoring, and those activities that support your team. Maintaining that balance can be a challenge for many Direct Sellers. They want to pick up the pace of their business. They may have even made a New Year’s resolution to spend time more effectively – and yet, after a full month’s effort, they can’t seem to pin-point where their efforts were directed. Does this sound familiar?
Here are some suggestions for color-coding your calendar entries in your online calendar, or, if you are keeping a paper calendar, highlighters will work just as well.
- One category (and color) could be your Prospecting activities. You might highlight all of your personal prospecting and sponsoring activities in green. This includes prospecting calls, Launch Events, parties, one-on-one appointments with potential business partners, business presentations, networking events, etc.
- Another category could be your social media efforts. You might highlight your sales and customer activities in purple. This would include going LIVE, content creation, writing posts for your team, customer and/or VIP pages, engaging on your upline leader’s page, engagement and follow-up via text, PM, email etc.
- Another category could be directly related to your Sales efforts. You might highlight your sales and customer activities in orange. This would include parties, sales appointments, sales-driven events, referral appointments, meeting with a potential customer, attending a sponsored Business Launch Event, etc.
- Another category might be your Team-related activities. You could highlight these activities in red. This category includes all of your team trainings such as your one-on-one’s as well as group training sessions, all of your team conference calls and your local team events as well.
- Another category could reflect your Office work. You might highlight these activities in blue. This would be time spent on generating reports, completing paperwork, business and tax preparation. Be sure to keep these activities in check, your calendar should have at least three times as many Prospecting, Sales and Team activities.
- A final category could be your Home/Personal/Family/Social time. You might highlight these activities in yellow. It’s just as important to schedule your personal time so you continuously strive for that healthy work/life balance. When you commit to tracking your activities in this colorful and organized way, it becomes very clear exactly where you’re spending your time. If you are not seeing success in your sponsoring then make sure to add more activities that are green! If you find a lack of duplication in your downline, take a closer look at your red activities.
Of course, with an online calendar, you can create any number of color categories, and with one simple glance you are able to see exactly where you are spending your time each and every day, week and month. You might separate out Volunteer time or time at the gym, for example. Anything you want to be sure to do – put it on the calendar and it will help motivate you to make it happen.
Challenge yourself to put this simple and effective time management strategy into practice. With just a few strokes of color, your calendar and your organizational skills will never be the same!