Social Selling Sisterhood Podcast Episode 18: Planning For A Successful Fourth Quarter Right Now

This blog post was transcribed using AI.

Hi, friend. Welcome to the social selling sisterhood podcast. I am Lindsay Dollinger and I have many titles High school, Spanish teacher, dog Mom, world traveler and direct seller. I empower women to run your direct sales businesses the right way so you can earn the money. You deserve to live the life of your dreams and travel the world. Now we got that out of the way. Let's get started. Mhm. Hello? Hello, everyone. I believe we are live. My name is Lindsay Dollinger. And if you are watching this on YouTube or on Facebook, um, you're getting to see the video podcast. But if you are listening to this right now in your car, wherever you listen to podcasts, you're listening to another episode of the social selling sisterhood Podcast. Alright, guys. So I want to talk to you tonight about planning your fourth quarter because planning your fourth quarter starts right now if you have not started thinking about fourth quarter and planning for fourth quarter is, um, going to set you up for success for all of 2021? Okay, so it's super super important. And ah, lot of people at this time are going to be taking this time off. They're gonna be taking off large chunks of time for different holidays because winter is getting ready to start because we've gone back to school and we're, you know, got a lot of things going on. So what you do right now in fourth quarter is really going to differentiate you from everyone else. I'm trying to like it was talking to my microphone as much as I can, but it's really going to differentiate you from everyone else in your industry. Okay, so I've got my notes here, so I don't miss anything. One thing I want to point out that I heard and someone else's podcast I was listening. Teoh is all these holidays that are coming up in fourth quarter, which were slammed with right. There's, like one after another, depending on the ones that you celebrate. But, you know, Thanksgiving is a day. Halloween is a day, you know, Christmas. It's a day, um, and I think lots of times we get in, like this mindset of Oh, it's the holidays. I can stock a little. I can take some more time off, which is true, like we deserve to have a little bit of a break. Great, but just also getting in that mindset that they're like a day and we can celebrate this season and all of that. But that doesn't mean that we need to take time off from our business. You know, New Year's Eve, it's a day. Could you probably work on your business an hour on New Year's Eve in the morning before you do all your festivities? Absolutely right. So just to remember that it's a day and I was like, Oh, that that totally makes sense when I heard that. And again, if you're the one who is showing up and you are the one who is filling your calendar right now for October, November, December and then once we get closer to the New Year, if you're the one filling it for January February March, you're the one that people are going to see consistent consistently. You are the one that people are going to book with and they're gonna buy from. And guys, the fourth quarter is an amazing quarter. Now, maybe it depends on your industry, but I am in an industry you know, nail strips where one everyone wants to look amazing at the holidays and to their an awesome gift. So people are going to be buying your product left and right if you give them that opportunity to do so. So very first thing that's what we're talking about is you got to make a plan. And before you start planning, you know your parties and your sales and your events and all of that, um, let's go back to your goals. So a few episodes previously on the social selling Sisterhood podcast If you're a listener of that, um, we talked about navigating goals and how to engineer them. I'm a huge fan of backward design. So thinking about like okay, by the end off, we're talking fourth quarter. So by December 31st, 2020 What am I going to feel really amazing if I accomplish. And I don't think it's bad to kind of set different tiers like this is my minimum goal. This is my I feel really awesome that I hit this goal. This is my huge scary. I'm gonna push myself goal, but also knowing if I don't hit that like I'm not gonna be devastated, that kind of thing so I like to kind of have it in tears, like minimum. What I'm really striving for. And then, like, man, this would be amazing. Let's do this. Okay, So think about those and then think about think about them in terms of your personal sales. If you have a team, your team sales, maybe you wanna you wanna do like, a rank goal. If you want to rank up once or twice between now and the end of the year, I think that's an amazing goal. And if you're in party plan, you could do the number of parties you could do your goal number of customers, all sorts of things on guy actually have a planner that I'm going to be sharing with. You guys different trackers like that of different things that I like to put as my metrics for the end of the year. Then I know that, you know, if I have done these things that I have succeeded, Okay, so I have about my list of goals by December 31st, 2020 and then let's divide those by three months. We have three months to get those done. Okay, So just to keep it easy. Say I wanted to grow my team by three more people. So that's a person a month that I want Thio introduce to my business opportunity and get started. That's not my goal. My goal is much higher than that. However, just to keep things simple. There. Go. Okay, so that's what you're gonna do. You gonna take the amount of time that you have left and divide it. You can do it by months, and then I recommend, um, dividing it again by week, or maybe every two weeks. So if I wanna have 10 parties a month, I wanna have 30 parties between now and the end of December. And that's going to be what, about 2. 