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It’s interesting to watch the ambulance chasing that occurs on the forums when someone pipes up and says, “I’m thinking about joining.”  Immediately the grand scramble begins. It’s actually quite pathetic to see the vultures come out.

Just because someone PMs you first or happens to be a lead that corporate gave you does not mean that you have to sign with that person.  Also just because someone has emailed and/or snail mailed you some information does not mean you are committed to joining under that person.

Take some time, do your due diligence and find the right sponsor for you.  I would strongly discourage you from looking for the best offer. It won’t take you any time at all to find offers for free this or that if you join this team or that team.  Or you can even find someone who will provide a way for you to join her team for free.

Consider this, if the company you are considering joining has a quality product and a compensation plan you can live with, then the only other element missing is finding support from a strong up line.  Those who offer deals are essentially saying that they do not believe in the company offering or in her abilities to recruit and therefore feels the need to bribe you to join.

Company sponsored forums are chock full of consultants begging for help and asking the most basic questions in a public forum because they do not have the training and support required to be successful from their own sponsors.  Yet these same people clamoring for help, are the ones who jumped on board with the person who offered the best deal.  Go figure.

You as the potential recruit get to ask the questions.  You are the interviewer.   Ask some hard questions, such as:

·    How long have you been with this company?
·    What rank are you? Where is that in relation to the total structure?
·    How long have you been in direct sales?
·    Why did you choose this company?
·    Are there days or hours that you are not generally available?
·    What training is available from you and/or corporate?
·    How did you receive your training?
·    Do you attend seminars and convention?
·    Have you won any awards from the company?
·    How would you describe your personality style?
·    What’s the worst thing you have to say about the company?

If you receive weak answers to these questions and yet still choose to sign with that person, all I can say is buyer beware.  Would you rather go to a doctor fresh out of medical school, or one who is a veteran at his specialty?  Would you use a financial broker who merely paid to get her license through a correspondence school? Or one who has a proven track record of producing results?

What good is a special offer if it is not backed by a strong warranty?  Remember who is in the driver’s seat when it comes to selecting a sponsor for your direct sales business:  You!

About the Author: Laurie Ayers is a WAHM from Michigan. She started her first home business in 1988. As a single parent, Laurie has supported her family by working at home as an Independent Consultant and Superstar Director with Scentsy Wickless Candles. She enjoys helping others start a candle business. You can find Laurie at www.IncomeWax.com

How do you spot the one person who has the perfect set of skills, values and experiences that uniquely qualifies them to be your mentor?

For me it was easy.  I thought about where I wanted to be in business and I looked for someone who was already doing it.  Then tagged along around them to learn all that I could about what they were doing and what they had done to get where they were.

It would be a mistake to make your choice too quickly or to treat the decision too lightly – so take your time and play amateur investigator for a while before deciding to hitch your wagon to their pony.

Google Them.

That’s pretty simple isn’t it?  Drop their name into Google and see what turns up.  This won’t work with everyone, especially if they have a common name.  You can also try searching for their business name or search for a keyword phrase that you would imagine that they would want to rank high for.

Search at Technorati.

Technorati.com tracks thousands upon thousands of blogs so if your potential mentor is the topic of discussion you’re likely to find them here.  What are people saying about her?  Strong people generally draw strong opinions about them so the presence of some negative comments shouldn’t be an immediate deal breaker – dig deeper to decide if you agree or discount the remarks being made about them.

Stalk Her (In a Good Way)

Read her blog, subscribe to her mailing list, follow her threads on public web forums, seek out her articles on web sites.  What can you learn about her business philosophy and personal values?  Does she seem to be consistent across the board?

Who Are Her Friends?

Who’s linking to her website?  Who’s publishing her writing? Who is on her blogroll?  What products are being recommended on her site?  Bird of a feather flock together and crows are really annoying in crowds.

Does She Care?

There are most likely hundreds of successful entrepreneurs who could have a positive impact on you and your budding business but the majority could care or less about taking the time to mentor someone else.

