You’re a busy entrepreneur, and fitting in your business around other obligations. Whether it’s a 9-5 job or full-time parenting, you’ll need to be efficient to make the most of your direct sales business.
Here are 4 quick tips on how you can be more productive in less time than ever!
Block your time
One of the best ways to make progress in your business in the midst of a busy life is to block your time. By setting aside time for your business -- whether it’s 10 minutes during a morning commute, 30 minutes during naptime, or 3 hours on a day when you are home by yourself -- you’ll be able to focus on whatever needs doing during that time.
Time blocking does a few things for you. First, it gives you mental clarity as you look at your week and your business. Instead of feeling stressed about when to work your business, you’ll know that you have a set time each day or week. You can build a to-do list and make as much progress as you can, then set it aside until the next block of time.
Time blocking also lets you engage more deeply with other parts of your life and not worry about your business. You can be all-in, 100% there for the work or play that’s happening in the present moment.
Respect Your Boundaries
The flip-side of blocking your time is respecting the time that’s blocked. Your business is important. So is grocery shopping, meal prep, playing with your kids, getting yourself to the gym, or finishing work tasks.
All of these tasks are important, and all of your time is valuable.
Don’t undercut yourself or let your direct sales business take the back burner. Once you’ve blocked the time, respect the boundaries of that calendar item, and show up for yourself.
Follow a simple formula
One of the biggest ways that new direct sales business owners get discouraged is by making it too complicated. Your formula for how you do your work should help you make simple decisions each time you sit down at your desk, your computer, or your phone. You can work with a coach or an upline leader to develop your formula -- or adapt it until you find something that works for you.
What might your formula look like? Here's one very simple example: Mondays, you share 1 social media post about your business. Tuesdays, you call 2 people about the opportunity. Thursday, you send 3 thank you notes or samples to former or prospective customers. The specifics aren't as important as your consistency in carring it out. Create a formula that fits into your allotted time blocks, then plan to follow through on it each week.
Get a system
You might be thinking to yourself, wait, didn’t we just talk about this?
Nope. A formula and a system are different tools. Your formula is your guiding framework, your concept for how you will approach your work.
Your system is how you execute the formula and stay on top of the plan.
Will you use a social media scheduler to queue your Facebook posts? How about an activity tracker or CRM (like Traktivity!) to keep on top of who is next on your reachout list? Maybe you use an email service like MailChimp to communicate with a large number of people with a single email. Your system will be a collection of tools that work to help you reach your daily, weekly, and monthly objectives in your business.
Without a system, it’s easy to lose track of where you are in your to-dos. It’s easy to fall behind on who you need to connect with. And it’s easy to get discouraged, and give up altogether on meeting yourself at your work-space when you’ve blocked time for your business.
We want to hear your top tips for efficiency! What are your must-have systems? Share your stories on our Instagram & Facebook pages!