5 parties a week knowing that I'm probably not gonna have a party during Christmas week, Um, different things like that. So if you can go ahead and print off three like month of you calendars, this makes this really easy, especially if you're a visual person, toe like job things in. And maybe you can put your goals on every Saturday like this is your benchmark and you can check them off as you reach out those are just ideas. Um, so we really want to plan backward design style for what you want to accomplish? Be realistic, but also scare yourself a little bit. Yeah, Stretch yourself a little bit. Nothing is too big for you, especially because you're watching this or you're listening to this. So I know that you are devoted thio building your business, your devoted to improving yourself and your personal development. So there's gonna be nothing standing in the between you and getting your goals. Um, now we have our goals broken down by weaker by month or quarter. Or all three. I recommend all three. Now we need to schedule our work time to get things done. Schedule in those power hours schedule in your team meeting. So, like my team, we do a team power power hour and a team meeting every Thursday night. I am running a push group for my women who really want Thio go to the next level in fourth quarter. It was totally optional. So those meetings for people in that group our Wednesday nights So I have all those in my calendar scheduled and, you know, those aren't for, like, my personal business time either. So, like, I go in and I put okay, I'm working my personal business. From this time I'm podcasting on these days, like I knew my podcast is gonna be in 70 Sunday evening. I just swap the time. Made it a little later. I did my palate on ride right before this. So if you're watching this on video, I'm a little bit of a hot mess. So that's why, but, you know, you fit things that when you could get him in, right, So make it a priority, get your things done. Um, and one of my favorite podcasters, Jessie Lee, has a podcast, and she talks about when, Especially in her early days of building her business on she might even do it. Now she has her list of her, like, three non negotiable things each day, and she is going to get them done before she goes to bed. And I really, really like that. Like, for me and my personality that works, it might not work for years, but for me, I'm like, Yes, I'm not going to bet until I get this done, which is a really good incentive for, um that book that's called Eat that Frog. I think I've mentioned in, like, several podcast episodes, which is so funny on, and I forget the author to give him credit, but, um, talks about, like, getting this stuff done that you have to get down or that you were, like, really dragging your feet to get done and getting it done first. Yeah, because that means that you can go to bed, right? Eso get done your top three things earlier in the day, Not at nine o'clock at night, like I'm doing right now with this, and then you can sleep happy. So that's one way you could do it as well. But schedule in your work time, make it a priority, just like you schedule in your workouts. Just like you schedule in your full time job. If you're working a full time job Also building a business like you scheduling doctor's appointments, all those things. Okay, so make it a priority. Schedule it in and make it happen. I mentioned already power hours. If you are a leader any size team, I highly recommend scheduling some power hours where you and your teammates can work together and You know, it's basically just like Coworking, but I found a lot of times. Well, one I when I leave them, um, it holds me accountable. Like I can't not show up to our team power hour if I'm the one leaving it. Right. So that's not exactly, uh, ideal, especially as a leader s. So it holds me accountable if you're the one leading them. But if you know you have new or teammates and are people who are get easily distracted and they're just not really sure what to do A power, hours of great framework for that, um, and I'm gonna have some more. Resource is on that coming soon. So So watch out for that. Okay, so now we're in planning, but a little more. Here's some things that you should keep in mind to plan out, Um, planning out your team incentives. So if you do, like a monthly incentive for your team, or maybe you're going to do, like a little blitz booking blitz, uh, sponsoring blitz. A sales blitz, Something like that. Sometime in the next three months, go ahead and plan that out. Okay. We're getting into the time where we're like I mentioned, we're gonna have a lot going on the holidays Air coming up. You know, the weather is changing, depending on where you're at. In the world, we have all these unknowns with all kinds of stuff. You know, we have an election. It's just gonna be for lack of a better word. Probably a little bit of a crazy fall and winter. So the more things that we could go ahead and prep and plan out, the less you're gonna have to think about it later when you have other things on your plate. So go ahead and decide what your team incentives they're gonna be. Go ahead and decide. Um, you know, if you have team