The few who do care about lending a helping hand and advice to newcomers are often in high demand, so grabbing their attention and convincing them to invest their time and talents in you can be challenging.

Once you identify the perfect candidate, you could make a mentoring relationship with you more attractive by suggesting a short or long term working internship.  You will offer them your indentured servitude for a period of time in exchange for their training and input.  You’d better be serious about the offer because a mentor worth learning from will likely work the shine off your shoes.

Before you get worried, let me assure you that all mentoring relationship aren’t typified by forced labor.  You may find that your chosen mentor is perfectly happy to sit with you for coffee once a week or so to catch up on what you’re doing and give you tips and feedback, no strings attached.

Depending on where you are in business, you may not need or even be ready for a mentoring relationship with someone at the top of your field.  A newcomer really only needs to work with someone a few miles down the road from where they are – and you can always look for someone new when you find yourself outgrowing your early helpmates.

Everyone should be learning from someone – one thing you’ll notice if you do spend much time investigating successful entrepreneurs is that the people who you view as being the top dog usually have their eyes on someone else thinking the same thing.

This article is available for reprint at LadyPens.com

Why You Should Avoid Background Music On Your Website

Don’t put background music on your website. If you want a professional website that has high traffic and retains visitors, it’s a good rule of thumb to stick with. There are always rare exceptions (which I will list later), but for the most part, you should take this small tid-bit of wisdom to heart.

Here are the reasons why:

1. Credibility – There are certain hallmarks that newbie website builders cannot help but fall for. Background music on a website is one of them. Unless you’re selling music or music services, having background music play on your website makes it seem unprofessional. This lowers your websites credibility, and thus you lose retentions of your visitors. People aren’t visiting your website to listen to music… they are probably there to find information. Think about it… does Google, Yahoo, Newsweek, Sprint, or Amazon play music on their websites? Do any ‘professional’ or ‘credible’ websites you know of play music? Now think back to all the website that you know of that DO play background music… how credible did they look? Did most of them look like a first grader designed them? Did it look like a MySpace website? How credible are MySpace websites? Would you trust content on websites like these? Hmmmm…..

2. Bandwidth – Streaming a full version of a song (4-5 minutes) as a background music for your website takes up too many resources. That being said, if your website is super slow to load and ‘choppy’ to visitors with slower connections, I can pretty much guarantee you won’t have a lot of returning visitors. Not to mention the fact that every time you refresh or load a new page, the song starts over – super annoying.

3. Repeating Music – Many people will play smaller segment of background music that loop so as to minimize load times to their websites. If anyone comes to your website and spends any amount of respectable time there, it won’t take long before they go crazy listening to a 15-20 second long song segment loop a thousand times. If you ‘play that funky music’… you’re going to have visitors leaving your website in droves.

4. Taste In Music – Everyone has different tastes in music. What songs you like, others may detest. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe not everyone loves Barry Manilow as much as you do, but the last thing you want to do is drive people away before they even look at your content.

5. Music Already Playing – Now days, people spend a lot of time on their computers. Because of this, they often have music playing from Cd’s, MP3s, Internet radio, etc. on their computer to help pass the time. How annoying is it when you visit a website and it starts playing music that mixes in with your music? Nothing fun about trying to listen to two tracks at the same time. The quick fix will be to leave your website.

6. Public Computers – Nothing like being at work and hitting a website that all of a sudden starts blaring ‘The Piña Colada Song’ at 300 decibels. It’s highly unlikely you will get many return visitors if half of them are out on the streets looking for a new jobs.

7. Legal Issues – Do you have the legal right to broadcast the song you want play as background music? If you don’t, you might get away with it for a while, but if you plan on your website ever having any amount of significant traffic, be warned. The more popular your website, the more likely you will get noticed playing songs illegally. Litigation, fines, and law suites are no fun.

8. Browser Compatibility – Not every browser is capable of playing every type of music file. Having background music on your website comes with the risk that some of your users may have older browsers that lock up when the music is attempting to upload or play.
Exceptions

There always exceptions to every rule. Here are a few cases when playing background music would be considered acceptable.

