Organizing Leads: Tips for a Neater Workflow

[tpasto]

I think i saw one thread on here about this. Is there anyone else out there that can share tips on how they organize all their leads. mine are a mess all those little slips of paper........

thanks
teri

 

[MORFIA]

2-partsGet Your Business Organized in a Day
By Kim Powell

This system is pretty much universal for any Pampered Chef Consultant. Of course you can tweak it to suit your own needs.

First realize that you cannot get organized over time. It is something that has to be done quickly, all at once. Kind of like a band-aid – just rip it off!! If you try to organize a little each day, the pile you first started on will be unorganized by the time you get to the last pile.

Schedule ONE FULL DAY to completely renovate your workspace. Remember, we schedule appointments for everything else, schedule yourself an appointment to clean and organize your workspace. That means…get rid of the kids if you have young ones. Hire a babysitter or swap out days with a friend to baby-sit, turn OFF the TV, DO NOT answer the phone and don’t even stop to eat – it will just distract you. Eat some good carbs and protein before you get started and the only way you should have to stop to eat is if you are getting dizzy and going to faint. All these things will just distract you from the task at hand – so stay away from them!!!

The first thing you will need is a GIANT trash can rolled into your workspace. You will be using this throughout the day. If you see something you haven’t used in 6 months or didn’t even remember you had – you obviously don’t need it – THROW IT AWAY!!! You do not need to keep every piece of paper you have ever received – it can be replaced – toss it!

You will want to purchase 8 three-ring binders. Of these eight binders, two will be 2” binders and the other six will be 1” binders. You are going to label the binders as follows:
Bookings
Recruits
Super Starters
Consultants
Incentives
Newsletters and Flyers
Kitchen Consultant News
Customer Care

As you come across things during your cleaning spree – you can add them to your binders. Here is what will go into each binder:

Bookings: Get you some tabs that are dated January through December. In between each tab, put about 15 sheets of regular notebook paper. As you get booking leads that are not on your calendar, you can place them in your bookings binder. If they were a lead on a door prize slip that tells you they want to book in October, go home and staple their door prize slip to a sheet of paper behind the month of September. This way, at the first of September you can remember to call them to book for October. You only want to put one person per page, so if they change their mind when you call, you can simply pull their page out and move it to a different month. This also allows you room to write notes about your conversation so you will remember it the next time you talk. When you get them booked, simply take their sheet out and throw it away. If they were an outside lead, simply write their information on a piece of the paper behind the month you need to call them.

Recruiting: In this binder you will want the same January through December tabs and you are going to run this binder essentially the same way you run the bookings binder. You will be moving these pages around allot more, because most people don’t sign up the first time you talk to them.

Super Starter Binder: In this binder you will want 3 tabs that say, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. When you get a new recruit, you will fill out an info sheet for them (either make one up or use notebook paper) with any pertinent information such as their name, address, phone number, if they are married, kids, etc. Any recruits behind the 30 day tab will be in their first 30 days of signing and you need to call them at least once a week. Then move to the 60 day tab. Depending on how their business is going, you can continue once a week calls, or move to every other week. Once their sixty days is up, you will move them to 90 days and continue every other week or so calls.

Consultant Binder: This binder is simply for all your recruits. I prefer to file them in alphabetical order so I can find their name quickly when they call. After your new recruits 90 day period, they will go into this consultant binder and each time you talk to them you can take notes about what you discussed so you can follow up easily.

Incentives Binder: This binder will also have January through December tabs. Behind each month you will put any incentives such as the Host special, Guest Special, Consultant promotions, Recruiting promotions, your directors monthly recognition or promotion, etc. This way it is very easy to keep up with all the many incentives through our company and clusters. This also makes it easy to look up a special item number if someone has a return on a special. When you put in July 2007 incentives, take out July 2006 incentives and throw them away. When you put in August 2007 incentives, take out August 2006 incentives and throw them away, etc. You should never have more than one year’s incentives in your binder. You don’t need them after that!!!

Kitchen Consultant News: This is self explanatory. You will put all your KCN’s in this binder. You WILL NEVER HAVE MORE THAN A YEARS WORTH OF NEWSLETTERS!!! When you put July in the front, then you will flip to the back and pull out last July. The next month you will put August in the front and flip to the back and pull out last August and throw it away. With new products and things changing so fast in the company – you never need more than a years worth of these newsletters. RELEASE YOURSELF AND THROW THEM AWAY!!!!

