Simplifying Time Management and Organization

• August 28th, 2007
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Last week at my success meeting, we heard about a retreat that was held at Elite Executive Senior Sales Director, Linda Bradley’s home. Apparently, she shared some time management tips. We heard the ideas from a consultant (and friend of mine) who was in attendance. I was intrigued by what she shared.

First, have a To Do List. Make sure to incorporate your personal life and Mary Kay life. This helps manage the time realistically. Having it together gives a clear, total picture. It also shows your client base that Mary Kay is not all you do. This way, when scheduling your appointments, they can see your datebook and understand that you have a set schedule. It gives you more leverage on controlling your date book.

Next, keep your six most important things in front of you. Linda Bradley has a 8″x 11″ sheet with her 6 things. It looks like this:

1. BOOK

2. COACH

3. SELL

4. RECRUIT

5. WORK WITH TEAM

6. EVERYTHING ELSE

The purpose of the layout to have “everything else” as 6th is not; I repeat: it is not to make family less important. No. If life happens, life happens. The purpose of prioritizing this way is to stay on task and work Mary Kay like it is a job. That is all. It just simplifies it so that you don’t get overwhelmed writing out tons of tasks. Then you may become paralyzed and do nothing at all.

In order to stay focused on the goal, one must have singleness of purpose. This means, don’t give up the ship! If your goal is $300 in sales for the week and life happens and you don’t sell half of it, don’t despair! This does not make you a failure! This means, an obstacle arose. The goal was not met, but a new goal can be created for the next week. In order to stay motivated, focus on the positives and not the negatives. Note: this in no way instructs that bad things never happen. They do. But why dwell on them and become paralyzed with despair and doubt. Instead of beating oneself up saying, “I can’t believe I only sold $120 this week! I’m not cut out for this.” Why not say, “Wow! I had a lot of personal issues come up this week and I still managed to sell $120! Just imagine what could happen when I can really focus on my business!”

I have heard Linda Bradley say on many occasions, “You better dream big because 80% of what we dream will happen. So dream big!” What this means is if you make a challenging, yet attainable goal, and you determine the steps to reach that goal, chances are likely you will meet 80% of the smaller goals. That brings you that much closer to the main goal.

To illustrate this let’s say you have a goal to Gold Medal in September. You know that this means you want 5 new team members in this month. You make your plan by setting daily and weekly goals (talk to 5 new people each day; book 2-3 appointments each week; ask 5 people each week to listen to company info). Chances are, that by setting these smaller goals, even if the Gold Medal goal is not met, you will most likely hold some quality appointments, sell products, and quite possibly build the team by 2 or 3 people. Is that a failure? No! In fact, if any business activity occurs at all, that is a big win. Never underestimate the significance of a success–no matter how small.

Maybe the goal is sales and not team building. Maybe the goal is $1000 week. Make a daily sales goal of $250 or $300. That may seem steep, but if you think about it $200 x 5 = $1000. You could aim to meet the goal in less than 7 days. This way, if you miss the goal on Monday, and then overshoot it on Tuesday, sell nothing on Wednesday, you still have 4 days left to meet the goal and possibly overachieve it. Maybe you’ll miss it by $200. Maybe you’ll manage to sell $300. Whether you sell $1200 or $250, it’s more than you would have sold had you just thought, it’s too hard. Or given up after a day of no profits.

Here are some great tips for staying organized in meeting these types of goals:

1. Have a To Do List

2. Have a list of people to call; but instead of writing the names out in the datebook, write the info on one of the info cards that comes with our business cards. Paper clip the cards in the month at a glance pages of the datebook. If you don’t reach that person or if they can’t schedule a time with you that month, move the card to the next month (or week, whatever) so it’s right there. *I thought this tip was ingenious and I am going to start incorporating it myself.*

3. Write down time you called and nature of call on the contact card as well as when to call back.

Those 3 were my favorites. I think I could go on for days with this! I’m going to end here.

In closing, don’t be afraid to set goals. Don’t be afraid to miss those goals. A missed goal is not a miserable failure. If you make any progress at all toward the goal, you have come out ahead of your game!

Tags: Organization, Personal Responsibility, Self-Discipline, Time Management, Top Director Tips