meetings who, your speakers, they're gonna be for them. We have opportunity calls. So we've We've been doing different formats each month, but once a month, my team gets together and our stylists talk to potential new stylists about the opportunity. So we have dates for those. I've given my teammates all those dates so they can go ahead and put it in their calendar and make it a priority as well. And then sales ideas for your group. So on that calendar. Go ahead and mark out. You know, we have black Friday. We have Thanksgiving. We have Halloween. We have Christmas Hanukkah. Um, you know, I always like to do like a 12 days of Christmas thing in my in my group we have What's it called? Black Friday. Small business Saturday. Already mentioned Black Friday. What's the other one? Cyber Monday, Um, New Year's Eve, Like literally a million different things that I know. I'm even missing some Kwanzaa is in there. Um, so and again, I know I'm missing some. I should have gotten them all down. But you get that. You get the gist, right? You have stuff going on. Maybe it's even your birthday month. I don't know. We have bosses day coming up. So could your product be used to give to give to people's bosses? That would be a really cool way to get your product out to new people. So go ahead and write those in and be thinking about or completely plan out what you're planning on your incentives to be. You know, I on the past few years in my V I P Group for my Black Friday sales, I've done like every three hours. A different sale. Um, so it's an ideal for you. So maybe get the conversation going with people in your company with people on your team. What their ideas are for those things. Um, to go ahead and get an idea in your mind again. One less thing to think about. You can go ahead and make graphic son for them sometime between now and then so you can get them scheduled. And it's like, off your plate. You don't have to worry about it, right? You can just worry about all of your other daily income producing activities and worry less about all those extras. So planning, Um, all those incentives, sales ideas for your customers? 01 thing I wanted to mention this is a little bit off off topic, but I really want to encourage you instead of a lot of discounts to possibly consider up selling. And there's a term term not in direct sales, and it's very similar to upset offer, offer, bumping, offer something like that. Anyway, you get the dress so you're still making the same amount of money, but you're just providing an incentive to your customers so think about that as well, because that's not a bad way. Thio. Keep your personal volume your sales volume up while still providing excellent service and some incentives to your team. Um, okay, the other thing. Playing your content. So you know, I was going through. Actually, I was on my palette on. I was on like a flat road and I wasn't really flat road. There was definitely some resistance, but anyway, we weren't like moving up and down for like seven minutes. So I was on my phone looking at my graphics groups, and I was going ahead and saving some holiday graphics. Some fun things like, I'm planning out my content mentally, and I like to sit down guys and schedule out my stuff. You could schedule two months out in advance on Facebook scheduler, and if you're on a computer, I think it's only one month from a mobile. Or that's what it was before. All the crazy Facebook updates. Who knows what it is now, but I like to do all of that about two months in advance if I can. Now, since I've been back to school, it's been about a week in advance. Let's be real. But my plan is to take some time, you know, especially now that the weather is not so nice. We're not gonna be outside as much, but take some time in the evenings and really schedule out my content, whether it is just me sketching in on my calendar, like my ideas for different things, like for different girls nights and themes and blah, blah, blah, um, or actually sitting down and scheduling the post. But as far out as I can plan my content, the better. And I encourage you to do the same. Try some new ideas, you know, see what is working for other people. But don't be afraid to be innovative and try. You know, I have used a one hour party template with party post every five minutes for, I think, my entire time with my company. And I've just started going live a lot more, you know, try zoom parties. I've heard Zoom parties, you know, depending on depending on the hostess, depending on the people is it could be a really cool way to go. Um, so, you know, don't be afraid to do something different than what Europe lines they're doing or your sidelines or people in your down line. Um, there are women in my team who really rock theme parties, theme parties at my jam, so I don't do them. I've tried them before. They weren't They didn't do any better for me. So, like I stopped doing them. But there are people in my group who loved them, and that's awesome. That works for them that works for their personality. So don't be afraid to do things differently than what other people are doing. And don't be afraid to try new things if things aren't going well. Okay, Um, now this, I'm kind of jumping on a real place, which is this was just like my thought processes. I was writing everything down. I was writing this down in the vendor about yesterday, by the way. Um, but go back to your goals. Remember how we talked about our goals for the quarter? So, you know, hypothetically, we were saying we were gonna sponsor maybe three new people in