I want to share some tips with you about the system that you need to have in place in order to succeed with your business. Very first thing that I’m going to suggest to you, and I think we’ll just try to keep this relatively simple today, is you want to first of all have a plan. Think about every … Maybe when you were going through school or if you’re talking to the bank about what you need to do in order to borrow some money, or if you think about what you’ve read about businesses, the first thing they do is write a business plan.
If you happen to be adopting a direct sales business here it’s really the key essence of that plan that you need, without a real need to sit down for a bank. If you think about these network marketing systems, those are really turnkey businesses. You get all the pieces, you don’t have to necessarily build everything, you’re going to want to spend some time learning how to use them. If you’re going to build your own system you are going to need something called CRM, and that is the initials for Content Resource Management System.
This is really a way to track the people that you talk to. Potentially, for the most part, it’s the people that you contact about sales. It also might be your vendors or others that you need in your business but it’s a way for you to list these people, actually list when you’re going to contact them next. It’s going to give you a place to make notes. There are several systems that you can just buy. I thought, “Oh boy, I’ve got a business now, I need to buy one of these things,” years ago, and I went out and I bought some software called Act, and I bought that on Ebay. I had nothing but grief with it because of all of the different keys I needed and the upgrades and everything else.
I have used things like Excel so that’s quite simple. I’ve used things like Microsoft Outlook so there’s different ways for you to do this. You’re also going to want to have some way of tracking your business metrics, and I have mentioned that before. You’re going to want a way of measuring the type of activity that you are performing and also your results so of course you’re going to need some kind of an accounting system. If it’s turnkey and you’re just adopting the system it may have that embedded but you’ve got to have some way of measuring whether or not you’re successful.
Then we think about what is it that your business is selling. I’m just going to write products here, your business might be services, but it’s your product development. If you are starting a business from scratch you’re either creating a product, you’re inventing the product or you might be buying product and re-selling it. If you think about some of the drop shipping businesses you’re actually procuring this product and then you’re selling it. Think about if you are in direct sales. There is knowledge that you’re going to need to have about those products. It’s also, if you have a company that has a really big catalog, if you’re in multiple different disciplines, there’s going to be a lot for you to know.
My suggestion to you is that you choose one or two products to get started with, perhaps the ones that caught your attention first, and really focus on learning everything you can about those products. What are the values, what are the benefits, and learning how to build your business on those. Finally, you are going to need some sort of a team plan. If you are not in a traditional business where you have built this from scratch, you are going to really figure out what your team is. If you’re in one of these turnkey direct sales business there’s a way of listing that team there. I’ve been in a situation where I was able to, once a month, go in and download my team in an Excel spreadsheet. That allowed me to figure out how I can help each person and help the best. If you’ve got customers in that Excel spreadsheet, it’s really understanding what kind of products and solutions that they like the best. Always keeping an eye on what’s coming, what’s changing so that you have the information you need to really help those customers or your business partners.
I hope you’ve found some value in this blog post. If you like it, I’d love it if you went to the bottom underneath this post and you gave me some comments about what you liked about it. That really helps me a lot. I hope that I see you again soon.
Tags: #Small Business Coach, #Small Business Strategy, #Direct Sales, #Network Marketing, #Direct sales success, #Home based business