1. Musicians And Bands – If you’re a musician or in a band and are creating a website about your work, then it would only be reasonable to have some of your songs playing in the background.
2. Establishments And Events That Revolve Around Music – Dance clubs, bars, concerts, etc. Playing music might help set the mood of what to expect at your establishment or event.
3. Personal Websites – Personal websites are off the table. Express yourself freely with whatever song you like if this is what you wish to do.

If you feel its appropriate to play background music on your website, be sure to display PLAY, PAUSE, and VOLUME controls one your website in plain view so that people can have the option to turn it off or lower the volume. You might also consider not having any music play upon page load, but instead, offering the option for them to play it if they want to hear it.

Souce: http://doodlekit.com/blog/entry/3774…n-your-website

Take what you like and discard the rest … it may help you with some December bookings.  You would pay for the incentives, but the commissions you make by actually having bookings in this busy month would more than cover it.

TWELVE DAYS OF DECEMBER!

Book your show today on any one of the first twelve days of December and receive the item listed with the day you booked your ScentEvent! * All items will be added to your party order and will be received with the rest of the orders taken from your party!

On the first day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me….one room spray!
On the second day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…2 car candles!
On the third day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…a 3-pack of candle bars for $10.00!
On the fourth day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…4 room sprays for $10.00!
On the fifth day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…5-pointed Rustic Star Warmer at 50% off!
On the sixth day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…6-pack of candle bars for $20.00
On the seventh day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me… 7 Room Sprays at 50% off!
On the eighth day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…8 car candles
On the ninth day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…9 ways to decorate with the Any Warmer for 50% off!
On the tenth day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…10-pack of a variety of samples
On the eleventh day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…an 11 Car Candles for 50% off!
On the twelfth day of December my Scentsy Consultant gave to me…12 Candle Bars for 50% off!

* All prizes and awards are subject to having a minimum of $200 in sales at your show. These offers are in addition to the regular Hostess Program.

To coach someone means simply:  To train or tutor or to act as a trainer or tutor. Hostesses aren’t expected to be professional hostesses and know all these is to know about home parties (else she’d probably be a consultant!) Without coaching, you should plan on low attended show, low sales and low, if any, bookings. Many consultants who don’t coach don’t do so because they think they are ‘bothering’ their hostess.

Rather consider it more that you are cheating your hostess out of her benefits if you don’t properly coach.

Coaching doesn’t always work – some will let it go in one ear and out the other.  But that doesn’t give you an excuse not to do it. Coach the same each time so you cover all your bases; don’t take short cuts. The better you become at it the easier it gets.  If you think she doesn’t need a portion of the coaching, ask her to just humor you so that you can continue to give her uniform training.

One of the most important things to educate your hostesses on is that their guest list and its importance. This is the key to the success of their show. Remind her that often 30 invites can do out and only one person will show. It’s vital to invite many, many, many!  Next on the list of importance is their follow thru with those who have not RSVP’d (and that will be a long list) or for those who can’t make it. She should ask every non-attending guest if she wants to order from the catalog.

The snacks are secondary.  Whether it’s a bowl of chips or an impressive spread, the guests are coming for your product display. It should not be any work for her.  Easier said than done, I know. Many hostesses fret over cleaning the house and having just the “right” food.  If your hostess is wigging out, offer to bring her a batch of cookies and you’ll even push the vacuum for her.  Really, she needs to relax about the house.

Generally it is not a good idea to hold her party open for days (or longer). All the order collecting should be done prior to the party. If there happens to be some people who RSVP’d that they come and then later did not show, she can always call for their orders the very next day. Remember each time you need to make another trip to the hostess it eats into your profit margin – in both time and gas. If you let your hostesses know in advance to get advance orders, they will usually do what you tell them to.

It is equally important that you remind your home party hostess what she is getting out of hosting the party and that getting every item of her wish list for free is your goal for the party.

Effective coaching increases attendance, sales and your paycheck!