quarter four. I want to challenge you to add one. Add one toe. Whatever you do, whether that's 1% 1 new person, one, but add just a little bit onto your goals because I find a lot that especially for that minimum goal, we shoot ourselves. Um, what's the What's the saying? Shoot ourselves too short. That doesn't sound right. But you know what I mean? Like, we don't We don't push ourselves quite as much because they're like, Oh, I would be okay with that. No, we're not being okay, guys. We're not being like being okay is not up level and you be being okay is not taking your business to the next level. And you wouldn't be watching or listening to this if you didn't want those things. So add one. Okay, add 1% do 1% more. I love saying that just do 1% more than you think you could Dio or 1% more than you normally dio, because you can. Everyone can fit in 1% more. Um, it going back as well to scheduling time schedule in your business time, guys. But please also schedule in your off time schedule in your family time schedule in those holiday get togethers, whether they're in person or virtual schedule in time to just check in with your friends. Um, you know who aren't clients. Like I find I'm love bombing, and I'm making connections with all these amazing new women. But I'm also sometimes putting my friendships that are my current friendships, like on the back burner. Andi, I get to be better about that. So I'm encouraging you If that is you as well that you get to be better about that too. Whether that's just even sitting a quick text like, Hey, I'm thinking of you. I hope you have a great day. All those things that we're doing to our customers and our teammates and random people on social media. And don't forget to give that Lovas well to people who you really care about. Get an accountability partner. I talked about this. I feel like almost on every episode, but I really mean it. Getting accountability, partner. Get someone, preferably not up line down line or really, even someone on your, like, smaller team. So I, um because you're talking to all those people all the time anyway, right? You want someone who your success, um, isn't gonna like. I don't want to say, like, intimidate people, but, you know, it's not gonna intimidate anyone. It's not going thio frustrate anyone, Um you know, especially for like, a lack of success. I guess maybe rather would be the word. But like if you don't follow through on your goals, Europe line might might be calling you out on it and in accountability partnership as well. But I feel like it's better if they don't have any, like, personal skin in the game. That makes sense the nice thing, too, with finding an accountability partner that's not like directly on your team, because you can swap ideas because we get like, I'm sure the women in my team, you know, they hear, hear myself all the time. They hear me telling to be consistent. They hear me telling them to do live videos. They hear me talking about power hours. So So maybe they're doing something different in another team. Okay, so those accountability partners could be really, really strong relationships. I encourage you to find one, and it doesn't need to be anything crazy. Um, I just got got paired. I'm in this other challenge with teams e and giving teams. You tried to crm and I'm partnered with a woman in Mary Kay and one I forget. The other woman's, um, company is, but there are three of us, and we're in a boxer group, and we're going to do, like, a zoom call once a month, and we're boxing every week, toe hold each other accountable. You know, find something like that. It doesn't have to be, you know, time, um, take a lot of time. And then what's your reward gonna be for hitting your goals? That's one thing. You know, I just hit the next the next big rank in our company last month. So exciting. I was super proud of my team. For me, a lot of the rank is just showing, like, the power and success of my team. So I just hit this, this rank. And I was talking to one of my coaches and she was like, What do you do to celebrate? And I was like, I What's wrong? Stings. My dog is money. I was like, um, I didn't know how to answer that, because I don't think I really celebrated. Like, I message some people that I was excited. I took some pictures. Um and so if you're like me and you're really bad at celebrating your winds, celebrate your winds, find something that is gonna be your reward. Um, you know, I just have to be anything big, but something that is gonna excite you, And you're like, this is my reward at the end and make you push a little bit harder. Okay, so that's something to think about. Um, now, when you get off of watching this or listening to this, I would like you to open up your calendar in your phone and plan a time this week. Okay? It has to be this week because we're getting in the fourth quarter Thio implement this stuff, okay to do, like a monthly plan or work session for October. And this This should be maybe, um, an hour and a half. So put an hour and a half in your phone some night or Saturday morning this week and get this done. Okay. So that you can plan this to be successful guys, because if you're not actually taking action on all these things that I'm telling you about this half hour that you've been listening to this is, like, completely useless. You have to take action. You have to do the things. Um, speaking of things, I have two more guys and these have to do with your customers one plants and fun things, plants and fun things with your Vape VIPs, your customers I call, we call our