Newsletters and Flyer’s Binder: You will want to put tabs in this folder such as Bookings, Recruiting, Host Coaching, Customer Care, Recipes, Miscellaneous. Behind each tab you may save 5 – count them five (5) of each flyer. If you have received a flyer that you think you might want to share later, put it in there – but then when you get another one you like, it you already have 5 behind that tab, you must throw one away before adding a new one. Let’s face it, if you have too many flyers, you will never sit down and look through them to use them because it takes too much time. Five is just the right amount and all of them come back around eventually any way – so if you threw one away – someone else will have it. Also, don’t save your whole newsletter if your director sends one, just save the flyers if there is a good one and you don’t already have 5 behind that tab. The recipe tab is the only one you are allowed to have more than 5 – but don’t get carried away. This tab should only be the current recipes you are offering at your shows so you have easy access to them. That way if you run out of copies, you can pull them out and get more copied quickly. For all your other many recipe pages – they will go into your hanging file folders, which we will discuss below.

Customer Care: In this binder, it is a good idea to have a couple of sheets of notebook paper in the front to write down adjustments and reference numbers so you can keep track of them easy and remember if you did an adjustment for someone. The rest of the binder can simply be used for customer care calls. If someone needs a call back, you will have that information. Many times these customer care pages will be transferred to your bookings or recruiting binder.

That is your binder system – this will pretty much get your office completely organized in 8 simple binders.

Be sure when you are bringing home door prize slips to put their information in your computer, or put them in your bookings and recruiting binders and then throw them away. You should not have loose slips lying around your office. That is a good way to lose bookings and recruits!!

The second thing you will need for organizing are Hanging File folders in several different colors. This way when you open your file drawers you can easily find what you are looking for. For example: anything that goes in a host packet goes in pink folders. Anything that goes in Guest folders goes in green folders. Recruit info goes in yellow folders, director info in red and recipes go in purple folders. Then label each hanging file folder with what in there, such as “catalogs”, “sales receipts”, “your life flyers and Dvd’s”, etc. Now, once you learn what color everything is in – it will be very easily at your fingertips.

For your show paperwork: Keep your show orders in manilla file folders in numerical order and throw them away at the end of three months. With the computer, the only reason you need to save them for that long is in case someone thinks they got the wrong item and ordered something else – you can look where they actually wrote it on their sheet and see if they ordered it or you punched it in wrong. They do not need to be kept after that. It is not your responsibility to keep up with their guarantee!!!!!

Financial papers and tax records: Get a plastic expandable folder at your local office supply. These usually have 12-15 pockets in them. You can label them with things such as copies, office supplies, office equipment, consultant incentives, postage, groceries, etc. File your receipts as you go and then you don’t have to go through them at the end of the year. The file is ready to take to your accountant or the records are easily accessible to you if you do your own taxes. This is much easier than going back through them all at once at the end of the year.

 

[MORFIA]

Guess what? You just got your office organized and it only took a day! NOW KEEP IT THAT WAY!!! You should never again have a “to do” pile or a “to be filed” pile on your desk. Do it right when you get your hands on it and then it is done and takes less time!! Open your mail as soon as you get it – if it’s a bill, pay it and send it on it’s way – if it’s trash throw it away, if it’s something you need – file it right then!!!


If you would like help organizing your host coaching calls – here’s what has worked really well for me and everything is kept in your date book so, again, you don’t have loose papers laying around getting lost and in the way. It works best if you use the Franklin Cover Pampered Chef planner or any week-at-a-glance planner. The month at a glance calendars do not work because you can’t keep everything on one page.

When you get a booking, write the show time, their name, address, phone and email in the column on their show date. When I give or send the packet, I write “pkt 6-12” above their name so I know I gave them a packet. Then when I make my first host coaching call I put a checkmark to the left of the name. Then when I make my second call, I put a star next to the check mark to know I’ve made that call. On the third call I write the recipes they chose below their information and then at the very bottom of the column on their date, I write directions to their home. This way I know I’ve made that call. After the show, I write the mileage really big above their info and circle it. Then at the end of the year, I simply go through my date book and add up all the circled numbers –this is my mileage for the year. Make sure you write mileage in their on any day that you do pampered chef travel. Then when I close the show, have the money, it’s been sent and I’ve sent the thank you note, I put a big check mark over the whole thing to know it’s done. Doing it this way keeps everything right there in the book and I don’t have to look in any different places to see if something is done.

One last thing, now that we have web sites. You will want to schedule yourself one hour at least every other week to update your web site, add new shows, change news articles, etc.

I hope this help you get your business organized. Remember, just reading this information won’t do anything for you – you actually have to do it!!!

 

[chefmeg]

I heard a great tip at the Directors Training Day that I am now providing ALL of my consultants with:
take a shoe box or plastic box of the same size (got mine at the $ store) and the inserts with the months on them (at Office Max). As you get the dpds at your shows, place them behind the next months insert-you then can take this with you anywhere anytime and can make your customer care calls!
Also, when someone says "I want to book for February-give me a call in January", you place the slip behind January with a note on it.
I love this because it is portable and easy to do!

 

[tpasto]

thanks for all the fantastic information. i am going to print this out and devote a day this weekend to getting this done! i will let you know how it goes