customers VIPs, but, um, you know, plants and fun things with them plants and fun things with your team. And this is the time of year, especially more than ever to provide excellent customer service. Okay, Because people are going to get real snippy with you real quick. If they've been messaging you about a problem they have with a product or they've ordered a gift from you and they haven't gotten it yet and you won't respond to them. People are going to remember what you're doing right now. Maybe you're writing an extra note. Maybe you're offering to your customers to ship gifts directly to people. Um, that there that aren't local to them and it saves them like that. One step at the post office. Maybe you're going to wrap things. Maybe you're gonna dio, you know, a little gift bundles or something, but find some ways to make your customers feel special and feel appreciated. And don't forget your follow ups. Don't for your love bombs all you know, all your daily methods of operations. They don't get to go out the door in fourth quarter. This is the time to up that to really you know, amp it up, do your 1% more Because I'm telling you guys, there are a lot of people who are going Thio to really slide off in fourth quarter, and then they're going to struggle first quarter of 2021 because they didn't put the time into their business. Um, and to just to be prepared in life, honestly, right. So I feel like those times where I'm like I don't have time to work my business. My my life, my personal life is just, like, feeling very overwhelming as well. Like, it's just feeling out of control, because, I mean, they're not planning. I'm not getting enough sleep. I'm not taking care of myself. Maybe I'm sick. So if you can get all your ducks in a row, like all the way you know, your whole circle is complete. It's going to show in your business, okay? It just it has thio. And remember the more you plan the last time you're gonna waste. So if you want more time with your family, these holidays um you know, if you want more time in 2021 you're gonna have to plan and put in the time right now. And if you plan and you are intentional about it and you are working without distractions and your scheduling that time in, you're gonna end up saving so much time down the road, I promise you that. Okay, so let me quickly review I'll do like a super quick review. The first thing I mentioned was making a plan like a backward design plan. So you're planning out fourth quarter and you're breaking it into smaller chunks. Until you get to weekly goals, you're going to schedule your work time on that actually goes with this week. You were going to schedule your monthly plan and work session. Okay, Um, you're gonna do power hours for you and your team. You are going to plan out your team incentives your opportunity calls, and you are sales ideals for your group. You're going to plan your content out and get it scheduled as far in advance as you possibly can. You're going to try new ideas in your party and in your V i p group to see what works you're gonna add 1% more to all of your goals You're going to schedule in your you time, your family time, your fitness time, etcetera. You're going to get an accountability partner and actually follow through with the accountability portion of it. Um, you're going to do I think I said fun things twice, but we're gonna do fun things with our VIPs and our team on We're gonna provide. Excellent. Whoa. Sorry about that. We're gonna provide excellent customer service. Really? Alright, guys, that's my ideas for fourth quarter. Forgetting your fourth quarter off, Thio. It's something that a successful start. Guys, if you're doing all of this throughout all of fourth quarter, your fourth quarter is going to explode. Okay? Like, absolutely explode. And, you know, they say what you put in, um really shows up 90 days later. So if you were putting in, like, like all your time and attention in fourth quarter, your first quarter of 2021 is going to be massively just like, amazing, Like, I don't even know if that's a thing that you could say massively amazing. But it's gonna be massively amazing. Like I can't tell you anything else about it. So plan for it. Now, we know RJ months can be slow in direct sales in general, so January could be slow. But if you're putting in your daily methods of operation and you're doing all this planning and this prep work right now, your winter is gonna be set. I promise. So if you are watching this as a podcast, please subscribe. Leave me a rating and review. But guys, no matter whether you're watching this or you're listening to this if you screenshot this and you tag me on instagram or Facebook, I will absolutely give you a share. Um, and let me know if you have any questions. I would love thio here. What your goals are for fourth quarter. So if you're watching this on Facebook or YouTube, drop a comment, share your goals because oh, I should mention that for the goals. But the more you share your goals with with your people with your team, with your audience, with your customers, um, you know, not in a rude way like my goal was this. And blah, blah, blah. No, but like if you share your goals Hey, guys, this is I would love to book 10 parties this month. You know, share that with people. They want to be able to help you and support you. They love you. That's the whole That's the whole point of all of this, right? Is those relationships that we make with people. So anyway, I hurt you all. Thank you all so much for listening, and I'll talk to you all very soon. Bye bye.